Of course it is - it's by exactly that sort of artifice that they acquire endless research funding to ensure their jobs-for-life!! Jesus, whaddya have to do to make them understand!
Long live the BBC, whilst it has many failings it is still the best for news, science and natural history IMHO. Wish they would do a series of retrospectives on Tomorrows World. It would be great to see all the ideas that never made it especially the ones which were ahead of the actual abilities at that time, how science caught up with the ideas enabling them to reappear.
Europe would rush to get a free trade agreement with the UK should we leave, they rely on us more than we rely on them, for the same rules of tariffs etc would apply to imports as well as exports and Europe would not want a prolonged negotiation to secure a FTA. The EU sells a lot more to us than we sell to them. In 2014 there was a trade deficit of over £50bn, with a current account deficit of nearly £100 billion. It seems unlikely that the EU would seek to disrupt a trade which is so beneficial to itself. Moreover, the Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the EU must make a trade agreement with a country which leaves the EU. EU now exempts services and many goods from duties. In 2009 UK charged customs duty of just 1.76% on non-EU imports. This is so low that the EU Common Market is basically redundant as a customs union with tariff walls. Another myth that keeps raising it's head is the 4 million jobs that "rely directly" on Europe in the UK .. there is no actual report or research that states ANY of those jobs would be lost if we were to leave. The most recent report was conducted by Civitas in 2004. This provided an assessment of all the previous reports and concluded that "the economic impact of British withdrawal from the EU would be marginalless than one per cent of GDP. Putting it another way, these three studies find that, for the UK, the net economic benefits of EU membership are at best marginal." Case in point concerning Norway & Switzerland - Switzerland - Official Swiss government figures conclude that through their trade agreements with the EU, the Swiss pay the EU under 600 million Swiss Francs a year, but enjoy virtually free access to the EU market. The Swiss have estimated that full EU membership would cost Switzerland net payments of 3.4 billion Swiss francs a year. Norway - Norway only had to make relatively few changes to its laws to make its products eligible for the EU marketplace. In 2009, the Norwegian Mission to the EU estimated that Norways total financial contribution linked to their EEA (European Economic Area) agreement is some 340 mn Euros a years, of which some 110mn Euros are contributions related to the participation in various EU programmes. However, this is a fraction of the gross annual cost that Britain must pay for EU membership which is now £18.4bn, or £51mn a day.
I'd like to a link to the source for your info? Here's mine as a response to your post.: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...would-put-uk-economy-at-risk/article28359519/ An excerpt: The Britons who want out of the EU trot out a familiar argument: Britain will take back its independence without any economic cost, so voters can mark the “out” box on the ballot without fear and let the continent vanish behind the English Channel fog. As evidence, they cite Norway and Switzerland, two non-EU countries whose economies, social institutions and lifestyle are the envy of the world. For them, non-membership has apparently come at no cost; ditto, the anti-EU people argue, for Britain if it were to leave. The argument is sheer fantasy. Norway and Switzerland were never part of the EU so they never had to negotiate their way out. Britain has been a member of the EU and its predecessor incarnations since 1973 and would have to negotiate its way out. It would be a long, tedious process larded with bad will and recriminations on both sides. As economics writer Anatole Kaletsky noted in a recent Prospect magazine article, Britain’s separation from the EU would be “much more like a court-ordered divorce settlement than a co-operative and mutually beneficial business deal.” Even if that is an exaggeration which it could well be, we are nothing like Norway or Switzerland. Both are small countries with niche markets. I will also add, as a personal anecdote, the cost of living in Norway is astronomical and there is nothing like the choice of goods we have in our stores. Brexit has the potential to inflict severe damage on the City of London, the term used for Britain’s financial services industry. The City is the premier international banking and investment centre in good part because it has unfettered freedoms within the EU and its single market. How could the City not suffer if Britain were to retreat from the EU? Over time, the centre of financial services gravity could shift from London to Frankfurt or Paris. If that didn’t happen naturally, you can bet the EU would pass some sort of regulation to, say, repatriate euro trading. British bankers and other professions might find they would have to open offices in the EU to get EU business. Shorn of some of its European access, the City might have to downgrade its ambitions and reinvent itself as the Cayman Islands of the North Sea. Actually, it's probably more likely to be Paris or Luxembourg, from what I can find out. I'd also add that Norway's contribution is based on its GDP, ours would be based on ours, so would be a whole lot more, even if we could negotiate the same deal. which is very unlikely.
Greenland negotiated leaving the EU in the early 1980s are they on their knees? There would be no need for time-consuming negotiation of tariff reductions if the UK/EU Free Trade Agreement merely replicated existing EU trade arrangements. The Lisbon Treatys Article 50 requires the EU to seek a free trade deal with a member which leaves. As far as the City of London is concerned it is already under attack from the EU - http://openeurope.org.uk/intelligence/economic-policy-and-trade/eu-financial-regulation/ It is strange that the In Europe people accuse the Out groups of scaremongering, when they indulge in exactly the same thing, it seems to me that the In people are playing on the fears of the population to ensure the status quo is maintained. The truth of the matter is that we have no real idea as to how the UK would be if we were to leave because it would be pretty much the first time it has happened. I am under no illusion that leaving the EU would be an easy road .. however .. I firmly believe the advantages would be better for us.
Yep, the good old 'Jobs will be at risk!' frightener will be repeated over and over again (think 'neuro-linguistic conditioning'?) when in fact the reverse is true. The Eurozone is about to implode and none of them will be able to afford to buy our exports. France and Germany would soon be in deep doo-doo if we stopped buying their cars, that's for sure.
Greenland is politically associated with Denmark and was never a member state. No member state has ever voted to leave. Which will need negotiation. And as part of the EU, the UK was able to safeguard its financial trade. We have some idea. The information is out there. What do you believe are the advantages?
I agree no member state has ever voted to leave the EU, however Greenland voted to leave it's predecessor the EEC in 1985, Algeria did the same in 1962 after gaining independence from France. Greenland has chosen to leave the EU predecessor without also seceding from a member state. It initially voted against joining the EEC when Denmark joined in 1973, but because Denmark as a whole voted to join, Greenland, as a part of Denmark, joined too. When home rule for Greenland began in 1979, it held a new referendum and voted to leave the EEC. Greenland remains subject to EU treaties through association of Overseas Countries and Territories with the EU. This was permitted by the Greenland Treaty, a special treaty signed in 1984 to allow its withdrawal. No it wouldn't, you seem to forget that the rest of the EU are more reliant on the UK than we are on them, and even in a worst case scenario of a complete failure of a free trade deal both parties would be bound by the World Trade Organizations most favoured nation (MFN) tariffs paid by other developed countries. This would prevent the imposition of punitive tariffs by the EU following the UKs exit. did you not read the article? The City of London is already under attack to remove it's status. The EU will not safeguard the City of London and the UK will have little to no power to do anything about it as a member of the EU. no we don't, a whole lot depends on what measures and direction the government of a non-EU UK take. many.
LOL, the EU will basically turn its big guns on the UK if we leave? Come on, that's no argument to stay even if the argument was valid. London is the world's top international finance centre. Why would pulling out of the poxy EU bureaucracy change that? Talk about scaremongering.
Quite an interesting debate on the EU and I find the responses of the audience quite intriguing as well. [video=youtube;qqJ4W9LfuqE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqJ4W9LfuqE[/video]
Except France and Ireland. Both of which got asked to vote again until they came up with the right answer.
