Out, out, out. Trade with them. Marry them. Play football against them. But let's not be ruled by them
As an 18 year old in 1990 attending my first economics lecture i learnt that you can't have monetary union without political union. You need taxpayers in France or Germany or wherever to vote in favour of sending their money to support other nations. And that is not how they feel. Remember that despite the imf saying that greece needs debt write offs, all that is happening is that the existing debt just piles up
I was on a foreign exchange desk witnessing the chaos of the exchange rate mechanism in 1992 as a summer intern. When the pound collapsed, sweden had 500 per cent interest rates, uk mortgage rates were 15 per cent, the Danes has the good sense to vote no then won the European footy championship etc etc
The euro and the current ever closer union aspects of the eu are totally flawed. Thank god we are not in the euro right now. The greeks have essentially lost the sovereignty of their own country now. Contrast with iceland that defaulted on its debt in 2008 and is still a democratic country
The eu is a farce. Not in out national interest to be in it, especially the interests of the little people, the voters who actually pay their taxes, to be in it. The EU economies are going nowhere whilst the world economy around us is growing fast. These non eu countries actually do stuff like make steel, smelt aluminium when uk plants close down as the electricity and carbon taxes here are so high that it is no longer viable to produce these goods
I have never had the opportunity to express a vote on whether i want to be governed by angela merkel and a load of unelected foreign bureaucrats. After UK politicians of all colours lying to us, repeatedly, election after election, decade after decade, about getting a referendum, we might now finally get one
The ruling elite is trying frantically to defend the eu. It lines all their pockets. Our taxes fund eu propaganda about staying in. The uk government wants to breach the traditional purdah rules that apply in major votes like this so that the civil service can use our taxes promote the benefits of eu membership, the uk government tried to present a biased question in the referendum but faced a backbench rebellion so is now seemingly going to present a fair one
And yes, i am married to a foreigner. But that does not mean i want her nation's unelected representatives running my country and setting the majority of its laws
Vote pinball
