The Student Room Group

Should the UK rejoin the EU?

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Reply 20

Original post
by meenu89
No.
it has not turned out the way I thought it would, but that is the fault of Tory Governments since Boris

Like ordering something at a restaurant that you didn't understand on the menu, despite other diners' advice, which you find quite inedible, but then refusing the offer of something different and forcing yourself to eat it, all the while blaming your nausea on the chef, who has since been sacked.

Reply 21

**** yeah, the economy's going bad and the right are taking advantage of this to blame immigrants and refugees for existing

Reply 22

100% no and never again as we would be much worse off over time.

Reply 23

Original post
by mike44
100% no and never again as we would be much worse off over time.

Why? If it's to do with immigration they form the backbone of several key industries in the UK.
Original post
by solitary-dispute
Should the UK rejoin the EU?
Oops misread I meant Yes.

Reply 25

Original post
by Geo Lover 7
No

Why
Original post
by isaac123444566
Why
See above. :blushing:

Reply 27

Original post
by Geo Lover 7
See above. :blushing:

Yeah nws haha

Reply 28

The answer in a vacuum is obviously that we should. The purported benefits of Brexit were always nonsense, and the years since we left have categorically shown that they were unachievable. As much as people wanted to rely on notions of sovereignty and control to justify such an egregious act of self harm, the reality is that to function in the modern world and trade with other countries there always has to be an element of compromise if you want to strengthen trade. Whilst it would, in theory, have been possible to draw some limited benefit from the post Brexit landscape, we never had the quality of politicians or debate to make that outcome realistic, and in any event those benefits would not have compensated for the damage caused by severing ties to our closest trading partner. The best compromise was always the one we already had with the EU, from just about every angle.

However, as much as rejoining the EU would be the right thing to do in theory, there are legitimate concerns around the effects of that and how practically it would be achievable, from both our side and the EU's side. From our side, very careful thought would have to be given about the mechanism by which it is achieved. The fact that the decision to leave was taken by referendum is highly relevant. You cannot simply ignore that even with the outcome of it having been so detrimental. To my mind the only two ways that it can happen is either by way of a second referendum or a political party campaigning on it and winning an election. Frankly, you'd probably need to campaign on the second referendum and win as well. That's obviously out of the question for the remainder of this term, and it would be a significant risk for Labour to campaign on it at the next election. The Liberal Democrats will, but even if they subsequently get into government through a coalition with Labour (one of many possible outcomes at this point given the uncertain political landscape), it would be a big step for the coalition to adopt that as policy. So politically and practically it's very difficult to see the route for us to actually do it.

The issues from the EU's perspective are simply that they need to be very careful politically with the notion of one member leaving and then deciding to come back when it's all gone wrong. That exodus of countries from the EU that the Brexiteers predicted obviously hasn't happened, nor has the demise of the EU generally, but as much as the EU could certainly justify letting the UK back in because it's in everyone's benefit, so there are some tricky elements to that which need to be negotiated. I suspect it would happen if we decided that we did want to rejoin, but it wouldn't be straightforward.

Can I see it happening anytime soon? No. But I sincerely hope that it does in my lifetime. It would frankly be an absolute tragedy if it didn't.

Reply 29

The question would seem to be based on the assumption that all is well with the EU, when clearly it is not. Brexit may or may not have been the right decision, but it is done.

Why seek to rejoin an organisation that is riven with internal dissent and with a leadership that is increasingly out of touch with the aspirations of the citizens it purports to represent? While we have yet to see any other states on the brink of leaving, shifts in the political climate in several countries suggest that, sooner or later, the EU will fracture - particularly if it continues on the path of trying to absorb economically weak and politically unstable countries on its fringes.

Rejoining the EU of 15 mainly wealthy and culturally compatible nations that existed prior to the enlargement of May 2004 might be a different matter. But if that version of the EU had still been in existence in 2016 we would almost certainly never have left in the first place.

Reply 30

Original post
by Supermature
While we have yet to see any other states on the brink of leaving, shifts in the political climate in several countries suggest that, sooner or later, the EU will fracture - particularly if it continues on the path of trying to absorb economically weak and politically unstable countries on its fringes.


I don't think anyone has suggested that the EU is perfect or that "all is well". There have always been political and other issues. I don't see how you can realistically avoid them with an organisation of that size. To some degree, as with many of the coalition governments in those individual countries, debate, disagreement and compromise is a necessity and the status quo rather than something to be concerned about.

