Sadly there are still those in Britain who feel it necessary to gloat over the deep and difficult problems facing the Euro. “Thank goodness we’re not in the Euro” is their rallying cry as they watch from what they consider to be the sidelines as Eurozone leaders search for a durable solution.
Yet in this age of globalisation and inter-woven economies being outside the Euro does not mean we can blissfully ignore what is happening in the Eurozone. Britain is affected and, because we are outside the single currency, we have no meaningful say in deciding what needs to be done. It would appear from his recent comments that David Cameron feels this frustration as deeply as anyone.
As Cameron has said, according to the “Times”, the interminable and often ill-tempered Euro discussions are having a “chilling effect” on Britain’s economy. Indeed, if the tensions caused by the Euro do not ease soon and if the key players Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy do not come up with something credible, the UK banks are warning that they may have to raise interest rates. That means you and I will pay more for our mortgages and loans – not necessarily, I imagine, what most of us would want.
There could hardly be a clearer demonstration of how deeply integrated Britain’s fortunes are with the Euro area. It is actually quite straightforward: if the single currency sinks, the UK will be pulled down with it.
It goes even wider than that. If Italy, and potentially Spain, are thought to push the Euro to the point where the only rescue option is a life line from the International Monetary Fund, we will be into a truly international scenario. Money from India,China and Brazil may well form part of any such deal, such are the profound shifts in economic and political power currently happening around us.
In truth, the world is becoming ever smaller. There is no way Britain can go it alone, and it’s about time we as a nation fully accepted this fact of life.
So how do Norway and Switzerland ‘go it alone’ and prosper. How do all the other countries around the world ‘go it alone’ without being in political union with the EU?
The British people are quite happy to have a Trade relationship with the EU – EFTA would do – but that doesn’t mean we have to be subject to the political ‘superstate building’ aspects of the EU.
Can’t go it alone – we are the 6th largest economy in the world! We should be trading golobally – not sinking ourselves into the inward, protectionist, bankrupt EU.
I found it objectionable that people who are sceptical about the Euro are labelled as ‘gloating’… a very sad, questionable and unhelpful argumentum ad hominem – and red herring… the fact is that the Euro is not a soundly based concept, and the question is not whether it might sink, but how it might sink.
The myth that the UK needs the Euro to succeed is being perpetrated by all the Euro Enthusiasts, on both the left and the right. (Osborne for one – never thought I’d see Mary Honeyball and the Tory Chancellor in agreement! ). It is simply not a credible argument.
If the Euro collapsed, the nations currently under it’s yoke would simply return to their own national currencies, and would continue to trade with us as they did before. We operate a trading deficit with Europe, so why would they want to stop trading with us?
All it would mean is that the countries who should NEVER have been allowed to join will now have to fend for themselves and pay off their ridiculuous debt, which they have run up through profligate spending and financial irresponsibility.
The Euro failing DOES not mean the end of UK trade with the countries that make up the Eurozone, and it is disingenious to suggest that it does.
Of course, it won’t be ALLOWED to fail – the political elites (of both left, right and centre) have too much invested in the Gravy Train that is Brussells to ever allow that to happen.