Brexit matters

[edwin_m]

Or, of course, there is always this radical notion to fall back on:

But I think I'm beginning to get to the bottom of it:

I think the concept that many supporters of the EU fail to grasp is that it is not what the EU legislates for that troubles those who are not so enamoured with our friends in Brussels (or Strasbourg, if they happen to be on one of their jaunts). It is the fact that it can legislate at all on such matters. In short, it's not what they do, it's the fact they can do it.

There's lots of things that UK governments have (or have not) done which annoy me intensely. But I despised with a vengeance the idea that unelected bureaucrats based abroad could overrule them. I decided in 1992 that if ever given the chance I would vote to end that absurd situation. I didn't expect any general economic benefit to the UK to follow from it; there's far too many other factors to influence a country's economy. As mentioned, most European economies are struggling and when I last looked none of them had left the EU. I certainly had no personal vested interests in such an outcome. Nothing in the 24 years before the referendum changed my mind and certainly nothing any "here today, gone tomorrow" politician spouted during the campaign had any influence on my decision. I simply did not like the UK being a member of the EU and I'm as pleased as punch that it no longer is.

That is your viewpoint. But ever since autumn 2018 opinion polls have shown majorities against Brexit, so most people either don't see it as a problem or are prepared to put up with it to enjoy the benefits of being a member.

 

[Annetts key]

There's lots of things that UK governments have (or have not) done which annoy me intensely. But I despised with a vengeance the idea that unelected bureaucrats based abroad could overrule them. I decided in 1992 that if ever given the chance I would vote to end that absurd situation. I didn't expect any general economic benefit to the UK to follow from it; there's far too many other factors to influence a country's economy. As mentioned, most European economies are struggling and when I last looked none of them had left the EU. I certainly had no personal vested interests in such an outcome. Nothing in the 24 years before the referendum changed my mind and certainly nothing any "here today, gone tomorrow" politician spouted during the campaign had any influence on my decision. I simply did not like the UK being a member of the EU and I'm as pleased as punch that it no longer is.

You are of course entitled to your own views.

However, all that has happened in terms of the movement of powers, is that they are now in the hands of the U.K. PM, government and state. Yes, one of the first democracies, but now recognised as a very flawed system. Further, vast powers still exist in the hands of one person, the Prime Minister. The vast majority of voters don't get a say in which MP or Lord becomes party leader and hence who becomes the PM. The current PM was appointed without any election even within the Conservative party.

Certain laws, legislation or rulings are determined by secondary legislation (which comes under far less scrutiny in the House of Commons) or via decisions by the Privy Council (where most members are appointed by the current government).

The PM can appoint ministers to cabinet from the House of Lords, making someone a Lord in order to do so. Said person or persons don't need any election by the voters.

The E.U. was far from perfect. But there are more checks and balances and it's a more democratic system than our U.K. system. I won't go into details, as you either already know how it works or you are not interested.

The point I am making is that in my own opinion, 'we' have not 'taken back' control. 'We' have just handed more power to our government. And in my view, they have made an enormous mess (I've using polite language) leaving the country in a much worse state than when we were in the E.U.. Honestly, I think a class of school children could do a better job than Boris and the Conservative did.

 

[E27007]

The E.U. was far from perfect. But there are more checks and balances and it's a more democratic system than our U.K. system. I won't go into details, as you either already know how it works or you are not interested.

Please go into details, how the EU is more democratic than our UK system, in particular please defend the case of elected representatives, MePs, who cannot initiate legislation to the EU Parliament.

 

[RT4038]

You are of course entitled to your own views.

As you (and I) are, and carry no more weight than anyone else.

However, all that has happened in terms of the movement of powers, is that they are now in the hands of the U.K. PM, government and state. Yes, one of the first democracies, but now recognised as a very flawed system. Further, vast powers still exist in the hands of one person, the Prime Minister. The vast majority of voters don't get a say in which MP or Lord becomes party leader and hence who becomes the PM. The current PM was appointed without any election even within the Conservative party.

Certain laws, legislation or rulings are determined by secondary legislation (which comes under far less scrutiny in the House of Commons) or via decisions by the Privy Council (where most members are appointed by the current government).

