| Product: |
The Euro |
| Date: |
08/08/00 (12 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Jobs, prosperity, influence, maturity
Disadvantages: It's a gamble
I am in favour of joining the Euro. The UK is not, and cannot be a major world player on its own. Britain's influence on the world stage is historic, not actual, based on an empire we no longer own, and shouldn't pretend was a good thing.
The EU is already is a German / French creature, and this is the fault not of the Franco-German axis (which is obviously going to shape the institutions to its own liking given the chance), but the fault of the UK, for constantly standing on the sidelines and hurling abuse at our continental neighbours. We could try engaging with our EU partners, but no. It is still acceptable for a UK politician to be nakedly bigoted against Europeans, and get slapped on the back for it.
We should be ashamed of being a country so mired in a cartoon version of our own history that we can't get on with people on the continent now, more than fifty years after the last war ended.
We should be ashamed of being a country where symbols (the crown, the queen's head on a fiver) are more important than jobs lost to Euro competitors. We should be ashamed that even the most pro-European politicians have to skulk and lie about their beliefs to stay in power.
Even those who argue we should escape the EU altogether start rattling on about joining NAFTA, exchanging one economic leviathan for another. We are at a point where we can say that yes, we are a mature group of people who don't need rituals and security blankets to prove who we are, or get ready to be consigned to the economic and political sidelines, as the EU makes decisions which affect us whether we like it or not.
One final thing: the contributor who mentioned 'England' being sold out should perhaps remember that there are four nations in the United Kingdom, not one.
Summary:
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Last comments:
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- 13/09/00 > For how much longer if we don't make anything?
We do make things. It's just that fewer of the things we make are labour-intensive manufactured goods. That's an inevitable byproduct of raising the standards of living of British workers - unskilled jobs will go to countries that pay lower wages.
> How many more people would we have needed to kill before > you would consider the empire an unambiguously bad thing?
Enough that the countries formerly part of the Empire did not wish voluntarily to associate with us in the Commonwealth.
> Famous anti-europeans:
Dennis Skinner, Cryers John and Ann, Bill Morris, Mike Woodin, Barbara Castle, Doug Nicholls, Helle Hagenau, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, Jens-Peter Bonde, Anthony Coughlan, David Owen, Rodney Bickerstaffe...
> William Hague, Tebbit, Thatcher, John Redwood, Portillo,
> the late unlamented Nicholas Ridley.
Who I'm sure would all oppose rule by Hitler. Does that make opposing rule by Hitler bigotted?
> Make your own judgement.
I have.
> Because you can't have an economic area that covers the
> whole world.
Well, you can if you want to, but why not have a country that makes mutually beneficial agreements with countries all over the world, rather than just those which happen to be its neighbours?
jdcx xx |
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- 12/08/00 > The UK is the fifth largest economy in the world.
For how much longer if we don't make anything?
> the willingness of so many former colonies to associate >in the Commonwealth suggests that they do not view Britain >as malevolent or benign.
How many more people would we have needed to kill before you would consider the empire an unambiguously bad thing?
> are you just calling being anti-Euro being bigotted?
Famous anti-europeans: William Hague, Tebbit, Thatcher, John Redwood, Portillo, the late unlamented Nicholas Ridley. Make your own judgement.
>I get on with people from all over the world - why limit >ourselves to one little continent?
Because you can't have an economic area that covers the whole world.
>The truth is, if you sell the right things at the right >price, people will buy from you, whatever currency you >use. If you don't, they won't.
No-one will buy stuff from us if we don't have anything to sell.
>I'm not terribly pro-NAFTA, but at least NAFTA doesn't >purport to over-rule the Parliaments of its members.
Oh no, it's just an organisation dominated by the USA, a nation notorious for its political reticence and unwillingness to interfere in the internal politics of other sovereign nations. Ahem.
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- 12/08/00 > The UK is not, and cannot be a major
> world player on its own.
The UK is the fifth largest economy in the world.
> Britain's influence on the world
> stage is historic, not actual, based
> on an empire we no longer own, and
> shouldn't pretend was a good thing.
There is good and bad in everything, and a lot of bad things happened under the empire, but the willingness of so many former colonies to associate in the Commonwealth suggests that they do not view Britain as malevolent or benign.
> The EU is already is a German / French creature,
Well then...
> It is still acceptable for a UK politician to be nakedly
> bigoted against Europeans, and get slapped on the back
> for it.
Do you have some for instances here, or are you just calling being anti-Euro being bigotted? Am I bigotted against my housemates if I don't want a joint bank account with them?
> we can't get on with people on the continent now,
I get on with them fine; a large part of my family is from the continent, but I get on with people from all over the world - why limit ourselves to one little continent?
> We should be ashamed of being a country where symbols
>(the crown, the queen's head on a fiver) are more
> important than jobs lost to Euro competitors.
Ave rage UK unemployment - 6%, average Eurozone unemployment - 9%. Remember those Japanese Panasonic contractors that were in the news about a week ago and how they were going to move all their production to the Eurozone? Truth is, they've already resited half their EU production - to the Czech Republic!! Not even in the EU, let alone the Euro.
The truth is, if you sell the right things at the right price, people will buy from you, whatever currency you use. If you don't, they won't.
> Even those who argue we should escape the EU altogether
> start rattling on about joining NAFTA, exchanging one
> economic leviathan for another.
I'm not terribly pro-NAFTA, but at least NAFTA doesn't purport to over-rule the Parliaments of its members.
jdcxxx |
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