Are Labour two faced or two stupid?

StevieJ

JayScottGreenspan wrote: »

Well it would have applied to us if we'd signed it. As we didn't, it won't.

No it wouldn't.

StevieJ

Mr_Mumble wrote: »

I don't know why you think it'll apply just to the Eurozone, from the, admittedly flimsy, 'agreement':


Europhiles seem to be saying it only applies to Euro area countries because of the wording of provision no. 5:



But they are ignoring the wording of provision no.4 that applies to every signatory:

.

Why do you say that applies to every signatory, member states in this context refers to euro members only same as it is used below when discussing EMU, the use of general govt budgets doesn't mean all country budgets but general as in misc. BTW the proposed rules are only reinforcing what should have been happening anyway in the Eurozone.

From the third stage of EMU, which began on 1 January 1999, the budgetary policies of the Member States are constrained by three rules: overdraft facilities or any other type of credit facility from the ECB or national central banks to public authorities (European, national or regional) are prohibited (Article 123 TFEU, ex Article 101 TEC)

http://europedia.moussis.eu/books/Book_2/3/7/3/2/?all=1

dlk

Although I'm not advocating leaving the European Union as there are benefits to our involvement I just can't see how those benefits would come close to the cost of us being involved in this treaty. The cost to our financial sector which would first cost us in reduced tax takings and job losses and in worst case scenario mean us losing these businesses to Asia would seem to far outway any benefit of being in Europe.

People keep saying if Europe fails we in the UK are doomed but I'm yet to hear anybody give a valid reason why they believe this to be the case. There is a whole world to trade with. By 2020 European Union countries will only account for 15% of the worlds economy (from 36% when the European union was first formed) so favourable trade with Europe is becoming less and less important. Irrespective of the above point countries like Norway and Switzerland do the majority of the exports to European Union countries irrespective of not being within the Union.

IronWolf

Mallotum_X wrote: »

In the case of this particular deal its a mixture of both (or rather the EU, and representatives from member states).



I doubt we will get away without any impact even though we havent signed up. Hopefully if the EU/EU members can muddle though this without any significant crisis.

But it still comes back to the impact on us if the brown stuff hits the fan. We will be in it up to out necks. If a major bank were to fail as a result of say greek debt (not that likely as the debts not that big in reality). Then we would be impacted. Everything is so closely interlinked that simply saying "its your problem, sort it" is a head in sand attitude.

But they will sort it out. All Cameron has done is stopped it becoming part of the EU treaty. He had nothing to lose by demanding safeguards for London because this new treaty doesn't matter to us, they had already said they'd reach an agreement outside the treaty if need be.

Rochdale_Pioneers

Am somewhat bemused by the notion that Labour and the LibDems have one negotiating strategy (the wrong way) and Cameron had another (the right way). Whats been most telling over the last few days have been the senior politicians from all sides and diplomats pointing out that Tory leaders of the past never left an empty chair at negotiations. And even faced with a tiny majority and Eurosceptic backbenchers John Major managed to get a deal that worked for him. How did he do this? By developing relationships with the European leaders and by setting up our red lines in advance.

So for Labour and the LibDems to point out that they would have negotiated completely differently is to point out that every previous Tory leader DID negotiate differently.....

Graham_Devon

How would labour have negotiated differently exactly?

StevieJ

Graham_Devon wrote: »

How would labour have negotiated differently exactly?

I think they have told us haven't they? was it alliance building rather than Blackmail

chewmylegoff

how do you build an alliance with someone who has no intention of building an alliance with you?

cameron isn't looking too clever to me, but milliband's posturing seems fairly similar to when he was asked what he would do about the economy and he just kept saying he would "go for growth" without being able to articulate how that would actually work. it doesn't really seem like there was any realistic prospect of building alliances with anyone who mattered, and sending in a different rubbish politician probably wouldn't have made much difference although perhaps milliband would have sat at the table until the end. think it's a bit of a case of different styles same end result (as with the alternative ideological economic policies they spend so much time shouting at each other about).

was interesting that sorrell was getting stuck in as he is no fan of the labour party.

sims01

chewmylegoff wrote: »

how do you build an alliance with someone who has no intention of building an alliance with you?

Some countries e.g. Sweden are usually amenable to the UK viewpoint, but Cameron didn't even manage to convince one single country to support his demands.

That is because his demands were so far out there as to be unacceptable to anyone else. He essentially demanded back powers that had been given up in 1986 already by noone other than Maggie Thatcher (by trying to make any financial regulation require unanimity, wheras single market matters had been subject to majority voting for decades).

dlk

Ed Milliband (in fact the whole Labour party) has come across really badly in my opinion over this whole matter. It's not even their policy (or lack of) that's irritated me, it's the fact that they proclaim this to be such a catastrophe and the economy will crumble around us if we upset Europe, but then just spend the whole of prime ministers questions trying to score silly political points rather than discussing seriously what they claim to be such an important discussion.