The PM can appoint ministers to cabinet from the House of Lords, making someone a Lord in order to do so. Said person or persons don't need any election by the voters.

The implication being that membership of the EU is desirable to protect us from ourselves? Powers should be in the hands of the UK, which is the PM, the government and the state. Why do we need any of those powers in the hands of a consortium of foreign governments? I don't recall the vast majority of voters getting a say in who becomes EU President/ Commissioner whatever either.

The E.U. was far from perfect. But there are more checks and balances and it's a more democratic system than our U.K. system.

One of which is triggering Article 50, to depart, when the other 'checks and balances' are perceived not to be working in the full interests of one member state.

it's a more democratic system than our U.K. system. I won't go into details, as you either already know how it works or you are not interested.

How very patronising. I can only presume that you don't know how ( or perhaps not actually convinced) it is a more democratic system and how it works! With majority voting groups of countries can gang up on others when it is in their interests, particularly with disparities in the economies and cultures of individual states.

The point I am making is that in my own opinion, 'we' have not 'taken back' control. 'We' have just handed more power to our government. And in my view, they have made an enormous mess (I've using polite language) leaving the country in a much worse state than when we were in the E.U.. Honestly, I think a class of school children could do a better job than Boris and the Conservative did.

But 'we' have made the mess, and 'we' have the opportunity of recovering from that, rather than relying on a consortium of foreign governments, who may or may not also make a big mess, depending on personal opinion.

 

[najaB]

I'm pretty sure I understand that perfectly. But I don't think that's necessarily wrong in the way you are assuming (although I can see why people might feel it's unfair)

The fundamental unfairness and the reason why it was morally wrong was that employers were able to use a loophole in employment law to get away with paying people less for doing the same amount of work (or, in many cases, much more). It wasn't a matter of paying them less because of skills or experience but just less. These were jobs with salary scales and the scale for agency worker was less than that for permanent staff.

And it wasn't the case that this was necessary to keep the company in business, as evidenced by the fact that, once the loophole was closed, they simply gave people contracts and started paying equally with next to zero impact on profits.

Please go into details, how the EU is more democratic than our UK system

When was the last time we had a government whose composition reflected the vote?

 

[RT4038]

When was the last time we had a government whose composition reflected the vote?

When was the last time the EU did?

 

[Annetts key]

Please go into details, how the EU is more democratic than our UK system, in particular please defend the case of elected representatives, MePs, who cannot initiate legislation to the EU Parliament.

Please show me who voted for Lord Cameron to be in government.

The implication being that membership of the EU is desirable to protect us from ourselves? Powers should be in the hands of the UK, which is the PM, the government and the state. Why do we need any of those powers in the hands of a consortium of foreign governments? I don't recall the vast majority of voters getting a say in who becomes EU President/ Commissioner whatever either.

The E.U. is not and was not a "consortium of foreign governments". It is a number of member countries that work together for the benefit of the member countries. This is a cooperative system. Unlike the U.K. which is a number of countries that were conquered by the English to form one state.

Being within the E.U. gave us, the U.K., representation and certain rights and allowed us to have a say in changes, to modify or introduce new laws or systems, the same as the other member countries. Now that we have left the E.U. we now have far less power as a country, as we now have no say in the E.U.. But any individual or company that wants to export goods or services has to comply with E.U. laws and regulations.

How very patronising. I can only presume that you don't know how ( or perhaps not actually convinced) it is a more democratic system and how it works! With majority voting groups of countries can gang up on others when it is in their interests, particularly with disparities in the economies and cultures of individual states.

Ahh, ganging up, just like what happens with the government whips in our parliament then...
A parliament which is not fully representative of the votes cast in elections.
And the U.K. has plenty of disparities in the economies and cultures of individual areas.

But 'we' have made the mess, and 'we' have the opportunity of recovering from that, rather than relying on a consortium of foreign governments, who may or may not also make a big mess, depending on personal opinion.

Well, at least you admit that 'we' the U.K. have made the mess. Oh, BTW, who did we rely on during the latter part of WWII, was it a 'foreign government' by any chance? Such as the U.S.A.?

Also, when we were in the E.U. which 'foreign governments' are we supposed to have relied on?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Being within the E.U. gave us, the U.K., representation and certain rights and allowed us to have a say in changes, to modify or introduce new laws or systems, the same as the other member countries. Now that we have left the E.U. we now have far less power as a country, as we now have no say in the E.U..

