The future of Europe

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RF
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The future of Europe

Post by RF »

On 4 June this year we Brits have an election - we ''elect'' our British members of the European Parliament. At the same time all the other EU countries will also ''elect'' their MEP's.

The barrage of party political piffle starts in Britain this week. For these elections are, in my view, based on a deceit. I shall be voting for a party, the UK Independence Party, that wants Britain to withdraw from the EU. Not that issues like this will be seriously discussed.

The European Parliament purports to be the parliament of the European people. It is nothing of the sort. It represents the politicians, bureaucrats and nomenklatura that lives off the EU. One fact that is never acknowleged by our politicians is the true cost to the British taxpayer of being a member of the EU, believed to be as much as £55 billion per year, more than the cost of the Briitish Government baling out the British banking system, more than the cost of fighting economic recession.

The real future of Europe lies I believe in abolishing the dinosaur of the EU and establishing a genuine European free trade area. That is for giving real benefit to the peoples and nations of Europe, and not for the benefit of political elites whose only real concern is their own political legitimacy and the continuation of milking the taxpayers of Europe.

But in this election stuff like that isn't on the agenda.

One other feature of European elections, certainly in Britain, is that the majority of the electorate doesn't vote. And of course those who don't vote have no voice. Some democracy.
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JtD
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Re: The future of Europe

Post by JtD »

The EU is still better than having dozens of countries all doing their own BS. If I was to abandon something, I'd go for the national parliaments. That would allow the EU to leaned out a lot.
dougieo
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Re: The future of Europe

Post by dougieo »

The words "Gravy" and "Train" spring to mind whenever MSP`s(Im a Jock), MP`s and MEP`s are mentioned.

A great career move for anyone good at talking b$£%&*@t!!

and if you dont like the pay you can always vote yourself a rise, or maybe an extra weeks holiday.



I must admit I dont even know who my MEP is/was and in all fairness dont follow politics so I will stop my little rant.

Anyone know how many MEP`s the UK has by the way?
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: The future of Europe

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Not being a european (but from ancesters and with familiy there) the EU is not more than the private agenda of some very wealthy leftists that want to destroy the identity of each individual country in order to create some kind of utopian society... a one that pays for all their luxuries. In Central America once a guy came with that same idea, a union of central american states: we put him (in Costa Rica) in the corner of the Central Park and shoot the idiot! Each country is sacred!
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RF
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Re: The future of Europe

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JtD wrote:The EU is still better than having dozens of countries all doing their own BS. If I was to abandon something, I'd go for the national parliaments. That would allow the EU to leaned out a lot.
Abandoning self determination of member countries and turning their parliaments into rubber stamps is exactly what the EU is about.

International co-operation does not depend on the EU. Governments can and will co-operate with each other without the EU.

Do you really want a twenty first century version of the Austr-Hungarian Empire? I don't. And the taxpayers of Britain and Germany are paying for it.
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RF
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Re: The future of Europe

Post by RF »

dougieo wrote:
I must admit I dont even know who my MEP is/was and in all fairness dont follow politics so I will stop my little rant.

Anyone know how many MEP`s the UK has by the way?
I believe their are 59 MEP's from Britain, all elected on a party list basis and not as individuals.

Also MEP's don't represent constituencies, they represent regions - a group of them for each region.

In the English West Midlands we have seven MEP's - we hardly ever see them.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: The future of Europe

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

RF:
Do you really want a twenty first century version of the Austr-Hungarian Empire? I don't. And the taxpayers of Britain and Germany are paying for it.
And what about the French? They want to lead the damn thing, anyway...
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RF
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Re: The future of Europe

Post by RF »

Because the British taxpayer is baling out French agriculture....

The French politicians are very astute about the EU. They want to play a leading role, in a manner that suits them and their voters. In doing that they are careful to manipulate EU policy to suit their interests and override any EU directive that doesn't by simply ignoring it.

