Thank God is what I reckon. The idea of handing over a huge chunk of our economic sovereignty to the ECB is an incredible one. It's not just the Tobin Tax, regardless of your stance on it- the offer on the table was unelected central banks and European commissioners telling us what our budget should look like, tax harmonisation...

De Gaulle used to talk of the "Europe des patries", strong nation-states working together in a spirit of respect and co-operation but having boundaries which shouldn't be crossed and maintaining their sovereignty. He'll be turning in his grave to see a man who claims to be a political heir doing this. And you know something is up when Sarkozy says that it'll be a series of bilateral treaties rather than through the EU- and that this is to avoid the need for referenda.

I suspect that Belgium and its ludicrous, expensive four-tier government system will not be affected.

We'd rejoin EFTA like Norway and Switzerland. But don't forget that our veto here keeps us in the EU- the treaties between the others will have to be intergovernmental rather than through the European Union.

What makes you think they'd want us?

They too will have seen Cameron's breast-beating, do you honestly believe they'd be happy with us trying to take our "rightful" seat at the head of the table?

Then we'd impose them too - especially on German cars. so, what's the problem?

Ask Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Land Rover/Jaguar and what's left of Ford & GM, they'd all be shutting up shop here and moving to a post-accession country in a flash

The devil is in the detail, transaction taxes are easy sells to people who don’t think too hard about what they are being sold, guff about casino banking etc only serves to obscure the picture. You shave a tiny amount off millions of daily transactions and you get huge sums of money, and the impact is tiny because it’s only a tiny amount taken each time, sounds tempting right? It sounds to good be true because it is too good to be true. Comparisons with stamp duty don’t hold up, stamp duty is a tax on a big ticket purchase, which the actual taxpayer only pays very occasionally, the financial transactions under consideration here are short-term one’s with very small margins, like overnight loans. So in practice it’s more like putting a penny in tax on a transaction that is only worth a few pence in profit. 0.05% per transaction sounds like nothing, but annualise that and it’s a big deal. Taking huge sums from any source is bound to have an impact, that is just common sense when you stand back from it and ask how exactly does that work? This is why some of these activities just aren’t viable if % shaved, because it’s not the face value of the transaction that matters, it’s the tiny margin that is actually getting slashed.

It will be interesting what happens now, will Eurozone financial centres really want to do this if London doesn’t? Will they make themselves less competitive when London’s pre-eminence is already a bugbear for many Eurozone financial sectors. The City of London was the cash cow in this part of the deal, does it look as good now that cream isn’t going to come sloshing their way?

Also the lack of fiscal sovereignty has been a major handicap for the weaker economies, Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, all couldn’t devalue currency when they needed too. Now they are going to be locked even more tightly into a Franco-German dominated economic policy? I suppose politically the Eurozone can now blame the UK for being selfish when they get to wherever the can stops this time round?

You guess.

Excellent article from the Economist on just how much of a personal failure for Cameron this is: www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/ ... n-and-eu-0 I think he made the right call last night, but his entire government thus far has been an exercise in backing himself into a corner where it was the only choice available. He's also managed to guarantee that in the economically liberal v naturally statist debate, the latter is the more likely winner. Nice one, numb nuts.

Excellent article from the Economist on just how much of a personal failure for Cameron this is: www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/ ... n-and-eu-0 I think he made the right call last night, but his entire government thus far has been an exercise in backing himself into a corner where it was the only choice available. He's also managed to guarantee that in the economically liberal v naturally statist debate, the latter is the more likely winner. Nice one, numb nuts.

It's assymetric. We'd have tariffs placed on a greater proportion of our exports than the Eurozone would (because it is a bigger market than we are alone). That's the advantage of being 'in' - strength in size, at the cost of some flexibility/sovereignity.

Why would they remain here and be at a distinct financial disadvantage to their EU competitors?

These sorts of arguments are hollow, being part of an economic free trade zone does not require subsidising a wider political project, they really are not mutually inclusive. The whole GATT and WTO set-up has been geared towards freer global trade, and that is not dependent on a political project that covers part of Europe. If the UK were no longer to provide it's not insignificant net subsidy to the EU political project (and along with Germany we are the only ones who have always been net contributors) it might make plenty of rent-seeking interests unhappy for quite obvious reasons, but it doesn't change economic reality of international trade agreements. We do lots of business with the Eurozone, from outside of the Eurozone, and it's a two way thing, they do same with us, there's no reason to think they would try to be punative, or even that it would be in their wider economic interests to be punative, if we decided we don't really want to shovel cash into the gobs of French farmers any longer. These threats just don't really hold up to reality of international political economy. Not wanting to be part of a political project is not the same as wishing to be isolated on international trade.

And if the Euro ends up being a financial basket case which is still a possiblity no matter what France and Germany say?
How long will that mess take to sort out and what will be left when it is?
This isn't the end of this I think it is only the begining and no one knows what the end game will be.
That was why I said 'You guess'.