The idea that we now have less power is one of those things that Remainers love to proclaim, but in reality it's not at all obvious whether it's true. In the EU, there were laws that applied to the whole EU. We had something like 3% of the say over those laws, balanced out by those laws applying to 30 times as many countries. Whether instead having 100% of the say in those laws but they only apply to one country means we have more power or less is a bit of a value judgement.

But any individual or company that wants to export goods or services has to comply with E.U. laws and regulations.

Only if that company wants to export specifically to the EU. Not if they want to export to any of the approx. 95% of the World (by population) that doesn't live in the EU. And even then, I would assume that most of the rules and regulations apply only to the finished product, not to whatever means the company has chosen to manufacture the product.

 

[alex397]

I can’t contribute much to this debate, but it is fascinating to see the opinions of apologists to the government.

I really don’t trust the British government to have the interests of the general British public at heart. That’s why we need something like the EU for extra checks and balances. The British government are mostly only interested in their rich mates - anyone who thinks overwise is either ignorant or very naive (in my opinion, of course). The level of deprivation I see in the UK is unforgivable - I have yet to see this level of deprivation on the continent (apart from perhaps Charleroi - but even there I see significant investment in public infrastructure)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The fundamental unfairness and the reason why it was morally wrong was that employers were able to use a loophole in employment law to get away with paying people less for doing the same amount of work (or, in many cases, much more).

Why is it morally wrong to pay different people different amounts for the same thing?

Today I bought a Muller Yoghurt from Sainsburys. I'm pretty certain that if I'd gone to ASDA, I could have bought the exact same thing and paid a different price. Is it morally wrong for me to pay one supermarket less than the other supermarket would have expected me to pay for the exact same product?

What you refer to as a 'loophole' is no such thing. It's simply the process of companies and employers mutually engaging in the process of deciding/negotiating what salary each person is willing to accept and what each company is willing to pay, and the two sides agreeing to trade work for money if they find they can come to an agreement (albeit with a possibly complex process along the way such as going through an agency). By agreeing to work through the agency, the person doing so has signaled that they are willing to work for a salary that is lower than other people are getting. Morally, you can no more blame or complain about the company choosing to take advantage of that than you can criticise me for taking advantage of one supermarket being willing to sell me a yoghurt for a lower price than another supermarket is willing to sell it to me for.

 

[E27007]

The level of deprivation I see in the UK is unforgivable - I have yet to see this level of deprivation on the continent (apart from perhaps Charleroi - but even there I see significant investment in public infrastructure)

Indeed the level of deprivation in the UK is unforgivable, as it should be in any economy or society, and the UK was in the top two of the small number of positive net contributors to the EEC and the EU , UK a positive net contributor even when UK in the 1970s was deemed "the poor man of the EEC", money sorely needed to alleviate UK deprivation, a fact not lost on many Brexiteers living on low incomes voting in the referendum

 

[alex397]

Today I bought a Muller Yoghurt from Sainsburys. I'm pretty certain that if I'd gone to ASDA, I could have bought the exact same thing and paid a different price. Is it morally wrong for me to pay one supermarket less than the other supermarket would have expected me to pay for the exact same product?

But thinking about it more accurately, would it be fair for just one supermarket to charge different prices for exactly the same? That Muller yogurt could be one price in one section of the supermarket but different in the other.

 

[Enthusiast]

The fundamental unfairness and the reason why it was morally wrong was that employers were able to use a loophole in employment law to get away with paying people less for doing the same amount of work (or, in many cases, much more). It wasn't a matter of paying them less because of skills or experience but just less. These were jobs with salary scales and the scale for agency worker was less than that for permanent staff.

But you still seem to be missing the point. The matter of employment law governing people working in the UK should be a matter reserved for the UK Parliament. Whether those laws are "good", "bad", "fair" or "unfair" is a matter for the UK's MPs to address. No country outside Europe would allow its domestic law to be formulated by a foreign entity over which they have virtually no control. The idea is preposterous.

But any individual or company that wants to export goods or services has to comply with E.U. laws and regulations.

