Euro Elections

[iain m]

Just watched a report from Denmark, they have a similar UKIP party banging the drum on similar UK problems. One guy interviewed said " we don't wish to leave the EU, we just want the EU to leave us alone". I agree :d   

[XTR2Turbo]

I think UKIP want the EU to return to being a common market rather than a single state ruled from Brussels and handing out grants like no tomorrow to developing countries and legislation that we have little say over.

 

It's not racism, its not little Britain and all the other tags they get.

 

It's a disagreement on the way the EU is going and where it will go and what this means for Britain and views based on a practical reality rather than a political ideal.

 

I think the EU has made a big mistake by expanding too fast and too far especially when the economic and growth model, especially for the more socialist members, has been proven to be completely unsustainable.

 

It was one thing to include the original 8 countries but the enlarged EU is destined to fail.

 

If the UK wants to lend £10bn to Romania - fine but lets have it secured against assets and paying a commercial rate back to us.  That's what we have to do when we look to attract overseas investors to build Nuclear power stations here.

 

All those knocking UKIPs views on Europe would do well to look at Switzerland and Norway.

 

David

[woodman]

I agree with David

A lot of people are just fed up with all the rules and regs coming from the EU

[Dibby]

Personally, I don't know enough about the repercussions of an in-out vote. On one hand I don't like car emissions regulations because I want to offset my carbon footprint I'm saving by not having kids by burning fuel for nothing but fun in a Westfield. On the other hand, living in Wales I like the £2bn a year European funding we get to build roads, I love riding up the bike park at Merthyr that received EU funding, Ebbw Vale race track will be grateful for their big EU cheque, and I expect farmers love their European subsidies. I don't think the public are being well enough informed of what would happen should we drop out when our source of information is a biased media dumbed down for the lowest common denominator and the muppet show of politicians we have to choose from.

[peet]

Does anyone remember a film called Brewsters Millions where he started a campaign vote none of the above? Thats how I feel with the lot of them!

I think that a career politician should not exist and that 50% of each party should not come from a privileged background to try and instill some common sense and differing qualities.

[iain m]

Yesterday saw another developing bunch of Eurocrats  holding a press conference with the single topic of developing a single state.  Many years ago I attended a conference with John Redwood MP as a speaker. He described his conception of the common market, imagine living in a road with 12 neighbours all with access to a single bank account all paying in their income and spending without any one knowing any financial details until the end of the year. Result disaster, now we have an irresponsible organisation that has not balanced the book for decades.

 

We are in it and like Scotland we can not afford go it alone but the UK no longer stands alone in Europe in not wishing to be part of a single state.  

[Nick Algar - Competition Secretary]

David has summed it up well I think.

 

The EU as a common market is a great idea. But we didn't agree to create a USE, United Sates of Europe. We just seem to have allowed ourselves to be pulled into this against our will. I wish I actually felt that the current European elections would make a difference.

[tisme]

What annoys me about Dave and his boys is their claim

 

"Labour and the Lib Dems won't stand up for Britain; and UKIP can't deliver on anything they promise".

 

They need to be careful on the last bit as they've assumed that UKIP can't deliver because they'd never be in power to do so ....... well, come the 8 May 2015, Dave and the lads may have to eat humble pie - either because UKIP hold the balance of power for a Conservative/UKIP coalition, or who knows, perhaps even an outright majority on their own.

 

It's the arrogance of the Conservatives when they say "can't deliver" that peeeeees me off.

 

Either way, I was old enough to vote in 1975 on whether to stay in the Common Market, I voted yes because it was as it said on the tin - a Common Market   - not a United States of Europe where faceless bureaucrats dictate everything and "europe" grows larger and into countries that stretch the definition of "europe" to the extremes. And we've never been given a say since

 

Trouble with Dave is that he makes promises of things he's going to do or change, but the small print shows it'll be some time in the distant future and only then reluctantly if endless and pointless negotiations haven't worked out as he wants..........

[windy]

£55 million of our money per day goes to Europe. Do we want that to continue?

