Positive benefits of EU Referendum felt by all already by all UK residents

Let's compare and contrast some statistics that Remain fans will not want published too much, for fear they give succour to the Leave cause.




Firstly, here is Reuters news today:




Total earnings, including bonuses, rose by an annual 3.5 percent in the three months to February, the Office for National Statistics said, matching the median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.


That was the joint highest rate since mid-2008 although in February alone the pace of wage growth slowed.

Britain’s labour market has defied the approach of Brexit, helping households whose spending drives the economy.   
 
The ONS said employment grew by 179,000 in the three months to February, in line with the Reuters poll forecast.


“The jobs market remains robust, with the number of people in work continuing to grow,” ONS statistician Matt Hughes said. “The increase over the past year is all coming from full-timers, both employees and the self-employed.”


The pace of wage rises remains slower than the 4 percent increases seen before the financial crisis.




Of course they have a nice 'Despite Brexit' line in here as always!




But more interesting is they only explain half the conundrum of rising wages. Here the author wants the readers to believe the simple causation between new job creation and rising wages. However, we know this cannot be the whole story as Britain has been a jobs miracle for over 7 years, with huge growth un employment but a very patchy record on wage growth. Indeed, it has been poor, with wages only now rising above the Financial Crisis period.




So what else might be a driver to be pushing up wages? Perhaps as well as demand issue there is a supply issue, what is happening to the supply of Labour?


Below are the recent ONS migration statistics:








And what a surprise we see! there is a big drop since the referendum in EU people coming to the EU looking for work and although and increase in Non-EU, there is not enough to offset this. Furthermore of the EU citizens coming to look for work the real drop is in Eastern Europeans coming to the UK, in fact on balance they are leaving the UK, even as overall migration remains at all time highs.


What this shows us is that the Referendum has already put people off coming to the UK (thanksto all media for calling Leavers 'Racist' for 2 and a bit years, it seems to have worked!). This in turn has reduced the supply of Labour looking for work, which when allied to a continuing increase in jobs available has led to the Holy Grail - Lower long-unemployment, Lower youth unemployment, record tax revenues and decent wage increases. No wonder the overall economy is looking pretty healthy, despite Brexit!

How Negotiations Happen

Among the many recent belly-laughs afforded by Juncker et al, the one about "there must be no secret, back-door negotiations" gave particular pleasure.  We all know the telecomms companies must have seen as big a spike in international secure-line phonecalls as the MSM and every other type of M have in their ratings over the past frenetic week.  Jeez, Juncker's staff will hardly have stopped talking to Whitehall for half a second since early a.m. on Friday.  Can an ordinary punter actually get a 'Business Premier' seat on the Eurostar just now?

The only person not talking to anyone is J.Corbyn.  Of course, no-one wants to speak to him either, so it works out quite nicely.

Oh, Events, Events - how we Nietzscheans love 'em.  No negotiations!  Hahaha!

ND

Victory Parade

We’ll all remember where we were. I’d been hors de combat all night (at a hospital bedside), but at 3 am found myself on a night bus, where a fellow night rider was calling the results off his phone. Nothing conclusive by that stage but when I went to bed at 4 am there was the first hint of dawn over the horizon from the north east - literally as well as figuratively. 

So now, a triumphal parade of the victors and the captives-in-chains 

• Cameron 

Nothing became him in office quite like the leaving of it. He obviously came to his senses big-time in the early hours: and you gotta take your hat off. The delay in invoking Article 50 is a minor masterstroke (see Eurocrats below), echoing Michael Howard in 2005.  So much time, for so many Events to happen, for so much initiative to be deployed.  The weapon has been forged: no need to use it for a single, ill-thought-out stroke.  If Cameron continues to play the game with that degree of clarity over the summer, he’ll be well regarded for it. 

• That old C@W favourite, ‘Strategic’ Osborne 

Manoeuvred himself right up his own fundament. The fatuous ‘punishment budget’ stunt suggests a conversation that probably took place 14 days ago ...
 
