The British EU Referendum

[Jubal]

There's a difference between "paying a membership fee" and "being fleeced". Like, I pay a lot more to be a member of various things than I get back at least in direct cash, that doesn't make me assume that whoever I'm paying is definitely out to screw me over. And the idea of vengeful "proper slimy Europhile" commissioners forcing our payments up is literally a fantasy, there's no reason whatsoever to believe that would happen or that anyone who'd want it to happen has the power over EU or national mechanisms to do so.

I'm not saying UKIP members should necessarily be expected to turn up, but I am saying that people shouldn't be surprised if they elect people who cba to turn up and then don't get represented properly. And that if the UKIP guys really don't think that the EU is worth turning up to they should actually do it in a principled fashion, get a job, not take their seats at all and not take their salaries (or donate them to charity or whatever). They complain constantly about people "riding the gravy train" then are by far the worst of the lot since unlike even Tory MEPs they don't actually do much work. Certainly we shouldn't blame that on "the EU" rather than on the UKIP MEPs who get elected to do the job of representing their constituents and then don't properly bother doing it.

I guess my feeling is that if we leave Europe we won't end up losing any of the bullarmadillo, we'll just have it happening here in our own equally (indeed probably even more) undemocratic microcosm in Westminster. We'll just end up replicating a bunch of the things that the EU does jointly like trade commissioning. The EU isn't the perfect sort of government I want, but leaving the EU won't solve that, we'll just end up with an expanded system in Whitehall which is still undemocratic, and we'll either lose things like free movement across Europe and ease of academic collaboration, which I like, or we'll take a heavy hit economically, neither of which sound great ideas. Do I want to reform the EU and make it more democratic? Hell yes. If I had a choice between a reformed democratic Westminster and an unreformed EU that I felt was holding it back, would it be a far harder choice? Probably. But I'd actually rather have one armadilloty system to keep the other one in check, in our present situation. Doubly so with Westminster busily hoovering up powers from local authorities at a rate of knots recently. I just think having all the power residing in one place is a really bad idea, I value the benefits of EU membership, and Leave haven't put together any concrete argument IMO as to how or whether we'd keep many of those benefits outside the EU.

[Glaurung]

As I understand it, the EU cannot unilaterally determine our contribution rate. Firstly, any change has to be negotiated with us, otherwise we presumably wouldn't pay. Secondly, as far as I know, the rates of all EU countries' contributions are determined by a mutually agreed formula based on the size of countries' economies. So if our contributions go up, it would be because the EU member states have all agreed that everyone's contributions should go up. I would guess that this is the sort of thing that's still subject to national veto too, so it really is a case that everyone has to agree.

[Pentagathus]

And considering we get a rebate of 66% of our net contribution that would sting the other big economies of the EU a hell of a lot more surely?

[Jubal]

Aye - spending priorities are of course less fixed, though the decisions on which countries money gets spent in there are generally tied to individual projects as opposed to countries as a whole so it's still pretty damned difficult to leverage attacking one member of the bloc.

It is also worth noting that as a % of national income we pay basically less than anyone into the EU, we already have probably unfairly favourable terms of membership.

[Clockwork]

Right there is a difference, I'm not saying whether it is or isn't but to exit voters this is being fleeced.


Dude I explained the reason that they'd put up payments. Lose the double standards, you're got literally exactly the same amount of proof or reason to believe that they won't or for that matter that admin bullarmadillo will go up if we leave EU (by the by, we can't leave Europe, that's geographical). Saying there is no way it will happen is naive.


Right G, so EU asks us to increase payments, we say no and what happens exactly? The EU backs down from a single country and accepts our non-participation.


