It’s a bad deal for everyone. I suspect Cameron went in knowing he was going to pull the veto, so didn’t engage and negotiate as Major or even Thatcher might have.

Bad for the others because the Euro issues have once again been kicked down the road, as I’ve posted here:

http://zelo.tv/tz3Swq

You can only withdraw from the EU once. After that, who will the Tories and their pals blame for the ills of the world?

The UK’s EFTA agreement and the laws we’ll have to follow with no say in making, Tim.

Really, do you have to ask the obvious questions? /sarcasm

“Little Englander” was first applied perjoratively to anti-imperialists who wanted Britain to butt out of places like India. It should be a badge of pride.

FWIW my impression is that a referendum on this in Britain would resoundingly back Cameron’s stance – not least because of LibDem support.

There’s a widely held feeling in Britain that the launch of the Euro – when only Luxembourg met the Maastricht convergence criteria – was unwise.

Eurozone national economies plainly haven’t “converged”, which is a fundamental requirement for sustaining a stable currency union. The resulting trading imbalances were bound to create recessionary tensions and the fiscal deficits are a foreseeable consequence of that. The problem won’t go away by ignoring it and hoping that unemployed youth and long term unemployed adults won’t take to the streets or to terrorism.

@3 – Yes, you keep pretending that isolationist xenophobia is a good thing, and that word’s meaning is static.

@4 – Because the referendum would be bought, you mean. Don’t bandy words about. “Feeling”? Media pressure and lies. And you WANT people living on the streets…that’s what slashing the GDP with isolationism will bring.

You can’t have your cake and eat it – this is a Eurozone problem that they’re trying to fix using the EU and then getting snarky when the UK as a member of the EU tries to have its say telling us that it’s nothing to do with us.

Because the referendum would be bought, you mean. Don’t bandy words about.

A referendum on whether the UK should be more fully integrated into the EU wouldn’t need to be bought. The only referendum on the EU that even might be won by the pro-EU side is the ‘in or out’ referendum that the BOOs are (prematurely to say the least) calling for.

@3 Nick

‘“Little Englander” was first applied perjoratively to anti-imperialists who wanted Britain to butt out of places like India. It should be a badge of pride.’

Well said. Contrary to what Remus says @ 5, its meaning has not really changed. The attack is the same: then and now, if you are against imperialism and aggressive economic nationalism, you are accused of being isolationist and petty.

The justification, that actually so-called ‘little Englanders’ are not inward looking, but favour a world of peace and free trade, rather than protectionist blocks and war, falls on many deaf ears.

For once, I think that it is worth discussing the title line for a post on LC: “Europe: the last touchstone issue in British politics”

If we take Conservative Party statements about gay rights, sexual equality etc to be honest, we end up with a liberal baseline on which the political parties agree. Our (including mainstream Conservative) debates about a liberal society are often about nuances and delivery of policy; thankfully, hangers and floggers do not show their heads often outside the bounds of Daily Mail and Telegraph comment pieces. This might be a mental stretch, but assume that mainstream conservatism accepts mainstream liberal policies as part of a thought exercise.

Europe, or rather European centralisation, is where the Conservative Party stands out. Even the Conservative Party is not big enough to hold all right wing opponents of European centralisation, hence the existence of UKIP.

European centralisation is not a big enough personal concern to make me vote Conservative or UKIP. But it is big enough for me to examine whether there are any sane Labour or LibDem MPs who question it. (Not many).

How does the EU and countries who have adopted the Euro get out of this pickle? I don’t know, but I adopt the principle that when I am lost, I do not seek the advice of the people who made me lost.

@8 – Denial as usual from the xenophobic isolationists, who don’t want to be seen for who they are.

“Free trade” – EFTA – would come at the *expense* of Britain’s sovereignty, since we’d have to comply the EU with no say in making the law. No, it’s all about keeping England “pure”. Heard it before.

@7 – Any referendum would be bought. Don’t even try to pretend otherwise.

The tories hold onto only a concept of national sovereignty. They take a pick and mix approach to protecting sovereignty. They rail against Europe which always plays well to the tory base because of our history of fighting most of Europe at some time.

Remember the tory establishment was opposed to the French people removing their despotic Monarchy such was their hatred of people power. The tories signed up to Europe precisely because it imposed an economic free trade system on the people of Europe. No concern for sovereignty then.As usual with the tories big business comes first.

Cameron was pushed into a corner and he defended his bank mates in the city. We can leave the EU or we can stay in, but please don’t fool yourself that the tory right will protect the British people. They will protect their own first and formost.