DC: You told me Fear would work, but it bloody doesn’t. We’re even having to wheel Brown out now! If this goes pear-shaped, you’re toast. Pull your finger out, matey! 
 GO: Errr, yes, OK, I’ll get cracking 

Now he’s not even among the Runners & Riders. Will have to play a Treasury blinder over the summer if he’s not to appear in history as the lowest form of political life. Or maybe leave it all to Carney … All those years of kowtowing to the Chinese, to underpin his 2020 government. All that promotion of Hinkley Point (EDF must be a screaming short trade). All those pathetic Tory backbenchers who grovelled to him. Toast?  Dust. 

• Sadiq 

Clearly a bit of an operator. While the Benns and McDonnells and Hodges and Abbbottts and (eventually) Watsons are jerking off in various Westminster committee rooms and recording studios, Sadiq is actually angling to play serious power politics in a sphere of his own. Creativity-plus-initiative is everything at times like this. King over the water? It worked for Boris, and Julius Caesar. (But not for Ken. Or General McArthur.) 

PS, I did say that Sadiq was the price of Brexit … 

• Momentum 

The McDonnell strategy is playing out. (1) protest undying loyalty to the Sainted Jeremy and his mega-mandate … (2) … in the certain knowledge this is a doomed cause; no need to be seen with a knife when every other bugger is wielding one (3) rouse the Momentum hordes into a frenzy of ‘keep-the-2015-flame-alive’ passion (4) watch Jeremy expire in revolutionary martyrdom with several blades between his shoulders (5) ride to glory at the head of the Momentum Massive (6) win the snap election of October 2016. Easy.  Actually, he must know that scenario isn’t remotely a shoe-in: but hey, what better chance does an old fully paid-up Stalinist have? 

PS what’s Watson up to? Sorry, I have no intelligence on that: but it is obviously designed to thwart (5) above. 

• Boris 

Clever old Boris.  (Unless he offers Osborne a deal.)

• MPs 

On one theory, there is a clear all-party majority of Remainder MPs. Parliament works by formed factions that command working majorities. If they were all as pro-EU as (say) Damian Green, one might imagine a functional Parliamentary Remain Party being created that could do, well, whatever it wanted in that cause (even appoint a PM and government of its own). If they were all really pro-EU. And if there was any serious natural leadership in evidence. 

There’s the flaw: because I reckon the majority of MPs are careerist tossers to whom the above strategy isn’t worth the candle. They’ve all got battles to fight within conventional existing-party frameworks, not least including de-selection (or being KIPpered) at the next election if they don’t get with the Brexit programme. 

Leadership? Heseltine fumes from the wings but, errr … But I suppose there may be some MP out there we’ve never really noticed. Could be interesting. Probably not.

• Eurocrats 

Behaving as badly as ever, they learn nothing, they can’t help themselves. And, if we are correctly informed, they are about to open the sluice-gates on a pent-up flood of ‘sensitive’ measures they were holding back until, errrr, now. Good luck with making us feel buyers’ remorse when we watch you opening your doors to Turkey and banning our toasters.

Hint: there is no more BAU. If you haven’t spotted that, Merkel will be taking you by the elbow some day soon. Or the goolies. She’ll get the point across somehow. 

• Sturgeon 

Thrashing around a bit, actually, in her proactive and articulate way. She really doesn’t want to negotiate separation terms with a confident new Tory PM, or to row off in her little boat into a world of $50 oil. And the Eurocrats may not offer her anything tasty on a plate: their instincts are not to trade with cessationists; just like the taxman won’t trade with you in hypotheticals. They’ll still be busily admitting Turkey and banning toasters. One other thought: if the Scotties are really pissed off, I’d say the prospect of copping the Euro will NOT be a major deterrent next time around. 

• UKIP 

Interesting. Is their work done, do they go home now? The new PM had better hope not, because if the Tories get their act together, while the ex Tory Kippers will be drifting back, the Labour Party will still be haemorrhaging in that direction. Making that October election all the easier. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Yes, quite a dawn. One that cheered up the hospital patient no end. 

