M5S present 200k signature to Italian Senate calling for €uro referendum

UKIP's partners in the EFDD group in the EU Parliament, the Five Star Movement, have presented a 200k signature to the Italian Senate calling for a referendum on membership of the €uro.

The petition calls for a referendum by January next year.

Lithuania adopts the €uro tomorrow

Lithuania will become the 19th country to take the crazy step of joining the €uro tomorrow.

The eurozone is stagnant and experts are warning of deflation which is disastrous for countries with high levels of debt and especially those still in recession. Lithuania has a relatively low debt to GDP ratio at the moment but when the cost of living rises (and it will) that'll soon change.

You can read more about Lithuania joining "the stupid club" on the Commentator website.

If Germany wants to steal our money, let them try.

On Sunday, Stuart Parr blogged here about the German plan to enact Cypriot style bank raids on the savers of Europe. To which I say: well, good. I’m all for it. And no, I haven’t lost my marbles.  

Let’s get one thing straight: taking money from citizens is what governments – all governments – do. Unable to create wealth, and with most people fairly unwilling to simply hand cash over if it can be at all avoided, they are forced instead to find ingenious ways to extract it from their citizens. 

Colbert famously once said “the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing”. Indeed, from a certain perspective it’s clear that the only factor separating a successful government from an unsuccessful one is the extent to which they have mastered this skill. 

So far our government seems to be doing a remarkably good job on this front, for make no mistake, it has been busily helping itself to our savings as surely as the Cypriot government dipped into their citizens' pots. Our leaders have just been far more sneaky about it. How have they done it? In two ways:

Firstly, inflation. The 2% inflation target has been routinely ignored for over three years now. Instead, in 2005 the consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate ranged up as far as 5.2%, whilst the RPI has been even higher, all whilst banks were paying out only 1-2% interest on savings. The effect has been to erode in real terms the value of the money in those accounts. Essentially, anyone with money in a British savings account has been fleeced as surely as the Cypriots have. But has there been rioting in the streets or a run on the banks? Nope.

The second way is through quantitative easing. Let me hand over to Louise Cooper writing in The Spectator(£) for this one:  “QE … uses digitally created money to ‘buy’ government IOU notes, or Gilts, thereby reducing the interest rate at which government borrows. The Treasury, nowadays, lends this money to banks (so-called ‘Funding for Lending’) and they, in turn, can depend less on borrowing from their customers. This means they offer derisory levels of interest, as anyone who is applying for a cash ISA will attest.”

Of course the situation is even worse than that. This government has made quite a song and dance about taking the lowest waged out of taxation (by which they mean income taxation – these people still pay plenty of other taxes). But the extra £700 in people’s pockets has been more than wiped out by the huge cost of inflation caused by QE, estimated to be as much as £779 a year for the poorest 10%. That’s before we even mention the £400 a year extra on VAT, or the consequences of wages also dropping in real terms. 

By contrast, the Cypriots made a rather poor fist of stealing their citizens savings. As I commented at the time, they’ve overplayed their hand and given the game away. People were lining up down the roads to guard their savings from being imperilled. In fact, it’s something of a miracle that the move didn’t spark a run on the banks across the Eurozone – and indeed if Germany continues to press in this manner, it just might. Which is exactly why I’m in favour of it. Transparency is bad for governments but good for democracy.

So savings grabs may be good for governments in the very short term if it allows them to meet the terms of a bailout, but in the long run they can only serve to fatally undermine the system. The goose is hissing loudly. It’s the measures such as our government has been employing that are really insidious, as they produce no protest, just a slow long descent into poverty. So go ahead Germany, make my day. Let the citizens of Europe know that the EU is hellbent on stealing their money. They’ll remember the lesson when they get to the referendum ballot box.

Citibank predicts Greek and Cypriot €uro exit

Citibank has published a damning report on the €urozone's future, predicting a Greek and Cypriot exit from the single currency and structured defaults for Italy and Spain.

The Cypriot government is yet to vote on the EU's austerity programme and half of Cyprus' MPs say they're going to vote against it so a Cypriot exit might come sooner rather than later.

EU planning to ban cash transactions over €500

The EU is planning new laws to make cash transactions over €500 illegal.

All companies and some self-employed people will be required to have credit card machines this year and Greek Deputy Finance Minister, Giorgos Mavraganis, has made no attempt to hide the motivation behind the move - it isn't just to tackle tax evasion, it's to collect data about citizens and where they're spending their money.

