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Showing posts from February, 2015

Britain and the EU

   Photo credit (c) Michel Focard 6 Feb 2015 The British people deserve and demand a decisive say on our relationship with Europe. No one under the age of 58 has had one, and even many of those who did in 1975, justifiably feel the question turns out to have been a misleading one. We face a number of apparent issues with the EU: Issues around immigration; Sometimes over-exuberant, restrictive regulations on business; The democratic deficit – with laws being visited upon us; Institutional failures – with EU accounts not being signed off [1] ; Of late, opposition from the left to a new key trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership; and Of course, the structural weaknesses in the Eurozone We are facing the biggest national decision of my life time: whether to stay or leave. The debate has hitherto been conducted at the extremes – talk of 3 million jobs at risk on the one hand, or of there being no risk of loss of trade on the other. Both are wrong:  some  trade woul