London Banter - View Single Post - Will Brexit lead to the abandonment of Crossrail2 and Turning SouthLondon Orange?

Recliner[_3_] · July 17th 16, 08:45 AM posted to uk.transport.london

Optimist wrote:
On Sat, 16 Jul 2016 09:33:07 -0500, wrote:

In article , (tim...)
wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message

al-september.org...
Optimist wrote:
On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 14:46:28 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

Optimist wrote:
On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 14:29:11 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:11:32 on Fri, 15
Jul 2016, Graham Murray remarked:

irrespective of the vote the UK will remain a member of the EU for
at least 2 years and until we actually leave we will continue to
enjoy the benefits, and endure the downsides, of EU membership.

I don't think we'll continue to have the benefit of influencing any
future EU legislation, including those which will affect us for
ever in a "Norway solution".

Yes, from now and till the end of 2018 we will continue to bear all
the costs of EU membership, but the benefits will dwindle. For
example, our participation in new EU funded research projects has
already fizzled out, where we were previously disproportionately
represented.

Then the shortfall should be paid by the UK treasury, and deducted
from the amount paid to Brussels.

It's not so simple. Countries are not rewarded with research
participation based on their EU contributions. They are included
because their universities are appropriate participants. We have the
best EU universities and so were included disproportionately; now,
knowing we will soon be gone, our universities are not considered for
inclusion in new EU-funded projects, as their work may not be funded
after 2018.

Same answer - fund our OWN universities from the amount we pay in EU
contributions.

Which will cost us more, and exclude us from multi-national EU research
projects.

You've already said (correctly) that the UK has the best (by a very
long way) universities in the EU

do you really think that, in the long term, they are going to be
excluded from cross country research projects because of some
political argy bargy?

Yes. You just don't understand what the lack of free movement means in terms
of the hassle involved in getting people from abroad involved, do you?
Instead of just working with the best people in the field you have to jump
through so many hoops that most people won't bother. Look at the situation
40 years ago.

Researchers travel quite easily throughout the world, despite there being
no "free movement" between
most countries.

If the EU's model were so wonderful why isn't being replicated elsewhere?
Perhaps because they look
at the economies of many European countries which are total basket cases
(50% youth unemployment in
Greece, for example.

Many of the woes of the Club Med EU members are because of their membership
of the euro at unrealistic exchange rates, not the EU. The EU has probably
been widened a bit too much, but it is the Eurozone that has been extended
to far too many countries. If the rules for entry were more stringent, and
extremely strict, Italy, Spain and Greece, and maybe even France, would not
have been allowed, let alone forced, to join. So a Eurozone with perhaps
half a dozen Northern European members would probably have worked well, and
a few more EU countries might have been motivated to run their economies
better with the motivation to join. But there would never be 18 members.

One good thing Gordon Brown did was to keep us out of it, after our short,
unhappy stay in the ERM, the predecessor of the euro. If the £ couldn't
last long in the ERM, how could countries like Greece, Spain and Italy
survive a currency union with Germany?

The real reason why big businesses love EU freedom of movement is that it
enables wages to be cut to
the bone, even undermining minimum wages (see the Laval case).

Plenty of EU citizens living in the UK earn much more than the minimum
wage. How would the NHS survive without them?