Eurosclerosis started in the 1970s while the British disease came to an end with the election of the Thatcher government so the chart paper is misleading.
I have not as yet decided on in or out. It is a close call. Best to divide the economic estimates of the cost of #Brexit by two and you get a more accurate estimate.
What made me move most towards leaving is the remark in the linked video by the Conservative Party Euro MP Daniel Hannan that the recent austerity cuts totalling £36 billion while British contributions to the European Union budget were £38 billion.
The snapshot tweet is the single most sensible comment on the economic costs when quantified as a percentage of GDP. The costs of leaving might well be small.
The Remain campaign is incompetent. It is unable to hit on good soundbites, much less the central case against leaving.
The main case to remain is it will preserve the current travel privileges of British citizens. British can go anywhere in the European Union as they like for business, pleasure, a job or to retire. No need for visas. If the British were to leave, they have to renegotiate visa access.
That renegotiation of these access will not be as easy as you might think because there are several secessionists minded provinces such as in Spain and Italy who are told that they will not be eligible for European Union membership if they succeed.
Spain has every intention of vetoing a European Union membership application from an independent Scotland to set an example to its own succession minded provinces.
Spain and Italy have every reason to be difficult over the British these are arrangements for the same reason. Signalling the costs of succession to the Lombard region of northern Italy, the Basque provinces and Catalonia
Scotland was told in no uncertain terms that if it left the United Kingdom, there would have to be border controls on the Scottish border, a new Hadrian’s Wall, because of EU law and border control agreements. Those border controls would have to remain until Scotland joined the European Union or otherwise made a deal.
The case to remain would be stronger if the British had stronger border controls against illegal immigration, and it just left the European Court of Justice and its increasingly silly decisions.
Much of the current wave of refugees arises from Turkey allowing illegal immigrants to cross its borders to go on to the European Union as a way of signalling that Turkey would be much more cooperative if it were a member of the European Union.
Turkey is increasingly undemocratic under the current president and there is always the background threat of a military coup. European Union member states must be democracies, which is why Turkey’s application for membership has stalled for many years.
Oxfam joins others on the reactionary left in seeking to bully former colonies over their economic policies, in particular, their tax policies that promote tax havens.
The Cayman Islands is a British overseas territory that chooses to stay British with limited self-government. If the British were to start bullying it over its tax haven and offshore financial centre policies, it would immediately seek independence.
This attempt by former colonial masters to bully small countries to toe their line on tax policies is not done in any way for the benefit of these former colonies and their economic development. It is old-fashioned imperialism with a new motivation, tax imperialism. The aim is to prevent capital flight and the erosion of the business tax base in developed countries.
This is a seething hypocrisy given that Oxfam was all for #TPPANoWay. It is OK to go your own way on tariffs, intellectual property and investment and other economic regulations but not taxes. Countries have a tariff sovereignty but not a tax sovereignty.
This is a self-serving neo-colonial hypocrisy. The sovereignty arguments for #TPPANoWay are identical to those for the right of countries to act as tax havens. Identical. Tariffs deny other countries export markets; tax havens deny other countries tax revenue.
Small island states were left-wing and environmentalist heroes on climate change at the most recent conference on global warming in Paris but are villains regarding tax havens. In both cases, these small countries are exercising their sovereignty regarding their foreign policies and economic policies.
Oxfam believes that the democratic rights of former colonies do not extend to shaping their own economic policies. Oxfam wants them to be put on a neo-colonial leash.
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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