mentalist

For those of you of a vaguely political nature, the following article about what the Prime Minister really wanted from Europe may be of some interest.
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/Wha...32297.html?x=0

Millsyisland

Good for him I say, whether his intentions were to protect the city or claw back some power from Europe to home soil. Long overdue.

Paracletus

I'sppose the UK has always been on the edge of the EU anyway. It feels somewhat like the David Cameron went to a swingers party but refused to bring his wife. I fail to see what he managed to achieve.

mandm65

I guess it was a serious miscalculation on his part to ask for what he thought he was prefectly possible. He is a 'Euro novice' and it must be shocking for him to see how quickly his allies left him alone!!

In my view he 'obtained nothing'!!

co durham boy

As long as his banking chums are ok then we can all sleep tight .

Ethos83

The euro meeting in Brussels last weekend was just a lot of hot air. All the countries managed to do was to agree to sign up to a further round of fiscal union, but if these same countries had bothered to abide by the original set of fiscal requirements that came with signing up to the euro, they wouldn't be in this mess.

Nor did the leaders really do anything about the actual problem at hand - the massive deficit crunch in the PIIGs.

The EU problem was caused by the economic distortion the euro brought about, namely flooding marginal economies with a currency based on the strength of the prime economies, and political arrogance. The Euro and the EU itself has been a remarkably undemocratic process from day one and I'm rather glad that someone from the UK finally stood up and said 'no, we can't go any further.'

Millhouse

Ethos - what is the feel in the UK on his decision? Good or bad? Hero or Zero? Assuming the UK is still mostly anti-EU then I assume it's all good PR.

The reality is that he wasn't requesting anything new and simply stuck it to the EU. I wonder if he is trying to divide the collation and gain popular support for himself so that he can form a proper government.

Let's see what the markets do in 45mins I guess.

Ethos83

The clear majority (that is, everyone other than the Guardian and the Lib Dems) are happy that Cameron didn't walk the plank into the shark infested sea of Brussels.

The general sentiment is that the EU mess is the EU's problem and not the UK's problem and we shouldn't be bailing out Europe or get involved in trying to restructure the fiscal union. Even the City, which does have some good reasons for supporting the further integration in the name of economic stabilisation, is leery of EU oversight and EU regulations. The recent actions and comments made by the various EU players, namely Merkel and Sarkozy, smacks of bullyism and have turned many in the UK against the EU.

On the other hand, there's undeniable truth that much of the UK's economy is closely aligned with the continent. UK banks are still heavily exposed to the euro. Any collapse will have it's economic implications. But if a collapse happens it will be regardless of what the UK did. We haven't lost or gained anything by refusing to sign up to the new fiscal scheme other than this notion of so called 'influence', but has the UK actually had any influence in Brussels in the past decade?

There's now serious talk about the UK leaving the EU outright, which won't happen today or tomorrow or next year, but eventually down the road. It could be that Cameron's veto marked the turning point, which I suppose was inevitable at some point. I don't think most people want the UK out of the EU altogether, but if it came down to a choice between either we become submerged within a larger EU that will be dominated by dour Germans and the Brits as annoying pipsqueaks on the margins, or we're completely on our own, the populace is firmly for the latter.

Methinks that the notion that the UK will suffer by not being in the EU is rubbish. Canada and the US are each other's biggest trading partners and have several trading pacts in place, but no fiscal or legal union and it hasn't hurt either countries not to be more united with one another.

Paracletus

I can see this..a lot of the problem as far as I see it, is all the junk that comes out of Brussels.