Contrast that with the British Labour and Conservative parties, who are so servile to the EU that they religously follow every EU directive no matter how damaging to British interests. The Conservatives are particulary deceitful to their own supporters and voters in this because they pretend to be ''Eurosceptic'' when, as part of the European People's Party, they are committed to the EU and Britain joining the Euro.
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JtD
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Re: The future of Europe

Post by JtD »

RF wrote: Abandoning self determination of member countries and turning their parliaments into rubber stamps is exactly what the EU is about.
It's long done. But somehow nations still refuse to see it and pay a lot of money for the powerless representatives in national parliaments. A total waste of resources.
Do you really want a twenty first century version of the Austr-Hungarian Empire? I don't. And the taxpayers of Britain and Germany are paying for it.
What I really don't want is a early 19th century Germany. I'd rather go for the USofE.
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RF
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Re: The future of Europe

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National parliaments are supposed to represent the people of those countries, not be toothless rubber stamps. As for a United States of Europe, that has already been tried several times recently, firstly by the Romans, by Napoleon Bonaparte and by Hitler. All these attempts to create one state or country in Europe have been done or tried by force and not by any means of democratic consent.
The EU is anattempt to create a one country Europe through ruling political elites, rather than by force or conquest. That doesn't mean that it is any more democratic, it is still an imposition. And it is a far greater waste of resources in having ''European institutions'' than in having national parliaments, as the EU does resemble, to take the example you give, Germany in the early nineteenth century, where the principalities are dominated by one higher authority, in that case the French Empire.
If this ''United States of Europe'' was such a good thing then why do our politicians need to lie about it? You cannot create a nation state where there is no nation. I am English first, British second, and European not at all. I was born geographically in Europe but that does not make me a European in any political sense, any more than I am a Martian.
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JtD
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Re: The future of Europe

Post by JtD »

If I trace back my family by about 10 generations I'm from all over Europe. Doesn't matter where I was born, it wasn't my decision anyway.

What I care about is not having different this, different that everywhere I go, starts out with currency, includes technical compatibility and goes right into legal issues. Why do I get fined for driving lights off in some, lights on in other countries? It makes my life a lot easier to not worry about tiny annoying bits all the time, and since I can elect the MEP's it is a democracy just like any other national parliament.
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RF
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Re: The future of Europe

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Whether you are required to drive your car during daylight with lights on should be decided at local level and not at a continental level, with a European Commission or Parliament trying to apply a one size fits all from Lappland to Malta.

MEP's are elected on the D'Hondt party list system, a form of election which is alien to Britain, which uses single non-transferable vote for its domestic elections. MEP Parties elected in Britain become part of larger groupings within the European Parliament which have no connection or loyalty to Britain. I do not call that democracy.
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RF
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Re: The future of Europe

Post by RF »

JtD wrote:.

......and since I can elect the MEP's it is a democracy just like any other national parliament.
A new book is being published, which I invite you and other forum members to read.

The title is ''Brussels laid bare'', the author is Marta Andreasen who was the chief accountant for the European Union before she was sacked for exposing alleged fraud in EU accounting practices and accountability.

The picture presented in this book is of an EU that is a bullying tyranny, far from the democracy JtD fondly believes it to be.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: The future of Europe

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

RF;

Also it would not harm to read Oriana Fallaci´s works and Mark Steyn´s ones too about the suicidal way in which Europe is going with their political correctness behaivor. Both authors, very different one from another, reach to the same conclusions. Both are widely hated by the social democrats...

Best regards,
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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JtD
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Re: The future of Europe

Post by JtD »

RF wrote:
JtD wrote:.

......and since I can elect the MEP's it is a democracy just like any other national parliament.
A new book is being published, which I invite you and other forum members to read.

The title is ''Brussels laid bare'', the author is Marta Andreasen who was the chief accountant for the European Union before she was sacked for exposing alleged fraud in EU accounting practices and accountability.

The picture presented in this book is of an EU that is a bullying tyranny, far from the democracy JtD fondly believes it to be.
You can read any book on politics that claim to be revealing. Just because you like to pick on the EU and found a book that does the same, it doesn't mean the national parliaments are any better. And before you go on waste more of my time by including me into your statements, I never said the EU was a good democracy, I only said it was the same as all the others. If you think the members of national parliaments actually represent the voters in their actions and decisions, I can't help it but have to laugh into your face.
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