Kelvin's Ferret wrote:
There is no real reason for the UK not to leave the EU and negotiate a free trade agreement 1) tit for tat customs spats do neither side any good (particularly as the UK runs a trade deficit with rest of EU), and 2) this is the era of of WTA and even the EU has to work with that. These are very heavy realpolitik counterbalance to worries about Nissan style investment leaving if we turn off the taps. If the UK is still part of a free trade zone, and is more competitive as a result, and they've already sunk billions in costs then it's unlikely. What business (like Nissan etc) doesn't like is uncertainty, but that is tough luck anywhere at the moment.
To negotiate a free trade agreement with the EU (as Norway has done) means you have to accept EU regulations. In that sense you are een worse off because being outside the EU you have no influence at all on those regulations. The idea a FTA with the EU would give us the trade links we have now minus us having to be part of it with all that entails is simplistic wishful thinking.
Talk of human rights, meat in sausages or cucumbers are p.iss weak red herrings, they are not dependent on the wider EU project with its bureaucracies, talking shops and corruption so deep and widespread nobody even bothers to bat an eyelid at it any longer. You can have institutions managing international trade regimes, providing aid to poor European countires, or promoting universal human rights standards, you don't need the trappings and cost of the EU for all that, in fact many such organisations already exist outside the EU. Trade does exist without the EU, and human rights actually existed in Britain before the Human Rights Act even if it wasn't around to justify a range of undesirable actions subsequently garishly splashed across the viewspapers, an expensive political integration project is not a pre-requisite for any of these things.
The Human Rights Act has nothing to do with the EU because it relates to the International Convention of Human Rights which is not run by an EU institution and never has been. All the act does is clarify the relationship between UK Human Rights law and our countries obligations under the Convention. If we left the EU the Human Rights Act is one thing that simply would not change because it is nothing to do with the EU.
Now I appreciate all this realpolitik s.hit may not be as cuddly as 27 nations all proudly hugging each other under a flag of peace blah blah, but it's a moot point now anyway, the EU has already overstretched itself, it's pulling itself apart trying to maintain a common currency that doesn't work for half of it's members. If the Euro fails then what is the point of ever greater integration? The Germans are only really propping the whole thing up because their banks are so heavily exposed to the banks in weak economies (particularly Spain) that they'll have a banking meltdown if they exit. Afterall who will pay the German banks back what they lent to banks in Spain etc if the German people don't stump up the cash to keep the circle intact? Everyone is worried about a flight of capital out of the weaker economies into Germany if one of them exits, but what happens when Germany's banks start to take hits as a result of their losses from an exit? Gotta keep kicking that can along...
The Euro has failed or is failing because it was never just about economics but was driven as much by politics. The German's could probably weather a Greek exit but they would then face a stronger Euro and that may then force Ireland, Spain and Portugal (maybe even Italy) into trouble and possibly out.
Before you know where you are you end up with a Eurozone of just the big economies and they don't want that either. I think people underestimate the political will to maintain the Euro even with the likes of Greece in it.
