Election winner (old hat)

[Lt Kije]

This EU thing will all come crashing down in less than 15 years...... watch this space and remember where you heard it first!

 

Not a chance

[observer]

just hope yer right Baz!

[Lt Kije]

You could always pray Obs

[observer]

non-believers can't pray!

[Bazj]

You're right Obs.... us Euro Non-Believers just pay, never mind pray!!

 

Come on Sgt.... in the time when we are in for about ?180 Billion quid of debt, justify us spending about ?46 Billion every year to be in the Euro club. There are 26 members and we are one of only 4 net contributors.....

 

That ?46 Billion would see most of our national debt wiped out in less than 5 years. Now if ever there was an incentive to quit, I've just found it!

[observer]

Come on Baz, these poor countries begging to join the EU, need our money to sort their infrastructure etc out - so they can travel here in comfort, instead of under a lorry, to sign on!

[Lt Kije]

non-believers can't pray!

 

I forgive you Obs

[Bazj]

No answer to my point I notice Sgt.... too difficult for you to justify I guess?

[observer]

don't hold your breath Baz!

[LymmParent]

Why are we net contributors? Either everyone is worse off than we are, or we have someone exceedingly dim negotiating for us? If 4 members are funding the other 22, then something's clearly a bit stinky about the system.....

[Bazj]

If 4 members are funding the other 22, then something's clearly a bit stinky about the system.....

 

well there you go then!

[Lt Kije]

Yes we are net contributors in the sense our government pays more money in than it gets back in subsidy, But we still get more out of the Eu as they are the biggest market for our exports and buyers of our banking services

[Bazj]

Yes we are net contributors in the sense our government pays more money in than it gets back in subsidy, But we still get more out of the Eu as they are the biggest market for our exports and buyers of our banking services

 

and you accuse others of telling lies and mistruths.....

 

Over the period 1999 ? 2005 UK exports to the world outside the EU grew at almost 8% a year, forty-five per cent faster than British exports to the EU, which grew at only 5.5% per year. If we look at Continental EU only (i.e. EU-24 less Ireland) the disparities in growth rates become even more striking: UK exports to the world (including Ireland) outside Continental EU grew sixty-seven per cent faster than British exports to Continental EU.

 

Outside the EU, British exports grew at a healthy pace to wealthy developed nations like the USA, Australia and Singapore (Canada and Japan being notable exceptions). They also grew at a good pace to developing nations like Russia, Turkey, China/Hong Kong, the Gulf Sheikdoms and South Africa.

 

The above is taken from the office for national statistics own data and according to their own data, if present trends continue; by 2015, with UK exports OUTSIDE the EU growing 45 per cent faster than UK exports TO the EU, the real proportion3 of the UK?s worldwide exports going to the EU in ten years? time will have dropped to 35 per cent!

 

So tell me again where the net benefit is for the UK Kije

[Lt Kije]

Can you give me the link Baz

[Bazj]

United Kingdom Balance of Payments: The Pink Book 2006: Office for National Statistics, July 2006. ISSN: 0950-7558. Free download: www.statistics.gov.uk > Browse by Theme > Select Theme > Economy > Go > More detailed topics for Economy > Balance of Payments > United Kingdom Balance of Payments: The Pink Book > Pink Book 2006

[observer]

Facts will just run off his toga Baz; like the fact that we import more from EU states than we export to them, so a net deficit in trade. The net cost of EU membership could pay off our national debt in a couple of years.

[Bazj]

Hmmm..... "it runs off like facts from a LibDems Toga......!"

 

I think you may have something there Obs!

[observer]

Well, they have a solution to the illegal invasion of this country; give an amnesty to all those "illegal" immigrants that have managed to evade the authorities for more than 10 years! So on that basis, we could clean up all the crime statistics at the same time; commit a crime more than 10 years ago and you get amnesty - sorted, in a toga wearing luvvy liberal kind of way!

[Lt Kije]

Here is another fact Obs

 

We run a defacit with most of the developed World, Seems odd you did not want to give that information. Is our deficit bigger in the Eu Countries or with America and China, because if it is bigger on the outside of the Eu, which I think it is, your point is lost

[LymmParent]

Scuse me chaps, when you've finished the fashion discussions...... In the interests of clarity, are there actual ? figures to go with the % statistics Baz quotes? Percentage figures are only a comparison worth making if the actual value of exports starts out the same.

 

For instance, if I sell togas and my togas cost ?1 each and in 2008 I sold 100 togas to the Greeks but only one toga to the USA, then in 2009 I sold 101 togas in Greece and 2 togas in the USA, I'd have increases of just 1% in the EU and 100% in the rest of the world, now wouldn't I? And if I sold an extra 50 togas in Greece and just one in the USA, I could still say that European sales growth of 50% was only half the 100% achieved elsewhere, even though the actual value of trade was 50 times as much......

 

So, we are paying ?46M a year to be in the EU - what's the balancing income and how does that compare to income from non-EU trading?

[wolfie]

Talking about toga's

 

I hear there has been a breakthrough in the toga team bus attack.

 

with over 500 shots and only 3 on target police have arrested

 

EMILE HESKEY

[inky pete]

Trade and the balance of payments has absolutely NOTHING to do with the monster which the EU has become.

 

The rest of Europe bought stuff from us before the EU was even thought of (it was called the Common Market back then), and they'd still buy stuff from us if we pulled out of the EU.

 

You don't need to surrender sovereignty and kow-tow to a foreign parliment just to trade with someone.

[Lt Kije]

This might help

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/feb/24/uk-trade-exports-imports

 

Inky

 

If you are out of the Eu , and want to trade into it, you have to pay, The Eu is a free trade zone if you are not in it you have to pay to bring things in, Our exports to the Eu would be even less competative than they are now, Did you not know this

[inky pete]

No Lt. you're wrong again.

 

The EFTA was a free trade zone. The Common Market was a free trade zone.

 

The EU is an un-democratic superstate forced onto it's citizens by corrupt politicians.

 

If we were to leave the party and the EU imposed punitive trade tariffs on us, they would also have to levy the same tariffs against all other non-member countries. The rest of the world would then impose tariffs on EU goods, and that would lead to a trade war which the EU couldn't possibly win.

 

We know it, they know it, there's no way on this earth they'd risk it.

 

They might get away with a few smaller tariffs, but since we run a deficit with the EU then we'd make more money out of them than they'd make out of us.

[Lt Kije]

The Eu is a free trade zone inky and there are tariffs for non Eu Countries