[Mooch]

living in Wales I like the £2bn a year European funding we get to build roads, I love riding up the bike park at Merthyr that received EU funding, Ebbw Vale race track will be grateful for their big EU cheque, and I expect farmers love their European subsidies. 

So we give them £55m a day and are gracious enough to give us some of it back, provided we spend it on what they say we can.  I'd rather spend our own taxes on our priorities, thank you.

[ALLADDIN]

 living in Wales I like the £2bn a year European funding we get to build roads, I love riding up the bike park at Merthyr that received EU funding, Ebbw Vale race track will be grateful for their big EU cheque, and I expect farmers love their European subsidies. I don't think the public are being well enough informed of what would happen should we drop out when our source of information is a biased media dumbed down for the lowest common denominator and the muppet show of politicians we have to choose from.

 

our roads in wales are the worst in the uk , romanian farm tracks are better.

i cant afford to ride up the new bike park in merthyr it too expensive, private owned profit making .

race track wales will probably never happen - panorama showed it up as a con to bleed local council of cash.

yes farmers love the cash i have had to pay in, tho the huge swindles and mass sheep shifting has stopped these days lol

 

and masses of it seems to be spent on nice town signs and speed bumps ??

 

welcome to wales ,,,, i loves  it i does......

[Dibby]

I don't believe you can't afford to ride at the bike park for one minute. It's a fiver. The Westfield eats more than a fiver's worth of fuel every time I take it out! I've got a season ticket and don't mind paying at all because it's the only non council funded centre in s. Wales and they have to pay back their £1.8m mortgage somehow. Good on Rowan, Liz, Martin and Anna for having the balls to do something good for the area, their competition in the bid was Centre Parcs, they are master profiteers from tame family fodder. If one person in south wales knows how to design a bike track, it's Rowan Sorrell and I'm glad he built it.

 

 

So we give them £55m a day and are gracious enough to give us some of it back, provided we spend it on what they say we can.  I'd rather spend our own taxes on our priorities, thank you.

 

That's a figure highly massaged by UKIP, anyone can google figures that 'prove' it's only £2.5m a day and that we pay nearly 8x as much to non EU nations to service our debt. There's lies, damn lies and statistics.

 

I'd rather spend it on our priorities too, but I'm also afraid that the public don't know enough of the repercussions to make an informed choice and we certainly can't make our minds up on what these priorities are - help the poor, fill the potholes, teachers' pay... If we go the way of Ireland, Spain, Portugal or Greece in 10 years time (even 20? 50 years?) without Europe to bail us or our banks out we're royally stuffed.

[Graham0127]

I feel we WILL go the way of Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Greece if we don't get out of Europe.

I'm too old to really care for myself....but I have 3 kids, 2 under 10 and I need to consider them.

I want out !

[jeff oakley]

Sorry to disagree Dibby, but according to the Express and the Gaurdian the cost per day that the EU gets from the UK is £53 million pounds. These figures come from the goverment office of statistics so not UKIP.

This is £19.7 billion per year, whicheven if these are 50% wrong it is still a huge amount.

 

As others have said, the Common market is what we signed up for not the United States of Europe that is where we are heading. As for bail outs, if the UK ever needs bailing out the EU is stuffed.

[Lyonspride]

our roads in wales are the worst in the uk , romanian farm tracks are better.

i cant afford to ride up the new bike park in merthyr it too expensive, private owned profit making .

race track wales will probably never happen - panorama showed it up as a con to bleed local council of cash.

yes farmers love the cash i have had to pay in, tho the huge swindles and mass sheep shifting has stopped these days lol

 

and masses of it seems to be spent on nice town signs and speed bumps ??

 

welcome to wales ,,,, i loves  it i does......

 

On recent trip through mid Wales to cardigan bay, I thought the roads were all great. Unlike here in Worcestershire, they actually resurface roads properly, instead of just patching them up over and over and over again until the road is like a patchwork quilt of lumps, bumps and potholes.