ND

Sending for Gordon Brown?!

Isn’t it shit? 
Deepest despair 
Project Fear running aground, clutching thin air - 
Sending for Brown! 

Badly amiss? 
Losing the plot! 
Brown of the big clunking fist, glowering Scot
Why are these clowns 
Sending for Brown?! 

What did they find, knocking on doors? 
Finally grasping - Remain’s a lost cause! 
Making his entrance again with his usual flair 
Under his breath, still cursing Blair 

Don’t you love farce? 
Dave’s fault, I fear 
He thought that we’d want what he wants … 
Sorry, my dear! 
So why is the clown
Sending for Brown? 
Oh bugger, he’s here. 

Isn’t it shit? 
Isn’t it queer? 
Dave simply chucking his once glorious career? 
And turning to Brown 
It’s all turning Brown 
Calamity’s near. 

ND

Panic is an Ugly Spectacle. Bring On Merkel

That's it, really.  Project Fear is failing and panic has set in. 

And I'm not sure the Remainders know how to parley their panic into anything more attractive.  Running focus groups would be a good line of business to be in right now - they'll be commissioning ten a day from here on in.  ("... and how would your feelings change if we told you George Galloway would be Prime Minister if we leave?  Kim Jong-un?  Bill Cash?  Richard North?  Fred West?")

Can't wait for the promised intervention from Merkel!  (Or was that it ..?)

ND

Referendum? F*** 'Em All !

"I wrote Bless ’Em All while serving in France in 1916. And, furthermore, it wasn’t *Bless*."        Fred Godfrey

They say there’s a government-funded campaign 
Bound for each home in the land 
Laden with scare-stories, bullshit and lies 
And arguments none understand 
There’s many a voter who buys Project Fear 
There’s voters with backs to the wall 
There’s none to defend’em in this referendum 
So cheer up my lads, f*** ‘em all ! 

F*** ‘em all, f*** ‘em all, 
This is our last chance for withdrawal 
F*** all the Mandys and Christine Lagardes 
F*** Francois Hollande - the whole house of cards 
'Cos we’re saying *goodbye* to them all ! 
Dave’s package gives Brits bugger-all 
There’s none to defend’em in this referendum 
So cheer up my lads, f*** ‘em all !

They say “if we stay we can influence best” 
We’ve heard all that bollocks before 
“Just admit Turkey and all of the rest 
And take a few immigrants more” 
There’s many a sucker has taken it in 
Hook, line and sinker an’ all 
There’s none to defend’em in this referendum 
So cheer up my lads, f*** ‘em all !

Now they say Jean-Claude Juncker’s a very nice chap 
Oh! What a tale to tell ! 
Ask him to curb the Commissioners’ powers 
He’ll give you a rebate as well ! 
There’s many a Briton who’s blighted his life 
Trusting to General de Gaulle 
There’s none to defend’em in this referendum 
So cheer up my lads, f*** ‘em all !

Everyone knows what a twat Dave has been
So cheer up my lads, f*** ‘em all !


ND

Leave takes shape, too late but at last at least

It is rather disappointing that the Leave campaign in the Referendum has only now got somewhere towards explaining what it is aiming for. This is a rather crucial omission, which is very likely to cost it the campaign overall. Indeed, with polls fairly consistent at a 60/40 split, the Leave team need some game-changing events to save them from left field.

The Leave team have at least realised we can't join the EEA. After all, why leave the EU just to join its shadow little brother. They key here is immigration, in the EEA, we still have no border control. To me, population control is central to the Leave platform.

As I have said before, whether or not the UK has the balls of the Australians, controlling population and mitigating climate change are the big tests of the next century. These are the strategic issues that determine whether society can survive or not.

The EEA does not allow this. Furthermore, with globalisation, as highlighted here by BE yesterday, trade deals can be done or not and matter less than before.

The key is stopping subsidies to kleptocratic governments across the continent, stopping support for the anti-democratic and anti-business Luxembourg set and gaining potential control over our borders.

