So was the 2nd World War all for nothing?

[DodgyAgent]

Very eloquent if not a rather "emotionally" driven argument.

Does outline that the UK is enmeshed in Europe and just simply cutting itself would exacerbate problems. i.e. by not co-operating the Eurozone is more likely to fail, and yet there is no alternative vsion.

Where does Britain go if it leaves the EU?

Many in the UK and in Europe now see that as an inevitable consquence of Cameron's current course; unless he does a U-turn.

The relationship between the EU and the UK is not an "in or out" situation, and until you understand the world beyond binary then come back and argue a point

[Doggy Styles]

Very eloquent if not a rather "emotionally" driven argument.

Does outline that the UK is enmeshed in Europe and just simply cutting itself would exacerbate problems. i.e. by not co-operating the Eurozone is more likely to fail, and yet there is no alternative vsion.

Where does Britain go if it leaves the EU?

Many in the UK and in Europe now see that as an inevitable consquence of Cameron's current course; unless he does a U-turn.

1. Many might like to see the UK leave the EU, but the UK has no plans to do so. Have you got any evidence that it has such plans?

2. Even in the unlikely event that the UK leaves the EU, it is still where it is today, trading with many countries around the world including those in the EU. The EU is not in a position to cut off its nose to spite its face. Any noise about that eminating from some quarters is political rhetoric, it has little substance.

3. As yet the EU have no solution to the current eurozone crisis. That treaty was only a set of ideals to stop this happening again. It did not propose a solution to the current situation.

4. There were very few details in the treaty of how those ideals would be put into practice. No responsible prime minister would sign up to such a treaty without knowing the details and how they will affect our specific concerns.

5. It is worth noting that the opposition would not have signed the treaty either, however much they complain about Cameron's stance.

[BlasterBates]

1. Many might like to see the UK leave the EU, but the UK has no plans to do so. Have you got any evidence that it has such plans?

2. Even in the unlikely event that the UK leaves the EU, it is still where it is today, trading with many countries around the world including those in the EU. The EU is not in a position to cut off its nose to spite its face. Any noise about that eminating from some quarters is political rhetoric, it has little substance.

3. As yet the EU have no solution to the current eurozone crisis. That treaty was only a set of ideals to stop this happening again. It did not propose a solution to the current situation.

4. There were very few details in the treaty of how those ideals would be put into practice. No responsible prime minister would sign up to such a treaty without knowing the details and how they will affect our specific concerns.

5. It is worth noting that the opposition would not have signed the treaty either, however much they complain about Cameron's stance.

If you read the press it is clear that Cameron is going to be faced down by the other Europeans. He's scrabbling around at the moment looking for support from other countries, but there is very little forthcoming. When the rest of the EU isolates the UK and the UK doesn't get it's way his own back benchers are going to force a referendum or revolt.

The trouble is Eurosceptics haven't thought through where they are going. They think they can just make up their own rules and the EU will just say "hey ho we don't mind". This is not going to happen.

I think you're grossly underestimating the severity of the split.

The UK is basically sticking the boot in very hard i.e. deliberately making it much more difficult for the Eurozone countries, who are looking into the abyss; hard to see that being solved with a compromise that would satisfy the Conservative Eurosceptics.

[DodgyAgent]

If you read the press it is clear that Cameron is going to be faced down by the other Europeans. He's scrabbling around at the moment looking for support from other countries, but there is very little forthcoming. When the rest of the EU isolates the UK and the UK doesn't get it's way his own back benchers are going to force a referendum or revolt.

The trouble is Eurosceptics haven't thought through where they are going. They think they can just make up their own rules and the EU will just say "hey ho we don't mind". This is not going to happen.

I think you're grossly underestimating the severity of the split.

The UK is basically sticking the boot in very hard i.e. deliberately making it much more difficult for the Eurozone countries, who are looking into the abyss; hard to see that being solved with a compromise that would satisfy the Conservative Eurosceptics.