Of course it must. In the same way, any company wanting to sell goods in the USA must comply with US standards. But there's a big difference: the USA does not dictate to countries whose traders are seeking to sell their goods there how they should formulate their employment law; they do not insist that their trading partners comply with environmental legislation which they have framed. It is a false analogy to equate the imposition of trading standards with submitting to the supremacy of the laws laid down by a foreign entity.

I understand why some people feel the need to have "checks and balances" available to trammel the actions of their government. They believe it keeps them safe from the excesses of a wicked executive. But what happens when they disagree with the decisions those providing those checks and balances make? Would they then want a further level of checking to ensure that the checkers are acting as they prefer?

This issue of whose laws have supremacy was a fundamental question for many people when they cast their vote in the referendum. I know of no country outside the EU whose government has voluntarily sacrificed the supremacy of its Parliament as the ultimate legislature of domestic matters. Why should that be? Are European nations uniquely riven with untrustworthy or over zealous executives?

 

[Richard Scott]

I really don’t trust the British government to have the interests of the general British public at heart. That’s why we need something like the EU for extra checks and balances. The British government are mostly only interested in their rich mates - anyone who thinks overwise is either ignorant or very naive (in my opinion, of course). The level of deprivation I see in the UK is unforgivable - I have yet to see this level of deprivation on the continent (apart from perhaps Charleroi - but even there I see significant investment in public infrastructure)

I'm sorry but please open your eyes when travelling around Europe, there are lots of places with deprivation, just go outside Duesseldorf Station for starters, walk around Lyon, won't take you long to find it.
It's not excusable where ever it is but I'm afraid it's no worse in the UK.
I take it you've never been to Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia etc? If you have you'll notice deprivation far worse than the UK.

 

[alex397]

I'm sorry but please open your eyes when travelling around Europe, there are lots of places with deprivation, just go outside Duesseldorf Station for starters, walk around Lyon, won't take you long to find it.
It's not excusable where ever it is but I'm afraid it's no worse in the UK.
I take it you've never been to Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia etc? If you have you'll notice deprivation far worse than the UK.

Thank you for your patronising comment, but im well aware of these places you mention. I’ve been to every country you mention there, and no not just with a tour guide around the capital cities.
I haven’t said there’s no deprivation elsewhere. I just said it’s rarely comparable to what I see here, and relative to our richness and GDP etc.
The UK is one of the richest countries on Earth. Our towns and cities should be far more like Switzerland or somewhere like that. Instead, we have an incredibly divided nation with a very big gap between rich and poor, and it really shows.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

But thinking about it more accurately, would it be fair for just one supermarket to charge different prices for exactly the same? That Muller yogurt could be one price in one section of the supermarket but different in the other.

Agreed, that would also work as an analogy. A very similar example would be something like the way the railway TOCs use railcards as a way to offer lower fares to some people (students for example) than they offer to other people - and the basic underlying rationale is that they are trying, as far as possible and very imperfectly, to charge each person what that person is likely to be willing to pay. In much the same way, I would surmise that @najaB's company was trying as far as possible (and imperfectly) to pay each person what that person was willing to accept.

 

[Richard Scott]

Thank you for your patronising comment, but im well aware of these places you mention. I’ve been to every country you mention there, and no not just with a tour guide around the capital cities.
I haven’t said there’s no deprivation elsewhere. I just said it’s rarely comparable to what I see here, and relative to our richness and GDP etc.
The UK is one of the richest countries on Earth. Our towns and cities should be far more like Switzerland or somewhere like that. Instead, we have an incredibly divided nation with a very big gap between rich and poor, and it really shows.

Sorry, it wasn't meant to be patronising but I do get annoyed when people think everywhere else is far better than UK.
Afraid even Switzerland has deprivation, plenty of people begging in Geneva last weekend and that's not an exaggeration.
All countries have rich and poor with big gaps. Some will always do better than others and, be brutally frank, some of those just work hard and some don't but expect those that do to support them.
I appreciate there are people who are not I a good place due to no fault of their own but no government has ever sorted this; it's not a new issue.

