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Deal.
So, to summarise our prime minister’s magisterial achievement at the European Council summit in Brussels:
- We won’t become part of something (a European superstate) which can only come about through a new treaty which Britain already has the right not to ratify, making this renegotiation “win” utterly superfluous
- We have supposedly won a unique exemption from “ever closer union”, though curiously the treaty which firmly commits us to this goal will go unamended
- We won’t join the euro – an obvious extension of the status quo which any British prime minister could have achieved simply by staying home in Downing Street and binge-watching Netflix
- Same for Schengen and “open borders”
- There will be new restrictions on migrant benefits, now apparently a burning issue yet something which wasn’t even on most people’s list of EU grievances until David Cameron suddenly started talking about it just prior to his European shuttle diplomacy
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Semi-Partisan Politics 
Off-topic – sorry. (But not really ‘sorry’ in the actual OED sense.)
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/20/how-to-argue-against-brexit-eu-fate-europe-uk-at-stake#comment-69024372
Sincerely, I quite like Garton-Ash, since he’s an unambiguously honest EU supporter in the full ideological sense and isn’t afraid to make it crystal-clear. If he had more presence in the debate, Europhiles would regard him as the bull in a china shop making statements of fact about the EU with such clarity the electorate might be in danger of actually hearing them. You may disagree with him (and I do) but you can’t accuse him of subterfuge on the matter.
Until now. Sadly he’s retreated into a miasma here of all the boilerplate myths and underwriting the most idiotic scaremongering of the current Europhile campaign. (Such as the imbecilic claims over the NI peace process – has nobody taken the trouble to look at Sinn Fein policy towards EU Treaty identities over the decades?).
However, here’s the off-topic bit. As with ‘Godwin.s Law’ over Hitler, sooner or later in an internet discussion of the EU and the UK stance within it, somebody will come up with a comment which more or less says ‘We’re not an Empire any more’. Personally I think it’s time we came up with a ‘Law’ identity for that particular inevitability. I would suggest ‘Palmerston’s Law’ but if you Sam, or anyone else wants to think something up, it might be a nice little distraction from today’s empty headlines.
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Out, I’m voting out.
I’m sick to death of paying UK money to the EU for nothing.
Putting up with mass uncontrolled migration and it’s problems..
Wages held artificially low because the migrants.
Housing and services stretched beyond breaking point.
The petty EU laws and their diktats that mess everything up.
Crime committed by foreigners is soaring.
As for their human rights courts NOT letting us deport terrorists and criminals?
Who is actually in charge there?
It’s certainly not us.
As for business saying “we’ll suffer”. The lazy bosses may, the UK won’t.
They need us to buy their tat so they won’t be closing the doors.
After all even Germany industrial might is sliding ever downwards as is France.
Remember the EU is buying less as they deteriorate anyway!
Leaving does however mean we are free to negotiate pricing and open new markets without interference.
A mistake to join and I’m hope the mass migration into Europe will bring the whole sorry thing down quickly and messily.
As for Cameron? Pah.
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