A Tonic to the Politics of Fear

Well my worst fears, highlighted in one  my earliest blogs, have now materialised with the media reporting on how both sides of the debate are resorting to scare tactics.

So it is always quite pleasing,when I am reading in the press, to come across references to other sources of information, that may deliver some real insight and considered thought.

A letter from a reader in The Times mentioned this document below as a good read. It has a good summary and more detail as required on specific topics.

It is a document published by the UK Parliament.

http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7213#fullreport

Happy reading

Back soon .....

.....the undecided voter

Pro-EU Points of view

I have to be honest and say that although I do try and read widely and look at this Referendum from a pro-EU stance, I find that I either get switched off from continuing to read something, or when I do manage to finish, I just look at the article and see it as very poor quality and bland.

The following site is a case in point. It is written by an Amercian professor of EU Politics. On this occassion, I thought I would engage in some dialogue with him. I was left quite unimpressed, to be honest.

http://johnmccormick.eu/2016/03/the-uk-referendum-on-the-eu-eight-tips-for-winning-the-case-to-stay/

My first ever political meeting!

I went to my first ever political meeting, on the 5th October. Firsts are quite rare, these days!

I found the meeting really interesting, and although I am posting a blog quite a long time after, seeing the video of it again, now reminds me of just how thought provoking it was at the time. Oh! And the quality of it is much better than that of the Charles Kennedy Memorial Debate in my earlier blog!

http://www.brugesgroup.com/eu/life-after-the-european-union.htm?xp=speeches

There were two memorable points of the speeches that left their impression on me, for helping make that decision on whether to remain or leave the EU.

The economic arguments for leaving the EU are described in the video by Jim Mellor a very wealthy successful investor, by the sounds of it. He basically said that the main reason to leave was because in 5, 10, or maybe 15 years, France and Italy will go bust from unsustainable levels of debt to private investors, circa 130% of national GDP. Like Greece, they are benefiting from cheap interest rates via the Euro and are not addressing their huge government debts, through lack of political will. It is the size of these two countries debts that make the problem far more significant than the Greek troubles. The size of debts are two big for Germany to fund and Britian would be bound to be sucked into supporting them as one of the biggest Members of the EU. In essence he wants us to leave the EU, and then go back into a reformed EU.

The second speaker was a Conservative MEP, Daniel Hannan. It is quite interesting hearing the arguments against the EU rather than reading them. Basically he was reiterating that the EU has a lack of democracy leading to bad decision-making that does not look after the needs of the population of Europe. Everything is more focused on creation of a Federal Europe, than addressing the needs of the people. He argued that we joined Europe when the UK was the sick man of Europe. "Would we join, now?" Was the thrust of his argument. 

And finally, another notable moment was the reminder by the Chair of the meeting, that the Maastricht Bill was only passed by a  majority of 3 votes in the UK Parliament. How different things might have been since then? On reflection, things would probably not have been a lot as there would have been a later vote, with a later Labour Government who would have gone for another vote. A bit like they did with signing up to the Social Chapter at a later date.

Back soon.....

......the undecided voter

Have the Pro EU supporters resorted to Negative Campaigning already?

William Hague was the one who campaigned to keep the Pound when others wanted to join the Euro.

He is currently saying we should stay in the EU, otherwise it will cause the UK to disintegrate. He does not mention that the long term aim is to do away with the nation state in favour of a supra national Federal State.

And just recently, David Cameron was saying the refugee camps would transfer to Kent from Calais if we left the EU. Yet, the bilateral agreement we have with France for British Border Controls checks to take place on French ground has nothing to do with our membership of EU.

I do think the decision on whether to remain or leave the EU needs to be made on positive grounds. Negative campaigning will be a huge turn off for me when the Referendum campaigning starts in earnest. There needs to positive reasons for staying in the EU.

Alot of the Pro-EU camp believe it will be better to stay in a reformed EU. These reforms do not seem that fundametal.

However, I also think the Leave camp should make a positive case for leaving, and must state its plans for a new relationship with Europe as part of this, in quite some detail.

In the Scottish Referendum, Alex Salmond could not articulate any detail on the significant issues such as which currency he wanted to use. He seemed to want to leave the Uk, keep its currency but stay in theEU , and not join the euro.

Debt Sustainability

My last post, touched on whether countries can afford the debt they have incurred. At what point does it all become unsustainable.

For the UK, we are struggling to get the deficit down to zero. George Osborne now reckons it will be 2020 before we get the deficit down to zero. Only then we will be able to start paying the national debt down. The debt since 2010 has more than doubled to £1.5 trillion. What will it be in 2020?

Politics has prevented the government from cutting in-work benefits, to help reduce the deficit.

A country's debt becomes unsustainable when no-one wants to continue lending to them, and they cannot pay the loan back. And it is the politics that makes this difficult, with a reluctance put up with higher taxes, and a reluctance to give up social benefits, such as healthcare or inwork benefits etc.

The UK debt currently represents 88% of its GDP, its national output.