 

[alex397]

Sorry, it wasn't meant to be patronising but I do get annoyed when people think everywhere else is far better than UK.
Afraid even Switzerland has deprivation, plenty of people begging in Geneva last weekend and that's not an exaggeration.
All countries have rich and poor with big gaps. Some will always do better than others and, be brutally frank, some of those just work hard and some don't but expect those that do to support them.
I appreciate there are people who are not I a good place due to no fault of their own but no government has ever sorted this; it's not a new issue.

I’m well aware that even places like Switzerland have deprivation. That’s really not my point though.
I don’t think that ‘everywhere else is far better than the UK’. I’m not naive. But I get annoyed when some think Britain is a far better nation than others and think we can take the moral high ground.
I grew up thinking Britain was a privileged and fair nation. Then I started travelling, and reading more into politics, and that proved we really arn’t the special country some like to think.

 

[Richard Scott]

I’m well aware that even places like Switzerland have deprivation. That’s really not my point though.
I don’t think that ‘everywhere else is far better than the UK’. I’m not naive. But I get annoyed when some think Britain is a far better nation than others and think we can take the moral high ground.
I grew up thinking Britain was a privileged and fair nation. Then I started travelling, and reading more into politics, and that proved we really arn’t the special country some like to think.

I take your point on that, but I don't go along with UK being better than it is but do think too many people put it down unnecessarily and it is better than many make it out to be. However travelling has shown me that actually I'm quite lucky living in the UK!
There are lots of issues in lots of countries but expect we're drifting off topic here.

 

[najaB]

Why is it morally wrong to pay different people different amounts for the same thing?

It isn't, in itself, wrong to pay people differently for doing the same job - where the difference in pay is justified by differences in skill or ability.

But there is something fundamentally unfair with a system that allowed the situation where a trainer (agency) was earning less than the new-starts that they were training would be earning (direct employees), when the reason they were given the trainer job was because they were one of the highest performers.

In much the same way, I would surmise that @najaB's company was trying as far as possible (and imperfectly) to pay each person what that person was willing to accept.

No. There were different pay scales - one for agency staff and one for direct employees. It was impossible for agency staff to earn as much as the scales were offset by about 30%. That is fundamentally unfair, even leaving out the fact that contract staff had significant benefits that agency staff did not. As a simple example, agency staff got (going from memory here) something like 10 sick days per year and then statutory sick pay until that ran out, where contracted staff got six months full pay and six months half pay.

 

[edwin_m]

Driving down wages is one reason why we have had a lot of immigration from Eastern Europe. For a lot of jobs the only people willing to do them for the pay on offer were people moving from countries where the cost of living was much lower, willing to live in squalid conditions to amass some savings that would be worth a lot more when transferred to their country of origin.

It also means that a lot of people in work have to claim tax credits or benefits. I don't think it's reasonable for general taxpayers to subsidise bad paying employers.

 

[class ep-09]

Only if that company wants to export specifically to the EU. Not if they want to export to any of the approx. 95% of the World (by population) that doesn't live in the EU. And even then, I would assume that most of the rules and regulations apply only to the finished product, not to whatever means the company has chosen to manufacture the product.

Yet by far EU is biggest marked for any UK exporting manufacturer due to its size and wealth .
Yours “95% of World population live outside EU” makes no sense to sell to if they have no money to buy your stuff . Simple .

 

[najaB]

Yours “95% of World population live outside EU” makes no sense to sell to if they have no money to buy your stuff .

Add to that the fact that most of the world isn't next to us. Proximity shouldn't be dismissed where trade in goods is concerned.

Why should a manufacturer in Thailand buy UK-made widgets that will take three weeks to arrive when they can buy widgets from Singapore that will take three days?

 

[Annetts key]

But you still seem to be missing the point. The matter of employment law governing people working in the UK should be a matter reserved for the UK Parliament. Whether those laws are "good", "bad", "fair" or "unfair" is a matter for the UK's MPs to address. No country outside Europe would allow its domestic law to be formulated by a foreign entity over which they have virtually no control. The idea is preposterous.

Why should the matter of employment law governing people working in the U.K. only be a matter reserved for the U.K. Parliament?

So if you are saying that more control over laws should be more local, why won't the U.K. government devolve more powers to Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the English regions?

This Kingdom and its territory and borders was not decided on democratically. It was and still is based on powerful people and what they wanted or still want. It's a quirk of history. That does make it right.