Aaand @Penty, Not 100% sure what you mean but if you mean we get back 66% of what we pay, currently that's false and if you mean we get instant EU rebate worth 66% of the amount we're liable to pay, that's also false. If it was a general number, cool, fair enough, skip to last line. It changes every year afaik. According to Full Fact Team, in 2015 we were liable to pay £18bn, £5bn of that was rebated instantly so we ended up paying £13bn and £4.5bn that year was spent on the UK. The rebate and what we actually get vs what we pay is still being argued as well, there are so many ways to calculate it and just getting an average of those doesn't really work because they don't measure the same thing half the time. To show at least minimal effort has been put in, here's a BBC thing below which shows us as 2nd largest net contributer of 2007 when we were paying less because I like the graphs.


Depending how you measure it, Germany is basically the only larger economy. So no, not really, no.


https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8036097.stm#start

[Glaurung]

Dude I explained the reason that they'd put up payments.

Your scenario seems unlikely to me: an organisation has a member that's considering leaving but decides to remain, so the organisation then makes the terms of membership more onerous. I can't help thinking this would have exactly the reverse effect. I'm fairly sure the EU wants us as a member (we are a net contributor, apart from anything else) so they're hardly likely to do something that would encourage us to leave.

Right G, so EU asks us to increase payments, we say no and what happens exactly? The EU backs down from a single country and accepts our non-participation.

Per my previous post, any change to EU contributions requires a negotiation of all the national governments, and, I'm fairly sure, the agreement of all national governments. I don't believe there is any valid scenario in which the EU Commission can unilaterally demand more money from a member government. If you think I'm wrong, I'd love to know why.

Clockwork: I'd be very interested to know what you think the EU is for - why it exists and what it's aiming to do. I think our mental models of it are very different; I'd like to change your mind about it (as you might guess!) but I'd also like to understand what you think of it.

[comrade_general]

I can typing?

[Glaurung]

Sorry, CG (and everyone else outside the UK): I expect this one will continue rumbling away until the referendum on 23 June.

[Pentagathus]

Rob the rebate is calculated on the previous year's figures. So in 2015 the rebate we received would have been 66% of the difference between our expenditure and our income from the EU budget of 2014. (Not including the 2014 rebate I think).
For the second reference you gave its worth noting that the figures are from 2007, wherein our rebate had been significantly reduced following negotiations on the EU budget which are held every 7 years, and must be approved by each member state. Blair agreed to the temporary reduction on the rebate, if he hadn't then we wouldn't have had the reduction. The EU cannot change our rebate without our consent.
Every other member state has to pay more into the budget than they would otherwise in order to make up the lost revenue from our rebate. Germany isn't the only other net contributor, and in fact it is among several countries that get a reduction in their payments towards the rebate costs. I'm not sure if this is up to date but apparently France pays more of the cost of our rebate than any other member state.


As to how we could stop changes to the rebate, or any attempt to disproportionately increase our eu payments here is a source what you've already been told, if you'll accept the BBC as reliable.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36085281

[Clockwork]

Right so G, assuming the almost certain scenario where we stay we're going to have a lot less pull. If we (as a country) disagree or don't want to do something that the EU has on a general level decided will be a good idea, what can we actually do against it? Previously we could threaten to leave, now we can't do that or lose so much face, we'll practically be Voldemort. We'd be arguing everything with no possible action to bargain with. Sure, it only takes one member state to disagree on something but where does that get us? It's yet more unnecessary bureaucracy. It could be unlikely but isn't covering every angle part of the debate?


The EU is corrupt as all hell, the politicians are corrupt, the commissioners are corrupt, the regulators are more than likely corrupt even when they're reporting on corruption. What is ever done about it? Jack armadillo yet again. Yeah, Britain is probably one of the least corrupt nations but pretty much the entire of eastern europe, spain, greece, northern europe. Even if I wanted to be part of the EU in principle, even if I thought that this glorious Eurostate was the best thing since Trotsky, I'd still want to leave just out of how much of the money given to it simply goes to funding some Greek bastards holiday home in Dubai.