With this as the core driver, Leave have a better message - its a tough one that appeals little to the lefties and city liberal elite; but it could resonate enough in shires and county towns to see Leave squeak home

Watching the Referendum Fix Go In

A straw in the wind.

Sir Alan Duncan MP, of colourful career, has had an unexpected epiphany.  From being a lifelong euroskeptic he's decided we're stronger safer better in.  His constituents are surprised because they recall him taking a rather different line, really quite recently.

But these things happen, don't they?

In other news; Sir Alan is very concerned at the thought that MPs might be judged by how wealthy they are, be required to publish their tax returns etc, because if high-achieving people had to worry about that kind of attention they wouldn't go into parliament at all.

As things stand, I would have though his tax return is a matter between him and the HMRC.

ND

UK £850 better off per person if we scrap the CBI

New statistics out today in support of Britain staying in Europe show that by scrapping the CBI we could all be £850 better off a year.


The CBI, chaired by known 1%er Sir Mike Rake, costs Britons all day long every day.


The CBI fights for:


- Lower Pay for Workers
- Higher pay for Chief Executives
- Higher Government subsidies for large businesses
- Lower taxes and more Government spending
- Membership of the EU and specifically the Common Agricultural Policy.
- Promotes the ludicrous Hinkley point power station development
-..and plenty more


The activities of the CBI are a huge detriment to the UK as a whole. Their recipe of policies costs everyone in the country hundreds of pounds in extra costs every year. Made-Up Research has today put this cost at an £850 per person in the UK for each year the CBI remains in existence.

Rather then leave the European Union, remain campaigners are as of today instead claiming that if we just closed down the CBI, the economic bonus would allow us to put up with the hassle and costs of EU membership forever.

There may not be a European Referendum

Lots of press coverage over the last few days about UK attitudes to the EU referendum. All of these show that one way or another, things are currently too close to call.

Now in reality we would expect that status quo options would jump up when people were really faced with ticking a box to leave the EU, but nonetheless people are worried.

At a recent City dinner, all the conversation was that Cameron has lost control of the negotiations, will get nothing and then by accident there will be a Brexit.

Which would suit me just fine and give us plenty to talk about for years to come.

However, Cameron has a great last shot which people are forgetting. He has already said he will resign as leader before 2020. If he can't get anywhere with Europe and fears he will lose a referendum, then an option open to him is to resign. Tony Blair, his mentor, did this after all, ducking out and avoiding the EU question altogether.

With Cameron gone, the new Tory leader would have room to either move the date or dissemble totally the referendum idea. Many people in the Country would be hugely relieved, as would the EU who would throw in some weak concessions to show how happy everyone really was.

UKIP may surge, but with a weak Labour party the Tories may still be in a very strong place to win in 2020 and avoid the EU Referendum.

No doubt Mr. Osborne has already informed the Prime Minister of this way out of the very big hole now dug.

Mr Cameron Goes to Europe

I try to keep abreast of all the euro-referendum theology via the diligent Dr North, that arch scholastic feuder and splitter of hairs.  But it's a full time job (where does he get his time?) so I may easily have missed a chapter or two of the tangled tale.

Anyhow, it all helps with the background when it comes to contextualising a piece like Polly's this morning: David Cameron’s cabinet saboteurs are pushing him to Brexit. 

The other 27 members have life-and-death matters to discuss: an unstoppable flow of migrants, terrorists crossing borders and Schengen crumbling, while the euro still trembles unsteadily. Patience with the frivolity of Britain’s pointless negotiation has worn thin. For the first time observers are reporting that Brussels and Berlin regard a British exit as a serious possibility. They don’t want us to go, but Cameron’s cavalier approach pushes them towards indifference. Some report that he himself seems to care less about leaving than he once did, as UK polls sway closer to exit – and he hits a brick wall through his own ineptitude. Why did he make the emotive but empty issue of abolishing working benefits for EU migrants the centre-piece of his renegotiation? His officials and government lawyers warned this was an impossible demand. Other leaders will not, and cannot, in law agree: free movement of labour without discrimination is a founding EU principle. 