I counter your argument by saying that where possible and practical, all humans should be treated equally. Having the same basic employment laws across a large part of Europe helps with this.

 

[najaB]

Of course it must. In the same way, any company wanting to sell goods in the USA must comply with US standards. But there's a big difference: the USA does not dictate to countries whose traders are seeking to sell their goods there how they should formulate their employment law; they do not insist that their trading partners comply with environmental legislation which they have framed. It is a false analogy to equate the imposition of trading standards with submitting to the supremacy of the laws laid down by a foreign entity.

In fact, they do. Their standards are low, but they do have some and don't (on paper at least) allow entry to goods that have been made using slave labour (which is rich considering that they produce good domestically using unpaid labour), nor will they allow in goods that don't meet their environmental standards (try buying real haggis in the USA).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

This Kingdom and its territory and borders was not decided on democratically. It was and still is based on powerful people and what they wanted or still want. It's a quirk of history. That does make it right.

That's true - with the proviso that it's a quirk of geography as much as history, with most of the UK being surrounded by sea. But it's also true that that that quirk of history/geography means that most of the UK has become culturally somewhat homogenous - with most of the UK now having a long history of sharing the same laws, customs, language, etc. (recent immigrant groups excepted). That kind of shared history gives a much better basis for having shared laws than trying to share laws across multiple countries where people have lots of different ways of doing things/different expectations of their Government/different politics/etc.

I counter your argument by saying that where possible and practical, all humans should be treated equally. Having the same basic employment laws across a large part of Europe helps with this.

The counter to that argument is that having the same laws everywhere can impede progress: A basic part of how our society, technology, laws, etc. evolve is that different groups try different things. Some of those new things work well, some don't work as well, but everyone can see which new things work and that results in good practices spreading. At the level of business and companies, that's one reason why capitalism and private enterprise has been so successful at raising living standards over the last 200 years: Lots of organisations trying different innovations leads to very rapid progress. And at the level of countries, it's the same thing. If you have 28 countries all separately trying to improve - say - their employment laws, then some countries will hit on improvements that work very well, others will find their attempts don't work so well, but they'll then be able to learn from those countries whose changes were more successful. That means that (provided Governments are open to learning from their neighbours) you're likely to see those laws and practices that are most successful quickly spreading across most countries. If instead those 28 countries all agree to keep to the same laws then you've just killed that feedback process of learning from experience and observation which of many possible changes to the law works best in practice. Of course, the EU can still learn a bit from the experiences of non-European countries outside the EU, but since most of those countries have vastly different cultures etc., it's harder to transfer that knowledge than it is between European countries.

 

[Annetts key]

The counter to that argument is that having the same laws everywhere can impede progress: A basic part of how our society, technology, laws, etc. evolve is that different groups try different things. Some of those new things work well, some don't work as well, but everyone can see which new things work and that results in good practices spreading. At the level of business and companies, that's one reason why capitalism and private enterprise has been so successful at raising living standards over the last 200 years: Lots of organisations trying different innovations leads to very rapid progress. And at the level of countries, it's the same thing. If you have 28 countries all separately trying to improve - say - their employment laws, then some countries will hit on improvements that work very well, others will find their attempts don't work so well, but they'll then be able to learn from those countries whose changes were more successful. That means that (provided Governments are open to learning from their neighbours) you're likely to see those laws and practices that are most successful quickly spreading across most countries. If instead those 28 countries all agree to keep to the same laws then you've just killed that feedback process of learning from experience and observation which of many possible changes to the law works best in practice. Of course, the EU can still learn a bit from the experiences of non-European countries outside the EU, but since most of those countries have vastly different cultures etc., it's harder to transfer that knowledge than it is between European countries.

I think you will find that it's either adopting new principles or advances in technology (which results in various benefits) that often drive organisational changes that improve the standard of living for people. Regardless of how and where the principle or best practice came about, it makes sense to apply these widely.

Changes to laws and legislation in most countries nearly always lag far behind no matter where in the world you are. Hence I'm unconvinced by your argument.

With the E.U. many countries will contribute knowledge to the process of amending laws and legislation. It's perfectly possible that they may adapt faster, or come up with better solutions than a single country working on its own like the U.K. may do. Yes, the reverse is also possible.