The problem with this is that the type of people who evade tax aren't the sort to take any notice of a law telling them they aren't allowed to pay more than €500 in cash for something.

Once again, Tory myopia courts European disaster

Those callow youths Cameron and Osbourne are at it again, this time stating that the Euro Zone (EZ) should move to full  Fiskalunion.

Cameroons, like New Labour, are an ahistorical bunch ("junior partners in 1940" - remember that? ), so it shouldn't come to any surprise that Cameron and Osbourne are plainly unaware that stopping the emergence of a united continent has been at the heart of British European policy for hundreds of years, but the shear unbelievable stupidity of is nevertheless breath-taking.

For a start, it would, as the excellent Ambrose Evans-Pritchard said in his webchat today be "an unworkable superstate that has no historic or cultural roots" permanently locking economic malaise in the periphery, bailed out by huge capital transfers from the Germanic North. More importantly, it is hard to see how such a state could be achieved through democratic consent of Europe's peoples, instead being imposed from the above by the elites.

It doesn't take many powers of analysis to know that such a state would be likely to be wracked by insurrection and civil war within a few years. But, from the British point of view, an even worse nightmare would be the external realities of the situation. Imagine that: an undemocratic state of over 500 millions souls only 22 miles across the channel, in all probability economically failing, with a predisposition to blame 'Les Anglo-Saxons' and their wicked free-market model for their problems. Irrespective of whether hostility would ever manifest itself in terms of a military threat (and it wouldn't take much to threaten us militarily these days, thanks to the destruction by this government of our Armed Forces) life would feel pretty uncomfortable.

Once again, we see from the Tory high command not only it's contempt for democracy but also its myopia and cynicism, sacrificing a principled strategy for short term political tactics again and again: the tactics in this instance being, of course, that it is not in Britain's interest to talk down the Euro for fear of creating future bad blood unnecessarily.

Although there is merit in the argument that we must try to avoid blame for the total catastrophe which may engulf the Eurozone, it that case surely the best course of action is to stay completely silent on the matter. Or if you must encourage a United Europe, at least state that it must be done only with the consent of the people, which would effectively mean it would never happen. Instead Osbourne and Cameron are actively cheer-leading for the final fruition of the original Jean Monnet dream: a United Europe by the elites, for the elites. Thankfully for us, the German courts have ruled that any moves towards Fiskalunion to be unconstitutional.

So, in 2012 the British government seems to be actively campaigning for the destruction of European democracy while a German court emerges as it's principle defender.

The world has turned full circle.

The Euro: Irresistable force meets immovable object

With Greece predicted by almost everyone to be exiting the Euro soon due to the irresistable forces of global capitalism, it is worth considering the reason for why it has remained for so long, and why the European Establishment has been so slow to retreat from it's impossible position. (Note that the term 'European Establishment' is not quite the same as the European Union, courtesy of the lunatic decision to allow Christine Lagarde to become head of the IMF.)

A good deal of the reason is, as many commentators have pointed out,  the emotional attachment the European Establishment have to the Euro as a totem of the 'inevitable' flow of history towards European unity. The fear that, once that illusion is shattered, then the whole project (and their careers) will lie in ruins is plainly a very powerful one.

However, there is another reason thats bears attention: the immovable object of German culture.

Anyone who has worked has the good fortune to work in Germany will find much to admire in the Germanic way of doing things: notably the meticulous attention to detail in planning and execution, as well as the steely psychological toughness to see things through over the long term.  As the recent BBC documentary 'Eurocrash' by Robert Peston explored,  the German nation  coped magnificently with reunification through collective discipline and sacrifice over a period of 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's doubtful that any other European nation could have achieved such a success given such huge difficulties. Certainly we in Britain, faced with our own dire economic problems and a pathetically cowardly government response, can only envy them their unity of purpose as well as their willpower.

However, all cultures have weaknesses, and the EU is now being smashed on the anvil on that same German Will. The German mentality is to plan meticulously for every eventuality, then execute 'The Plan'. However, once 'The Plan' is underway, it is essentially on railway tracks and no deviation from it can be countenanced. Difficulties will be bulldozed aside and it will be seen through, come what may. Very often this approach works, but if unforeseen and insurmountable circumstances arise, Germans often find abandonment of the held position virtually impossible.  Thus mistake is compounded and re-compounded by intransigence until total disaster overtakes it. In a recent speech, Angela Merkel showed this absolutist mentality in all it's hubris.