Not such an empty issue then, eh?  (This is before we register schoolman North's view that Cameron has made no such demand.)  I could think of several explanations for its appearance on the List, including 'the hand of Osborne' whose student-politics expertise is well up to knowing full well the import of the benefits issue. 

Yes, the 27 would much prefer to be discussing something else, but that's a strong card for Cameron who, as North identifies, is the only one in the game with a strategy.  Single-minded David can often beat Goliath because the latter is preoccupied.  (I once took on, and prevailed against, a former employer - a very large corporation - and was widely thought to be crazy: 'they have infinitely more resources' said well-meaning friends.  Yes: but of those resources they were deploying perhaps one man-hour a day in the persons of one bored lawyer and one less-than enthusiastic HR-wallah.  I was working my side of the issue 16 hours a day, with unwavering commitment.)

And just look at what Polly highlights in her first sentence above.  (She's never been an identikit leftie when it comes to immigration, BTW.)  If as a europhile she's panicking a bit, well, she has every reason to, on several fronts.  I'd say both other corners of the public-opinion triangle - the 'leavers' and the 'let's see what he comes back with-ers' can take a lot of heart from the story so far.  And hey, there's 18 months to go!

ND

Brexit games commence

With the Prime Minister looking like he has finally decided to the the EU referendum out the way, the  Remain campaign has sort of launched. The pure power of the Remain campaign can be seen for the ease with which the Prime Minister can get Enda Kenny and Mark Rutte, Prime Minister's of Ireland and The Netherlands respectively, to row on his side.

Less effective is support from the useless CBI, but still, shilling for Europe is something that that organisation has been on doing for decades now; it is hardly going to change its tune now.

With the date now looking set for the middle of next year, the Remain campaign can put into play its two main strategies, Project FUD and the actual delay of negotiations to unbalance the Leave campaign.

These two strategies have a good chance of success. FUD worked well in the Scottish Referendum when it was deployed on real unknowns - such as what would the end state of leaving look like? Exactly the same strategy will be applied to the UK referendum - what will leaving the EU look like?

Of course, no one can know, particularly when the Government won't set it out and moreover will not even have the terms for staying in agreed until the end of the first quarter of next year at best. This leaves the field clear for 6 months to set in stone peoples' fears about what leaving the EU may do.

I really hope we do leave the EU as it staggers from one crisis to another of its own making. However, from a campaign perspective, Remain has the best hand by far.

Trade Agreements: A Very Pressing Concern

Somewhat to my surprise we have not written about the TTIP on C@W.  It's a front we need to open up:  should be a rattling good C@W topic; plus, trade agreements are becoming a hot issue.

The proximate reason for my mentioning this is the latest twist in the slow-burning EU referendum fuse.  Cameron declares there's nothing for us down the 'Norway' route, and some of the 'outers' agree.  The USA warns that we needn't think we'll get an easy trade deal with them, we'll languish out there on a par with Brazil, India & our new best friend China.  Of course, others think the Norway option - complete with trade agreements - is pretty good, at least as a staging-post. 

Everyone (I hope) knows how important trade agreements are: the anguished cry of most people of my generation (who voted 'yes' in 1975) is - I voted for a free trade area!

So supposing that the increasingly shrill (and a wee bit premature?) Project Fear is spent by 2017 and we vote to leave.  How will we find our terms of trade then?  There seems to be a view that come the day, since everyone really wants to trade and is nowadays a member of the WTO, we'll strike bilaterals easily enough, with blocs and individual nations.  Maybe Brazil, India and China aren't such bad company to be in.

Is this right?  Since the TTIP seems to be America's view of what constitutes a trade agreement: a piece of paper so outrageous that not even MPs or MEPs are allowed to see it without swearing to secrecy on their old Granny's grave (reminiscent of the South Sea Bubble venture: "a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is") - what sort of bilateral does a medium-sized country strike with the USA nowadays?  Doesn't sound a happy place to be.

