summitclaret wrote:Some things are more inportant than money, especially freedom and independance and the culture.
Why would british people want ever closer union?
Why would a country not want to be able to decide who lives here. Ditto to make its own laws and judge them without interference.
Why do we pay far more net pa than France into the EU. How does that help our economy, especially if it is low paid families needing tax credits etc?
Why should wages be undermined by cheap foreign labour?
Good questions. And your initial point that money is less important than freedom, independence, and culture, I entirely agree with. I think most people would.
I don't think the EU project sacrifices our freedom, independence (I'll get on to this a bit later), and definitely not our culture. If we first look at your questions:
"Why would British people want ever closer union?" Okay - why did Scottish, Northumbrian, Mercian, and everyone else go for it with the United Kingdom in the first place? Because 'combining' makes you stronger. The major difference here being the UK combined under one monarch, and the EU is combining as 28 separate democracies. The old 19th Century ideal of a nation state being one people with one language, one religion, and one leader is not what the EU is pushing. It's much closer to the Canadian 19th Century ideals of; "we all live here in a widespread place and speak different languages, eat different foods, worship differently, but we're all Canadian" We also have a veto, so if there's something we feel uncomfortable about we can just say "no" So closer integration isn't us all being the same, but having the same rights and freedoms. Britain keeps the mile, the pound, the pint, but we also commit to a common set of standards and rules - which is a positive thing.
Why would a country not want to be able to decide who lives here. Ditto to make its own laws and judge them without interference. - we have this already. Even if we leave the EU, we're still bound to UN treaties. And whatever trade agreements we make after we leave will involve compromise. The ultimate statement of a country's freedom is that of the ability to make war. We have done this on quite a few occasions since we joined the EU. We are a sovereign nation.
"Why do we pay far more net pa than France into the EU. How does that help our economy, especially if it is low paid families needing tax credits etc? " Why do you pay more tax than people who earn less then you, especially when you're trying to save for something you want? Because it's fair. Germany pays in more than we do, because they're better off. If you want to talk about poverty in this country, then that's a matter for our national government - which has made poverty worse through their policy of austerity. Again, we are a sovereign nation. we've made our poor poorer all by ourselves.
"Why should wages be undermined by cheap foreign labour?" - because our labour laws are not good enough. We are a sovereign nation. We can make our labour laws stronger, but our government has chosen not to do that. In fact they've weakened them since they came to power.
Most of your points come down to problems caused by our sovereign government, rather than the EU. And when it comes to independence, we give that up in whatever trade deal, or treaty we sign. The only way we could be truly independent is by belonging to no organisation whatsoever.