Walkabout, that is not new, at all. As a matter of fact that is the basis of the EU's construction. Since day one it has been a political thing with actions dictated politically with no regard whatsoever for reality or science in several fields. The most notorious is the Euro but it's far from being alone in the bag.

I get that.

Politics dictats in the fields of methods of government, transportation, taxation, housing policy and international relations et al is understood; they are all based on consensus, to use that hackneyed terminology.
But, when a chief scientific advisor feels it necessary to make the statement in that link, after 3 years in post, then it rings alarm bells, of the nature that has been posted in another thread in here - the thread about climate change.

To add:
Science dragged us out of our mud hut hovels and brought us untold benefits - the very basis of modern societies.
The age of enlightenment no less, which was pretty much based on free thinking individuals who gave their all, including their health and their lives in some cases (Madam Curie), for such betterment.

It is an utter disgrace that any politician should think that they can pervert science toward their own ends, their own dogma, their own small mindedness.

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Dave

The problem with the EU is that the 28 nations are not really in control of the EU leaders. People might scorn the lack of accountability of UK government politicians and officials, but in reality the MPs and Select Committees do a pretty good job of holding them to account and nothing of that ilk seems to exist in the EU.

The EU is broken. I see no good alternative for the UK other than withdrawal.

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

A reflection of the differing expectations of the differing populations? The British democracy with inherited "safety valve" structure has been pretty stable for 200 years and there for close to 400. Our dictators give up the job by themselves when whatever emergency is over. The nearest similar set up is the Netherlands, but only 200 years in total with a gap when things spilled over from Germany. Germany was a dictatorship 70 or 30 years ago depending where you were, Spain 40 years ago and Poland 30. If the population remember Erik Honeke, General Jaraselski and Franco, Jacques Delores and the grey men of the commission seem benign and more stable that students with flags and petrol bombs. This is especially true when they are buying you motorways and handing out cash not to grow stuff.

Giving up freedom for stability seems mad to someone who's never had a Soviet or Nazi secret policeman kick in their front door.

If the UK manages to free itself I wonder how the rest will take their promotion to the rich, developed and therefore contibutable part of the membership?

Andy

After hearing the latest idea, all twenty eight states getting different amounts of benefit, for differing periods, I am even more convinced we need to go. The poor old benefits dept can't cope now, God knows what that will do to it. Cameron calls that a good deal, I think not.

Some commentators say that each period of "stability" lasts about 300 years, on average - thereafter it must change.
"Average" covers a wide range of circumstances in the forms of government and the "top dog" individuals who tend to rise to the top of the pile; many identified above were one offs who survived for short time scales during very turbulent times, far more so than now.
Russia is a fascinating case.

The USA is just over 300 years old, or less if counted from their civil war which was intended to unite the country for the first time.

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Dave

I think Russia is a fine example. With a good Czar it works, with a bad one it doesn't, without a Czar there will be chaos until they find one. Any Czar is a 50/50 chance of success, no Czar makes it 95/5 against. You can't blame them for picking a Czar by any other name.

Donald the first doesn't inspire an Englishman more than Dave the temporary though.

Andy

Please provide examples, also the Euro is not the EU.

Where would you start !!

Even if you're pro-Eu , you can't deny its whole organisation and operation is a total shambles. It's too big, too complicated and full of bickering beaurocratics and lawyers.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Interesting language you used there Ted but anyway, I'm honestly not too sure - it's hard to construct a worldview of such things and when you do it's generally coloured by what paper you read. For what it's worth, an institution like the EU is never going to be simple with so many interested parties and 'bickering' as you call it, could also be called debate, which is integral to any democratic process.

From an outside view I still think for all its faults it's better than what we had before it. Free movement, regulation and free trade are things which the UK has benefited from. Besides that, anything to balance and check the power of governments, especially corrupt, inept and malicious ones like we have at the moment, is for me a good thing. Overall I feel that many EU rulings are made for the benefit of its citizens. This is of course why many Tories hate it, not to mention the ECHR, though that I understand that is a totally separate institution though few seem to understand the difference. And while the EU framework obviously needs to be improved, I don't think that it's current shortcomings are cause for scrapping it altogether.

Of course recent events with the ECB, Germany and Greece were pretty dubious and made me rethink my position on things, but this was more neo-liberalism 'socialism' for the rich sort of behaviour than anything else, and that's not going to go away with the EU. In a way it seems to me that the EU and various other things are being blamed for more profound problems that are inseparable from the current global system, first and foremost that power is far too centralised to a self-serving financial class and the level of inequality which follows that model. Anyway!

