EU In or out

[Psyxologos]

 

Fair enough.

 

I`m sure that the EU has brought in beneficial laws as well as the stupid ones. However that doesn`t change the fact that all of these laws are forced upon us with no recourse for us to say "No" if we don`t want them.

I am not exactly clear on how we can say no to a law voted by Westminster either. Unless we could have direct democracy (we get a say on every bit of legislation the state proposes or we propose our own legislation), which we cannot; I do not see how this would ever be possible. As for the laws that originate in the EU, of course the Parliament gets a say. every law, directive etc has to be voted by the majority of MP in order to become uk law.

[Danger-Mouse]

I am not exactly clear on how we can say no to a law voted by Westminster either. Unless we could have direct democracy (we get a say on every bit of legislation the state proposes or we propose our own legislation), which we cannot; I do not see how this would ever be possible. As for the laws that originate in the EU, of course the Parliament gets a say. every law, directive etc has to be voted by the majority of MP in order to become uk law.

 

We can`t say no to laws voted on by Westminster but they are our democratically elected government. However we can now directly petition for subjects to be discussed in Parliament. All that needs is a number of online signatures.

 

You`re incorrect. Certain types of EU decisions are binding.

 

The legal basis for the enactment of regulations is Article 288 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (formerly Article 249 TEC).

Article 288

To exercise the Union's competences, the institutions shall adopt regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions.

A regulation shall have general application. It shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

A directive shall be binding, as to the result to be achieved, upon each Member State to which it is addressed, but shall leave to the national authorities the choice of form and methods.

A decision shall be binding in its entirety upon those to whom it is addressed.

Recommendations and opinions shall have no binding force.

 

Regulations are in some sense equivalent to "Acts of Parliament", in the sense that what they say is law and they do not need to be mediated into national law by means of implementing measures. As such, regulations constitute one of the most powerful forms of European Union law and a great deal of care is required in their drafting and formulation.

When a regulation comes into force, it overrides all national laws dealing with the same subject matter and subsequent national legislation must be consistent with and made in the light of the regulation.

[Rewulf]

 

If you are talking about Gove, I honestly would not take anything he says seriously. He and hunt are just about the most corrupt politicians amongst a sea of corruption. Which brings me to another issue. Looking at who fronts the 'outsiders' (Galloway, farce, Gove, IDS) one could reasonably say that it is as if they are trying to put people off from voting out. We are talking about the creme de la creme of vomit...

 

Ah ,I see.

If someone doesnt agree with your school of thought,then they are stupid,racist or now, corrupt?

Personally I cant stand Galloway,I dont know anyone who does.

But he is hardly the figurehead of the outers.

Its Ok quoting from various leftie websites and papers how silly and misguided the out camp is,how we dont know whats good for us.

You probably visualise Alf Garnett types with knotted hankies,with not a degree between them.

Well trust me ,its not like that.

 

The 'creme de la creme of vomit ' ,really ?

Why the 'bile'?

Its about time the 'ins' stopped trying to discredit the opposition and put a credible case forward for staying in.

Because at the moment all I am hearing is people trying to make the outs look bad.

And it isnt working.

[grrclark]

 

I respect your sentiment, although I disagree on a very crucial, in my opinion, point. It is the membership of the uk to the European family that allows us to enjoy some of the most fair laws -for example- in employment (the European working directive [not a law, but works like one], maternity/paternity leave); the environment and many other areas of our life. Of course there have been some trivial, may I say mistaken, or even plain stupid laws,directives or what have you coming from the EU, but by far, the legislative influence to your and my life has been very positive, although we might not know that these laws came from there. I do not agree with the idea that these laws *might* have come along from uk lawmakers. My reason for saying this is that these laws I mentioned for example, pre existed in other European countries and the uk simply adopted them. The same goes with many uk laws that became EU law. A simple explanation is that the EU laws, directives etc are a collection of these laws that all member states together consider to be working well and therefore should be adopted; along with some new legislation developed in collaboration.

I think that this post is fairly disingenuous, but I honestly don't believe that it is intended to be.

