Is it now in the UK's best interests to get out of the EU and accept that our politicians let us down badly? I think so. There are great negatives including loss of sovereignty / democracy, costs of funding it, costs of complying with often silly and economically stifling legislation, etc, etc.

We are told that it's good because we can have greater global influence by being members, but all our influence is exerted outside the constaints of the EU and we have little within the EU itself now the EZ exists and even less going forward as they seem to be pressing ahead with closer union. We are told its good because we sell alot of stuff to EU member states. That's a red herring as we have a trade deficit with them so they'd continue trading with us.

The really awful thing is that the Commonwealth countries (which are harder for us to trade with being in the EU) combined GDP is about to exceed the EU's for the first time and and their economies are projected to grow by 7.3% pa over the next 5 years - rather more than the EU!

Our politicians have let us down big time over this. We should get our asap before it's too late.

Where is the loss of sovereignty? We still elect our own government, except maybe last time.
Ditto democracy.

As for the "stifling legislation", you couldn't be more wrong, the EU has eliminated thousands upon thousands of conflicting trade barriers, tariffs, terminologies, rules and regulations that each country had before, such that now it is a more open and genuinely competitive market than it has ever been until now.
Maybe you believe all the "straight banana" stories made up by the likes of the [iWail[/i?

The UK is is slipping down the table of "those with influence in the world", as are the likes of Germany and France.
Except as a group we will be subject to the rules and whims of China, Russia, India and Brazil, as well as the US.

As for the Commonwealth, there's nothing to stop us exporting to them if we are good enough, nothing in EU rules stops us from exporting to them.

I put it to you that you are merely trotting out the uninformed UKIP line.

They made us put more meat in our sausages, I tells ye!

And I can't buy bent cucumbers any more.

Bloody human rights.

That's one thing we really don't need... to be treated as equals, free from fear and all the rest of the guff that goes into the ECHR.

I say leave it now so that we can save a few quid.

And get our bent cucumbers back. I'm really bitter about them. Well, Mrs Scooter Nik is more than me, but still, the point remains.

Whilst I am not a Eurosceptic to be devil's advocate here there is an argument in what Dally says about the Commonwealth, if it was possible to strike a free trade agreement between the UK and the Commonwealth. The UK isn't allowed to participate in a FTA outside of the EU whilst it is part of the EU customs union so we would have to withdraw from that and the likely reaction would be the EU would slap tariffs on UK goods exported to the EU.

But the Commonwealth includes double the amount of nations as the EU and it does include as Dally says, fast growing nations. The UK runs a trade deficit with the EU and it may be that we take the gamble on the fact the EU is going to be chugging along as a region of low/no growth for a while so will not be a particularly good market anyway so realignment may be beneficial if the Commonwealth is an area of fast growth.

However there are risks and some of the Eurosceptics that are pushing the Commonwealth idea should be careful what they wish for. If it starts as a free trade area and is reasonably successful then the logical next step will be to expand it to a common market to enjoy the full gains of trade which means free movement of labour across borders not just tariffs and this will mean a different demographic of migrants than the Eastern Europeans, a lot of whom will be from a different colour skin, which will certainly make the Tory Eurosceptics balk.

If they did, that would kill off investment form the likes of Nissan and Toyota because they would not import parts etc into the UK and pay our import duties then export from the UK to Europe and pay their import duties on top. And we don't build cars in the UK to export to the Commonwealth.

That is true for any goods. Once imported into the UK they do not face any duty when exported into Europe. So any companies who's operations are based on the UK or who have a significant presence in the UK due to the access to the EU market will just relocated to other parts of Europe. Plants like the Vauxhall plant recently saved in Ellesmere Port will just close and even one of our largest manufacturers, Airbus, would be under threat.



They question is do they want to buy anything we sell? Nissan Qashqai's to Australia, Cananda and India from Sunderland? Don't think so. Our former Commonwealth partners are more interested in their own regional markets anyway with Australia/NZ focused on Asia and Canada North America. With India we would probably soon swap one trade deficit for another. The assumption that because the Commonwealth countries are growing fast we can tap into that and replace what we lose from free access to the EU market is a huge one.



The bottom line is to trade freely with the Commonwealth means we can't trade freely with the EU.

I agree, if the cost benefit analysis says the UK would be better off in the EU than signing a FTA with the Commonwealth then I'm all for staying within the EU.

Admittedly, I'm no expert on this whole EU thing, but it surely makes little sense to just walk away from, what could be, a very large and powerful organisation?

What is obvious though, is that if we remain in the EU, then we have to be more influential in what should be, hopefully, a massive re-structuring of the whole set-up.....Rather than stand on the sidelines constantly throwing a negative spin on the future of the EU, we should be looking to get things back to the original plan that most of us signed up for, and only by being involved can we do that.

Major change is needed, but cutting our 'losses' and getting out, isn't the right choice.

My view too. The way that some people look at it as being something we need to get out of ASAP doesn't work, that's the same kind of short term thinking that the RFL specialise in, not politicians.

We need to be in there, leading the way, not standing outside going "tut" when we don't like things, followed by "Well, we want a veto" when the restructuring is finished.

I think had Tony Blair had his way that's what Britain would have done, he was a leader that other European leaders seemed to look up to and respect unlike Cameron who gets treated with disdain (especially by Sarkozy when he was there), Blair's vision would have been that he would have been the big fish alongside his adoring fan Gerhard Schroeder and Britain would have been one of the dominating powers in Europe. However the country as a whole was not in step with Blair's Euro-enthusiasm and Blair would have also had us in the Euro which would have made our recent financial problems a lot worse if we hadn't had the independent Bank of England to lessen the pain.

I wish the single currency had never gone ahead as its the single biggest balls up in the history of the EU and it seems the countries inside are not going to cut their losses and end it but trying to go all in and have a giant fiscal union which means they will have to become much closer on tax rates, budget balances and all sorts. The Germans seem to be driving this but if it is to work then they have to accept the inevitable consequences - the United Kingdom is a fiscal union where the rich regions of the UK end up subsidising poorer regions through transfers of revenues and Germany as the richest part of the EU will inevitably have to subsidise the poorer parts. They have to accept this from the start.

What I fear will happen is Germany will lead calls for a fiscal union, so that it can keep on being inside the Euro which means it has a currency much undervalued compared to what the Deutschmark would be on its own, making German goods much cheaper in Euros than they would be in Deutchmarks hence Germany has a huge export advantage. But they will constantly complain about having to subsidise the others, and castigate them for having higher unemployment, lower productivity, and lecture them on how they need to have lower wages and conditions etc. Unless Germany is willing to accept the rough with the smooth of fiscal union it is not going to work.