Reading all the news about the Eurozone and today an EU summit begins with a federal Europe on the agenda, though the UK’s David Cameron has decided in advance to veto any moves to include the whole EU in federalist talks, and to veto any move that threatens London as the EU’s financial centre.
I have a feeling that the future will see the UK more closely allied with North America, especially after the UK and Canada decided last week to start talks on merging many of their foreign embassies to cut costs.
The UK could have instead chosen one of their European partners like Germany or France with common EU laws, but they have decided to work with Canada, a former dominion of the British Empire.
I think that sets a bad precedent even if most British people might disagree with me citing closer cultural ties with Canada than other EU countries, and indicates to me that the UK is going to pull out of the EU.
I have the feeling that England especially wants a free trade agreement with the US and EU, but no control from the centre over English affairs. I say England because the UK is not looking like a single nation right now after the Scottish government won concessions to hold an independence referendum in 2014.
And the talk from Germany is that if they do, the UK will lose their world financial centre status in London, because the EU without the UK has no interest in propping up the financial services sector of a nation outside the EU. They’ll just move all their financial instruments to Frankfurt, and major EU banks will follow.
I think the UK is playing a dangerous game, and re-aligning itself with North America will make the UK a very junior and isolated partner, compared to being in the EU and being a strong core partner of a much larger economic area.
At some point in the future the EU will be a federal entity with powers of a nation state, and then the EU will negotiate directly with the USA, China, India, and other major powers, but by then the UK may have already found itself belittled and not much of an equal partner. Remind me again why I hate politics.