Some of our fundamental laws and practices are based upon the membership of EU and our 57% external trade with EU. Other fundamental beliefs, trade, investment, ties, etc. lean more towards US connections and the U S Dollar.
We seem to be on a seesaw but sitting in the middle and not really moving forward with full force. I genuinely believe that either we should join the EURO and be whole hearted in the EU or we should get out altogether and follow the American system of capitalism wholeheatedly.
For example, SMEs in Germany make up about 30% of all the businesses in terms of market share that are very strongly supported by local, regional and national German government and commercial banks. In the UK, SME's "equivalent" market share is only about 10%. In the US, the bottom 10 per cent of the work force is 10 times worse off than the bottom 10 per cent of the work force in EU which has a fundamentally different kind of capitalism.
My recent visit to Paris and use of the Metro with a packet of 10 tickets for 10 Euros convinced me that if we subsidised our tube by 100's of millions of pounds, we would gain billions of pounds extra in tourism. We must look back 200 years and look forward 200 years before jumping to a conclusion just based on five economic tests and one political test. Does anyone have views on this?
It is not money we need to spend to persuade the public on which way we should go. It is deep thought and profound debate on these issues.
Nagin Khajuria
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Nagin - left hand side of the road???@@@!!!
I really do enjoy arguments that are contrary to my views that are compelling and well thought out - however yours! The left hand side of the road - you have got to be joking?
Driving on the left is an historical nuance that is impractical and beyond imaginable expense to alter.
That aside, the most successful car producers in the world - the Japenese drive on the left - it is neither here nor there, I only know of one vehicle that it has caused a production problem for - the Renault Twingo, and they are changing that in the next release because they are missing out on markets in GB, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa to name a few.
You dont work at the commission do you.
Deep thought and profound debate
I rather think there has been too much of this already. Honesty and simplicity is what the voting public respond to and it is their choice.
Honesty says that yes it is completely a question of democratic choice and simplicity says yes it is absolutely about 1000 years of sovereignty and the constitution that has been carefully woven over that time.
You can argue for and against until you are blue in the face - both arguments are compelling but it is down to what the nation wants and you cannot intellectualise and say the populace is wrong since we are still a sovereign democracy
Edward Heath said in 1972 that he would only join the EC with the whole hearted consent of the people. As it turned out it went through parliament by 2 votes on its third reading after much bullying of backbenchers. In the meantime old Ted had already signed the treaty before parliament had given consent and that was the excuse he gave for not allowing amendments since the treaty could not be amended. The tone was much the same as it is today i.e. we will do the right thing after careful consideration (but we know best anyway