From my last post, I recall Jim Mellor saying France and Italy were currently running at 130-140% of their respective GDPs. Separately, I read somewhere that France's national debt was currentlly 99% of GDP

Whatever the level, the higher the percentage, the more difficult it becomes to get it under control, because it becomes political impossible to make the decisions.

France certainly seems incapable to develop the poltical will to rectify these problems.

Some people consider that no country ever lowers the debt after 80% of gdp. It just keeps increasing after that.

The web-site gives more information.

http://people.stern.nyu.edu/nroubini/papers/debtsustainability.pdf

Back soon.....

......the undecided voter!

INside OUTside

The various campaign groups are still forming and developing their approach and pitch to the electorate.

In many respects, the IN campaign is held back by the fact that David Cameron is still negotiating our new relation with the EU; the reformed EU.

According to the UK laws on holding Referendums it is the Electoral Commission who will decide on one group from each camp that will receive the official funding from them. So I suspect there will be alot of mergers between now and the referendum.

For now though, I have listed below the various names and relevant websites with some brief information on them. The content shown in the websites will I am sure change and develop.

I hope this helps the reader to easily develop a broad understanding of how to answer the question being posed in the Referendum.

Errors and Omissions Excluded! I am happy to be advised of other sites etc. and will update this post as I discover other groups.

THE IN CAMP

I have included here, people or organisations that are advocating reform of the EU, as well those simply advocating to stay in.

The In-Campaign

http://www.strongerin.co.uk/

This was formally launched on October 2015

The front man in the former Marks & Spencer boss, Stuart Rose.

Executive Director Will Straw, who is the son ex-labour minister Jack Straw.

The Yes to Europe Campaign

Www.britishinfluence.org

Director - Peter Wilding

Director of Research - Nick Kent

They want to say YES to a reformed Europe.

Centre for European Reform

Www.cer.org.uk

Business for Britain

Www.businessforbritain.org

This organisation is lobbying for renegotiated terms for Britain's EU membership. They are expressing concern over "ever closer union" with too much delegation of decision making.

Labour for Britain

This is a group of Labour Politicians that are keen to play an active role the renogiation of Britain's relationship with the European Union and to campaign for a reformed EU.

http://forbritain.org/labour/

THE OUT CAMP

Leave.eu

The Leave.EU campaign says they are a grass routs campaign that has no political affiliation.

Www.leave.eu

It was formerly called the kNOw camp based on the theme that if you were "in the know" on the facts about the EU you would definitely decide to vote No!

Conservatives For Britian

http://conservativesforbritain.org/

Headed by Steve Baker MP is a group of Westminster MPs who are wanting to leave the EU irrespective of David Cameron's negotiations, but not all members of this group have made their membership public. I suppose that is because some of them are currently government ministers. 

Ukip

Well known advocates of an exit, and some would argue that they were instrumental in getting us to the point  where we are actually having a referendum.

Nigel Farage is the party leader, but I suspect he is not the front runner to lead the official no  campaign.

The Bruges Group

An independent all-party think tank set in 1989 and named after Margaret Thatchers Bruge's Speech that inspired alot of "outers

thebrugesgroup.com

Better Off Outer

An EU campaign group

Www.betterofout.net

Labour Euro Safeguards Campaign

This is an interesting site because it is run by members of the Labour party who question the merits of EU Membership

http://www.lesc.info/

Charles Kennedy Memorial Debate

On the 25th September 2015 at Glasgow University, there was Charles Kennedy Memorial Debate, entitled

"This House believes that the UK should remain within the European Union"

The recording unfortunately did not have a great sound quality so it is hard to hear the speakers argument. It can be found at:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHgTPbPTiTs

And looks like gust.tv are not doing anything to improve the editing of it. If you do look at it, ignore the first 25 minutes!

Anyway, the one significant aspect that did come out of the debate was that those arguing to remain in the EU, wanted to remain in a reformed EU.

This is not the greatest of positions on which to advocate staying in, is it?

What are we staying in? An Institution that will change?

I think the Referendum is a good thing to have, but I have come to conclusion that the Leave or Remain options will mean completely different things to different people, as they place their X on the paper in that booth. Some will base their decision on the history of their experience. some on the current state of the EU. And some will base their decision on how they perceive the EU will change in the future.

The EU for sure will change and develop, and they will have to integrate more to make the Euro currency work properly. They already admit that there needs to be a new Treaty to make the changes necessary to strengthen the Euro currency.

One of the In advocates, The Scottish MEP, Ian Duncan,  admitted the EU was a very flawed institution and does need to change. He advocates reform, but unfortunately he gave no detail as to how he thought it should change. And not even in his own summary of the evening, found at:-

http://www.ianduncan.org.uk/blog/reflections-first-charles-kennedy-debate-and-future-eu

So I have resolved to find out what I can about the various pro-EU groupings that are advocating Reform for the European Union.

I also think I need to go back and read again the document that I mentioned in my blog titled

So this is the EU Agenda....!

The document is the 5 Presidents report by EU, that I have heard mentioned a few times now.

Back soon....

......the Undecided Voter!