If all competition between states is ended this would be the only thing which could stop human progress. Nuclear war would be quicker & perhaps kinder. On the other hand if Ludditism (aka environmentalism) cannot be enforced everywhere it will ultimately fail, as the fact that the EU is visibly failing compared to China proves.

A Europe without an EU would have more countries than Ireland & the Baltics flourishing & by example, would end up as a centre of innovation & progress - indeed that is how it got where it used to be.

I believe it’s time people relied on their own sense of what is right and what is wrong rather than electing someone who says he/she will represent their views, but then doesn’t.

Perhaps if some Conservative MPs will publish a list of their own expenses this might go some way to ameliorate the situation. David Cameron did say he would be willing to do so. The words ‘money and mouth’ spring to mind. The electorate would appreciate this,

As for Europe, I fear we are lost. Despite the valiant efforts of Mr Redwood and Mr Cash et al, we are lost without the backing of the Lords.

Is a ‘one-world’ order the only way forward? Must we amalgamate with the European continent in order to survive? My instinct is ‘no’ but perhaps I’m just old-fashioned. My feeling is that we would fare better without the EU.

I am hardly authorative but beyond the fact that both Heath & Wilson were supporters is the fact that our leaders, by their nature, meet foreign leaders as equals & generally get to do the most fun bits of government with them. They cannot therefore help but have a more internationalist loyalty than most of us. Beyond this we have deliberately engineered meetings like Bilderberg. You do not have to believe the Bilderbergers run the world to think that politicians, like Adam Smith’s merchants “rarely get together, even for social purposes, but that it ends in a conspiracy against the public”. Bilderberg was founded to produce European union.

Beyond that it is often a very good excuse. Government would have to justify our burden of regulations, immigration rate, or lack of death penalty if they couldn’t say it was forced on them by the EU. Apparently other EU politicians tell their populations the same.

Firstly, i would like to thank you and those others that stood up for the common folk, and their right to have a say in the referendum debates. The result was dissapointing, and a clear indication of the decay of democratic activity in this state.

For me, the construction of a European superstate and our being sucked into it brings two major problems.

Firstly, decision making is moved still further away from the citizen.

Secondly, we will become increasingly reliant on this central power to provide guidance and means.

I don’t know if you are aware that the formation of the North American Union is already being tied together with the EU through legislative and economic ties.

This is part of a broader agenda to build the one world government, the New World Order that has been quoted by so many prominent players. I’ll leave you a quote that indicates the chilling drive for this New Order.

“In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.”

- Strobe Talbot, President Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State, Time Magazine, July 20th, l992

Excellent . People talk about the EU as if it was Europe . Its like talking about the GLA as if it was London. Nothing whatsoever of importance would change without either baring a reallocation of functions here and there
Norman Baker often assures us here , in the local Press, that the only alternative to the EU is to be a slave to the US. To me it seems our relationship with America is mutual and based on free nations cooperating over defence and trade albeit with varying results .I have often wondered why on earth so many people could be determined to be ruled by foreigners no-one presented with the fact ever likes it and this goes for Liberals as well as Conservatives .We recently discovered this when the E U’s role in the positioning of an incinerator was revealed .

My impression is that sceptics are far to caught up in the quasi legal and almost mediaeval arguments about our position . I see it all as primarily a political problem With sufficient will what we may have signed has little real importance . What are they going to do invade us ?Hardly; some formula would be found for things to continue as before. The rest is all verbiage designed too confuse and impress the timid….I think, (he said timidly) .
So I sometimes wonder if a certain cast of mind has more fun pursuing his monkish enquiries than is entirely healthy. The only thing that matters is to convince the public that the EU can be left without pain and we could once again have the right of a free people to determine our future. Its no good blaming David Cameron if that essential stage has not been reached and thus far it has not. A referendum to leave , tomorrow would be lost .This fact must be continually reinserted into the cries of anguish at whatever obfuscation has been insidiously employed

I believe Mr. R has written a jolly good book describing the golden future that awaits this land inside the global economy and that to me is the argument that must be won . To this end I absolutely must get round to reading it ….( A curse upon squalid trade and its unreasonable demands on my time .)

Honestly John we have tried being nice to the EU & it has not worked . Why waste our time on a losers club ?

I am not arguing against negotiation. Just for setting a strict time-limit (two years as per the Lisbon treaty) and with the clear implication being that if the negotiations fail we will be out. The danger (indeed probability) otherwise is that negotiations will drag on interminably over minor matters with Continental countries not taking a UK exit seriously.

