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Firstly, and most importantly: if you have a vote tomorrow, Use It! There are some seriously unpleasant people hoping to mobilise their supporters and get elected because everyone else is disillusioned with politics so won't bother. The BNP are evil - if you don't go out and vote, you're helping them to get elected.
I'm pro-EU. I think the LibDems are the only pro-EU party standing round here. I think you should vote for a pro-EU party.
There are an awful lot of myths about the EU. They don't want to ban selling beer in pints, for example, despite what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gerald_duck said. EU laws account for somewhere around 10-20% of UK laws, not the 75% that UKIP claim. And so on.
The EU is, I think, a good thing. It enables its 27 member states to reach agreement on issues that need tackling at a supernational level such a climate change, it facilitates the free movement of trade and people across Europe, it supports development in poorer parts of the EU (including bits of the UK), etc. I think the working time directive is a good thing that protects workers from exploitation (and the TUC agrees with me). I like the convenience of the Euro (though I don't claim economic competence to judge if it's a good thing for us to join); I appreciate the fact I can apply for jobs in other European Universities and compete with natives of those countries on a level playing field (cf the USA and Canada, where they must prefer native candidates). The EU standardizes things to ensure the market in goods across the EU is fair. Your MEPs work for you, and can influence EU policy on your behalf.
That's not to say the EU is perfect - for one thing, it needs to do a better job of communicating what it's up to to its citizens, CAP is dreadfully in need of reform, and the parliament is subject to the usual sort of horse-trading you get where there's no clear party in control. It needs to address the effects of expansion on its governance, too. These are things we should be trying to fix from within the EU, however, not shouting from the sidelines.
You can find out more about what the EU does here.
Oh, and UKIP should stop putting Churchill on their electioneering stuff - he was advocating a United States of Europe back in 1946.
I'm pro-EU. I think the LibDems are the only pro-EU party standing round here. I think you should vote for a pro-EU party.
There are an awful lot of myths about the EU. They don't want to ban selling beer in pints, for example, despite what
gerald_duck said. EU laws account for somewhere around 10-20% of UK laws, not the 75% that UKIP claim. And so on.The EU is, I think, a good thing. It enables its 27 member states to reach agreement on issues that need tackling at a supernational level such a climate change, it facilitates the free movement of trade and people across Europe, it supports development in poorer parts of the EU (including bits of the UK), etc. I think the working time directive is a good thing that protects workers from exploitation (and the TUC agrees with me). I like the convenience of the Euro (though I don't claim economic competence to judge if it's a good thing for us to join); I appreciate the fact I can apply for jobs in other European Universities and compete with natives of those countries on a level playing field (cf the USA and Canada, where they must prefer native candidates). The EU standardizes things to ensure the market in goods across the EU is fair. Your MEPs work for you, and can influence EU policy on your behalf.
That's not to say the EU is perfect - for one thing, it needs to do a better job of communicating what it's up to to its citizens, CAP is dreadfully in need of reform, and the parliament is subject to the usual sort of horse-trading you get where there's no clear party in control. It needs to address the effects of expansion on its governance, too. These are things we should be trying to fix from within the EU, however, not shouting from the sidelines.
You can find out more about what the EU does here.
Oh, and UKIP should stop putting Churchill on their electioneering stuff - he was advocating a United States of Europe back in 1946.
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The level playing field in European academia probably actually works against you: the UK has above-average provision of high quality universities and the playing field has been levelled in the other direction, too. This is, however, er… academic: in practice scholars have been moving around Europe for centuries, even between nations that were embroiled in extremely messy wars. Besides, why is Romania, for example, so special that we should give it preferred status in our universities compared with, oh, the Ukraine?
The Working Time Directive requires that a record be kept of the hours an employee works for compliance purposes. For this reason, and despite never coming close to the limits set in the directive, I have opted out in each of my last three jobs in order to relieve myself of that bureaucratic burden. If the UK's opt-out is rescinded, I'm suddenly landed with lots of unnecessary paperwork. Thanks, guys.
In general, the obviously good things such as free trade are easily agreed on an ad hoc basis with an international treaty. For example, the TIR Treaty.
The EU does want to ban selling beer in pints, it's just that the current status quo is that they're not holding us to any timetable. That might very well change after Lisbon's ratification, as I noted in my own posting.
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I was a long time ago, but my perception is that it is about as far from democratically responsive as it can get while still having the procedure of voting. The EU parliament has done a good job on a couple of occasions that I know of, when it rejected, twice, by the necessary majority, moves by the EU commission to introduce software patants to Europe. Why did the unelected wing of the government try a second time to put through a measure that had been rejected by a big majority?
My feeling is that the EU commission is, to put it mildly, not totally honest and transparent, and is more like the Soviet government than it is like any idea I have of a democratic organisation. They may be no worse than UK MPs, though I suspect they are worse, but we can at least vote for another bunch of
roguesMPs who might be marginally less dishonest, at least for a while.I don't suppose that the BNP could do much even if they got some MEPs elected, unless they somehow managed to put some of their supporters on the commision as well, but I'd not like them to think many people agree with them, just on principle.
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I'm reluctantly settling on UKIP. I think.
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Maybe there's some other speech that I'm unaware of where he made his position clearer; could you refer me to it?
S.
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While he was clearly in favour of the UK sponsoring such a scheme, I don't think he intended us to be a member.
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There are a number of crap things about the EU, as a number of people have mentioned. However, bowing out is not the way forward. I believe that only by having the sense and rationality that comes from Britain can the EU be improved.
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I plan on voting Green, personally. Environmental issues is one area where the EU is particularly useful.
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If Libertas could succeed in changing the EU to something that is significantly more democratic, and that does not try to over centralise, that would be best. I suspect that is not possible, because I doubt that it is possible to abolish the commission, and even that is only a necessary but not sufficient first step.
If what they want to do is not possible, it might be safer for the UK not to be part of it in a few years time. Once the constitution has been enacted, and although the only votes held went against it, I expect it will be, I am not sure how reform could be accomplished.
Once the EU military arm grows to any significant size and power, I suppose that secession would no longer be possible without a Yugoslavian style conflict.
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And whilst some people here (S, I'm looking at you) are emotionally attached to the notion of England as an Independent Force, some of us a emotionally attached to the notion of being part of a wider European wossname.
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As I understand it (and no I can't cite a source, it was in a documentary years ago) the most ironic thing about UKIP's use of Churchill is that he wanted Britain in from the start: unfortunately De Gaulle didn't!
Given that the UK governments have continually done what pleased them and not neccesarily what pleased the majority of Britons I do not understand S's issues with 'sovereignty'
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And we still generally buy milk in pints even if it does say 568ml on the outside.
And as I said 500ml is closer to a pint than an American pint is, as that is only about 450ml (doing a rough conversion as an American pint is 4/5 the size of ours).
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I noted that Newcastle Brown was being sold in 550ml bottles while other similarly priced ales on offer were in 500ml bottles.
It may all be beer, but damnit it was more beer!
(That said I'm in favour of the metric system, I'm also in favour of 10% more beer)