Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

I have to say, how much I do like ex-Chancellor Nigel Lawson's take on EU membership.

"Most of the world is not in the European Union – and most of the world is doing better than the European Union"

As a reminder, he is actually Chairman of the OUT group called 'VOTE LEAVE'. Here's what he has to say:

Britain outside the EU would stand tall as a free and prosperous nation
The Prime Minister has clearly failed to achieve his objectives, and the time has come for us to leave

By leaving the EU, we would become once again a self-governing democracy, with a genuinely global rather than a little European perspective

By Nigel Lawson

10:01PM GMT 17 Feb 2016 Daily Telegraph

Comments as I type: 2698 - More, and also the original article at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12162009/Britain-outside-the-EU-would-stand-tall-as-a-free-and-prosperous-nation.html

In four months’ time the British people are likely to be asked to take the most important decision for the future of our country in their lifetimes.

It is not about Europe as such. It is about whether we should remain within a deeply misguided and troubled institution known as the European Union. No one could have been clearer about the problem than David Cameron, in his Bloomberg speech three years ago, when he committed himself to securing a “fundamental, far-reaching reform” of the EU. He has conspicuously failed to do so.

"As Chancellor, I became increasingly aware that, in economic terms, membership of the EU did us more harm than good"

He committed himself to ending the notorious ratchet, and ensuring that “power would flow back to the member states, not just away from them”. He has conspicuously failed on this front, too: not a single power is to be returned to the United Kingdom; and the doctrine of the so-called acquis communautaire, which holds that powers once transferred to the European Union cannot be taken away, remains firmly in place.

He also promised that whatever he did achieve in his negotiations would involve “proper, full-on, Treaty change”, without which they could not be legally binding. No Treaty change has been secured.

The Prime Minister cannot be blamed for the abject failure to achieve his objectives. The European Union is adamant against any change other than further integration. What is unacceptable is presenting the so-called concessions he does appear to have secured, which range from the wholly inadequate to the completely meaningless, as constituting success.

Let us have a look at them. He claims that he has secured a “red card” system to prevent new EU legislation that is damaging to the UK. Some red card! The draft agreement states that this will only come into play if and when more than 55 per cent of the EU wants it to – a highly unlikely state of affairs in the first place – and, even if it does, all that follows is that the presidency will put it on the agenda for “a comprehensive discussion”.

He claims to have addressed the serious problem of uncontrolled and uncontrollable levels of immigration by securing what he likes to call “an emergency brake”. Some brake! All that is provisionally agreed is an offer by the EU to allow us to bring in a temporary reduction in the level of some benefits (which no one who has studied immigration into the UK believes would make any significant difference, anyway). This is an offer which the EU would be free to withdraw at any future date – such as after a vote by the UK to remain within the EU.

And as for the City of London, and our ability to flourish outside the dysfunctional eurozone, we are sternly told that we must “refrain from measures which [in their opinion] could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives of the economic and monetary union” and that “the existing powers of the Union institutions to take action that [in their opinion] is necessary to respond to threats of financial stability” remains untrammelled. We have been warned.

So what was presented as a drive for fundamental reform has turned into an exercise in damage limitation: how to limit the damage that EU membership inflicts on us. And even that has scarcely been achieved. The only way to end the damage is to leave.

As Chancellor, I became increasingly aware that, in economic terms, membership of the EU did us more harm than good. And that was before the arrival of European monetary union, which occurred after I had left office, and which has had such a disastrous economic effect on the EU.

But it is unsurprising that it brings no economic benefit, for the European Union has never been an economic project. It is has always been a political project, with a political objective which we in the UK do not share. That is the fundamental reason, above all others, why we must vote to leave.

That objective is the creation of a full-blooded political union, a United States of Europe.

That is what “ever closer union” is all about. As the 1983 Solemn Declaration on European Union makes explicit, this is not simply a union of the peoples of Europe but a full-blooded political union of the member states.

That is what monetary union is all about. The father of European monetary union was Jacques Delors, the former President of the European Commission. I knew him very well, since before he became President of the Commission he was France’s finance minister and my opposite number. He fully understood that you cannot have a workable monetary union without a fiscal union, and you cannot have a fiscal union without a political union. That was the object of the whole exercise.

"Most of the world is not in the European Union – and most of the world is doing better than the European Union"

Hence the proposal, in the European Commission’s so-called “Five Presidents’ Report” of June last year, for a single eurozone Finance Ministry and a single eurozone Finance Minister by 2025.

This is clearly not right for us, and we must leave. Otherwise, although we have a notional “opt-out” from the political union, we will still be obliged to accept EU laws framed with this object in mind.

I have been asked “what, then, is your alternative to being in the European Union?” A more foolish question is hard to imagine. The alternative to being in the European Union is not being in the European Union. Most of the world is not in the European Union – and most of the world is doing better than the European Union.

