Farage v Clegg - EU debates.

[henners88]

If we are disliked as much as we want to leave, what's the hold up?

[donKey jote]

ask your unelected leaders?

[odykas]

I've lost the battle over Juncker but not the war, says Cameron

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...s-Cameron.html

A detail: The outcome of the battle was a 26 - 2 defeat

[donKey jote]

What I don't understand is the whining about unelected leaders, lack of democracy and shedding powers to the EU parliament...
Juncker is the leader of the most voted party (bit like Cameron himself ), the member states agree his nomination 26-2 (!), and what better place than the parliament of democratically elected MEPs to shed EU powers to?

If you can't be constructive then it's about time you get on yer bikes and deal with the EU from the outside

[Malbec]

Looks very likely that when we do get a referendum the vote is more than likely to be "Britain should leave the EU"

I agree, if the Tories win the next election and there is a referendum I think we will leave.

I also think that among the British business and political elite there is an incredible level of complacency regarding popular opinion about EU membership. Many people here in London I speak to in the banking, legal or other business fields simply refuse to accept there is any chance that the British will vote to leave. After all the British population could simply not be stupid enough to realise the benefits of remaining in the EU right? What next? Voting to have all the oxygen removed from the atmosphere?

The man in the street,the workers,the voters can see no benefit from being a member of the EU ,and the 50 Million a day that we pay into it. And Labours view that Nissan and Toyota would leave ,as Ford have already moved most of it's production abroad ,is not true ,they receive far too many conn cessions to pull out of the UK

Its not Labour's view, its the CBI and that of much of industry. It would be naive in the extreme to expect much more investment from outside the EU if Britain is outside the free trade area, after all the cost of paying import tax into the EU would have to be factored into the cost of investment which would make the UK far far less competitive than it already is. Banking would simply decamp to Frankfurt or anywhere else within the EU that makes them welcome.

Any negotiation with the EU for our relationship with it once we leave would be dictated to us on their terms, not ours. We would lose any existing goodwill and could end up with unbalanced trade agreements. We would have to re-negotiate all the trade deals the EU has made on our behalf with other countries, that is assuming they will be interested in spending diplomatic resources talking to a country with a mere 60 million inhabitants.

The arguments for remaining within the EU are self-explanatory. What I find baffling is that no-one is making the case for it. The right wing supposedly pro-business press refuse to discuss it, the left wing press don't want to either, presumably because the argument is too capitalist orientated for them. None of the political parties except the Liberals are prepared to explain the pro-EU arguments and the Liberals are hopeless at it. As far as I can see only the Economist has been brave enough to tackle the issue head on, but I don't think too many of the right kind of people read it...