@ 10 Leon,

as ever, you twist one thing into the complete opposite and resort to vicious ad hominem. I said ‘peace and free trade’, which you turn into hating foreign people and rejecting foreign trade.

Silly boy.

Outright withdrawal here we come!!

Better late than never.

@12 – As ever, I accurately paint the picture of your views and what they actually lead to, right. Twist, turn, dodge. Never admit your goals! If you truly wanted peace and free trade, then you’d pursue the organisations involved in that, rather than signing on the dotted line for war, hatred and isolationism.

@13 – Never too late for killing the poor and foreigners! Oh, and crashing the economy into a wall. Fine, as long as you get your British version of Limpieza de sangre.

Sally @ 11:

“Remember the tory establishment was opposed to the French people removing their despotic Monarchy such was their hatred of people power.”

Leaving aside the problematic use of the phrase “[T]ory establishment”, the French Revolution led to wide-scale mass executions, the establishment of a military dictatorship and twenty-three years of war across the continent. I think that Edmund Burke and co. (I assume you’re referring to people like him, even though Burke was in fact a Whig) have been pretty thoroughly vindicated by history.

Leon,

If you truly wanted peace and free trade…

Tell African farmers about free trade with the EU. You want African farmers to suffer, you fascist!

@14 Leon,

“Twist, turn, dodge. Never admit your goals!”

My goals are clearly stated: peace and free trade. Even if my opinions are wrong – and they are opinions that have been expressed far better by Richard Cobden and Ludwig von Mises and such people as these, in whose tradition I place myself, they are honestly held.

Unfortuately, you are incapable of rational debate, because your first resort is to ad hominem and misrepresentation. I am happy to defend my views, but I’m not going to bother explaining the difference between wanting peace between nations and hating foreigners, because it’s inherent in the words. You are not really attacking me, but rather you are attacking the very ability of language to convey meaning.

France has managed without a monarchy.

So Burke ws wrong.

So after much gnashing of teeth all we basically have is a Stability & Growth Pact mark 2. Hey, obeying rules worked so well the last time why don’t they have more rules that everyone will ignore when it suits them. The eurosceptic right have a problem with Europe. However, so do the UK left. The traditional left position that by definition the UK government position must always be wrong in all circumstances. European bodies will by definition always be right in all circumstances. That assumption looks less tenable when the UK left are allying with the German elite.

The UK left position on the EZ crisis has been fascinating. They basically ignored it for 18 months and pretended it was not happening. Then we got an invented version of what the problem was and apparently it was all bankers and hedge funds to blame. Yeah, and the guys who painted the Titanic sunk it. Mr Cameron asking for a repatriation of powers and the UK to be excluded from rules was always a non starter. The rest could not legally agree to that even if they wanted to. That was just a showmanship sop to the eurosceptic right.

The EZ crisis is a balance of payments crisis. Merkel and the German elite have invented a version of events that says the problems were all caused by excessive government budget deficits. Yeah, like the German one that first broke the Stability & Growth Pact. Outside of Greece, none of the problems that they are now trying to solve with new rules would have prevented this crisis. It is the usual fudges rather than confront the reality that the current EZ is not an optimal currency area. The bond market will have the final say no matter what flowery language the eurocrats use. However, 3 yr long term repos on Italian bonds is a bit of free money to buy them time. What we have is a Berlin power grab that will not solve the fundamental problems and the 17+ will soon realise that. Ireland are not going to cede their tax rates being set for them. Implementing a FTT if the UK does not would be suicide. Hint: they won’t implement one.

The empty chair is the most powerful negotiating tactic that there is. That is a completely alien concept to the type of mindset that inhabits the UK Foreign Office, and has sold Britain down the river for the last sixty years. They are schooled in a world view of consensus and being good global citizens. National interest is about gaining an advantage. No advantage, empty chair. Germany are not seeking to solve the EZ crisis, they are looking after their own national interest by seeking to build in advantages.

The UK being isolated has no disadvantages. Terry Smith of Tullett Prebon put it best.

” UK as isolated as someone left on the dock in Southampton as the Titanic sailed away “

“The traditional left position that by definition the UK government position must always be wrong in all circumstances.”

Ah yes, and the isolationism propaganda wheel begins again!

We’re in the middle of a largely government-caused disaster, and you’re ignoring it.

And of course you’ll work to bring down the EU regardless. Got that loud and clear. And no disadvantages. After all, YOU will still be able to eat and have a home after the economic collapse. It’s all those non-people will will suffer, and if they’re not rich they’re not real!

@11. Sally: “Remember the tory establishment was opposed to the French people removing their despotic Monarchy such was their hatred of people power. The tories signed up to Europe precisely because it imposed an economic free trade system on the people of Europe.”

