EU. In or out?

[Crossrutted]

having said that .. the EU has introduced untold benefits to the UK, for which we are, or should be very grateful .... but they failed to realise that the British people will not be dominated by Europe, whom they freed from tyranny in modern times.

Hold on a minute. The EU didn't "introduce" anything. We were willing members of a club. The club, us included, agreed to raise it's game by improving the standard of activities in many areas. Many of those standards came from us (as we had them first) and with newer ones we took part in committees to agree them.

As an EU member we both contributed and received. It was a beneficial arrangement on most levels.

Unfortunately successive, spineless UK politicians used the EU to mask their own agendas, incompetence and failings. The EU became the whipping boy over the channel.

Other countries, particularly our commercial rivals, Germany, France and Italy had no issues in (appearing to )comply to the club rules.

The UK has suckered itself into leaving this club; and as yet NO benefits of leaving have been demonstrated.

If we had had the political leaders we deserve, they would have leveraged our financial contribution better; and we should have stayed in, reaping the benefits of what we had sown over 40 years.

Instead...

[Elmer J Fudd]

I am pro EU, however I think a big part of the issue with the UK has been the perceived European Superstate, where in the late 80's the EEC set itself on a path to more and more integration and centralisation. Yes we were at the table, but once the monster starts to move it can be difficult to stop. Memories are also long and distrust is a factor for many of the older generations.

Many other countries have doubts but see themselves as too small or poor to do anything about it, other countries have neared bankruptcy trying to follow the rules.

The EU has also set itself on a course of expansionism (come on in guys the water's lovely) which is basically a (political) land grab. 12 members in 1993, 27 or 28 now.

I don't think we should leave, but do think the EU should be pared back to become an economic partnership with added benefits (Maastricht is where it all went haywire), not an all encompassing State.

[garyboy]

if you lived (or live) in Wales, you would definitely see the directive benefits of `Introductions` by the EU ... in particular, the `Objective One` funding for deprived/poor areas.
England has always exploited Welsh resources and people, and the EU, bless them, has always sought to redress that injustice.
So when we began to see visible improvements in our industrial horror landscapes, after the mine closures and steelworks redundancies, the `introduction` of some form of compassion and sanity, in the form of new buildings and infrastructure, new areas of natural landscape and tree planting .. with unmistakable blue signs of `origin .. EU` .. we were eternally thankful that the EU was our saviour ........ just my personal opinion.

but, as mentioned ... the EU became too big and too authoritarian, with some member states bullied into a general consensus, no doubt influenced by huge debts and fear of retribution by bullying leaders. .. i have not made this up ... i read it on the internet lol

it is a shame to lose the benefits of the EU .. especially so for Wales .... but i am positive that those benefits will return. and things will stabilise to a mutually beneficial situation .... my only real fear is that Wales will once again be at the mercy of English leaders

[Crossrutted]

England has always exploited Welsh resources and people, and the EU, bless them, has always sought to redress that injustice.

What a crock!

The EU (in the shape of the Romans) got to Wales before the English, who didn't exist at that time.

[Asgard]

Bah what did the Romans ever...etc

The English identity is of early medieval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Angelcynn ('family of the Angles'). Their ethnonym is derived from the Angles, one of the Germanic peoples who migrated to Great Britain around the 5th century AD.[8] England is the largest and most populous country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The English largely descend from two main historical population groups – the Germanic tribes who settled in southern Britain following the withdrawal of the Romans (including Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians), and the partially Romanised Britons who had been living there already

Genetic research on the Y-chromosome has shown that the Welsh, like the Irish, share a large proportion of their ancestry with the Basques of Northern Spain and South Western France, although the Welsh have a greater presumed Neolithic input than both the Irish and the Basques.

But regarding exploitation nobody has exploited us Welsh more than the Lords and landed families of Wales itself, it has always been little more than a fiefdom and behind the thin veneer of the assembly and local councils remains so.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Those 'landed families' are Norman...many of our evils, like the class system and the House of Lords, go back to the Normans. The HoL has a centuries-old history of obstructing Celtic and Anglo-Saxon democracy and justice. Alfred the Great was our best-ever king and about 1000 years ahead of his time. Poor old Harold was just unlucky. William I was a bastard.
St Edmund should be restored to be the Patron Saint of England again.

[daveuprite]

Wow. How far do you guys want to go back?

Australopithecus aforensis were total bastards. Luckily us good guys became Homo erectus....

[garyboy]

Wow. How far do you guys want to go back?

Australopithecus aforensis were total bastards. Luckily us good guys became Homo erectus....

I know a homo erectis .. and he is a real bastard

[Elmer J Fudd]

"Poor old Harold was just unlucky"

Unlucky or got what was coming to him? Did he steal the crown from William as French history proposes, or was he the true successor as the English like to make out?

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Harold was a good ruler...England had a strong economy and something that we would recognise as the start of a proper Government and justice sysem.

William was a warlord, and his hanger-ons were robber barons.

Even the Bayeux Tapestry (which was sewn by Saxon women, because the Normans couldn't sew) shows the Saxons as dashing and brave individuals, and the Normans as faceless thugs committing atrocities. The Normans were so thick, they didn't notice. The only thing they could do better than the Saxons was build large and ugly stone castles.