Fed up with the hyperbole of the referendum?

[Jacob]

I've been reading the Bernard Connolly book.
it's unreadable. it's just a long rant against the EU.
It reminds me of climate change sceptic rants - they can't argue against the science so they have to attempt to undermine the whole thing as an evil plot with everybody involved having cunning devious alternative agendas.

39 Steps meets Riddle of the Sands plus Fu Manchu, Goldfinger, etc etc

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It's just a long rant against the EU? "The Rotten Heart of Europe" - What did you expect - paeans?

 

[Jake]

The EU does determine some taxation, but not (yet) income tax for ordinary people.

There is a special, lower income tax rate for EU politicians and bureaucrats associated with Brussels (flat 20%?), also tax-free shopping, along the lines of the old Soviet system for the Nomenclatura.

Like most international organisations or supranational organisations, they get immunity from domestic (Belgian) tax except most are just plain tax exempt. Eurocrats pay a variable rate up to 45% to the EU budget.

The EU determines the classes of goods to which VAT applies. There is also the ratchet, whereby a class of goods previously tax-free is taxed forever, after it has started to be taxed by a national government. So under the EU it is not possible to tax something for a short time and then return it to VAT-exempt status. In the UK there is a workaround: zero-rated categories of goods. These are technically VAT-rated (just at zero), to get round the rules.I think (but am not sure!) that the introduction of insurance premium tax, energy supply taxes and those on some foodstuffs previously tax-exempt, were as a result of EU directives.

There are some rules around VAT categories yes, because otherwise that could be used to distort the market.

What none of this has anything to do with is whether Romanians can avoid paying UK income tax which if true (cba to look it up) would have to be the result of a domestic govt decision.

 

[Jacob]

It's just a long rant against the EU? "The Rotten Heart of Europe" - What did you expect - paeans?

I hoped for a carefully set out and reasoned argument!
TBH I didn't get very far - the very long ranting intro was enough.

 

[lurker]

It's just a long rant against the EU? "The Rotten Heart of Europe" - What did you expect - paeans?

I hoped for a carefully set out and reasoned argument!
TBH I didn't get very far - the very long ranting intro was enough.

Only to be expected
You have made your mind up (nothing wrong with that by the way!)
Also you have "form" in having a unbending opinion that you are always right (nothing wrong with that either)
And you go on and on and on :roll:

 

[Eric The Viking]

It's just a long rant against the EU? "The Rotten Heart of Europe" - What did you expect - paeans?

I hoped for a carefully set out and reasoned argument!
TBH I didn't get very far - the very long ranting intro was enough.

I agree that is not an easy read. But that has a lot to do with the level of detail, and the historical analysis, which is important.

What Connolly lays bare, is the political, quasi-Fascist nature of The Project. At the time he wrote, it was occult, as the proponents were pushing an "economic" argument for the Single Currency.

Obviously, there isn't one (there never was), but the Euro persists, as without it there will be no European state. With hindsight, "Black Wednesday" was a cheap price to pay for escape.

 

[Jacob]

It's just a long rant against the EU? "The Rotten Heart of Europe" - What did you expect - paeans?

I hoped for a carefully set out and reasoned argument!
TBH I didn't get very far - the very long ranting intro was enough.

I agree that is not an easy read. But that has a lot to do with the level of detail, and the historical analysis, which is important.

What Connolly lays bare, is the political, quasi-Fascist nature of The Project. At the time he wrote, it was occult, as the proponents were pushing an "economic" argument for the Single Currency.

Obviously, there isn't one (there never was), but the Euro persists, as without it there will be no European state. With hindsight, "Black Wednesday" was a cheap price to pay for escape.

But reading between the lines of the anti polemic ("occult", "quasi Fascist" et al) there actually are good simple economic arguments for the single currency, and, of course, arguments against.
They don't get heard when someone is shouting and tub thumping, Connolly style.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Jacob - try Europe on 387Million Euros a day, if you find Connolly depressing. I've yet to hear of anyone publishing a book about the good points of the EU ... mind, it would probably go in the same category as the Giant Book of Famous Belgians and the Giant Book of Italian War Heros.

 

[RobinBHM]

I use to think Tony Blair was keen on joining the Euro, Im glad it never happened.

I hope that the problems with Greece, Portugal and Spain will stop the Euro zone expanding any more.

As you say, Black Wednesday was a cheap price to pay.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I agree that is not an easy read. But that has a lot to do with the level of detail, and the historical analysis, which is important.

What Connolly lays bare, is the political, quasi-Fascist nature of The Project. At the time he wrote, it was occult, as the proponents were pushing an "economic" argument for the Single Currency.

Obviously, there isn't one (there never was), but the Euro persists, as without it there will be no European state. With hindsight, "Black Wednesday" was a cheap price to pay for escape.

But reading between the lines of the anti polemic ("occult", "quasi Fascist" et al) there actually are good simple economic arguments for the single currency, and, of course, arguments against.
They don't get heard when someone is shouting and tub thumping, Connolly style.

Occult means 'hidden'. The essence of Fascist ideology was "we know what's best for all of you, don't question it, just do it.". There are political arguments for the Euro, but no economic ones (that I know of, that stand up to scrutiny).

That latter was the whole point of Connolly's book. It is a detailed, well researched account of the occult single currency campaign and the associated politics.

