What has the EU done for us?

Uxb

For a manufacturing exporting perspective it has done nothing.
We exported all over the world (this was a FTSE250 company)
Only place where there was always some "difficulty" was a core EU country. There was always some "problem" or "incompatibility". Single market single standards my a**se.
We hardly sold anything into the EU and nothing at all to core EU countries.

Interestingly the fringe EU countries seemed more interested in doing business.
The varying standards and requirements of the rest of the world where we did 99% of our business were no problem for us.

It was fun putting in a totally fictitious low price in for a EU destination bid tender. There was no risk we would get the order - but it would drive those on the receiving end apoplectic with rage.

Frankly I'd bomb the lot of them.

Gangaweed

Graham_Devon wrote: »

The telegraph are very open about their pro-EU stance. A senior member of their staff has been on newsnight talking of their Pro-EU campaign.

The telegraph is many things, but pro-European it is not.

Bantex_2

TickersPlaysPop wrote: »

This is a great thread, thanks to all involved.

I won't add anything, while it scares me for UKIP to do well in the euro elections, i think it is the only way to push for change. But it does seem weird that we will be represented in Europe by a group that do not believe in the EU.

Makes little difference, the whole EU system is set up so that the elected representatives have so little influence or power as to make them virtually a waste of space.

My little bugbear about the farce of moving the whole thing to Strasbourg and back every months sort of proves this.

GeorgeHowell

Bantex wrote: »

Makes little difference, the whole EU system is set up so that the elected representatives have so little influence or power as to make them virtually a waste of space.

My little bugbear about the farce of moving the whole thing to Strasbourg and back every months sort of proves this.

Much, if not most of continental Europe does not have the same long standing tradition of parliamentary democracy that the UK does. That's one major reason why we are culturally unsuited to be part of any political union with them. In general they are less affronted by the autocratic ways of the EU elite and bureaucracy. All countries have individuals in government circles who are arrogant enough to think that democracy is too important to be left to the will of the people. The inconvenience of elections and accountability gets too much for them. So now they can go to Brussels to be free of it, surrounded by like-minded individuals, in a closeted world where 'wrong-thinking' people have no influence. As they progressively reduce the status of national governments to that of county councils, if that, their authority will become absolute and unchallenged.

If we stay in the EU then we are sleep walking into this situation. There are plenty of people in UK governmental circles who are quite happy with that prospect.