So far as the detail is concerned, we would repeal the 1972 European Communities Act, which establishes the primacy of EU law over our own UK law. The morass of EU regulation, much of which is costly, unnecessary and undesirable, would become UK regulation, which we would then be free to accept, repeal or amend as our national interest requires. And we would continue to trade with the EU, as the rest of the world does today, almost certainly assisted by a bilateral free trade agreement, which they need far more than we do.

Above all, we would become once again a self-governing democracy, with a genuinely global rather than a little European perspective. We would prosper, we would be free, and we would stand tall. That is what this referendum is all about.

Cornyn wants out of the EU but has agreed to support the stay in side.

My copy of 'Comrade Corbyn' has arrived. I am expecting an amusing read.

H/S knows because he went around to Jezzer's address knocked on the door and asked for a glass of water.. just in the hope that he might be able to meet his hero.

Haystack

I think you are an 'IN' believer. Yes? Anyhow, you do seem to keep reminding us quite a lot of how the 'In polls' are leading the race.

Got a comment on Lawson's take on things above?

both sides have good arguments, but at the end of the day, you have to make up your own mind which carries the more weight

good bit of tub thumping by nigel lawson, but i feel he rather spoils his argument by getting carried away in his enthusiasm

I will probably vote out. But not for any of the obvious reasons.

My reasons include some of Lawson's.

I'm also going to vote for out as is my wife.

So they tell me too, are most of our neighbours. They are mostly belong to the older generation.

Our EU Membership Fees alone, are £18bn per year or £50m per day. That won't be a full saving to spend on 'things' but it is going to go a hell of a long way towards them when we do come out.

Anything that isn't thoroughly agreed and then written in cast iron on stone can be chucked out and then differently agreed and then be rewritten against our best interests - all after we've had a Referendum and foolishly voted to stay in.

Manuel,

With the neocons, fascists, cons, UKIP and BNP in self-destruct mode, I would think the most sensible thing for Corbyn to do is sit back and watch the chaos and self-destruction Cameron has provoked for the Con party.

(All out of self-interest and glory.)

Interesting to see how low a profile Osborne is keeping and how Boris distances himself.

Corbyn interests me, but I hope that the infantile infighting between the disappointed members of the labour "elite" settles down and the energy is spent of formulating sensible ongoing economic and political policies.

I think if the UK, whether or without devolution, leaves the EU the chaos left will need long-term thinking, which at the moment none of the main parties are providing.

A crazy world, replicated by the crazy markets.

if you're all voting "out", then i hope you'll have sold all your stocks and shorted the indices well before the result

Strange but I know all the characters on the US Supreme Court but none on ours. Am I alone in that?
The joint enterprise decision is radical. It has always been the case in UK and US law that if you were part of a murder group, you were all guilty regardless of who actually committed the act.

so labour is not in self-destruct mode?
who are you trying to kid?

corbyn is the "man of the future"?
ROTFL!

presumably hand in hand with accessory before the fact

but joint enterprise goes back far longer than 30 years, as below .....

Derek William Bentley (30 June 1933 – 28 January 1953) was an Englishman who was hanged for the murder of a policeman, which was committed in the course of a burglary attempt. The murder was said at the time to have been committed by a friend and accomplice of Bentley's, Christopher Craig, then aged 16, but whether he had fired the fatal shot was later called into question. Bentley was convicted as a party to murder, by the English law principle of common purpose, "joint enterprise".

Joint enterprise is not about being a member of the group in a murder. That would in most cases still be murder. It is about being present and not having prior knowledge of the intentions to murder or have a reasonable expectation of murder being committed.

Bentley would not be convicted now. Firstly, he was of reduced mental capacity and had no idea that the other guy had a gun.

Definition.
Joint enterprise is a powerful prosecuting tool applied so that more than one person - often a group - can be charged with the same crime if it can be proved that they were in some way "in it together". It applies even though the suspects may have played different parts in the alleged offence.

I don't see anything about prior knowledge etc, which is difficult to prove anyhow. The act is fact, although there may be degrees of participation in the act, as said in the definition.

That is not the legal definition.

The defense against joint enterprise is lack of prior knowledge and not having the expectation of the crime being committed.

Good article EL, nicked :-)

Sums it up well, but we will have to see what Dave comes back with.

If it's as outlined, the so called renegotiation will be shown for what it is.

I know of someone who gave a lift a couple of his friends to collect some money from someone. He also had another friend with him who stayed in the car. When they arrived one stayed in the car and the other three went to the house. The guy at the house would not give the money. One of the two guys who wanted the money pulled a replica gun. The guy that I know tried to stop things getting out of hand. They left and the guy in the house called the police. All four were arrested. They all spent 6 months on remand in prison. Two were charged with joint enterprise and were found innocent in court when the police offered no evidence.