"If the euro fails, Europe fails. That must not happen."

But as we all know, the problem for Merkel is that Germanic stubborness to make the Euro work only has a chance of success if reflationary monetary policies are pursued and a fiscal union created between the member states. That, of course, brings the only policy likely to save the Euro in collision with  the equally tough Germanic insistence on sound money. Thus we have the grotesque situation that, irrespective of a forced Greek exit, Germany will almost certainly continue to compound it's errors and to defend the Euro with savage deflationary policies until the last peripheral European economy is totally smashed.

And smashed is not too dramatic an expression. We often tire in the media of hearing sensationalist rhetoric from politicians or commentators  about economies 'collapsing' or being 'destroyed' by this or that government policy, and Armageddon (almost) always fails to arrive. But for once the horrible  reality really seems to be matching the hype. If reports are to be believed, parts of Greece and Spain are returning to a pre-modern barter-based economy. Germany, in the meantime, continues to prosper mightily as the greatest export engine the world has ever known on the back of a cheap Euro.

As Nigel Farage has repeatedly warned, Cassandra-like,  some European states may be headed for civil war or revolution. Certainly, some of them seem to be leaving the developed world.

And they said the EU would guarantee European peace and prosperity in our time.

Croatia to join EU

With the €uro on the brink of collapse, Greece defaulting on its debt repayments, the third largest economy in the €urozone (Italy) seeing its credit rating downgraded and the second largest €urozone economy (France) at risk of losing its AAA rating, the EU has had a eureka moment.

Our masters over the Channel have decided that the best way to stave off the collapse of the single currency and save their beloved EU superstate is to admit Croatia into the EU, complete with the obligatory membership of the €uro.  You couldn't make it up.

Interestingly, for an eastern European country that two decades ago was enslaved within the regressive communist union of Yugoslavia, Croatia is actually in quite a good state financially compared to the rest of the €urozone.  National debt is a mere 58% of GDP which is less than half of that of Greece at 144.9% of GDP or Italy at 118.1% and Croatia ranks higher than several EU countries in the GDP world rankings.  All this will change if the €uro survives long enough for them to join it of course but they can't say they weren't warned.  Not that many people in Croatia would have seen or heard the warnings though, a prize for finding a eurosceptic article in the almost entirely state-controlled Croatian media remains unclaimed.

The game is up for the €uro

Nicolas Sarkozy has called for the EU to be "refounded" around France and Germany, saying "We must confront those who doubt the stability of the euro and speculate on its break-up with total solidarity".

The people openly speculating about the imminent break-up of the €uro now includes the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, who has told UK banks to start stockpiling cash and prepare for the €uro's demise.  He also warned about the amount of debts money the UK's banks have owed to them by companies in €urozone countries which aren't enough to bankrupt them but enough to make a dent in their reserves.

Sarkozy wants to ban countries from defaulting on their debts but stopped short of agreeing with Angela Merkel's suggestion that the EU should approve and regulate national budgets.

Merkel and Sarkozy are talking up the €uro and saying they're going to "guarantee" its future but the game is up and I think they know it.  Reading the words brings to mind images of leaders in the process of being overthrown going on TV to tell people everything is ok while TVs around the world are showing footage of revolutionaries storming their palace.

France - the EU's second largest economy - is at risk of losing its AAA credit rating over concerns that it might not be able to pay its debts.  Italy - the third largest economy in the EU - is on the brink of disaster.  We've seen two government's overthrown by the EU and sockpuppets put in their place.  The end of the €uro is nigh and perhaps the EU too, it's just a matter of timing.  It might last to the end of the year, it might be gone by Christmas - I don't think there is any doubt now that the €uro is beyond salvation.  The EU finance commissioner, Ollie Rehn, said yesterday that they have 10 days to save the €uro and the EU ... well, make that 8 now.

Camoron is heading for France tomorrow to talk to Sarkozy, I hope to god he doesn't do something stupid and drag us into the €uro's collapse.

Heseltine says UK will join €uro

Michael Heseltine, the former Deputy Prime Minister and eurofanatic of Thatcher's government, has said that the €uro will bounce back and that the UK will join.

Even though the €uro is on the brink of collapse, three €urozone members have had to be bailed out, two €urozone governments have been overthrown by the EU to protect the currency and a €1tn bailout fund is needed just to allow Greece to default in a managed way, Heseltine still thinks that the UK's future lies in the €urozone.

