Teen beauty spot drinkers are ramblers, not rebels
- Dave Burrows
Letter: Was EU veto the right move?
Friday 6th January 2012, 7:42AM GMT.
The UK exported nearly £143 billion of goods and services to the EU in 2010 compared with £121 billion to the rest of the world.
An estimated three million jobs are now dependent on our trade with the EU.
And thanks to our membership Britons have been able to move or work while also retaining their health care.
So was David Cameron’s decision to wield the veto in 2011 the right one?
Does that decision represent the British interests or is it a political gamble so he can delight the Eurosceptics and the old Etonians in his party?
Time will tell.
Ron Jowett
Shifnal
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The veto was stupid, the facts speak for themselves, if 3 million jobs were threatened then it would more than double unemployment. Without the EU trade would suffer astronomically and we would probably never recover. Why would other non-EU countries want to trade with us anyway? We have no industries anymore and were too much in debt to consume like we used to. Party political leanings or xenophobic instincts dont come into it, for better or for worse we rely on being park of the EU and the EU being strong, and there is no credible way to reverse this. We still get more back than we spend on the EU to so people should stop reading alarmist headlines by certain papers owned by the Murdoch’s and actually seek out the facts.
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Care to explain how EXACTLY 3 million jobs are “threatened” by the veto?
Because they weren’t.
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I’d like like to reverse Joe’s contention.
The veto was sensible, the facts speak for themselves.
eu trade wouldn’t suffer in the slightest were we to pull out, since the trade imbalance is so skewed in their favour. Does Switzerland suffer? Of course not.
And I might respectfully throw the charge of xenophobia straight back, by postulating that it’s the Little europeans who are the real xenophobes. They can’t see that there’s a whole wide world out there, never mind the piddling little backwater which is the eu.
With our Indian heritage, we’re ideally placed to capitalize on this rapidly growing market.
And I dispute the suggestion that we get more back from the eu than we pay in. We all know that for every £ we pay in, we only get back 50p.
So yes, we should certainly seek facts. However I wouldn’t be impressed with reading any produced by the incredibly pervasive eu propaganda machine.
Bear in mind that the eu is nothing more than an unelected dictatorship, with a rubber-stamp parliament for window-dressing. We always used to snigger at the Russian politbureau in communist days….now we have one ourselves.
Better out than in. We can join NAFTA tomorrow morning for free. and they speak English, of sorts, in Australia and North America. And with the USA on board, we get to keep feet pounds and Fahrenheit at no extra charge.
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The veto doesn’t affect Britain’s membership of the free trade area that is the EU.
It did however put the brakes on the UK’s membership of a future United States of Europe.
As for your trade figures: isn’t it worrying that most of our trade is with the 450 million other EU citizens and not with the 6.5 billion non-EU peoples of the world?
Also, we import more than we export with the rest of the EU. So even if we left (or were chucked out) our net trade situation might actually improve…
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How can someone cram so many mistakes and misleading one-sided opinions into such a short letter.
1. There was no veto, we do not have a veto at the EU Council and there was no treaty on the table to be vetoed and the EU Council is not the authority in charge of treaty change.
2. Goods exported to the EU include those exported for onward movement out of the EU this is called the Rotterdam effect.
3. If ! 3 million jobs depend on our trade with the EU who is arguing that this trade will cease should we leave? Only those who want to use scare tactics. As has been pointed out numerous times our trade with the EU is in deficit is the writer contending the French will refuse to sell us their cheese or the Germans their cars or that we will cease to trade with the EU altogether. We do not have to be in the EU to trade with the EU.
4. We also have to offer our health care and all other public services to any other EU national who decides to come to live here for a short time. Where the balance is on that arrangement can be seen as all out services are under increasing pressure.
5. Mr Jowett should not confuse British interests with those of the EU which are not in the interest of the British nation state.
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