Then we consider what would need to be done vis-a-vis the rest.  I heard an Indian cabinet minister speak recently, and he said: you may find me being described as uncooperative in WTO circles.  That's because my price for anything the rest of the world wants is 200 million work permits for unemployable Indian subsistence farmers.  China?  We've already seen George offer to sell the farm to be their best friends.  Brazil and the rest of Latin America?  You can say goodbye to the Falklands - and dealmaker George 'strategic' Osborne is just the man to do it.

Hmm, a knotty subject.  Perhaps that's why we've steered clear ...

ND

Farage maybe annoyed President Hollande a just little bit

"We've been going through this for years. If we don't want to strengthen Europe, then there's only one road."

"I heard what Mr Farage say that the only road is for those who are not convinced of Europe is to leave Europe," Mr Hollande said.

“There is no other way. It's a horrible path, but it's a logical path. Leave Europe, leave Schengen and leave democracy. Do you really want to participate in a common state? That's the question."

After all the smugness of the Tory conference after the shambolic Labour affair, perhaps the above exchange (provoked by Mr Farage on particularly garrulous form), serves as a reminder that come the EU Referendum (should there be one, manifesto commitments and events have a interesting history...) the Leave side has all the tanks on its side currently.

As always, events can change and 'cling to nurse for fear of worse' is often a winner on its own merit, but currently the poor leadership in Europe, Ukraine, Syria and refugee crisis shows Europe at its most ineffective and threatening making the case for Leave is easy right now.

However, pushing the referendum to 2017 means it clashes with a French election that will make it headline news as Le Pen promises to ape the British and Hollande the opposite.

Interesting times indeed.

EU Referendum in April 2016

An interesting insight from the Spectator who have the Prime Minister's ear.

So with a Jezbollah victory for Labour and weakness perceived, the Tory leader wants to get the referendum out of the way. More cynically,  I would suggest, with immigration from Syria et al only set to grow, the need to get a vote done before public anger gets too high is becoming more pressing.

In the real world, there should be enough time to organise and get this done. What there is not is enough time to get any real concessions our of the EU leaders when they lurch from currency, Greece and immigration crisis in ever decreasing circles.

The time is perfect to leave the EU for the UK, it is weak and failing and we are better off out of it. It will be hard to convince enough people of this, but all the fundamentals are on the side of the 'leavers' at the moment so the polls will get closer.

The EU non-negotiation?

The Great Leader, Mr Cameron, so recently the beneficiary of a fluke, but complete, victory takes centre stage in Europe today.

By a hilarious co-incidence he has chosen yet another Grexit deal-or-no-deal day to launch into his list of 'demands' that need sating to keep Britain in the EU.

The list will no doubt be short with plenty of uncontroversial bits on it like simplification of regulations and a better single market. No EU ministers will be voting against that.

Nor on an opt out from joining the Euro which we already have.

But there remain two issues still to give us 'Outers' some hope. One is that on immigration and freedom of movement the EU stance is very solid. Polish people in the UK should be treated like English people in Poland - fair's fair. The fact our benefits system is out of control is really an expression of our own dysfunctional Government and not an EU problem.

Of course, were Poland suffering from huge net immigration rather than emigration with its attendant remittance benefits perhaps the song would be different.

On this issue, I see little room for compromise and so the Government will be forced to sell a fudge at best to the UK public in a referendum. Given this is also UKIP's strongest and best criticism of the EU then there is some hope.

Then there is Greece. With no deal it will be a calamity and how this shows the EU's strength is beyond me. The mess is awful and largely self-made but it reflects badly on German Leadership to allow the EU to show it is not one for all and all for one. The question is Greek exits is who next? When is it our turn? Will the Germans turn on us?

Again, that could be powerful re a UK referendum. The hopes are very small but the seeds are there and we will see if they can grow. Cameron is at his highest point politically; hubris normally hits at this point.

Does Madame Merkel Give Happy Endings?

- or is she just slicing Tsipras' salami?