 

[Jacob]

I agree that is not an easy read. But that has a lot to do with the level of detail, and the historical analysis, which is important.

What Connolly lays bare, is the political, quasi-Fascist nature of The Project. At the time he wrote, it was occult, as the proponents were pushing an "economic" argument for the Single Currency.

Obviously, there isn't one (there never was), but the Euro persists, as without it there will be no European state. With hindsight, "Black Wednesday" was a cheap price to pay for escape.

But reading between the lines of the anti polemic ("occult", "quasi Fascist" et al) there actually are good simple economic arguments for the single currency, and, of course, arguments against.
They don't get heard when someone is shouting and tub thumping, Connolly style.

Occult means 'hidden'. The essence of Fascist ideology was "we know what's best for all of you, don't question it, just do it.". There are political arguments for the Euro, but no economic ones (that I know of, that stand up to scrutiny).

That latter was the whole point of Connolly's book. It is a detailed, well researched account of the occult single currency campaign and the associated politics.

"Hidden" means hidden. "Occult" also means hidden but in a rhetorical kind of way with a hint of the unusual.
"Fascist" means far more than just "totalitarian". Emotive words get used when rational arguments are weak.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I use to think Tony Blair was keen on joining the Euro, Im glad it never happened.

In his now-infamous election address of 1983, Blair actually proposed leaving the EU.

I find it disturbing that LESC seem to have been muzzled by Corbyn during this campaign, but then they have been marginalized since the era of Kinnock.

E.

 

[Eric The Viking]

"Hidden" means hidden. "Occult" also means hidden but in a rhetorical kind of way with a hint of the unusual.
"Fascist" means far more than just "totalitarian". Emotive words get used when rational arguments are weak.

Well, I'd have said (and my intended usage was) that occult meant 'hidden, with an agenda'.

'Fascist' remains entirely appropriate - Google some of the early EEC protagonists' backgrounds. As Nazism, Fascism was the 'strange' child of largely Left-wing ideologies, which is one reason why Mussolini and Hitler made common cause so easily.

I'll try to be less 'occult' myself in future -- it's obviously confusing.

 

[Jacob]

It's not confusing - it's rhetorical.
If I can't find my socks I don't say "they are occult".

The weakness of the Brexit argument is that it seems to be wholly rhetorical.

Nazism and fascism weren't left wing. I know "National Socialist" contains the word "socialist" but it means something entirely different when talking about, say, Labour party socialism.
This is why rhetoric is not a good basis for decision making. Nazism was extremely rhetorical but it wasn't socialist.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If I can't find my socks I don't say "they are occult". No, nor do I . I say they're lost.

 

[Eric The Viking]

It's not confusing - it's rhetorical.
If I can't find my socks I don't say "they are occult".

I do - I blame the sock gnome.

But seriously...

Nazism and fascism weren't left wing. I know "National Socialist" contains the word "socialist" but it means something entirely different when talking about, say, Labour party socialism.
This is why rhetoric is not a good basis for decision making. Nazism was extremely rhetorical but it wasn't socialist.

... I refer you to Götz Aly's excellent litle book, "Hitler's Beneficiaries"

It's ironic though, that you suggest the pro-independence arguments are purely rhetorical.

You might want to look at Tim Congdon's stuff for macroeconomic arguments against being members of the EU: they exist, with cogency and detail. I concede my own are political, but they are not merely rhetorical, and I don't come at this from a merely Tory, right-wing perspective either (see LESC, above).

I am interested in C20th political history, as I find it it informs the present. Everything we are, do, and debate in the political arena is based on what has gone before, and things are NOT merely what we want them to be. People do declare their motives too, including the protagonists in the EU (if you care to look for that).

Forty years -- as in 'from the outset of our EU membership' -- do not appear to have achieved any significant reforms. Einstein famously stated that the definition of madness is to repeat an experiment expecting a different outcome.

But, as I seem to have awakened Godwin's ghost (again - sorry!), I'd better butt-out here.

E.

 

[RogerS]

One aspect that seems to be overlooked is that rather than spend the money locally to boost the UK economy, migrants send back to their home countries £11bn per year. [Source: International Fund for Agricultural Development. A UN agency based in Rome]. While I can understand why they are doing this, I'd much rather that money stay here and boost our local economies.

Good idea.
So a Brit working in Germany for example, could email home and say sorry dear I can't send you any cash the EU doesn't allow it you'll just have to sign on or take to the streets.
Then he'd have to spend it all somehow (wild nightlife, restaurants, massage parlours?) and arrive home with nothing but the Ryanair allowance of 10kg of Bratwurst and some bottles of Schnapps tucked about in his clothing

Any more good ideas Roger, or is that it for the time being? :lol: :lol:

Now you're just being silly again and ignoring the point as per usual. Never mind. The fact that you are voting In is the best argument I have seen for voting OUT !!

 

[woodpig]

The fact that you are voting In is the best argument I have seen for voting OUT !!

I think you're on to something there. He's probably increased the ukworkshop Brexit vote considerably! :lol:

 

[devonwoody]

We posted our postal vote today, so decision was made.

 

[woodpig]

I saw the Grey Man, John major on TV the other day and he sounded just as stupid as when he got kicked out as PM. I do wish these has beens would butt out.