That's a poor analogy because 1) there's literally no real threat of Russia trying anything against the EU directly
Gas shortage?
Tie up neighbours in contracts that limit EU contact and trade?
And 2) because with those arms sales we're talking about direct money in pocket (and with those Mistrals, direct money out of pocket since they can't really be sold to anyone else and
the cost has already been incurred), .
And with forbidding trade relations on favourable bilateral terms, where existing trade relationships exist with the EU, you're doing exactly the same thing. You can probably sell the excess product at a loss somewhere else, just as you could with the warships (there were offers), but they'll still be screaming.
Again, you're assuming that the EU will be making decisions purely on the basis of what is best for the EU as an entity, but the decisions are actually made by people from individual member states. There is a limit to how much individuals will sacrifice their own interests to support a European Ideal.
But if the actual downside to having the UK leave the single market is negligible for individual countries,
But it's not. The figures you quote may sound low, and be comparatively low, but they're still enough to plunge several European countries into formal recession. Moreover, the losses would not be evenly spread throughout a generally oblivious populace, but rather concentrated in in a few areas. Limited mass bankruptcy that only touches a portion of the market is still mass bankruptcy. It would be certainly be enough for individual leaders of member states to lose elections. It's also worth noting that the immediate gains for the UK are comparatively larger than for the remaining EU members, who are assumed to make up the losses over a 15year time frame due to the glories of continued EU membership.
Of course it also identifies several scenarios it is looking at, from 'soft exit' to 'total isolation'. You appear to be citing the figures for soft exit for the impact to EU, and for total isolation for the UK.
It's almost as if you're systematically overstating your case.
How so? I have referred to the UK impact being at 3% in the past; that is NOT the figure for total isolation (which rises as high as 37%).
No, it doesn't. Read the article again. The record for 'worst possible scenario' is 14%, described as 'rather unlikely' by the authors. Note that this assumes that the UK would be unable to replace their trade at all, or negotiate any new deals ever again. The figure given by the article's authors for the UK loss is 2.98% for a total isolation scenario, with some member states losing almost as much (Ireland at 2.66%, and Belgium and Luxembourg at close to 1%). The soft exit is 0.63%, several other European countries do similarly badly, and this is only twice the percentage you've been describing as 'negligible'.
Again, you're systematically overstating your case. Which is silly, because it's actually not a bad case.
Nonetheless, it would be extraordinarily foolish to make major political decisions while ignoring scenarios on the grounds that they're 'controversial'.
Meh, I don't have much respect for the specific numbers in the study, not least because the authors seem to struggle to justify the assumptions used in their sources. But the general conclusion seems plausible enough - departure from the EU would damage the economy of both the UK and the EU. Given that the UK is small, it seems reasonable that the UK would suffer more.
The EU simply isn't that important to Cameron.
Then he's either an idiot who'se doing his country a great disservice, or you're simply wrong about whats important to him. I suspect it's a bit of both.
Obviously I lean to the former. However, to be fair to him he's been fighting for his party's short and long-term survival, and Europe is not something he's ever been seen to be competent at dealing with. He managed to pull the conservatives out of their alliance voting block in the EU parliament, which doesn't fill one with confidence.
We've just had a general election in which his own party threatened to break apart, and lost huge numbers of voters to UKIP, an explicitly anti-European party. He had to promise a referendum to shore up his own support and win the election. It worked. It's exactly the same thing he did to shore up his support with the Liberal Democrats. It worked that time too. It's the same thing he did with the Scottish Nationalists. It's the third referendum he's promised to be people in this way.
No; implausible imo. If it was purely about getting votes then there were plenty of other ways to get those things; surely.
Well, no. He didn't win outright last time, so demonstrably he doesn't have other ways of getting votes. And he was widely tipped to not only lose this time, but lose to a coalition who all agreed on the need for a change in the voting system, thus paving the way for the conservatives to never again get a majority. He could be forgiven for being desperate. His priorities may change now he has an actual majority.
That said, I don't deny that it didn't play a role; however it does not suffice as an explanation on its own (unless, indeed, Cameron is a complete moron who doesn't understand he's inviting disaster by calling such far reaching referendums). The fact that the referendum not only serves to curb his party's deterioration but ALSO allows for a potentially better negotiation position is what does it. The combination of benefits.
Dystopian, I know this conclusion is dear to your heart, but as someone who lives and works in the UK, and regularly deals with government and politicians in the UK, I can tell you, hand on heart, that most of these people do not give a flying monkey what their negotiating position with the EU is. It isn't, by any reasonable description, a significant consideration. There is no useful sense in which a UK politicians would go to all the expense, stress and potential danger of a referendum, as some kind of 'message' to the EU.
I don't think punishing a country for exiting the EU will make euroskeptic parties less popular. Quite the reverse if anything.
