Sunday 30 December 2012

The Marshalling Of Pro EU Forces Continues Apace

Autonomous Mind picks up on an "outrageous lie" by Andrew Gilligan in the Telegragh in defence of our membership of the EU, and in the same paper we have further evidence of the Telegraph setting out the pro-EU case with another scaremongering story:
Senior banking and business figures spoken to by The Sunday Telegraph have revealed growing disquiet at Government plans for a referendum where one option could be an exit from the EU.
One senior banking executive said: “The whole issue has the potential to be very destabilising for the City.
And so on and so forth, cue lots of reasons why we shouldn't leave. But further down the piece we get this rather confusing gem on why the Norway solution is not appropriate:
“Britain can never become a Switzerland or Norway,” the executive said, referring to arguments that the UK could have a trade agreement with the EU similar to those two countries.
“They are very small by comparison and have completely different economies.”
But the UK does have the same trade agreement as Norway already, by virtue of the fact we are both in the Single Market - Norway by being a member of the EEA only. So what's he saying? Because Norway is small and has a different economy then the Single Market which is appropriate for them is not for us? In effect arguing for our complete exit. Such is the desperation to keep us in the arguements seem to be getting less coherent.

But what it does reveal is the amount of significant groundwork being prepared to keep us in even though a referendum is still likely to be years away yet. If the eurosceptic movement, and Ukip, doesn't up its game quickly then we are going to lose, and lose heavily.

8 comments:

  1. TBF,

    This is all completely expected.

    One side will try to terrify us, and the other will try to pacify us. The argument (like all arguments) will be extreme.

    The City forgets that it was built and established as a world financial leader long before the EU nightmare started. It will prosper. It will and must adapt, just as it always has done.

    We will roll with the punches and hit them back.

    CR.

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  2. @Captain Ranty Agreed it is to completely expected from the pro-EU camp, what's frustrating is the lack co-ordination or strategy is also sadly to be expected from the Eurosceptic camp.

    We will be completely outgunned, hitting them back is going to be much harder than it looks, not made easier by the tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot.

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  3. I said before, the prompt for all this is Cameron's coming speech.

    Van Rompuy etc are telling him he's got to be definite and declare for in otherwise unspeakable horror will descend on the UK.

    The DT in general are supporting his heroic fence sitting.

    Basically, he can't declare one way or the other, so it's going to be a damp squib. There'll be some promise about what happens in the unlikely event of a Tory win in the next GE.

    My view is that in with all it implies, the Euro, even fewer immigration controls etc, should be attacked and the half-way house approach attacked as nonsense - various eurocrats are helping nicely with that.

    Th big danger has always been the in and reform crap.

    It only leaves a discussion about how we get out.

    Yes it's a shame that the withdrawalists don't have a coordinated campaign with decent research.

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  4. @Cosmic, You're right, Cameron's speech is due 15th January...long been delayed. The delay indicates he can't quite work out how to fudge it successfully enough. But certainly there is a co-ordinated effort in the meantime to try to help him via the media.

    Unless Cameron comes up with something amazing, then a damp squib it is going to be. He can't shake off that 'cast iron' tag

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  5. Cameron's got the same problem the Tories have always had and which events such as the Euro crisis and uncontrolled immigration are making worse.

    If they declared honestly what their position was on 'Europe', the Conservative Party would break up.

    The comfortable fantasy of a mythical compromise has allowed them to jolly everyone along. Time's running out for it, but it should do them until the next GE. It would be somewhat traumatic to let it go, especially with rumours of defections to UKIP, which shows things are getting pretty bad.

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  6. Perhaps the Barclays brothers have done very well out of the EU.

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  7. As I was reading those pieces in Telegraph yesterday, notably the Gilligan piece did not accept comments, I was thinking of my lukewarm friend in green...

    ...How long I thought, would it take for the hackles to be raised?

    This long.

    I loved the piece about Cameron's old school friends that are now running banks... All motivated to tell us just how dangerous for our "league position" it would be if we left the EU...

    ...Since we have been members, we have gone second in terms of world economic power, to (is it?) sixth...

    ...So obviously the current strategy is not working.

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  8. @right_writes "lukewarm"? I'll have you know it's bloody hot in here ;-)

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