It's a little bit extended but I hope this helps to answer your last question G and obviously I know you know what it is, and I think you give me just enough credit to know what it is but I'll humour you as I expect this is going somewhere.What the EU is meant for, what it stands for, what it was intended to do is fine in theory, if you like that sort of thinking. It's a collaboration of nations primarily banded together for world peace and economic gain but also other join ventures like education and research. In practice, widespread corruption siphons money not into collaborative economic pursuits but selfish ones, countries have become reliant on the hard work of others to keep their currency afloat and so have no incentive to improve themselves and the protection that was promised at it's creation is nowhere to be found as terrorists attack across the continent.


Penty, Right I get you now, I was totally misinterpreting what you were saying. My bad mate, now that I get what you mean, check this out: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/483344/EU_finances_2015_final_web_09122015.pdf#page=44. If you look here it's not quite as simple as: we get 66% back on the net contributions after initial rebates. It's less than that, and we actually pay for a not insignificant amount of our own EU grant directly.


Also if you look here:


http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=EUR&view=10Y


and the second graph here:


https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/


It shows that we're paying substantially more per year, given how our currency has fallen against the Euro. And by the by, was there a democratic process that led to the country agreeing to let Blair sign away that money?


Also, there are commissioners that are trying to get that scrapped, and going by what I was saying earlier I reckon this will be time they make some serious headway.


@Jub, you're saying that because we have a higher GNI we should have to pay more per person? That's nonsense mate, things cost way more here than in the countries with lower GNI. If we were paying say, as high a percentage as Hungary, our poverty would be through the roof.

[Jubal]

Why do you think our only bargaining chip in the EU involves threatening to leave?

And how many example of actual corruption by EU commissioners/central bureaucrats can you give? This seems to be a big part of why you're upset with the EU, and I'm not sure it's justified or at least I can't find much evidence for it.

[Pentagathus]

"And by the by, was there a democratic process that led to the country agreeing to let Blair sign away that money?"
The general election that placed his government in power. Arguably a presidential government would be more democratic for matters like this, but I don't think major parliamentary or voting reform in the UK is likely anytime soon.

"Sure, it only takes one member state to disagree on something but where does that get us?" Well it guarantees that EU cannot simply impose new laws or demand an increase in its budget. It guarantees the sovereignty of every member state, and should mean that the budget is agreeable to each member state (provided their representatives are acting for their best interests of course.)

If the EU is so blatantly corrupt the obvious implication is that most of our current government is too. Is that what you believe?

I don't see why an in vote would remove Euroscepticism in the UK or the option to leave, and I also don't see that it would remove Euroscepticism in other member states. This referendum is not the only chance we will have to leave, and a remain vote does not give the EU a mandate to impose harsher terms upon our continued membership.

[Clockwork]

Not our only but it was our strongest one for sure Jub and I'm not talking about isolated instances of fraud, that's the action of a single person. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/organized-crime-and-human-trafficking/corruption/index_en.htm


@Penty Our country is more advanced than the rest of Europe even, we have better national investigation commissions, ours is a country with low levels of corruption.



It might be, you never know what the future is going to bring bud. And whatever, you think everyone will just forget about it or nobody will care or something. I can't for a second understand why but whatever. Countries that want their own referendum will be less encouraged to do so, people that want glorious Eurostate will feel validated. It's going to be disgusting.

[Glaurung]

Clockwork: thanks for responding to my request at such length. I haven't had a chance to read your post in any detail, and I probably won't do until I'm back from my current European travels. Nevertheless, you deserve a proper reply, and I will try to respond to all that you've said. There is probably also a long post coming from me on the subject of the EU.

[Pentagathus]

Sorry I keep forgetting to reply to this, but better late than never I guess.
What I meant clockwork is that you seemed to be claiming the EU is corrupt at all levels, and if this is the case I don't see why our government would want to stay in unless they too were corrupt.
What do you mean I think people will forget about it? I'm saying the opposite, people won't just forget that there is significant EU scepticism and downright anti EU sentiment in the UK and elsewhere if we vote to remain.