 

As much as anything else our opinion on what constitutes a fair law and what constitutes silly law is really determined by the prevailing social rhetoric and during the time of economic recession and subsequent austerity we have had a disproportionately loud volume about 'fairness'. What that 'fairness' argument has been focussed around is wealth equality and because successful business people tend to have greater wealth then somehow that has equated to them being unfair, this then further amplifies into the sort of language used in chrisjh post " i really like the fact we have protection from the sort of people (most on the leave band wagon) who would turn the clock back and have children working in the mines scrap the NHS and turn the UK into some 3rd world state forn the working man & woman," which i regret to say is sadly nothing other than complete and utter unthinking tripe.

 

The Magna Carta was the basis for the EU Human Rights act, we enshrined in law 800 years ago the rights for the common man, through the industrial revolution we transformed working conditions for the ordinary men and women, 250 years ago William Wilberforce recognised the abuse of the slave trade and campaigned for the abolition of that. Our history is punctuated all through the timeline of how we recognise when the balance has gone wrong and we make change to address that.

 

Of course there are times when the balance is wrong and that falls both ways, there are some conditions now for an employer that are simply unfair. There does have to be a balance, but a balance can only really be found where the social demographic is already in reasonable balance, otherwise it becomes far too artificial and that is what the EU is trying to achieve.

 

My last business had factories throughout Europe and the differences were really quite remarkable in how we had to approach employment in each territory.

 

Sweden was an utter nightmare for employee rights,we acquired two factories there through purchasing another organisation, one of the factories was losing money hand over fist and dragging down the whole organisation. Instead of being able to take reasonable measures to cut out the loss making function and consolidate in the profitable factory and keep a few hundred people in work we essentially had to keep everyone on the books for 12 months which was not sustainable so every job was lost. All because of Swedish employment protection laws that they want harmonised within the EU to that same level. In trying to protect less than 20% of the total workforce for 12 months they cost 100% of the workforce their jobs.

 

Poland had more employees from the Ukraine than Poland and one of our English factories had more Polish employees than English. Poland actually behaved in a similar manner to the UK, lower cost base, but not excessively so in Warsaw at least. Their profitability had a very gradual decline despite an increase in revenues over around 10 years as the country gradually worked its way towards parity with the expectation of standards of living as western Europe. That experience differs across the country, but in the industrialised areas the performance of their companies are decreasing due to EU harmonisation and employee expectations.

 

Spain were markedly different in that they spent money like it was going out of fashion, the business that we acquired there had the most stunning facilities paid for out of huge government subsidy in the early 2000's, but were the most hideously inefficient in terms of their working practices and trying to introduce change was a nightmare. As the global squeeze really started to be felt Spain had to go through massive change in order to try and keep that business going, but because they were so reticent to accept that level of change until they absolutely had to the level of pain felt was significant. A lot like the country in general.

 

Germany were just expensive, in ten years they never really made any meaningful profit, simply breaking even. Competing in an increasingly global market the cost base in Germany was simply too high, even moving to the former eastern German area where costs were around 30% less was still a marginal case. The average length of service was in the high teens for the German workforce and the longer they work the higher the costs climb. Germany is embracing migrant workers as they have to otherwise they will implode. The country is also working very hard to diminish the power of workers councils as they are hamstrung by them.

 

Romania was a remarkable contrast, very low cost base but absolutely shocking quality as the underlying work value system is very different. They very much have a 'make do and mend' type of mindset which is fine in itself, but on a global stage with global brands that just does not work. 30 mins from our factory there were still donkeys pulling carts as the main form of transport. The disparity from the relative wealth of Bucharest to the regional provinces is massive. Never have I seen so many wild dogs roaming the streets either.

 

The point of that ramble is to illustrate that when you have such a marked difference between that little handful of countries in a business with strong leadership how on earth can we really expect EU harmonisation to work? The differences in culture and society between the EU countries is massive and to think that we can effectively level that so we are a single super union is utter nonsense.

 

The experience on a wider global basis was even more marked, one factory in South Africa was closed for 2 days until a witch doctor could remove the curse cast by a disgruntled worker! Working in Moscow meant knowing what palms to grease and it was identical in Istanbul. Working in the US was an exercise in politics and massaging egos.

 

Although i'm slightly biased the most efficient and effective operating part of our global business was the UK, despite having only around 30% of total revenues the UK fronted up around 60% of total profit. The reason that the UK was so good was because of our culture and the inherent talent of the UK workforce. We know business very well and given the right environment and direction we absolutely can thrive.

