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> We need to work out a new deal where we stay but address some concerns. This is virtually impossible. To change the treaties, one needs the agreement of the
by dudul 8y ago
> We need to work out a new deal where we stay but address some concerns.
This is virtually impossible. To change the treaties, one needs the agreement of the 28 members. What one country sees as an issue (e.g. not properly taxing big tech companies) another sees as a great thing. That has nothing to do with being an adult or not. Each country is protecting its own interests.
- duxup 8y agoUK already was somewhat an oddball. It doesn't have to be some huge issues, some symbolic stuff to give the UK politician some cheap political points.
- dudul 8y agoWhat would be an example? I fail to see what could be strong enough to make the "ruse" viable, but not require any change in the treaties.
- lmm 8y agoWe are constantly told that the UK could have imposed temporary restrictions on immigration from newly joining countries (particularly Romania and Bulgaria), could have limited immigrants' access to benefits, could have limited immigration of those without jobs arranged, could have issued blue passports, all while remaining in the EU. I think it's significant that we didn't. In the run up to the Scottish independence referendum the political establishment went for maximum compromise, promising that "devo max" would offer everything that independence advocates wanted whether they left the UK or not. By contrast those pushing the EU referendum had no interest compromise; the referendum was set up to deliver a minimally-nuanced result that would make a clear victory for one side over the other and allow those on the winning side to pursue whatever policies they wanted. Which backfired when the public refused to give them the result they had intended.
- pjc50 8y ago> promising that "devo max" would offer everything that independence advocates wanted whether they left the UK or not This was, of course, not meaningfully delivered. Including all the promises that the only way to remain in the EU was to vote no.
- pjc50 8y agoThey did. This was David Cameron's renegotiation before the referendum. The public didn't want those symbolic changes, they wanted a whole bunch of other things.
- jcranmer 8y agoConsidering that most of the complaints I've heard about the EU were along the lines of "we hate the goal of ever-closer union" and the renegotiation had the EU explicitly say "Britain gets a permanent opt-out of ever-closer union," it ought to have mollified a lot of critics. But the critics weren't actually complaining about the EU as it actually is but about the EU as they constructed it as a bogeyman, the truth be damned.
- pjc50 8y agoExactly. It's a Quixotic battle against our collective myths of the EU. It can't be addressed by the actual EU.