Incidentally, maybe it's worth mentioning that while the EU is often blamed for loss of sovereignty, which is absurd but a different debate entirely, there is very little said of the forthcoming Transatlantic Free Trade and Investment Partnership, which basically gives corporations unprecedented powers over national governments, but of course when most of the U.K. press is controlled by the like of Murdoch, The Barclay brothers, Desmond and The Rothermears, et al, it's not hard to see why. If anyone wants to read more about it without trawling the web, George Monbiot writing for the Guardian, is about the only journalist I know of who has covered it.

Lastly, if the UK leaves the EU it will probably spell the end of the Union itself. That's a rather depressing and bleak future to consider on top of everything else. It's going to be interesting to see how they word the ballot paper, and how it's portrayed by the corporate media. Even though some sadistic part of me wants to vote to leave just to see it blow up in people's faces, I'll be voting to stay - just.

The Euro is not the EU but it is a very important part of it. As a matter of fact all members of the EU must, in an indeterminate date in the future, adopt the common currency. The sole exceptions are the UK and Denmark which have opt-outs on this matter. These were the two sole countries to learn the lessons of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism fiasco. The EERM was the phase which preceded the introduction of the Euro.

But I can give one example which sumarizes it all. The EU itself. It was politically decided to join the European countries in a much tighter way than the EEC, because many feared that an united Germany would try to make war on its neighbours again. Therefore, politicians devised and created this thing, the EU, as an attempt to intertwin all European countries in such way that it would work as a deterrent to the ideas that many (the most vocals on the subject being Mrs. Thatcher and Mr. Mitterrand) feared might, some day in the future, occur in German society once more. But nobody conducted any technical studies about the feasibility of the thing, about the effective feasibility that all these countries joined together. Of course that if it had been studied properly the EU wouldn't had existed. Then, to add injury to insult, the enlargement to the east without regard to the differences between countries, peoples and societies. It was just decided that they could join and lets move forward.

So, I repeat myself. The utter disregard for reality and science is not something which occurs exceptionally in the EU. It's its basis. Its creation was politically decided without any sort of feasibility studies supporting the political decision and the EU has moved by political decision ever since.



Well, it depends from where you see it. I, for one, have always seen the implosion of the EU as a certainty. Not a matter of if but of when. From where I see it, the sooner, the better. As time passes more ressentment is created and the probabilities to salvage from the rumble, at least a little something resembling the former EEC, are reduced proportionally.

There is a far better standard of discourse in this thread then has been taking place at the other end of the HUBB pub bar - the climate change cult club.

It is possible, perhaps probable, that the EU is going to implode in any case; as was said a while ago in this thread.
Increasingly, it is more a case of "when" rather than "if".
No particular government wants to be associated with the idea that they brought down the EU if only because it is not good for the future careers of those politicians when they join big business (take a look at who Brown and Darling work for nowadays).

It follows the the current UK government wants this referendum out of the way before the real world tsunami rolls over Europe. Combine that with the potential for a collapse of a large bank - see Deutsche bank for one candidate - and the referendum becomes somewhat academic.

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Dave

There is, also, the level of "government" that comes from the UN, via international treaties (which are, therefore, considered to be binding on national governments) and other agreements that are non-binding.

No one from the general population votes these people into their posts and votes them out again.
Today, both the UK and Sweden say that a certain UN proclamation has no validity; next week, on a different matter, the message will be the opposite.

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Dave

Sorry flagging that for hyperbole!

Your logic is faulty. Ideas drive the creation of things and the practicalities are are working process. Complex institutions or political structures don't fall out of the sky intact, things like United States, The Soviet Union, even the Nation State itself evolve over time through conflict. As a secondary note, by which 'reality' and what scientific papers specifically where 'utterly' disregarded and by whom? What science are you referring to in general?



Not biased then? Either way, faulty logic here too. One day the USA, even the idea of the nation states itself will disappear and be replaced by something else, I don't see how this contributes to the debate or how it would convince anyone the EU is workable or unworkable in the present or immediate future.

Well, Napoleon also had ideas. If they were feasible or not... well, I think history already answered that.

I'm not biased against the EU. As a matter of fact I would like it to indeed work as envisaged. However that's not the reality and could never be the reality for it was utopic. As reality trumps personal beliefs I stick to reality and adjust my positioning according to reality. My personal beliefs are irrelevant.