 

My experience of running a global business is that the UK is top of the tree, we do have a high cost base so in some types of work we cannot be cost competitive, but we are innovative, adaptive and progressive, we punch way above our weight all the time. The UK is brilliant, but we have a terrible habit of forgetting that and talking ourselves down.

 

There is no way we can change the other EU states to be the same as us, it would be like trying to water the sahara or heat the poles. The only thing that can possibly happen in an ever expending EU is that we dilute our values and expectations so that we drop to the level of the rest.

Edited February 25, 2016 by grrclark

[Rewulf]

 

 

Brilliant post ,as usual Grr.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Rewulf

[UKPoacher]

 

I respect your sentiment, although I disagree on a very crucial, in my opinion, point. It is the membership of the uk to the European family that allows us to enjoy some of the most fair laws -for example- in employment (the European working directive [not a law, but works like one], maternity/paternity leave); the environment and many other areas of our life. Of course there have been some trivial, may I say mistaken, or even plain stupid laws,directives or what have you coming from the EU, but by far, the legislative influence to your and my life has been very positive, although we might not know that these laws came from there. I do not agree with the idea that these laws *might* have come along from uk lawmakers. My reason for saying this is that these laws I mentioned for example, pre existed in other European countries and the uk simply adopted them. The same goes with many uk laws that became EU law. A simple explanation is that the EU laws, directives etc are a collection of these laws that all member states together consider to be working well and therefore should be adopted; along with some new legislation developed in collaboration.

You might think that these are fair laws. Many business leaders would disagree with you and from my own lowly perspective in the police service I saw the maternity leave and family friendly shifts exploited beyond belief. Back to back maternity leave followed by an unstoppable demand for light duties whilst still on full pay for ten years or more. My wife's former employer has a staff of around 40 females so has to continually arrange maternity cover sometimes to the very last day when he subsequently receives a resignation letter. Who pays for all these fair laws? The public of course.

 

And to labour my point yet again; the EU should not have the right to meddle in UK employment legislation. That is for elected members of Parliament to arrange. Full stop!

[Scully]

I think that this post is fairly disingenuous, but I honestly don't believe that it is intended to be.

 

As much as anything else our opinion on what constitutes a fair law and what constitutes silly law is really determined by the prevailing social rhetoric and during the time of economic recession and subsequent austerity we have had a disproportionately loud volume about 'fairness'. What that 'fairness' argument has been focussed around is wealth equality and because successful business people tend to have greater wealth then somehow that has equated to them being unfair, this then further amplifies into the sort of language used in chrisjh post " i really like the fact we have protection from the sort of people (most on the leave band wagon) who would turn the clock back and have children working in the mines scrap the NHS and turn the UK into some 3rd world state forn the working man & woman," which i regret to say is sadly nothing other than complete and utter unthinking tripe.

 

The Magna Carta was the basis for the EU Human Rights act, we enshrined in law 800 years ago the rights for the common man, through the industrial revolution we transformed working conditions for the ordinary men and women, 250 years ago William Wilberforce recognised the abuse of the slave trade and campaigned for the abolition of that. Our history is punctuated all through the timeline of how we recognise when the balance has gone wrong and we make change to address that.

 

Of course there are times when the balance is wrong and that falls both ways, there are some conditions now for an employer that are simply unfair. There does have to be a balance, but a balance can only really be found where the social demographic is already in reasonable balance, otherwise it becomes far too artificial and that is what the EU is trying to achieve.

 

My last business had factories throughout Europe and the differences were really quite remarkable in how we had to approach employment in each territory.

 

Sweden was an utter nightmare for employee rights,we acquired two factories there through purchasing another organisation, one of the factories was losing money hand over fist and dragging down the whole organisation. Instead of being able to take reasonable measures to cut out the loss making function and consolidate in the profitable factory and keep a few hundred people in work we essentially had to keep everyone on the books for 12 months which was not sustainable so every job was lost. All because of Swedish employment protection laws that they want harmonised within the EU to that same level. In trying to protect less than 20% of the total workforce for 12 months they cost 100% of the workforce their jobs.

