The future of Britain outside the EU ....

[lilelvis2000]

If the UK cut the Defence budget to £40B and stepped out of the EU we'd be able to afford a HS2 AND Channel tunnel every year AND direct the spending to UK based companies to rebuild our manufacturing capability.

I'm wondering what would happen to the defence companies that have the PM's balls in their hands. Would they squeeze?

I suppose we could send David on another begging tour of the various princely states in the middle-east - that should bring in a few billion a year and a few perks as well! cha-ching!

[lilelvis2000]

Apparently it is to ramp it up while cutting taxes.
I think the UKIP shadow chancellor is worse at maths than Gordon 'I'm bad at maths' Brown.

photocopied the US budget more like.

[DodgyAgent]

...I'm will to concede that economically it may make little difference i.e. we would continue our relative decline, but what is interesting is that the Yanks are making it very clear that the "special relationship" is over if we leave:

Stay at heart of Europe, US tells Britain - FT.com

So does that mean we will decline into insignificance politically around the world?
And is it a bad thing if we stop being the world's junior policeman?

So we can decline on our own or decline with Europe

[Old Greg]

So we can decline on our own or decline with Europe

You get your 25% either way so stop whining.

[DodgyAgent]

You get your 25% either way so stop whining.

Fair comment

[Mich the Tester]

A couple of reasonably good articles about this:

Germany backs campaign to keep UK in EU | World news | The Guardian

Britons obsess about immigration, Germans focus on education | Martin Kettle | Comment is free | The Guardian

Here's an example of why the Germans want Britain in; BBC News - Hollande: Europe's identity at risk from recession

Mad Monsieur Hollande says he wants a European government that'll harmonize tax systems and mutualise the debts. Do any of you really believe that thigh slapping hard working conservative Germans want to be taxed even more to please lazy French workers who can't compete and made to pay off French debts when they actually think the Frogs are lazy and untrustworthy and deliver slipshod work? The Germans are a bunch of capitalists who have made huge reforms to their labour market to punish fecklessness and reward work, and they see the British as allies against this kind of French socialist nutter. FFS, the Dutch even have a saying for shoddy half baked work, ' werken met de Franse slag', or 'doing the job with a French beat', and it wouldn't surprise me if there's a similar saying in German.

[Old Hack]

The relationship we have with America is blindly one sided; if you look at our trade, if you look at our extradition treaties, if you look at everything, you can see it is one sided. Then look to Europe, and you can see that's fairly one sided too. If someone can stand up and say enough, and we start looking after our own interests for once, and stand up to everyone else, maybe, just maybe, we'll come out of the euro mess in a much better state than we've been for a long time.

I am not too sure about everyone else, but I believe we've been everyone's bitch for the past 25 years.

EDIT:
Sorry should add I am pro-European, but not in its current guise, as it was never going to be a great success as a federal state, due to cultural differences. I think working as trading partners with the northern european states as 'partners' would work too, but all of this empire building is dragging to the top down, and it doesn't seem to be dragging the bottom up

[istvan]

If America thinks it's so great for us to be in the EU, then they can stump up the £50 million/day we need to pay into it..

No, they don't think so really. However, it is convenient for the US, since the relationship with UK is much closer than with anyone else in the EU. US' window and influence on the EU is through UK. Simple as that.

I would follow the example of the US and print money like there is no tomorrow. UK is one of the three countries in the world that can print money and still be trusted. This would inflate the value of the money away, lower the value of the currency and Britain would become a great exporter again, there would be plenty of jobs too. With this strategy Britain would take over Germany's role in dictating to the EU. Germany just did that by artificially lowering their value of the currency switching to EUR that was valuated lower than the Deutsch Mark.