Friday, 13 September 2013

Bruges Group poll shows 29% want to remain in the EU

A poll for the eurosceptic thinktank, the Bruges Group, has found that 71% of voters in the UK want us to be members of EFTA while just 29% want us to remain in the EU.

The European Free Trade Agreement is what people were deceived into thinking they were voting for in the only referendum we've ever had on membership of what is now the EU.  It is the relationship that Norway and Switzerland have with the EU and has helped them to become the two most prosperous nations in Europe, able to respond to the economic crises that have have blighted the rest of Europe without being hamstrung by stupid EU rules.

The Director of the Bruges Group, Robert Oulds, said:
This poll shows that there is a viable alternative to EU membership. The option of re-joining EFTA and becoming like Norway and Switzerland is very popular with the British public.
Europhiles call EFTA "fax democracy", saying that Norway and Switzerland don't get a say in the regulations that affect them and receive new regulations from the EU by fax.  This simply isn't true as Civitas pointed out recently. Norway and Switzerland, along with Iceland and Liechtenstein who are also members of EFTA, are involved in the policy making process right at the start and are involved in the regulation amendment process. They don't get a vote on the final regulation when it comes to the EU Parliament but by that time it's a fait acompli anyway, either because it's an EU regulation bringing into force a directive from an international organisation like the OECD or UN or because it's a regulation to enforce EU policy which EFTA has been part of formulating.

Comments (3)

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Look more into the NOrway/Switzerland 'arrangements'. They are both distinctively different relationships with the EU- they not the same. Both also have a lot of issues.
Norway has to abide by 'EU Rules of Origin', and trade barriers/tariffs are incurred if components don't meet single market requirements. Norway also takes 75% !!! of EU laws, but has no say/veto in such laws (it has thus far taken 7,000 EU laws). It negotiates a deal every 5 years, or more like it trys to reduce EU funding demands. Norway, in terms of EU fees (o r 'voluntary contributions lol) (by the strength of it's economy) is the EUs 7th largest contributor! Norway accepts the '4 freedoms' associated with the single market- including movements of peoples. The EU labor market of migrants increased by 2-3% after '04.
Try retrieving an article via google called 'inside and outside' written by its EEA review committee, 2012.

Switzerland?

I could make lots of similar remarks with regard to their (albeit some the same/some different) issues. Blog back if you would like me to.

I'm all for leaving the EU, but this typical laymen argument that you hear from the likes of joe soap work colleagues 'oh, but Norway and Switzerland just trade with the EU, we can be like them', is a complete myth.
For the UK, any post EU situation would not be modeled on either of those two countries experiences in the slightest.
1 reply · active 599 weeks ago
Norway is a member of the EEA which is why it has all the EU regulations to comply with. Like the other EFTA members, Norway has a say in the formulation of all relevant EU laws right up to the point where it goes to the vote. The vote almost never goes the "wrong" way so in almost all cases, Norway has had as much input into EU laws that it has to comply with as any other member state. However, even as a full member state it is almost impossible to stop something the EU/EC have decided to do and the number of areas where the veto still applies has been reduced to virtually nothing anyway.
This is a link to the 'outside and inside' report I commented upon in my earlier post.
There is actually around 28 chapters, which you'll have to search for individually if you're interested (i.e, google Norway, outside and inside chapter (insert with one, 1-28))
This link goes to chapter 1 http://www.regjeringen.no/pages/36798821/PDFS/NOU...

Really, the 'Norway's method's great' myth is just that- a myth.

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