But the E.U. does have the advantage that all member counties will benefit if they get it right. If they get it wrong, they will discover this quickly (as there may be feedback from various member countries), and hence can react and make changes.

If instead we wait for every country to work at its own speed, it could take decades for improvements to spread across Europe.

Going on your comments, I'm not sure that you are getting that in general, a cooperative relationship is better than an adversarial relationship.

 

[edwin_m]

That's true - with the proviso that it's a quirk of geography as much as history, with most of the UK being surrounded by sea. But it's also true that that that quirk of history/geography means that most of the UK has become culturally somewhat homogenous - with most of the UK now having a long history of sharing the same laws, customs, language, etc. (recent immigrant groups excepted). That kind of shared history gives a much better basis for having shared laws than trying to share laws across multiple countries where people have lots of different ways of doing things/different expectations of their Government/different politics/etc.

I don't think that holds true particularly for Scotland (quite a few different laws and a different attitude to many things, not least EU membership in 2016) and Northern Ireland (you can't even vote for a GB party and its history is tied up with inter-community tension and the relationship with the Republic). Trying to accommodate the unique situation of NI was one of the main reasons the Brexit desired by its proponents didn't and probably couldn't actually happen.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

With the E.U. many countries will contribute knowledge to the process of amending laws and legislation. It's perfectly possible that they may adapt faster, or come up with better solutions than a single country working on its own like the U.K. may do

Why would the EU adapt faster? Usual life experience is typically that, the bigger the system/organisation/etc. you're dealing with, the slower it takes to adapt and make changes.

But the E.U. does have the advantage that all member counties will benefit if they get it right. If they get it wrong, they will discover this quickly (as there may be feedback from various member countries), and hence can react and make changes.

That logic fails for two reasons. Firstly, there's no way to tell if you have got the best system if you don't have other systems to compare it with. It's therefore much harder for the EU to tell if it's got something right than it would be for an individual country that can compare its own results with how its culturally-similar neighbours are doing. Secondly, until you actually implement something, all you have is a theory that this new law/rule/whatever will make things better. Hopefully, if you've listened to your experts and they've done their job, you won't do anything really stupid, but until you actually do it, you have no way of knowing if it will have some unintended side-effect that you didn't anticipate. Having individual countries implement their own rules etc. gives their neighbours the chance to see what happens in practice, which can then inform how they develop their own regulations. That process is much harder if you just have one organisation decreeing all the regulations.

Going on your comments, I'm not sure that you are getting that in general, a cooperative relationship is better than an adversarial relationship.

That makes me think you're confusing competition with adversarial. The two are not at all the same thing. Let me illustrate with a few examples from my own life:

• When I worked in physics research, it was very clear that at least some (possibly, much) of the progress in science was driven by friendly competition between groups. It was NOT generally adversarial: We always considered other physicists from other institutions as colleagues and would cooperate and help them as appropriate. But at the same time, the desire to be the person (or the group) that came up with a new discovery or explanation for something before anyone else did was one of the key motivators to excel and innovate
• There are many different programming languages, designed by different people/companies and they all learn from each other. For example, ideas from C++ and Java were incorporated into early versions of C#, and then later developments in C# appear to have inspired recent additions to C++. On the other hand, less successful ideas for language syntax design (such as Visual Basic) largely fell by the wayside. If on the other hand, say, 50 years ago, a single authority had decreed that there would only be one single language that everyone should program in, then that cross-fertilisation wouldn't have been possible, which would have likely massively slowed down development of the language(s).
• Performing arts: I'm in a musical theatre company, in which pretty much everyone is to at least some degree friends. It's normal that everyone supports everyone else: Adversarial relationships are not at all part of the culture. But that doesn't change that the competition to be THE person who gets that great part from the auditions is one of the things that drives people in the company to improve their skills and become better performers.

So no, I'm not advocating adversarial relationships or failing to understand cooperation. But the point is that - like it or not - competition (ideally, friendly competition) is a key thing that drives humanity to improve. Remove that competition by insisting on only one monolithic way of doing things, and the results will very typically not be as good (unless there are special circumstances, such as very large economies of scale).

 

[najaB]

...unless there are special circumstances, such as very large economies of scale...

Funny you mention that, the EU being the second-largest economy on the planet and all...