You clearly do not read the press. If you read Camilla Cavendish in the Times you will see that this whole thing about Cameron is a storm in a teacup and she puts his use of the veto into context.
The charges of “isolation” thrown at David Cameron since his act of defiance on Friday may be premature. Already the Czechs are wondering aloud why any new treaty should be binding on nations that have not yet joined the euro. The Finnish Prime Minister is warning that he cannot agree to a transfer of sovereignty. Ireland will probably have to hold a referendum. The Dutch and Swedish governments need backing from opposition parties that are in revolt.
Cracks are appearing in an agreement that, in any case, will not save the Continent. The euro’s dive in the past three days shows that the markets know that Germany’s prescription of austerity without growth is not an answer.

It goes on to explain:

The Germans, who wanted the opposite, were as wrongfooted as the British. They want fiscal union backed by the full force of EU-wide law. That Mr Cameron stopped them getting this is why Friday was not the end of negotiations, but only the opening shot.
Batting for bankers was never going to be popular — although the British public have shown resoundingly that they hate the EU even more than the banks. So why did Mr Cameron choose to ride into battle for the City?
Prominent in the briefing he received last week was a description of a profound shift in EU attitudes to the City in recent years. Until 2007 EU regulation largely worked in London’s favour by creating a level playing field in financial services. Then the tables started to turn. Legitimate concerns about the financial crisis dovetailed conveniently with resentment of London’s prominence, encapsulated in Nicolas Sarkozy’s gleeful description of the appointment of a Frenchman as Internal Market Commissioner as “a defeat for Anglo-Saxon capitalism”.
The issue is not the financial transactions tax, over which the UK retains a veto. It is the 29 directives on the EU table and the new EU finance regulator that oversees all national ones. It is the fundamental clash between the EU’s desire to impose “one-size-fits-all” rules on Europe’s 8,000 banks and the British-American view that action should be tailored to risk. The UK wants to force the biggest banks to hold more capital than the EU will permit. The latest EU diktat is that clearing houses handling euro-denominated trades must be located within the eurozone. This is a blatant attempt to shift business from London to Paris and Frankfurt — and a blatant attack on the single market.
Accusing Mr Cameron of trying to undermine the single market, as the head of the EU Commission did this week, was a disgraceful piece of doublespeak. The Spanish have a veto on fishing; the French have a veto over the Common Agricultural Policy; even the Germans exert some blocking power over their car industry. The British Government was simply seeking equality for the City on Thursday, not special status. But that was regarded as de trop: an extraordinary response, and a mark of the drastic reduction in influence that Britain has suffered in recent years.
What happens now that the Prime Minister has failed to get his protocol? Many City watchers fear that London will be increasingly discriminated against by EU regulations and that US and German banks will cut in London first when they lay off people. Others say that US banks come to London because it is a good place to do business and that no one vacates 60 storeys of office block with expensive digital connections overnight.
A poll of 500 finance managers by the think-tank Open Europe yesterday found a majority supporting a veto on EU financial rules even if it reduced access to the single market. It is worth remembering the dire predictions that the City would collapse if Britain stayed out of the euro. In fact, the City has thrived.
The City’s future lies in it being the gateway to the world, not just to Europe. The UK originates more cross-border bank lending than any other country. Our foreign exchange market is the largest in the world, our insurance industry the third largest. As Europe’s growth evaporates, London’s true competition is Hong Kong and Singapore, not Frankfurt or Paris or even New York. The big challenge will be to capture that business.
This will require some nimble politics and diplomacy. Mr Cameron may have sounded petty by suggesting that the new eurozone group of 26 should not be free to use EU institutions to enforce the pact agreed last Friday. The Liberal Democrats are rightly pressing the coalition to be friendly to our eurozone neighbours, to try to help them to resolve the issue, not to bar the way to the photocopier or the coffee machine.
But Mr Cameron’s determination to prevent the European Commission and the European Court of Justice being able to reinterpret existing treaties is fundamental to our ability to control what happens next. The Government must not relent on the legal principles involved, for that is where Mr Cameron’s negotiating strength now lies.
Whichever way you look at this, the diplomacy is horrid. Britain does not want to derail the euro or be seen to do so. Our allies are doing that perfectly well by themselves. Had the European Central Bank not thrown a lifeline to Europe’s banks last week, by advancing them virtually unlimited credit, we would be seeing a rout rather than a wobble in markets.
No one got what they wanted last week. The French wanted the ECB to print money. The Germans wanted to enshrine the new rules on sound economic behaviour with the full force of EU institutions. Others, including the UK, wanted Germany to understand that unless it agrees to share responsibility for the eurozone’s debt, the currency will continue to plummet.