At 78 years old, perhaps it's time for Lord Tarzan to slow down a bit and find the time to get some medication for his delusional fantasies?

German conspiracy to prevent EU referendum in UK

Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Währung!

A leaked memo from the German foreign ministry shows that the Germans are desperate to avoid a referendum in the UK on the changes they need to various EU treaties to create the Fourth Reich.

Germany has plans for an EU Monetary Fund and for the eurozone and eventually the whole EU to turn into a political union but mindful of previous problems with countries holding referenda on treaty changes which keep giving the wrong answer, the German foreign ministry has advised Angela Merkel to keep treaty changes to a minimum so it doesn't trigger referenda.

Limiting the effect of the treaty changes to the eurozone states would make ratification easier, which would nevertheless be required by all EU member states (thereby less referenda could be necessary, which could also affect the UK)

When David Cameron instructed Tory MPs to vote against a referendum on the EU the other week he said that now was the wrong time to hold a referendum and that they would instead be seeking to repatriate powers from the EU.  However, the plan to repatriate powers has already been dropped.  When asked about plans to insist on powers being returned to the British government in exchange for ratifying the Fourth Reich Treaty, a British government official said:

I don’t think that anyone is seriously proposing going down that route

I can't find my shocked face so I'll have to stick with my sarcastic "what a surprise" face instead.  It is a well known fact that the Lisbon Treaty has no provision for returning powers to member states, only to take more powers - the Tories have no intention to try and repatriate powers from the EU because they know as well as everyone else that it is a one-way street where transfers of power are concerned.

Der Spiegel quotes the eurofanatic Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, saying:

The idea that one could simply get on to the Eurostar, go over to Brussels and come back with a bag-load of powers simply is not feasible

Clegg also says that only "populists, chauvinists and demagogues" would benefit from a debate about taking power away from the EU.  The majority of the population would benefit from that kind of debate but of course he's talking about David Cameron so let's see what it is that Nick Clegg finds so repulsive:

Populist: a person, esp a politician, who appeals to the interests or prejudices of ordinary people
Chauvinist: a person who is aggressively and blindly patriotic, especially one devoted to military glory
Demagogue: a political agitator who appeals with crude oratory to the prejudice and passions of the mob

I think it's safe to say that one thing you can't accuse David Cameron of is being blindly patriotic - he's a traitor who is happily handing over the country he was elected to govern to unelected fascists and crooks in Brussels.  And as for crude oratory: Cameron is far from a crude orator, he managed to deceive millions of people during the election into thinking that the Tories were eurosceptic.  You don't pledge to keep the UK in the EU in public and convince eurosceptics to not only vote for you but join your party and promote a pro-EU agenda with crude oratory!  I think we can also rule out appealing to the interests or prejudices of ordinary people - he actually threatened his own MPs with the sack if they voted for a referendum despite a large majority of the population being in favour of a referendum

The Daily Mail has a handy table of 10 year bond yields - the interest rate the pay on the money they borrow - for €urozone members and the UK.  Greece is promising to pay a whopping 28.88% interest on any money it raises from issuing bonds, compared to just 2.18% for the UK.  A 28.88% interest rate is expensive but affordable if you're talking about a couple of grand on a credit card and you're paying the interest bit by bit every money.  If you're paying it as a lump sum on billions of pounds, it's certainly not affordable and it's not sustainable.

The front page of today's Daily Mail leads with the news that the German Finance Minister says the UK will be forced to join the €uro and "faster than some people on the British island think".  I think most people in the UK would agree with me when I say that hell will freeze over before I will carry round a pocketful of €uro in my own country!

Slovakia votes against increasing €uro bailout fund

The Slovakian government has voted against increasing the size of the €uro bailout fund tonight.

The proposal was rejected by 21 votes and resulted in a vote of no confidence in the europhile Slovakian government.

According to the BBC, a new government will be formed soon and a second vote taken which is expected to pass.  For the sake of the Greek people and everyone else suffering because their governments tied them into the political vanity project that is the €uro, let's hope the Slovakian government drags it out for long enough to force a Greek default and the collapse of the single currency.  A poll on the Bloggers4UKIP Facebook page shows that more than three quarters of people who voted don't believe the EU will survive the collapse of the €uro.