 

Poland had more employees from the Ukraine than Poland and one of our English factories had more Polish employees than English. Poland actually behaved in a similar manner to the UK, lower cost base, but not excessively so in Warsaw at least. Their profitability had a very gradual decline despite an increase in revenues over around 10 years as the country gradually worked its way towards parity with the expectation of standards of living as western Europe. That experience differs across the country, but in the industrialised areas the performance of their companies are decreasing due to EU harmonisation and employee expectations.

 

Spain were markedly different in that they spent money like it was going out of fashion, the business that we acquired there had the most stunning facilities paid for out of huge government subsidy in the early 2000's, but were the most hideously inefficient in terms of their working practices and trying to introduce change was a nightmare. As the global squeeze really started to be felt Spain had to go through massive change in order to try and keep that business going, but because they were so reticent to accept that level of change until they absolutely had to the level of pain felt was significant. A lot like the country in general.

 

Germany were just expensive, in ten years they never really made any meaningful profit, simply breaking even. Competing in an increasingly global market the cost base in Germany was simply too high, even moving to the former eastern German area where costs were around 30% less was still a marginal case. The average length of service was in the high teens for the German workforce and the longer they work the higher the costs climb. Germany is embracing migrant workers as they have to otherwise they will implode. The country is also working very hard to diminish the power of workers councils as they are hamstrung by them.

 

Romania was a remarkable contrast, very low cost base but absolutely shocking quality as the underlying work value system is very different. They very much have a 'make do and mend' type of mindset which is fine in itself, but on a global stage with global brands that just does not work. 30 mins from our factory there were still donkeys pulling carts as the main form of transport. The disparity from the relative wealth of Bucharest to the regional provinces is massive. Never have I seen so many wild dogs roaming the streets either.

 

The point of that ramble is to illustrate that when you have such a marked difference between that little handful of countries in a business with strong leadership how on earth can we really expect EU harmonisation to work? The differences in culture and society between the EU countries is massive and to think that we can effectively level that so we are a single super union is utter nonsense.

 

The experience on a wider global basis was even more marked, one factory in South Africa was closed for 2 days until a witch doctor could remove the curse cast by a disgruntled worker! Working in Moscow meant knowing what palms to grease and it was identical in Istanbul. Working in the US was an exercise in politics and massaging egos.

 

Although i'm slightly biased the most efficient and effective operating part of our global business was the UK, despite having only around 30% of total revenues the UK fronted up around 60% of total profit. The reason that the UK was so good was because of our culture and the inherent talent of the UK workforce. We know business very well and given the right environment and direction we absolutely can thrive.

 

My experience of running a global business is that the UK is top of the tree, we do have a high cost base so in some types of work we cannot be cost competitive, but we are innovative, adaptive and progressive, we punch way above our weight all the time. The UK is brilliant, but we have a terrible habit of forgetting that and talking ourselves down.

 

There is no way we can change the other EU states to be the same as us, it would be like trying to water the sahara or heat the poles. The only thing that can possibly happen in an ever expending EU is that we dilute our values and expectations so that we drop to the level of the rest.

Was just about to say that myself.😇

Superb post grr.

[Danger-Mouse]

Was just about to say that myself. lol

Superb post grr. +1

 

I wanted to say something about the differences between the member states but nothing I could have said would have matched that post.

[SneakyD]

I am not exactly clear on how we can say no to a law voted by Westminster either.

You get say say by voting against the party that proposed or introduced the law or a, and for the party that will repeal or oppose the introduction of the law. This is not possible with the European Commission.

 

A good example is this referendum itself, more people voted for the Conservative party that promised the referendum than the Labour party which refused the referendum, and therefore there is a referendum, democracy in its most fundamental form.

[SneakyD]

Thank you grrclark for taking the time to make such a long post sharing some of your experiences, it is very much appreciated. Regardless which side of the debate people are on, I believe personal insights such as these are worth having.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

To back Grahams lengthy explanation up have a look at this;

 

 

http://www.daviddavismp.com/david-davis-speech-on-brexit-at-the-institute-of-chartered-engineers/

 

 

David Davis telling it like it is.