Happy endings when I say so

Some years ago I found myself in mortal conflict with my employer: a big company so, an unequal contest, it might be thought.  But no.  They devoted a small percentage of the time of one bored HR director (and an even smaller % of a lawyer) to the fray; whereas I was on it 24/7, with 110% motivation.  Everything worked out just nicely.  That's the way some things go.

Other times, though, the big guys are implacable - and patient.

Amid calls for "happy endings", it seems our champion has taken up the can-kicking challenge once more, and given the Greeks another toe-poke along the road.  The next bit of wedge in return for the first of the big reforms: a simple formula.

Painful

And since the Greeks' calendar of repayment dates is a lot longer than the list of reforms, we can see where this one might be going.

That's the trouble with the EC types: they just don't go away, and they reckon history is on their side.  They may be as wrong about that as the Soviets were: but Tsipras won't be able to hold his breath long enough to find out.

 
Happy ending?  We may have to wait a bit to find out.  Ah, but can she kick the can out beyond 2017 ..?

ND

Referendum: the Power of 'No'

Of the forthcoming referendum, our longtime commenter (and sometime drinking bud) Steven L said yesterday:

I reckon the powers that be have learned a lesson when they plumped for 'yes' to be the 'in' vote. If you want people to vote 'no', you'll have to run a negative campaign and vice-versa surely?

Interesting. The last two big plebiscites in these islands were AV in 2011 and the Scotties last year.   Those two questions were, respectively:

At present, the UK uses the "first past the post" system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the "alternative vote" system be used instead?

and

Should Scotland be an independent country?

The 1975 referendum, won by 'Yes', was asked:

Do you think the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (Common Market)?

Next time around it will be:

“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”

which is rather the same as 1975, with the new-found preference for starting with 'should'. 

Those jolly voting opportunities in 2011 and 2014 were won by 'No', so (a) is the 'No' side really doomed to run a negative campaign?  and (b) does that matter?

I'd say it's (just) a marketing challenge, albeit of massive strategic importance, and we already know the classic answer: it's a sunny smile and "nien, danke!".  There are plenty of other ways to play 'upbeat negative': "been there, done that";  "you 'avin a laugh?!", etc.  If you hired Ben Elton he'd coin several more to choose from.

The problem for 'Out' (symptomatic, because it's just one of many) is that you can't easily see any of the current 'faces of Out' pulling off anything as sure-footed as a campaign-slogan-of-genius.  It's worse than that, they are all sour-faced gits (Cash, Redwood et al) or saloon-bar bores (Farage).  It's not easy:  Salmond could never quite come across as sweetly positive for 'Yes', could he?  The mask periodically slipped and it was all hatred-for-England and ambition-for-self beneath.  Boris is the only remotely plausible candidate, and he changes his position on Europe every time his sensitive nostrils detect a change in the wind.  Someone we haven't yet thought of needs to be the person that cometh, when cometh the hour.

I have a feeling we shall be discussing all this again.  Many times ...

ND

Why Euopeans love the EU.

I was in Cyprus recently.  Haven't been for about 25 years.
Place looked good. Usual sun and sand and sea. Mountains and breezes and lemons.

The airport was new.  Ultra new. 
Not the shed I remember. Wiki says a €650 million upgrade has been completed. A French led consortium with Greek, Cypriot and Irish investors did the job. the EU operates a marketing scheme for new airports, which this appears to be allowed to be, and so an 18m euro marketing fund  can be tapped into, too.

The road from the airport was all smooth and new. As were the roads in general. Not the Greek style, potholed, crumbling, dusty, surfaces I remember. The roads were good and the road signs were new. Better than in the UK, in some places. 

Digging into the EU papers reveals

The cost of the design and construction of the primary road network (including

motorways) is covered by the Cypriot government with help of the Cohesion Fund: for the period 2004-2006, € 55 million has been allocated by the Cohesion Fund for infrastructure projects in the Transportation and Environment The Cohesion-Fund will finance € 25 million Euro (62% of the total amount of €41 million). 