EU Commission says leaving eurozone is illegal

The EU Commission has said that eurozone countries are not allowed to leave the Euro. Ever. No matter what the circumstances, no matter whether they are bankrupt and bankrupting the whole continent, no matter whether other member states want to throw them out. It's a one way street, membership is forever.

Neither exit nor expulsion from the euro area is possible according to the Lisbon Treaty under which participation in the euro is irrevocable.

It's funny how you can't leave the Euro if you want to or if everyone else wants you to because that's not allowed under the Lisbon Treaty but if you want to give illegal bailouts to bankrupt eurozone countries that's ok even though it's not allowed under the Lisbon Treaty.

Leaving the eurozone is as simple as a national parliament passing a law saying that the country's currency is no longer the euro.  The EU Commission will find out soon enough how easy it is.

Hat-tip: PJC

Fate of Euro in hands of German Constitutional Court

The Telegraph says the future of the EU and its failing currency is in the hands of the German Federal Constitutional Court which is reviewing the illegal €uro bailouts.

If the Bundesverfassungsgericht rules that the bailouts are unconstitutional then a new EU treaty will be required.  If it rules that the bailouts themselves are inherently unconstitutional then it could rule that Germany has to leave the EU.

In all likelihood the Court will capitulate like they did when they reviewed the Lisbon Treaty first time round but I bet they can hear the squeaking bottoms in Brussels all the way up in Karlsruhe.

Desperate ECB president fails to inspire

The president of the EU Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, is desperate for the most recent Greek bailout package to be approved, saying the implementation of the agreement to bail out Greece was "of essence".

Trichet was upbeat about the future of the EUro and the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker (who is chair of the EUrozone finance ministers), is confident that all the countries demanding collateral for their loans won't scupper the deal.

Nigel Farage was at the meeting and posted this comment to Facebook:

Trichet's speech did not inspire. Even in a room full of EU staffers it was met with silence. Do they know the game is up?

If Trichet can't even motivate a room full of rabid EUrophiles and EU/ECB employees then that doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

The EU said back in June that there is no Plan B where Greece is concerned, I hope for their sakes they were bluffing!

Gold or €uro - where would you put your money?

With all the talk about the imminent collapse of the €uro, there's one important piece of €uro-trivia that the media seems to have forgotten.

When the great saviour of the human race, Gordon Brown, sold all our gold reserves having announced it in advance and depressing the gold price to a fraction of its real value, he ploughed the proceeds into €uro!

So not only did he lose the taxpayer £7bn with the gold sell-off, he then invested the money in a failing currency that was doomed from inception.  Way to go Gordo!

Cameron and Osbourne in favour of single economic government

George Osbourne and Cast Iron Dave have both publicly stated their belief that the EU should move towards greater economic integration to protect the euro and that a single eurozone economy is in our national interest.

I think we have to accept that greater eurozone integration is necessary to make the single currency work and that is very much in our national interest
- George Osbourne

[The eurozone will have to move] towards much more single economic government
- David Cameron

The single currency can't work when it is the currency for many different economies that are linked by only a common unit and interest rate. The German government controls the German economy, the French government controls the French economy, the Greek government ... well, technically the Greek government controls the Greek economy but in reality they're administering it to a set of rules drawn up by the EU Central Bank.

How do you ensure those economies are being run in a way that is compatible with each others' economic policies and objectives and working to a common goal? The simple answer is that you can't unless you have a single economic area with a common treasury and finance minister and control of that single economy - including taxation - sitting with that finance minister.

The problem is, what's good for Germany and France isn't good for Italy and Greece and vice versa. The German economy is too strong but as the biggest economy in the EU (and the one contributing most to the bailout funds) they have to protect it. If Germany pulled out of the euro it would become worthless. That means interest rates are kept at a level that suits Germany but which damages weaker economies like Greece and Portugal.

To level the economies of every member of the eurozone would require massive capital investment - we're talking more money that the EU has got, probably more money than there is in the world. The only option to level the eurozone economies is to drag down the strong economies which isn't an option - no government (apart from the British government, possibly) is going to deliberately sabotage their economy to protect the euro. In short, the euro is doomed to failure. The recession has shown how weak the euro is as a concept, not just as a currency.

It is incredibly naive to think that tighter economic integration and the ultimate aim of a single economic area under EU central control will exclude non-members of the eurozone.  The UK will be required to integrate with the eurozone to a certain extent and through the traditional gold-plating of EU legislation, the UK will become even tighter integrated than the EU requires.

