I cannot understand those that doubt the UK will seek the utmost cooperation on issues such as security and environmental with the rest of Europe. The UK does not need to be told to raise standards.
There is no such thing as an independent nation. Everyone relies to some extent of others in the current world. Mauritania was often quoted as the country that relied on WTO rules, but even now they have joined the Economic Community of West African States. It sounds nice to be independent, but the reality is completely different.
There is a world of difference between independent nations having agreements with other countries and those tied to Brussels being controlled by unelected eurocrats surfing the gravy train. Thankfully when the UK was asked in the referendum the majority of voters agreed with me.
I think that you are a bit out of date SH. (like stuck in the 19th Century ). The vast majority of countries in the World are aligned to some kind of trading block, or protected zone. In some cases political unity, and freedom of movement, are either proposed or are currently in operation. Furthest advanced in these respects are CARICOM (Caribbean Community) where both political unity and freedom of movement are planned. The CAIS (Central American States) which have freedom of movement, and the Union of South American States which is modeling itself more and more on the EU. Basically the World has seen that the EU is a success model and is rapidly following suit. There are a couple of countries which are independent of all this - like North Korea !
Being part of a trading block is not the same as a nation’s parliament being dominated by a superior body, no thanks.
Sainsburys say they will reduce the amount of plastic on the goods they sell over the next five or six years. Good, but why is it necessary to sell a cucumber in a plastic sleeve? It is not an EU rule as I have never ever seen one sold here wrapped up. The infrastructure is not in place in the UK to dispose of compostable or biodegradable materials effectively, parliament's committee for environment, food and rural affairs found. Why? Because there has been no investment in it. All of my compostable or biodegradable waste can be sent off, if it doesn't go in my compost bin. What happens to a lot of the waste in the UK that cannot be composted. It is being sent abroad, which will stop soon. London waste being sent to landfill sites in Scotland. Ridiculous! How has this lack of investment come about? Because private companies see little profit in such enterprises, and local government has been starved of resources to do anything about it.
You really just don't get people working with each other for the greater good do you? If you cannot have your way on everything then you want to take the ball away.
We are part of that 'superior body' SH. It is not a force which is alien to us - but rather an exercise in pooled sovereignty together with other nations. It goes like this - sovereignty begins with the individual - he then pools that sovereignty in order to have his rights better protected than he could do on his own. You talk about being dominated by an external power forgetting that we are part of that power and were instrumental in making most of its laws - in fact we voted for about 95% of them, which is a higher percentage than any other country. Most of what you call trading blocks are actually moving in the direction of the EU. in terms of their internal organization, and there is a good reason for that because if only capital becomes globalized and politics remains at the level of the nation state then all sovereignty goes out with the bath water.
There is no need to be dominated by a foreign body to be able to work together for the greater good. The EU is the oddball in the world. The UK said ‘no thanks’.
I can see why the Scots, the majority in Northern Ireland and now the Welsh say no thanks to England.
All three are perfectly happy to stay in a United Kingdom dominated by the UK parliament in London. England will continue to subsidise these regions but have refused to continue to financially bale out the EU.
In our rush to provide green energy, and we will need more of it as electric cars eventually take off, maybe we are creating more problems than we realise. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49567197 If this SF6 gas is going to warm the earth for a 1,000 years it has the potential to be as dangerous as nuclear waste.
This story on SF6 gas is a good example of how it does need countries to work together to form policies that deal with the problems facing our planet. You could have a single country taking a strong line with it, yet a neighbour saying that it is against our interests to take any action. Is it better to be told you must do something to protect the majority, or to ignore the fact that it could be bad for you as well as your neighbours?
With us leaving the EU, I’m afraid of a dissipation of collective responsibility for the environment. Deflections of responsibility like this: “There’s worse countries than us!” “We’ll clean up our act when they have!” Sorry to go Brexit everything, but it is so crucial to everything. Food labelling we can trust, food that we know is not GM, continent-wide standards of environmental control. We’re pissing away so much by leaving, throwing this country back decades. I sometimes think older people thought they were voting for a return to the good old days of the 1960s. The reality is we’ll have 1960s standards of self-serving conglomerates, regressive standards for workers (with deteriorating employment rights), and an environment being poisoned with an attitude of “that’s tomorrow’s problem”. I worry so much for our country’s children and their children.