[12gauge82]

I'm sick of hearing about the "UK's lazy workers" and how we can't go it alone, I don't know about everyone else on here but I work damn hard and so does everyone else I personally know, its the minority who abuse the benefits systems that seem work shy to me and maybe if we get out of EU we can pass some sensible laws and sort them out to, I don't see the french, Spanish etc working an average over 40hrs a week. I just hope and pray that the sheepeople of the UK arent fooled into staying, i think anyone who doesnt own a multi million pound buisness employing hundruds/thousands of people at minimum wage will be no worse off and probablly be alot better off if we get out.

[rodp]

The eu as a harmonized state cannot, and will not, ever exist. The reasons why don't need all this financial talk, nor the different work ethic models, it's really boils down to something a little simpler. Were you "best mates" with all your class at school, did you play with them all after school? No?

You picked a few that you really got on with and stuck by them through thick and thin. Same with the eu, they want us to be best buddys with whoever they let in ..................... and it ain't gonna happen.

 

Lets be fair here, we're just never going to get on with a lot of the other countries for whatever reason, whether we see them as lazy good for nothings or semi illiterate third world dumbasses. It can never work, never could. A lot hate and despise us, as we do them. Fact!!

[UKPoacher]

I question to grrclark;

 

First thank you for taking the time to explain your views.

 

Now the question; What do you think about the harmonisation of employment laws brought about by the EU, as championed by the likes of Psyxologos, with the 'elephant in the room' caveat that there is no harmonisation on minimum wages?

 

For example in Bulgaria the minimum monthly wage is €215 whereas in the UK it is €1398.

 

In my opinion, based on nothing more than common sense; I think it is total madness to enforce a common currency with no exchange rage mechanism, between member countries and a common financial policy when there is such a vast difference between the rates of pay. But I would like to hear a businessman's view.

[Danger-Mouse]

To back Grahams lengthy explanation up have a look at this;

 

 

http://www.daviddavismp.com/david-davis-speech-on-brexit-at-the-institute-of-chartered-engineers/

 

 

David Davis telling it like it is.

 

Thanks for posting that.

[rodp]

I question to grrclark;

 

First thank you for taking the time to explain your views.

 

Now the question; What do you think about the harmonisation of employment laws brought about by the EU, as championed by the likes of Psyxologos, with the 'elephant in the room' caveat that there is no harmonisation on minimum wages?

 

For example in Bulgaria the minimum monthly wage is €215 whereas in the UK it is €1398.

 

In my opinion, based on nothing more than common sense; I think it is total madness to enforce a common currency with no exchange rage mechanism, between member countries and a common financial policy when there is such a vast difference between the rates of pay. But I would like to hear a businessman's view.

Hmm Anyone know to any Bulgarians after work ?

[grrclark]

I question to grrclark;

 

First thank you for taking the time to explain your views.

 

Now the question; What do you think about the harmonisation of employment laws brought about by the EU, as championed by the likes of Psyxologos, with the 'elephant in the room' caveat that there is no harmonisation on minimum wages?

 

For example in Bulgaria the minimum monthly wage is €215 whereas in the UK it is €1398.

 

In my opinion, based on nothing more than common sense; I think it is total madness to enforce a common currency with no exchange rage mechanism, between member countries and a common financial policy when there is such a vast difference between the rates of pay. But I would like to hear a businessman's view.

My opinion is the same as yours, I cannot understand how we can have any sort of parity when the differences are so marked.

 

Forgetting the wider EU and just considering the UK, or even just considering England there are significant differences as you go around the regions. In a single country that speaks the same language, has the same government and broadly has the same cultural identity across the board there are huge divides in terms of both economic performance and social and political outlook.

 

You have people who sell a 2 bed ex council flat in London or parts of the home counties and they can buy a bloody great castle in Yorkshire or Northumberland.

 

One of the key manifesto points of this government was to establish the northern powerhouse to try and bring a balance and achieve some harmony in our domestic economy; the economic value of the city of London is greater than that of the next 5 largest English cities combined.

 

If we are struggling to achieve parity in one country, so much so that it is one of the single largest issues of this government, then how on earth could we ever expect to achieve parity between the desperately basic rural provinces of Romania and Bulgaria and the super cities of London, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, etc?

 

As a progressive capitalist single economy we struggle to bridge the gap within our little island, we are seeing increasing argument for a move towards regional federalism in the UK because we increasingly believe that a single central government cannot serve all parts equally well, yet there are those who think that we can achieve that on the European scale with all the attendant differences in political ideology, culture, religion, social outlook, historical grievance, etc.