The only safe position to take on the euro and tighter economic integration with the EU is to be well away from it.  Well away from the euro, well away from the financially illiterate eurocrats, well away from the bankrupt eurozone countries and well away from the EU.

The EU Knew the Scale of Greece, Ireland, Spain & Portugal's Economic Problems All Along

The European Union never ceases to amaze me. Not in a good way, but in a way that FIFA's attitude towards England never ceases to amaze me. On a quick side note, FIFA are nothing but a bunch of anglophobic fat cat self-proscribed Kings with little to no warranted involvement in football. But that's a different matter, I just needed to get that off my chest.

Flicking through a text book on the European Union a couple of tables catch my eye. One of which is the table for "The Cohesion Fund". It catches my eye because the only four countries which got the fund were the four countries that need or have had major bailouts. Bizarrely, they're even in the order of financial strife.

The Cohesion Fund was set up as a result of the Maastricht summit to provide funds for 'energy and telecommunications' for the poorest member states. Pre-2004 therefore, the European Union knew very well that taking on Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain would be a disastrously risky move. The only way to tackle economic problems, according to the EU is to simply throw money. In total nearly 3 billion Euros were given to just four countries.

These four countries, in 2003, accounted for over a quarter of the loans granted by the EU. This in real money, for the period of 1997-2003 means that these four countries were granted a whopping 45 billion Euros of loans. That's equivalent to 20 years of savings from coalition government cuts!

It doesn't end there. In 2003 there were only four countries that were net beneficiaries of their EU budget contributions. Those countries, yes you guessed it, were Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. The UK got 3% LESS back from their EU budget contribution. The table below shows the percentage profit made by the four countries:

Greece, Spain and Portugal shouldn't be entirely blamed for the mess that they are in. The three countries, were very reluctant in joining the Euro so early, citing that they felt they were not economically ready. The EU Commission, didn't care. Nothing was going to stop their European dream. Ireland, on the other hand, were very eager beavers.

What strikes me the most about all of this data is that it is an outright lie that the European Union had no idea that the four countries would pose economical problems both for themselves as nation states and for the European Union. They knew even when bullying a reluctant Greece, Portugal and Spain in to the Euro that they were playing with fire.

It is that what frightens me the most about the European Union. That they put their own European Dream ahead of reality, the attitude of regardless we will go on.

Hague must now give us a referendum on Eurozone Lisbon Treaty changes.

We may not be in the Eurozone but it clearly governs our actions.

Officially the bailouts that have been happening within the EU/Eurozone are illegal under the relevant treaties. But as there seems to be no court to enforce these treaties, this fact has been ignored.

However, to now regularise these bailouts, the treaties/laws are to be amended to retrospectively legalise the bailouts.

Prior to the last election and subsequently, after the establishment of the coalition government, David Cameron and his Conservatives have promised the people of the UK that there will be referenda on any future changes to our relationship with the EU that may impact UK sovereignty.

Putting these two issues together, a significant treaty change and the promise of referenda one might have expected a referendum on the proposed changes to the Lisbon Treaty. However, if this is what you expected then you would be disappointed as William Hague has said that there will be no referendum on this matter.

The Conservative governments argument against holding the promised referendum is that the change only affects Eurozone countries, of which the UK is not one, so the change makes no difference to the UK.

However following the initial £7 billion bailout of the Euro/EU/Ireland  it is clear that Eurozone issues are essential to the UK's national interest. Especially as conservative/coalition chancellor George Osborne has refused to rule out possible future bailouts of other Eurozone countries - Portugal, Greece and Italy.

There can now be no argument against having UK referenda on any treaty changes within the EU - even if only Eurozone countries are being targeted. While we are in the EU, then regarding the Euro and Eurozone  'we are all in this together'.

We may not be in the Eurozone but it clearly governs our actions - so where is our referendum?

The euro will collapse within 5 years

Experts are predicting the collapse of the Euro in the next 5 years unless the French and German governments can convince voters that it's a good idea to bail out bankrupt member states and hand over more sovereignty to keep it afloat.

Worryingly, the same experts are warning that the financial difficulties could lead to an official federal EU, as opposed to the effective federal EU that we have now.

The UK economy is getting battered because of the impending failure of the Euro even though we aren't a member of that particular white elephant because we are still shouldering some of the cost of propping the currency up and the ill thought out financial regulations that the EU are cooking up at a frightening rate are being applied equally to us, not just the bankrupt Eurozone.