Perhaps. But Euroskeptics are a minority within Europe to begin with;
All that matters in their concentration in countries that might leave. Again, you said that allowing the UK to leave without punishment needs to be avoided for political reasons, now you're saying Eurosceptic aren't a concern. It's got to be one or the other.
Ensuring negative consequences for countries that leave does, however, work well on the undecided... especially since it would obviously not be done in a black and white "hark, see how we punish this pitiful rebel scum" sort of fashion.
It doesn't matter how it is done, it matters how people talk about it.
That's why I'm surprised to see negative language, and not just here. In general when I've been talking to people living on the European Continent who are strongly EU, there have been several obvious trends - they always talk about EU integration as a done deal, irreversible and unstoppable. They always try and portray anyone who disagrees with them as an out-of-touch fantasist, and they keep on blaming various polls where the EU is unpopular as being the results of political machination. This approach is so uniform that it feels like the result of a media campaign. I think the Eurosceptics definitely have the edge when it comes to crumbly-biscuit fanaticism, but the difference isn't as great as I would like to think.
I mean, you do realise your theory about Cameron is a conspiracy theory, right? I'm not saying it's mad, or totally beyond reason, but it
is a conspiracy theory. We've had a formerly lunatic fringe Eurosceptic party suddenly become the third largest party in UK politics, literally overnight, and you're still trying to convince people that we're having a referendum as some kind of sneaky tactic.
It's worth noting that claims are made threatening London's status on a fairly regular basis. They never seem to amount to anything.
It's not a threat though; simply common sense. Businesses will go where it's cheapest/most profitable for them to operate. That would be inside of the single market; not outside of it.
That would be Croatia (Morgan Stanley), India (Goldman Sachs), and Singapore (RBS). Single market has very little impact on capital markets flows. Currency would be expected to have a greater effect, but London certainly hasn't suffered from being outside the Euro.
Probably. It's also, you know, true? We're riding an unprecedented wave of euroskepticism, which Cameron is hostage to. The UK probably won't vote to leave, but it's a serious risk, particularly if people feel the UK is getting a raw deal from Europe. None of this is invented or created by Cameron. The EU really is that unpopular.
It doesn't matter if he created Euroskepticism. What matters is that he's fanning its flames.
No, UKIP are fanning the flames, and he's desperately playing catch up, because he's losing supporters and even sitting members of parliament to the new party. Again, you can keep on blaming sinister anti-EU conspiracies as much as you please, but the anti-EU sentiment in the UK is real, widespread, and not in any sense the creation of Cameron. His party is being eviscerated by it.
Of course, part of that may be the way it gets described. You know, people going on about how the EU doesn't need the UK, how the UK would be nothing without the EU, describing states as 'vassals', and so on. It's not clear to me why you regard Cameron promising a referendum as 'dirty politics' and bullying, but your own description of a state's relationship with the EU using an analogy to a psychopath and his helpless victim as not being bullying at all. Or are you a bully too?
As unpopular as you claim the EU is in the UK, realize that the UK is even less popular in Europe.
Is it?. In some countries maybe. We have roughly 51% of people saying they want the UK out of the EU. What proportion of the rest of the EU want the UK to leave? The UK is annoying, I get that...
It's seen as doing nothing but selfishly make trouble, constantly trying to have its own way, demanding special treatment. It should be entirely obvious why my wording (and that of others) might seem a bit... on the annoyed side. There's this popular image of the UK as a spoiled child that's just big enough to get away with it; and now with the referendum, the addition to that image is of the spoiled child that got all that special treatment from us and *still* thinks we're being unfair to it and now it tells us to go screw ourselves, it's going to run away from home because 'fuck you dad, you're the worst!'
Well, some children who run away are doing the right thing. The UK doesn't do well out of the CAP. It doesn't do well in terms of contributions to fund received generally. It doesn't benefit from centralised standards as much as countries, because in many cases it already had it's own standards that had a global reputation. In short, it benefits less than a great many countries, in being a member of the EU. That's not to say it's a bad idea to be a member, but the exclusions and exceptions are usually things that make a great deal of sense over here. We were right to stay out of the Euro, right to maintain border controls, right to seek exception for electronics standards (as were several other countries), and right to resist contributing to bailing out the Euro.
Maybe you could come up with some kind of issue that's come up, where you don't understand why the UK has acted as it has, and we can discuss?
Of course that's going to cause resentment. I've seen surveys that suggest a majority in some countries favor just simply kicking the UK out regardless of what they vote in the referendum. People feel like it'd be better for our future as a continent to get rid of the UK now rather than have it continue to hold back integration for its own selfish reasons.
That may well be the case.
However, I note the phrase 'hold back integration'. You're aware that not everyone in the EU wants to form a super-country? They don't want full union? If that's what you're after, then yes, you'll need to get rid of most of the existing member states of the EU.