As for this prediction, the fall of the EU has been predicted by Eurosceptics for pretty much as the project has existed. So many of them very confidently predicted that we would be the first domino to fall when we voted to leave in 2016. Now that that hasn't happened, they've fallen back on vague notions of "well, yeah, but it's still in trouble and will fall apart eventually". It's very easy to be confident in a prediction that can always be pushed back to "at some point in the future", because by definition you can never actually be wrong. In reality, the far more salient point is that people have been making these predictions for over fifty years now and have never been correct.

Reply 31

Original post
by Crazy Jamie
I don't think anyone has suggested that the EU is perfect or that "all is well". There have always been political and other issues. I don't see how you can realistically avoid them with an organisation of that size. To some degree, as with many of the coalition governments in those individual countries, debate, disagreement and compromise is a necessity and the status quo rather than something to be concerned about.
As for this prediction, the fall of the EU has been predicted by Eurosceptics for pretty much as the project has existed. So many of them very confidently predicted that we would be the first domino to fall when we voted to leave in 2016. Now that that hasn't happened, they've fallen back on vague notions of "well, yeah, but it's still in trouble and will fall apart eventually". It's very easy to be confident in a prediction that can always be pushed back to "at some point in the future", because by definition you can never actually be wrong. In reality, the far more salient point is that people have been making these predictions for over fifty years now and have never been correct.

In response to your first point, I readily accept that there will always be debate, disagreement and compromise among nations, even among close allies. Indeed, I am all in favour of it. However, there are growing tensions in regard to key issues where disagreements could become so great that they may ultimately threaten the EU's existence: notably immigration, climate control and enlargement.

As regards the second point, I was being rather more specific than you make out, referring as I did to the potential accession of a number of economically weak and politically unstable countries, two of which have large populations and all of which would be holding out the begging bowl. This makes it significantly more likely than in the past that one or more of the net contributors to the EU budget may eventually choose to leave.

When talking about the EU, we need to distinguish between the EU of today and its antecedents. Many of those who voted leave in the 2016 referendum would have been among the 67% of the participating UK electorate who voted to remain in the Common Market referendum of 1975. What happened in between was that the nature, purpose and membership of the organisation radically changed along with its nomenclature.

So I reiterate: in the hypothetical circumstances of aspiring to rejoin an EU of 15 members that we almost certainly would never have left in the first place there would be a strong argument in favour. But the idea of rejoining the EU as it is today holds much less merit.

Reply 32

Original post
by Supermature
In response to your first point, I readily accept that there will always be debate, disagreement and compromise among nations, even among close allies. Indeed, I am all in favour of it. However, there are growing tensions in regard to key issues where disagreements could become so great that they may ultimately threaten the EU's existence: notably immigration, climate control and enlargement.

As regards the second point, I was being rather more specific than you make out, referring as I did to the potential accession of a number of economically weak and politically unstable countries, two of which have large populations and all of which would be holding out the begging bowl. This makes it significantly more likely than in the past that one or more of the net contributors to the EU budget may eventually choose to leave.

When talking about the EU, we need to distinguish between the EU of today and its antecedents. Many of those who voted leave in the 2016 referendum would have been among the 67% of the participating UK electorate who voted to remain in the Common Market referendum of 1975. What happened in between was that the nature, purpose and membership of the organisation radically changed along with its nomenclature.

So I reiterate: in the hypothetical circumstances of aspiring to rejoin an EU of 15 members that we almost certainly would never have left in the first place there would be a strong argument in favour. But the idea of rejoining the EU as it is today holds much less merit.

I think that third paragraph is on somewhat shaky territory. I haven't seen any data on the number of voters who changed their vote between 1975 and 2016 in favour of leave. There will have been some I'm sure. Whether there were many depends on your definition. But irrespective, implying that they will have changed their mind because of how the EU itself changed in that time is somewhere between overly simplistic and flat out inaccurate. We both know that the various leave campaigns advanced much more simplistic arguments than that, and whilst there was some mention of how the EU has changed since 1975, I expect only the smallest of minority of leave voters generally would be able to give you any sort of detail as to how it is that it changed. Certainly nowhere near the level of detail that you and I could describe.

