That would be a matter of the UK government to decide. I think the Poles and Czechs are fantastic additions to the UK. Not sure about some of the others though!

Which would those be?....

So you mean a transaction tax on transactions enacted in the Uk goes to the Uk tax man?

If so I agree. The thing is any transaction tax that would have come out of this summit would have meant the money raised went to support the Euro.

Now I do not care what colour anyone's politics are it would be a none starter for any UK PM to agree to that.

However while it is Ok to block that idea it is not OK to let the UK tax payer fund our bailout.

Those uk banks that caused the problem here still not paid.

You help me out on something. What do you mean by competitive advantage?

Paying people less than France or Germany?

Germany seems to do very well economically despite being a fully paid up member of the EU and Eurozone despite all the shackles EU rules apparently impose.

Explain to me why Germany can sign up to all these EU things that protect workers and yet be the biggest EU economy?

"Club within a Club" - is a desperate phrase. The reality is that the 23-26 will plough on and the UK will either have to crawl back or get out. There is no dignity in what has been done. They'll press ahead will policies that the UK government disapproves of and force our hand to either accept or get out.

What he did was a sign of his abject failure in diplomacy and statesmanship and his utter weakness and inexperience. The man is pathetic. The photographs show he was not comfortable with what he did - so why do it? His weakness within his own party, that's why. Real Conservatives think he's a joke (which he is).

If we were to make a stand - we should should just have negotiated a withdrawal from the EU on favourable terms. What we now have, potentially, is the worst of both worlds. Having said that, these things have a habit of panning out strangely and you never know what comes from it. Most scenarios look bad - unless we get in NAFTA quick. Worst case scenario is the 26 tie up with NAFTA and leave us economically and ultimately militarily isolated.

Against that, we have a great opportunity if we are able to take it, in that the EZ will suffer huge ecocomic drag over the next decade if they persist in trying to save the Euro. Can we take advantage economically? I see little to no prospect given the last 60 years of decline in our industry and political failure.

I've always been pretty much on the fence regarding Europe.....I can understand wanting closer ties with countries like Germany and France, but wanting to 'merge' with many of these Southern European countries just seems a bit suicidal??

Overall though, I'm generally naive to the whole thing and am happy to be advised and influenced by those who claim to know better, so with that in mind, here's 2 questions...

1. Why, 70 years after Germany last tried to take over Europe and people fought so hard to stop this, are most of Europe seemingly content to allow the Germans to finally conquer them and weakly allow them to rule over them?

2. Isn't Britain 'missing out' on the EU the equivalent of the fellow who lost his ticket for the maiden voyage of the Titanic??....Seems bad at the time, but who's laughing at the end?

1. Because they are desperate and misguided. Actually, the French elite (if there is such a thing) quite liked the Germans in WW2.

2. I think the BoE and HMG have done the sums and reckon we can just about survive a collapse ogf the Euro. They may therefore judge that they don't care if it goes under and, if it does the European political problem for the UK goes away. Also, it would give us an economic opportunity to take advantage of the mayhem.

Personally, think an economic area comprises UK, NL, Luxembourg, Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia would be a good thing.

The French could then strut their stuff with the Belgians and the Southen Europeans.

I think that is a fair enough assessment of both his position and what the rest of the countries will do.



And what favourable terms would those be and why would they be agreed to by the other countries?

There is no escaping the fact that if we leave the EU we will still have to agree to trade by their rules but will have no say at all in what those rules are. Everyone says look at Norway. Well Norway are a small country who are protected by a government that has made judicious use of North Sea Oil and they are cash rich. We are none of that.

What has happened is the complete economic and political marginalisation of the UK.

That is not to say what the rest of the countries are doing is right. It seems completely undemocratic to me to have unelected EU officials and bodies telling elected governments of countries how to set budgets and how to tax. I can understand why Merkozy want this and things like a common corporation tax are in my view a good idea but they are going about it in a completely undemocratic way. I do not think this is lost on the people in some countries either such as Ireland who were supposed to be celebrating 90 years of Irish independence but are now instead in effect a German province.

However regardless of how undemocratic it is they ARE doing it and we are marginalised as a result.



We are isolated already. We still have the EU free market today but going forward the rest will form rules and regulations to suit them including financial regulations that will probably kill London off as the financial centre of the EU. So ultimately Cameron will have failed anyway.

1) It was THREE generations ago, FFS. In any case if you know your history the Nazis wanted to join with us and the French to sort out the Soviets.

2) I have heard this one before. Is it the end?

Pretty much spot on IMO.

Oh, but we're still more obsessed by it than any other nation.

One of the most economically naive statements I've seen posted on here.

Dad's Army....The World at War. Dambusters. The Longest Day.

The war that lost us the Empire and left us in debt to the Yanks. Hmm. Special relationship? Abusive, more like.

It's rather sad that we are obsessed and get very excited over a conflict that turned us from the world's leading power into a basket case. But that was our finest hour. I'm sure it was all done in the best interests of the British Empire.