My first guess is that Sally is commenting in sentence one about the French Revolution (1789 onwards).

The Conservative Party was founded in 1834.

My second guess is that sentence two refers to Ted Heath taking the UK into the European Economic Community in 1973.

I have medical evidence (eg death certificates) that Ted Heath was not directly controlled by the founders of the Conservative Party.

Returning to sentence one, my understanding is that the words of Edmund Burke are taken as gospel truths by the following:
i. Classical liberals
ii. Modern conservatives
iii. Lunatics

Sally @ 18:

Have you ever actually read any Burke?

@19. Richard W: So what you are saying, Richard W, is that all of us are in a pickle and that the politicians who yack on are part of the problem?

I would not centralise in the first place. The easiest way to eliminate dog shit from shoe soles is to not walk over dog shit.

I am shifting to the position that the Euro is not a UK problem (acknowledging that it affects us), and on the same principle as walking over dog shit, the UK should stay away.

The problem for the Tory Right is that what they want is impossible. What they want is a free trade area while being able to set their own (minimal) employment regulations and (lack of) human rights legislation. The former are still a requirement for countries in the free trade area but outside of the EU, and the latter is nothing to do with the EU.

No sane country is going to let the UK enter a free trade agreement while we undercut their standards and protections. As usual, the Tory Right are just that little bit mad.

@25 – Absolutely!

It’s like their nonsense on the working time regulations…why is it GOOD to run people to the ground with excessive hours? They don’t and never have governments VOLUNTARILY working those hours, so it means they support people being forced to do them!

@22. XXX: “Have you ever actually read any Burke?”

Everyone who is literate has read Burke, incidentally.

It would be exceptional to hang around on LC before reading this bliss: “All that’s necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.”

Charlieman @ 26:

“All that’s necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.”

A misattribution, unfortunately.

26 Was that not Churchill who said that?

@28 – thought it was FDR but could be wrong.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

That quote is often attributed to Burke but no researcher has found it among his writings. The commentary in Wikiquotes:

This is probably the most quoted statement attributed to Burke, and an extraordinary number of variants of it exist, but all without any definite original source. These very extensively used remarks may be based on a paraphrase of some of Burke’s ideas, but he is not known to have ever declared them in so succinct a manner in any of his writings. They may have been adapted from these lines of Burke’s in his Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents (1770): “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

Leon Wolfson

I think that to conclude you were indeed a “Tory Troll” from your postings claiming to be left wing wouldn’t be far from the mark.

People like yourself and your other tribal types – Derek Draper, Damian McBride, Gordon Brown – those unpleasant sort of people – serve only to turn people off the Labour Party and you really need to head off to Conservative Home or some of the other right wing blogs….

@31 – While I’m sure Sunny will delete this, for the record you’ve been banned from at least one other left wing site for your racist ranting.

And I give a plop about a centralist party. You miss, time and time again the point I’m a left winger.

You call all the left wingers “tribalists” and attack them because it’s a cheap and easy way to score Tory brownie points. Go back to ConHome.

@26 I’ll give you Yeates.

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

I struggle to grasp the significance of the negotiations because the financial products market they are trying to regulate seems at once incomprehensible and dull as ditch water.

It does however strike me as strange that we should insist on being at the middle of the EZ with the big boys, yet veto a rescue plan for a currency we’re not even in. It seems arrogant.

The larger part of our trade is in EZ, and if it tanks we tank (I mean even worse than we are tanking already), so it also worries me that what has been billed as our next to last possible hope at stopping a decade long recession/ fall in living standards has been vetoed by our PM. I can just hear an ashtray crashing against a wall in the Oval Office.

Leon @ 32:

“While I’m sure Sunny will delete this,”

I hope you realise how paranoid this sort of thing makes you look.

“for the record you’ve been banned from at least one other left wing site for your racist ranting.”

Got any specifics? Because I’m sure you wouldn’t want people to think that you’re just making this up in an attempt to smear another poster.

@32 – Leon Wolfson

There you go again. I have never been banned from any site for making racist comments because I am not racist.

It’s quite obvious you’ve been on the ale all afternoon and it’s time to head home now and get some kip….

@35 – Ah those pesky “fact” things again, yea, you can’t have those.

And nope, just been taking a quick look every few bits of work marked. I’m not unemployed like you.

Leon @ 36:

And again you fail to provide any specifics backing up your claims.

@37 – Of course, I insist on being in this “reality” thing. How tragic.

Leon @ 38:

It’s not that you “insist on being in this ‘reality’ thing”, it’s that you’re smearing other posters without being able to back up your claims. Still, making up ad homs to throw at people would be fully within your MO, I suppose.