I see your point generally, though, and you're entitled to it. I see how you can arrive at the conclusion that this combination of circumstances and events will lead the EU down a path from which significant change will result. I just take the view that recency bias means that we're generally going to see current events as ones that don't have solutions, mainly because we haven't seen them yet. But there have been various major issues and crises over the decades. Many people made the same arguments after the Greek bailout in 2010 that you're making now regarding the economically weaker countries, and that crisis, such as it was, was successfully navigated. I will say at the time it also did feel much more existential in the wake of the 2008 crash than these issues do now. But fundamentally I struggle to see the path from this set of circumstances to the EU breaking apart. That would be a very technical and difficult process, and not something that can happen by accident. Frankly I think the will to keep the EU together, and maintain the status quo one way or the other, is stronger than any will to fracture it.

Reply 33

Original post
by Crazy Jamie
I think that third paragraph is on somewhat shaky territory. I haven't seen any data on the number of voters who changed their vote between 1975 and 2016 in favour of leave. There will have been some I'm sure. Whether there were many depends on your definition. But irrespective, implying that they will have changed their mind because of how the EU itself changed in that time is somewhere between overly simplistic and flat out inaccurate. We both know that the various leave campaigns advanced much more simplistic arguments than that, and whilst there was some mention of how the EU has changed since 1975, I expect only the smallest of minority of leave voters generally would be able to give you any sort of detail as to how it is that it changed. Certainly nowhere near the level of detail that you and I could describe.
I see your point generally, though, and you're entitled to it. I see how you can arrive at the conclusion that this combination of circumstances and events will lead the EU down a path from which significant change will result. I just take the view that recency bias means that we're generally going to see current events as ones that don't have solutions, mainly because we haven't seen them yet. But there have been various major issues and crises over the decades. Many people made the same arguments after the Greek bailout in 2010 that you're making now regarding the economically weaker countries, and that crisis, such as it was, was successfully navigated. I will say at the time it also did feel much more existential in the wake of the 2008 crash than these issues do now. But fundamentally I struggle to see the path from this set of circumstances to the EU breaking apart. That would be a very technical and difficult process, and not something that can happen by accident. Frankly I think the will to keep the EU together, and maintain the status quo one way or the other, is stronger than any will to fracture it.

There is some evidence from polling history to suggest that even when remain sentiment was relatively high (such as, for example, the 1990s) the British public did distinguish between the Common Market or EEC that the UK had joined in 1973, and which had subsequently been renamed the European Community, and the European Union of today:

"Our many polls at this time suggested that the lead of those wanting to “stay in” reflected a willingness to remain in a Common Market but that political and monetary union across Europe were much less popular prospects."

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/polling-history-40-years-british-views-or-out-europe

Perhaps the best summary of the UK's relationship with the EEC/EC/EU has been provided by Prof Sir John Curtice:

Despite four decades of membership, the UK never fully took the European Union to its heart...

There was little discussion in 1975 about immigration or ‘freedom of movement’. After all, the then nine members of the European Community did not vary greatly in their level of economic development, and thus there was little reason to anticipate significant migratory flows in one direction or another. But the same is not true of a now 28-member European Union that, in particular, encompasses the less affluent, former Soviet bloc countries of Central and Eastern Europe. To compound matters, the United Kingdom, in a rare act of European solidarity, decided to recognise the freedom of movement rights of citizens from those countries as soon as they became members in 2004; it did not do what most existing member states did, which was only to grant those rights after five years had elapsed. The numbers of Poles and others who took advantage of that decision far exceeded policy makers’ expectations, and the UK has been experiencing relatively high levels of net inward migration ever since."

https://www.centreonconstitutionalchange.ac.uk/opinions/brexit-behind-referendum

Ironically, Poland itself has recently seen levels of immigration unprecedented in its peacetime history, which have caused tensions not dissimilar to those that underpinned the Brexit debate and which figured prominently in the recent presidential election. These huge migration flows and the ambition to absorb yet more countries that are economically underdeveloped and politically unstable are existential threats to the EU in its current guise.

While I am not usually a fan of France's President Macron, I think there is much to be said for his oft repeated idea of offering European states the option of a looser form of association that may well be more acceptable to voters in the UK and elsewhere who favour a close trading partnership - and nothing more.

Reply 34

Yes please! The world is pretty scary and unstable right now. The best antidote, the way to make ourselves more resilient, is to improve our connections with our neighbours.

Reply 35

Original post
by Supermature
The question would seem to be based on the assumption that all is well with the EU, when clearly it is not.
Hmm, I see you're still struggling with basic concepts. This might help...