 

So that helps explain the new looking bus shelters. The parking bays. The waste bins and the plentiful and frequent buses and fewer wrecks littering the roadside. Cyprus had one of the worst road safety records in Europe. So something needed doing.

 

If you are a nation like Cyprus, then what could possibly be bad about the EU? These big private-public projects are able to be financed because of the EU. How else can a small nation, dependent on tourism and service industry fund a complete overhaul of its road and air infrastructure? Money flows from the wealthy nations and down to the smaller ones. That money makes life in Cyprus a whole lot better. As it did in Greece. And Ireland. {Ireland and Greece were the two poorest European countries pre the EU.}

And as it will in Romania and Poland and Bulgaria and so on.

As one of those rich nations, who only seems to get more regulation, new laws and a large bill from the EU, the UK can and does often wonder, why are we in this club?

 

For Cyprus the answers are everywhere you look. Even the raggedy, build as you earn, permanently half completed structures that usually litter the Mediterranean were mostly finished. And this is after the economic crash that damaged the island, and the loss of tourism to Turkey and Egypt because of the devalued pound circa 2008.

 Cyprus looked like a much better place than it did before EU membership.

 

For the UK a reason for this premierclub membership is less obvious. Unless you look at it as the Europeans look at it. Which is ..as a Federal Europe. 

 

Cyprus is just the Rhode Island of the EU. Germany is California. And if California is twenty times wealthier than Rhode island, and some of that Golden State cash flows to the Ocean State to make the entire union a better place, Californians don't much care. In the way that it doesn't really bother non commuters that they fund the rail service. Or that a good percentage of the taxes paid by someone in Guildford are mostly spent in Bradford. Because Guildford is already nice. And Bradford is horrible.

 

Once the idea of a Federal Republic of Europe is considered, then it all starts to make a lot more sense. Free movement of people. Because if the work dries up in Fresno you might need to 'U-Haul' your ass to Providence for work.

One currency, and one federal bank, because otherwise its never going to be a federal republic. A Federal Government with tax and spend responsibilities for all; with individual states having some discretionary tax and spend of their own. A federal police and army, with local police and militia on a state level. 

Once you start to imagine the EU as the United States, the project suddenly seems imaginable..Even possible. Even ..quite similar to Europe.

 

The ten poorest states in the USA are all in the south.. Migration comes across the southern border, which needs constant patrols, whilst the Northern border is unguarded. Taxes and regulation drive people to murder. Pork Barrel politics is not just practiced, but essential for carving out the largest slice of the national pie for your own state. All we need is some election mechanism whereby the federal government in Brussels can get its two house self into such a partisan lockup that the government has to shut down, and the United States of Europe will be born.

When the referendum comes, it should be made clear. A vote for In is a vote to be a member of this republic.
 A vote for out is to be a Canada alongside the USA of Europe. 

Either way, a Republic of Europe is coming.

Referendum: Who Will Tell The Amazing Story?

What a tale to tell.  The intrigue, the diplomacy, the shuttling back and forth across the Channel and the channels; the rumours, the plots, the plot ...

Which of our famous political writers will take up their pens at the end of it all and give us the book?  All of them, probably.  But whose will be published, whose will sell?  Even if we know the outcome all along?

The characters.  Cameron, of Oxford.  Osborne, of Oxford.  Hammond, Johnson, May, Gove ...  Salmond and Sturgeon and Adams and Robinson.  Assorted 'businessmen' (or biznizmen as they say in Russia, it means something subtly different).  Celebrities, as they get enlisted for their endorsements before the vote.  Clerics too, in due course, we may be sure - they always try to be current, relevant.  

And the huge cast of shifty foreigners. 

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius warned that Paris would say no if the UK demanded a special status in the EU ...

(Did he, by God?   He might be reminded of how France adopted its 'special status' in NATO all those years, in but at the same time out.  How was this trick achieved?  Easy: NATO needed France - on its own terms - because Russia was a genuine threat.  Now, there's a thought ...)

The intrigue, the foreigners, the rumours, the plots, the plot (even if we know the outcome all along) ...  It has to be Hilary Mantel.

ND