[doodab]

The relationship between the EU and the UK is not an "in or out" situation, and until you understand the world beyond binary then come back and argue a point

I think the problem is that to many people including some of those in the Tory party and UKIP it is precisely that. Large sections of the media and a chunk of the biggest party in the house of commons call for referendums on Britain's membership of the EU or talk about "repatriating" powers. There is enough media driven anti EU "popular opinion" that if it were put to a referendum "out" might well be what you end up with because an awful lot of people simply don't understand the nuances.

[DodgyAgent]

I think the problem is that to many people including some of those in the Tory party and UKIP it is precisely that. Large sections of the media and a chunk of the biggest party in the house of commons call for referendums on Britain's membership of the EU or talk about "repatriating" powers. There is enough media driven anti EU "popular opinion" that if it were put to a referendum "out" might well be what you end up with because an awful lot of people simply don't understand the nuances.

That is true, but it has in many ways got to this because of relentless and excessive intrusion by the EU. Cameron has however by standing up to the EU undermined the extremists within the Eurosceptics. Many like myself who strongly believe in the concept of a free trade and free labour movement in the EU are heartened that this does not turn into a gradual and eventually complete surrender of our sovereignty

[BlasterBates]

The comments I'm reading in the European press, from comentators and politicians alike makes it clear that the UK has now crossed the line of acceptability and therefore there is sufficient anger now building up that will force Cameron's hand. Before it was seen as a debate and the UK's point was respected. Unfortunately the inevitable retaliation will cause even more resentment in the UK. There is no doubt Cameron has started a conflict and as with all conflicts there is a dynamic that you can't control. Either Cameron or the rest of them will have to climb down or else the UK's out. The majority in the UK now want out of the EU, and the opinion in the EU seems to be it's not worth holding the UK in any more.In other words it seems doubtful the other EU leaders are going to throw some crumbs Cameron's way. The German opposition leader summed it up when he said that the UK will probably now leave the EU in the medium term; and he will probably be the German Chancellor in 2 years time. I'm not necessarily saying the UK will leave the EU, but that the EU is not going to give the UK what it wants, and then Cameron has to deal with his Eurosceptics. Who knows what will then happen.

[TimberWolf]

The comments I'm reading in the European press, from comentators and politicians alike makes it clear that the UK has now crossed the line of acceptability and therefore there is sufficient anger now building up that will force Cameron's hand. Before it was seen as a debate and the UK's point was respected. Unfortunately the inevitable retaliation will cause even more resentment in the UK. There is no doubt Cameron has started a conflict and as with all conflicts there is a dynamic that you can't control. Either Cameron or the rest of them will have to climb down or else the UK's out. The majority in the UK now want out of the EU, and the opinion in the EU seems to be it's not worth holding the UK in any more.In other words it seems doubtful the other EU leaders are going to throw some crumbs Cameron's way. The German opposition leader summed it up when he said that the UK will probably now leave the EU in the medium term; and he will probably be the German Chancellor in 2 years time. I'm not necessarily saying the UK will leave the EU, but that the EU is not going to give the UK what it wants, and then Cameron has to deal with his Eurosceptics. Who knows what will then happen.

Wot, chuck out the second greatest contributor/golden goose? Can't see that happening.

[BlasterBates]

Wot, chuck out the second greatest contributor/golden goose? Can't see that happening.

The UK was the second greatest contributor.

Since the acession of the new states hardly plays a role. The UK now contributes a tiny amount.

[d000hg]

So show me an example where the running of another country's economy has worked for the benefit of the people of that country. Is it like the Chinese running Tibet? Or the Germans running Poland? Or Russia running Georgia? israel running Palestine?

What about the Roman Empire? They were hardly humanitarians but they probably improved England quite a lot.