There is very considerable inertia in the EU system with Brussels barely having used the powers that it acquired under Nice let alone Lisbon. If (say) the Conservatives are in power during 2010-2020 and spend this time being given the run-around in negotiations and then ducking the issue we will end up with say Labour in power during the 2020s and by 2030 we will have had ¼ Century of legislative output from the EU institutions in all the areas where the EU has recently assumed competence, all of which will pre-empt not just national law but also the ability of Parliament to legislate in the area covered by this superior EU law. Come 2030 what will national elections then decide? Our national legislature will be powerless to legislate in very many areas and our elections will decide little more than which party sends ministers to EU meetings to be outvoted. We will not even be able to sanction bad governance because how can ministers be held accountable for measures they voted against but had to accept under QMV? Therefore what the next Conservative government does here is of the utmost importance.

Thus, we have the reason why I will be washing my hair on polling day (as will millions like me).

Reply: I HAVE JUST VOTED TO RESTORE PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY.

So why will neither of the two main parties trust me with an In/Out vote or at the very least why doesn’t ZaNuLabour keep its manifesto promise (and those yellow ones too) to give us a vote on the EU Constitution?

I’m a firm Tory and can’t see myself ever going over to the Dark Side but I’m also a balding 30-something who is going grey at the edges. I’m grown up and last time I checked I had a brain and some strong opinions inside it: yet I’ve never ever been given the chance to express my opinion through the ballot box in a referendum about the EU.

The regrettable thing is that every superstate falls apart in the end - and it is always very messy.

Tony Makara and I have had numerous disagreements over on ConservativeHome but TM@10:49 is this time, in my opinion, spot on. Well said, Tony.

While I can see that the 1st of these referendums would strengthen the democratic mandate of the subsequent negotiating position, I do see some problems. With the treaty already ratified Continental countries supporting more integration will not have the same incentives as now in getting a British signature on the Lisbon treaty. They will likely say that then status-quo cannot be touched, daring a Conservative government to withdraw from the treaty (which as I understand it would mean the UK would have to follow the procedures in that treaty for leaving the European Union over a 2-year period). Even if the other EU states agree to negotiation they would have every incentive to drag out the negotiations interminably hoping that a Conservative government may run into trouble thus losing the popular support to push for a substantial return of powers. If such lengthy negotiations produce nothing substantial the UK would be back at square one contemplating treaty withdrawal but now with no hope of negotiating anything better and likely staring at a 2-year notification period for EU exit that would now extend into another Parliament such that it overshadows an election campaign. The Conservatives could easily spend 2 Parliaments in such a drawn our process getting sniped at throughout and eventually achieving nothing.

Would it not be better for a Conservative government to simply withdraw the UK from the Lisbon treaty at the 1st opportunity, announcing that it would spend only the 2-year period leading towards EU exit entertaining negotiations for something better (e.g. EEA membership but with British representatives in the Council of Ministers and EU Parliament voting on EEA issues only)? Should these hardball negotiating tactics not produce results within 48 months we would effectively have been out of the EU for a couple of years and the public would see that the sky had not fallen in as predicted by federalist scaremongers. At this point a referendum could be promised for the next Parliament on the status-quo (i.e. staying out) or rejoining on the EU’s terms.

Reply: I THINK THEY WOULD NEGOTIATE SERIOUSLY, AS THEY WOULD NOT WISH TO LOSE THE LARGE CONTRIBUTIONS THE UK MAKES TO THE EU AND THERE ARE STILL INTEGRATION MOVES WHERE WE COULD BLOCK THEIR WAY. WHY NOT TRY IT TO FIND OUT?

Well actually the Greens. I was recently at a debate where Green MSP Robin Harper said that his support of the EU was because all its regulations would ultimately prevent the “continuous economic expansion” from which we are currently suffering, but from which countries outside the EU are suffering, on average, almost twice as much.

I also have some doubts if the EU’s role in “recognising” the (UNPLEASANT - ED) regimes in Croatia, Bosnia & Hercegovina & Kosovo can be reconciled with “reducing the differences”.

It seems that anybody who believes in what the EU claims to stand for must now want to leave.

Would you rather be part of a large organisation with huge buying power and mass market exposure such as Tesco or as insignificant in a mass market as the corner shop.

We are either a state of North America or a state of the EU. Alone we will surely perish. How would we trade on an even footing if we stand alone?

If the price of membership is the loss of accountability, a high price I grant you, then so be it.

Reply: The EU does not buy things in bulk for us, so I cannot accept your analogy.

If I were unhappy with Mr Mandelson’s performance as trade commissioner, or Mr Kinnock’s performance at transport, what could I, as a formerly free citizen do, except obey the law or be punished by it ~ there’s a word for such a system isn’t there….