 

Taking the corner of mainland Europe you stay in there are differences in cultural outlook and social history by those that consider themselves more Flemish than Dutch or Belgian. They speak 7 languages in Switzerland and each canton have a slightly different cultural identity, some would rather be Italian and some French. In Denmark those that stay on the islands of Sealand or Fyn consider themselves more Danish than those who live on the Jutland peninsula. In Italy the southern agricultural regions are genuinely 3rd world in their development, yet the industrialised north is very much 1st world.

 

These are all well established and progressive single nations and the disparities are massive.

 

Building a trading framework within Europe to take advantage of geographical proximity, to speed up business, to increase commercial activity is all well and good, but anything beyond that for me is a work of idealistic folly.

Edited February 25, 2016 by grrclark

[Vince Green]

 

I respect your sentiment, although I disagree on a very crucial, in my opinion, point. It is the membership of the uk to the European family that allows us to enjoy some of the most fair laws -for example- in employment (the European working directive [not a law, but works like one], maternity/paternity leave); the environment and many other areas of our life. Of course there have been some trivial, may I say mistaken, or even plain stupid laws,directives or what have you coming from the EU, but by far, the legislative influence to your and my life has been very positive, although we might not know that these laws came from there. I do not agree with the idea that these laws *might* have come along from uk lawmakers. My reason for saying this is that these laws I mentioned for example, pre existed in other European countries and the uk simply adopted them. The same goes with many uk laws that became EU law. A simple explanation is that the EU laws, directives etc are a collection of these laws that all member states together consider to be working well and therefore should be adopted; along with some new legislation developed in collaboration.

I actually disagree with the main point you are making. Laws like paternity leave and the workplace pension have just incentivised employers to find ways round them. Now nobody has a proper job these days they are all self employed or on short term contracts or work for unbrella companies based abroad.

 

In anther post you mentioned Gove and Hunt, to me they are two remarkably honest politicians of conviction. They are not popular, thats true, but they tell it how it is and what they say is accurate. I admire their integrity.

[rodp]

I actually disagree with the main point you are making. Laws like paternity leave and the workplace pension have just incentivised employers to find ways round them. Now nobody has a proper job these days they are all self employed or on short term contracts or work for unbrella companies based abroad.

 

In anther post you mentioned Gove and Hunt, to me they are two remarkably honest politicians of conviction. They are not popular, thats true, but they tell it how it is and what they say is accurate. I admire their integrity.

Yep, that's my men And the work is "too heavy" for women, or can be if ever they come for an interview

[UKPoacher]

My opinion is the same as yours, I cannot understand how we can have any sort of parity when the differences are so marked.

 

Forgetting the wider EU and just considering the UK, or even just considering England there are significant differences as you go around the regions. In a single country that speaks the same language, has the same government and broadly has the same cultural identity across the board there are huge divides in terms of both economic performance and social and political outlook.

 

You have people who sell a 2 bed ex council flat in London or parts of the home counties and they can buy a bloody great castle in Yorkshire or Northumberland.

 

One of the key manifesto points of this government was to establish the northern powerhouse to try and bring a balance and achieve some harmony in our domestic economy; the economic value of the city of London is greater than that of the next 5 largest English cities combined.

 

If we are struggling to achieve parity in one country, so much so that it is one of the single largest issues of this government, then how on earth could we ever expect to achieve parity between the desperately basic rural provinces of Romania and Bulgaria and the super cities of London, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, etc?

 

As a progressive capitalist single economy we struggle to bridge the gap within our little island, we are seeing increasing argument for a move towards regional federalism in the UK because we increasingly believe that a single central government cannot serve all parts equally well, yet there are those who think that we can achieve that on the European scale with all the attendant differences in political ideology, culture, religion, social outlook, historical grievance, etc.

 

Taking the corner of mainland Europe you stay in there are differences in cultural outlook and social history by those that consider themselves more Flemish than Dutch or Belgian. They speak 7 languages in Switzerland and each canton have a slightly different cultural identity, some would rather be Italian and some French. In Denmark those that stay on the islands of Sealand or Fyn consider themselves more Danish than those who live on the Jutland peninsula. In Italy the southern agricultural regions are genuinely 3rd world in their development, yet the industrialised north is very much 1st world.

