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Too many knowing commentators now assume that the Euro will fail. But not only will the euro survive its current difficulties, Britain will eventually join. We should not wait until the Euro has proved itself by surviving this test of fire, and join at some future moment of weakness. We should join now. Not only would we be able to name our price, but the commitment we would show would go a long way to calming the European economic storm, sooner rather than later.
What I have just written is a contemporary political heresy, to some perhaps even the babbling of a madman. To me however it is a statement of the bleeding obvious, and it is good to see former Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine saying something similar.
The euro will not fail. It won't be allowed to fail. Sure, some of the fiscal basketcases on the continental periphery have some tough years ahead - so do we - but that is because, like us, they borrowed in the good years as well as the lean years, leaving nothing in the bank when they needed it most. That is not down to the currency, it's down to bad economic management, and returning to the Drachma or the Lira would probably only deliver more pain, not less.
We will eventually join. It's inevitable. The current crisis will bind European nations together ever more tightly. There will be ever more scrutiny that countries using the Euro run their finances properly (a good thing... I wish we'd had that when Labour was spending beyond its means year after year). The decision for Britain will be this: do we adopt the Euro and, finally, assume our place as a big, European nation, fully committed to the European Union, or do we leave? The option of staying in but playing by other rules is not possible.
If we stay in, we will have to join the Euro. The alternative is exit, and isolation. Anti-Europeans frequently wave in front of the noses of the electorate the prospect of living in happy isolation, like Norway or Switzerland. Well, I don't want Britain to be Norway or Switzerland: powerless nations of little consequence or significance, who still need to obey EU rules if they want to sell goods or services into the European marketplace. Britain has always been a nation that involves itself in international affairs. It is a force for good in the World, and long may it remain so. Our long history as a trading nation has also made this virtue a necessity.
Entering the Euro now and not wanting for the inevitable to happen would be such welcome news to those on the other side of the Channel that we could name our price and help shape the new Europe that will emerge from this. The act of confidence in the currency and its permanence would also bolster everyone else.
I want Britain to stand alongside France and Germany, as a powerful nation in Europe, leading the way and setting the course for the continent as a whole. That is a positive future for this country, and we should embrace it.
Follow Stuart Bonar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/stuartbonar
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Unfortunately for Stuart, the uk government propaganda machine (bbc et al) delights in blaming all its inadequacies on the EU, to the point where it has now completely brainwashed the electorate to such an extent that they are entirely incapable of any common sense on any matter, particularly on the euro, and EU membership.
An honest appraisal of the EU financial situation was largely created in london, but they solution lies in a prosperous europe.
All this anti-europe drivel is symptomatic of a south-of-england xenophobia that is rife.
Ironic, since they're all german descendants.....
Now lets assume that the UK joins the EU,the UK as you put it would want to be a power player as with Germany and France,do you honestly think that we would be in the top three without donating billions upon billions,so the £40billion that the government said would be all that we could afford to the IMF would be peanuts,how much the European bank would want god knows.
Worst case scenario,the EU reaches meltdown and the top players have to dig deep to save it again,would you be willing to tell the UK tax payers that you want an extra 5-10 pence in the pound,because if you have been reading and watching the polls in Germany they are now getting totally p-ssed off with having to dig deeper.
These are just a few of the worries that the UK electorate has but they have a right to know the truth and not the bull shit that is fed to them via MPs.
I have put this website up before,I take it you have not looked at it.
WHEN YOU HAVE A LOOK AT IT HAVE THE GUTS TO PUT IT ON YOUR BLOGG
www.democracymovementsurrey.co.uk/dyk_waste.html
A currency based on worldly goods, on actual 'things' (e.g. precious metals or other real items), with no interest charged on the created currency. Get rid of the privately controlled central banks, and bring back financial control to the nation/s themselves. To do this does not require 'the Euro' - Just remove the fraudulent system that is currently in place.
We should be negotiating mutually beneficial trade deals with those countries who prefer a Common Market(place), to a political/plutocratic pillow over the face.
"The euro will not fail. It won't be allowed to fail".
Because Brussels has discovered a secret and endless supply of money. With which to placate the circling flock of financial vultures, intent on their predictable feeding frenzy of dismemberment.
"We will eventually join. It's inevitable."
Like being dragged down, by the vortex of nearby foundering vessel.
"There will be ever more scrutiny that countries using the Euro run their finances properly."
There was never any before, so why would they start now?
"The option of staying in but playing by other rules is not possible."
Either we have influence or we have no influence. Which is it today?
"a force for good in the World"
would be joining a democratic trading union, with those of a like mind. Not surrendering to tyranny disguised as freedom.
"we could name our price"
if we hadn’t already been sold out, by illegal suppression of a referendum.
"a positive future for this country"
would be passing Egypt on their way out of servitude, as we are going in?
Rereads article.
No. Obviously missing something. Apart from 'manifest destiny' and 'Britain's a big European nation' is there any reason for commiting economic national suicide? It's an entirely consistent as a logical argument with a train of 'pragmatic' one dimensional thought which reaches down through British politics from Heath, Howe, Heseltine and Hurd. Congrats.
This country is not in a position to join and probably never will be. It would require the government to transfer mindboggling sums of sovereign funds to those areas that are beggared by current fiscal policy. That's assuming the moment the UK is locked into a Euro value with no control over our monetary policy we don't become the biggest lame duck in the room. In which case the sovereign fund transfer will be the other way, and the markets butcher us to oblivion since we have the world's largest debt per capita, and the ensuing austerity programme would make the current trimming look positively innoccuous. Did the lessons of 1992 and the ERM fiasco entirely pass you by?
Ignoring the small matter that the actual superstructure of the Eurozone is about as democratic as the old USSR.
'it cannot be allowed to fail' is a statement which has an obvious rejoinder. 'why not?'. And until someone like Heseltine or yourself provides an answer to that, which also covers off why there was no war between France and Germany between 1945 and 1999, then I suspect you wil fail to persuade anyone.
jeez.
What coinage we use has little effect on our presence or influence in the EU. If I were to make a guess, I'd say that it will take at least one if not two generations before enough nationalist voters die off to make Euro adoption feasible.