You are reading a single comment by @XJimX and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@XJimX
When I was a kid, Spain, Portugal and Greece were fascist dictatorships. Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, the DDR etc. were until communist totalitarianism. The idea of a free, open and democratic EU was a huge factor in ending those regimes, and has changed millions of lives for the better - both in terms of living standards and in personal freedoms. It's brought peace between France and Germany.
We saw what happened when Yugoslavia broke up though - genocide and war. Nationalism and fragmentation could lead to bad outcomes.
I actually think that the UK would be generally fine outside of the EU, albeit with a hit to our GDP (of 0.25-0.5% pa?) for a few years due to uncertainty over trade (especially in financial services. But I think that the ideals of the EU are something I want to subscribe to, and that they have delivered both growth and peace over decades. The problems of the EU (or rather the Eurozone) now relate to the lack of proper fiscal transfers - you don't hear people in California complaining that their taxes are going to support jobless people in Detroit, yet that remains the biggest issue within the EZ when it comes to Germany helping the peripheral European nations like Greece and Spain.
In. And my wife says that if Gove becomes PM we are moving to Dublin.