 

These are all well established and progressive single nations and the disparities are massive.

 

Building a trading framework within Europe to take advantage of geographical proximity, to speed up business, to increase commercial activity is all well and good, but anything beyond that for me is a work of idealistic folly.

 

Agreed. It is like making a jig-saw with a huge piece missing.

 

If a numpty like me can see this then we must assume that the EU economists can too. Given your experiences in manufacturing with low levels of pay being inextricably linked to low standards of quality control in places like Romania then the principle of shifting manufacturing plants to Eastern Europe compared to places like China and Malaysia doesn't make sense. Although Germany would love to add Turkey to their outsourcing portfolio.

 

Then you have Greece that even before the refugee crisis that has crippled any chances of tourism couldn't trade their way out of debt by devaluing their local currency to make holidays cheaper.

 

Makes you wonder why national politicians who would rather sell their children into slavery before cede the slightest amount of power and influence will allow Brussels to overrule them?

[The Mighty Prawn]

To echo Grrclark - the USA has some states nearly or actually bankrupt and propped up by the rest, this is one country with a common currency, language, most laws and they can't make it work so how is a federal Europe ever going to happen?

 

OUT

[poontang]

 

 

Although i'm slightly biased the most efficient and effective operating part of our global business was the UK, despite having only around 30% of total revenues the UK fronted up around 60% of total profit. The reason that the UK was so good was because of our culture and the inherent talent of the UK workforce. We know business very well and given the right environment and direction we absolutely can thrive.

 

My experience of running a global business is that the UK is top of the tree, we do have a high cost base so in some types of work we cannot be cost competitive, but we are innovative, adaptive and progressive, we punch way above our weight all the time. The UK is brilliant, but we have a terrible habit of forgetting that and talking ourselves down.

 

There is no way we can change the other EU states to be the same as us, it would be like trying to water the sahara or heat the poles. The only thing that can possibly happen in an ever expending EU is that we dilute our values and expectations so that we drop to the level of the rest.

 

Fantastic post Mr Clark.

 

It's so refreshing to hear such positivity, especially from someone who's 'walked the walk'.

 

It's just a shame that so many of our politicians, with so little real world experience, are so scared of standing up for what is right.

Edited February 25, 2016 by poontang

[UKPoacher]

I actually disagree with the main point you are making. Laws like paternity leave and the workplace pension have just incentivised employers to find ways round them. Now nobody has a proper job these days they are all self employed or on short term contracts or work for unbrella companies based abroad.

 

In anther post you mentioned Gove and Hunt, to me they are two remarkably honest politicians of conviction. They are not popular, thats true, but they tell it how it is and what they say is accurate. I admire their integrity.

 

The problem with any policy such as the paternity leave is as you say; subject to Newton's Law - any action results in a reaction. Many of the Diversity laws and policies were brought in by the EU and whilst they will trumpet the perceived success or popularity of a given policy or law, they always fail to address or acknowledge the adverse reaction to it.

 

As for Michael Gove; it takes a lot of guts and integrity to stand against the agenda of your party leaders and sponsors. He has little to gain, but a Hell of a lot to lose. More than anyone else I think. He and Rees-Mogg appear to tell it how it is. Not how the government want us to believe is the case.

Edited February 25, 2016 by UKPoacher

[Psyxologos]

Interesting article from the financial times on sovereignty, legislative powers etc:

 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/26b6a12c-daf2-11e5-a72f-1e7744c66818.html#axzz41Ckd8Cvn

[Psyxologos]

I'm sick of hearing about the "UK's lazy workers" and how we can't go it alone, I don't know about everyone else on here but I work damn hard and so does everyone else I personally know, its the minority who abuse the benefits systems that seem work shy to me and maybe if we get out of EU we can pass some sensible laws and sort them out to, I don't see the french, Spanish etc working an average over 40hrs a week. I just hope and pray that the sheepeople of the UK arent fooled into staying, i think anyone who doesnt own a multi million pound buisness employing hundruds/thousands of people at minimum wage will be no worse off and probablly be alot better off if we get out.

 

Welcome to reality....

 

Check the working hours of a birtish and a Spanish person (as well as the rest of the EU).