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Paulina and Ben (15) challenge George Osborne on EU sovereign debt and how a Remain vote will leave them liable for massive payments.
Mr Osborne - if you think we are wrong come and explain how we are safe. That is our challenge.
Does Britain face dire consequences if we leave the EU? What is the effect of the EU on business?
This film talks to two businessmen about Brexit and explores the economic issues surrounding the UK's EU membership.
The Church of England has released a prayer for the EU referendum campaign. The prayer is for use by churches and individuals ahead of the vote on 23rd June.
We feel this is a good prayer. It is regrettable that there have been comments critical of our Archbishop. Lord Tebbit is right in saying that there is ambiguity - in some people's minds, about this prayer and confusion in their statements. The EU effects all of the world and we might pray for all of the world when considering our referendum decision.
Let us look at this prayer line by line.
God of truth,
Glenn Bullivant speaks to David Nuttall MP, the Chairman of the Parliamentary All-Party Better Off Out Group. David Nuttall is the Memmber of Parliament for Bury North. David’s motion in the House of Commons of 24th October 2011 called for a referendum on EU membership and defeated the government which at the time opposed such a vote. As such it was instrumental in forcing the referendum firmly onto the political agenda.
We must not only be unafraid of a future outside the European Union. We should positively embrace it, because in rejecting the supranationalist goal of a European State, we would be defending the pluralism and diversity which has been the true glory of European civilization. As Wilhelm Wilhelm Röpke, one of Germany’s greatest liberal economists put it in the 1950s:
“In antiquity Strabo spoke of the ‘many shapes’ of Europe; Montesquieu would speak of Europe as a ‘nation des nations’; Decentrism is of the essence of the spirit of Europe. To try to organise Europe centrally…and to weld it into a bloc, would be nothing less than a betrayal of Europe and the European patrimony.” (A Humane Economy)
Atmospheric carbon dioxide is not the dominant force which changes the Earth’s climate. Warming is present, but there has not been any change in temperature in the summer months The dominant factor in determining changes in the world’s climate is the Sun.
The essential point is that estimating trends over anything other than very long periods is subject to a high degree of standard error. Only by taking data over the full length of the series produces anything of much value.
Attempts to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere such as the so-called but misnamed ‘carbon’ capture and storage (CCS) are pointless. Why should we be spending billions on global warming counter-measures as a result of climate specialists telling us huge problems are in store for us. These doom-mongers have no clothes. Their limitations continue to be exposed.
Sweden has many things going for it, but may not be the democratic utopia many British people think – and, in a strange kind of poetic justice, may pay the price by quashing the freedom of speech of the “little people”, and hiding the problems associated with immigration. The EU has played a part in Sweden’s situation, in that the Schengen treaty has made the influx larger than would otherwise have been, and psychologically, membership of Europe has arguably loosened the psychological ties between the Swedish elite and their home country. But the EU is not the only culprit. The Swedish elite bears a large share of the responsibility.
Swedish politicians have, with steely determination, opened their country up to mass immigration. Sweden’s demographics are changing fast. Many Swedes boast that their country is a beacon of enlightenment but this is giving rise to political extremes.
The supremacy of Parliament is a refuge of freedom in Britain. The weakening of the sovereignty of Parliament is not only a threat to the independence of the legislative and libertarian tradition but also a threat to the rule of law, which rests on the legal legitimacy founded by elected lawmakers. This kind of legitimacy cannot be ensured by the European institutions which do not have the right to demand obedience from the European citizens, since it rests on national identities embedded in individual states. The so called 'democratic deficit' is getting worse with every interference of EU law in the lives of the people.
It is being continuously emphasized that in Britain, various EU rules are construed as a malign attack on the British way of life which needs to be repelled.
Europeanness means the British identity being just one among many. The problem is that the EU possesses no historical or cultural basis. Therefore, it is doomed to be perceived as a rather abstract and artificially made concept.
Prior to the referendum being held David Cameron will present to the British public proposals for reform of the EU, heralding a new British model of membership. This will include proposals for the creation of a two-tier Europe, where there will be a distinct divergence between the Eurozone (core Europe) and the outer non-Eurozone states. This is the essence of what David Cameron claims he is negotiating. It means the UK accepting what has become known as ‘Associate Membership’ of the EU. This new status may be rebranded as the ‘British Model’.
The so-called renegotiation is nothing more than David Cameron acquiescing to the EU’s demands, and failing to defend the British national interest. The UK will be told to accept this second-class status. The bogus renegotiation is, in reality, merely the acceptance of an existing EU plan which will turn the UK into a second-class member of the EU. Although ever-closer Union will no longer apply to Britain ultimately the UK will lose money, influence and power.
The Prime Minister is simply engaged in an exercise of managing expectations. In on current terms is an option that no longer exists, full integration with the newly emerging core EU by becoming part of the Eurozone is beyond the pale, yet an associate status is the worst of both worlds. The two-tier EU package that Cameron will try to sell to the electorate is little more than him blundering into a new relationship where we lose influence but will still be bound by many of the existing obligations of EU membership. David Cameron will be forced to accept these changes.
The result of this so-called renegotiation will be the Prime Minister signing up to a federalist plan that will allow the Eurozone to centralise but the UK will be excluded from the centre of the EU, isolating Britain still further. What is more, the two-tier EU will most probably become a two-speed EU. Where the UK, and the other non-euro EU members, are cajoled by the core into standardising their policies with the core Eurozone states.
The idea was first proposed by former MEP Andrew Duff. It was a ‘...strategy for resolving the British problem’.
Click here to read the Prime Minister's Letter to the President of the European Council