Imagine you are on a boat that is overrun with venomous snakes, no supplies, is sinking, and is on fire.
A boat pulls alongside. It has rats in the bilge, only stale bread and Red Bull, a slow leak, and a smokey engine.
Which boat is the better option?

Reply 36

Original post
by Supermature
The question would seem to be based on the assumption that all is well with the EU, when clearly it is not. Brexit may or may not have been the right decision, but it is done.
Why seek to rejoin an organisation that is riven with internal dissent and with a leadership that is increasingly out of touch with the aspirations of the citizens it purports to represent? While we have yet to see any other states on the brink of leaving, shifts in the political climate in several countries suggest that, sooner or later, the EU will fracture - particularly if it continues on the path of trying to absorb economically weak and politically unstable countries on its fringes.
Rejoining the EU of 15 mainly wealthy and culturally compatible nations that existed prior to the enlargement of May 2004 might be a different matter. But if that version of the EU had still been in existence in 2016 we would almost certainly never have left in the first place.
Sure, there is dissent within the policymaking of the EU, however that's just democracy. The EU is one of the strongest alliances in the world.

Of course the decisions made by the EU can't please everyone, it's an international organisation with 27 countries, but surely the UK having a seat at the table would improve outcomes for us, because we would actually be in it? The argument that it is 'out of touch,' literally proves our point, because if we were in it we would actually have influence over decisions made.

It's obvious the benefits to the economy with it would bring - I don't think that can even be debated.

As outlined by previous posters, this rhetoric the EU will fail is just an excuse to try and prove a point without any actual evidence.

Finally, especially at a time like now - with the huge threat of war from Russia and the US' leadership, surely improved diplomacy and cooperation is imperative?

Reply 37

Original post
by isaac123444566
Sure, there is dissent within the policymaking of the EU, however that's just democracy. The EU is one of the strongest alliances in the world.
Of course the decisions made by the EU can't please everyone, it's an international organisation with 27 countries, but surely the UK having a seat at the table would improve outcomes for us, because we would actually be in it? The argument that it is 'out of touch,' literally proves our point, because if we were in it we would actually have influence over decisions made.
It's obvious the benefits to the economy with it would bring - I don't think that can even be debated.
As outlined by previous posters, this rhetoric the EU will fail is just an excuse to try and prove a point without any actual evidence.
Finally, especially at a time like now - with the huge threat of war from Russia and the US' leadership, surely improved diplomacy and cooperation is imperative?

I fully endorse the view that improved diplomacy and co-operation in world affairs is highly desirable but it is not immediately obvious that membership of the EU is an essential prerequisite for effectuating it.

If you recall, what I actually suggested was that the EU leadership is increasingly out of touch with the aspirations of the citizens it purports to represent. One can observe that in the rise of the far-right and nationalist left in several EU states.

The argument that the EU may well fail in the specific circumstances that I described is, of course, speculative (not rhetorical) - but so is the countervailing argument that it will endure.

There is widespread agreement that a closer trading partnership with Europe would be highly beneficial but, again, this should not necessarily involve EU membership, which is at issue here.

So far, no-one has commented directly on the central point that I am making. If, hypothetically, we were considering joining or rejoining the pre-2004 Common Market or EEC of 15 members then I submit that the argument in favour would be very powerful. If, on the other hand, we are being asked to consider joining an EU of 27 politically, culturally and economically diverse states, which aspires to ever closer union while at the same time seeking to expand yet further, then I see the case for that as rather more questionable.
(edited 10 months ago)

Reply 38

Original post
by 2WheelGod
Hmm, I see you're still struggling with basic concepts. This might help...
Imagine you are on a boat that is overrun with venomous snakes, no supplies, is sinking, and is on fire.
A boat pulls alongside. It has rats in the bilge, only stale bread and Red Bull, a slow leak, and a smokey engine.
Which boat is the better option?

Is it really necessary to resort to such a bizarre analogy when you could just as easily make your point (whatever that is) in a more straightforward manner?

Reply 39

Original post
by isaac123444566
How can you not see his point? Do you really lack the basic comphrehension skills necessary to realise he is likening our current situation with the possibility of joining the EU?
Why not simply make the point?

Likening the EU to a ship that has rats in the bilge, only stale bread and Red Bull, a slow leak, and a smokey engine does not make it seem like an attractive proposition, does it?

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