Non-footy: Comments??

And let it be said SB, you are perfectly entitled to hold that opinion. For what it's worth, I think that the federal Europe idea is largely the dream of Juncker, who will soon be gone anyway. I don't think that Macron or Merkel would support it going much further. If we end up falling out without a deal and relying on the likes of America for free trade deals we will have to row in with a judicial/arbitration system that will make the EU's effect on national sovereignty look tame by comparison. It's why 'TTIP' was so controversial. And anyway, who will exercise our 'national sovereignty'? If it's the rabid Tories then I'd sooner have the EU looking after our employment and environmental rights. If it's Jezza on the other hand, who knows what that will bring? And as for the Euro, it's Gordon Brown we have to thank for not being part of that. TB was keen to take us in but El Gordo resisted! Would it have been a stronger currency with us in it? Hmm! I still remember Norman Lamont's hapless performance when we fell out of the ERM. Scary times!

[And less of this boring football talk from some of you down below!]

 

Their are reasons to leave the EU and to stay. The concept of sovereignty is certainly not one of them either way. We never lost it in fact no country without if can be a member of the EU. Just rabid right wing nonsense dreamed up to deflect the great unwashed from the bankers crisis.

 

Two questions.

1. What is your opinion on national service? It seems many of those most opposed to conscription into a euro army are the biggest supporters of conscription into british armed forces.

2. Why would a euro armed force suddenly bring back conscription in the vast majority of eu countries that dont have it now

 

I can't disagree with much of what you have said there, but going back to the EU Army plan this is on the cards...it seems like only the time scale that's not yet decided.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-eu-military-planning-its-own-army-a7916371.html
You suggest the Germans might not be in favour and yet in the article above from the Indy suggests their Defence Minister certainly is

" One signal of potential direction of travel came last year when European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker asserted the EU needs its own army, a proposal welcomed by German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, so Europe can “react more credibly to the threat to peace in a member state or in a neighbouring state”.

 

as someone whose been involved in the military for 27 years what's the problem all you civvies see with a EU army? Cost? Autonomy? I ask because i see people not wanting it without specifying a reason, I've done no research myself so I'm willing to listen to opinions?

Without getting into a bun fight we already support and help each other, we already work together across many EU nations and also as part of NATO with other allies. We hardly ever go to sea and only see our own forces, in fact if it wasn't for EU nations there'd hardly be a ship at sea but that's another debate entirely!

 

In answer to question 1...I don't have a particular view on conscription...a Swedish friend of mine loved his time...others I know detested it...from the UK's point of view , if the Military don't want it then there is no point.
Question 2...Some member states have conscription, but most have dropped it fairly recently..it doesn't necessarily have the stigma that it does in the UK, it could well be much easier to reintroduce in the EU than it would here.
Conscription though is less of an issue than the direction things are going...Ursula Von Der Leyen's comments that..an EU Army could “react more credibly to the threat to peace in a member state or in a neighbouring state”.....is really worrying....she is clearly talking about EU forces intervening internally, could she mean somewhere like Catalonia, if not what does she actually mean.

 

Most countries in western Europe.. have always had conscription .. even Holland Switzerland etc...