{"id":183608,"date":"2013-01-14T21:05:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T02:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/01\/14\/what-the-hell-is-cameron-doing-with-the-eu\/"},"modified":"2013-01-14T21:05:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T02:05:00","slug":"what-the-hell-is-cameron-doing-with-the-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/01\/14\/what-the-hell-is-cameron-doing-with-the-eu\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Hell Is Cameron Doing With the EU?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>He is due to give a speech in Brussels <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2258047\/Cameron-vows-curb-EU-migrants-benefits-allow-working-immigrants-Britain-new-relationship-Brussels.html\">demanding that some powers be returned to Britain<\/a>, most notably those dealing with criminal justice, immigration, and foreign workers.<\/p>\n<p>Truth be told, I think that he is trying to walk a tight rope.  A large majority of the Tories, and (if polls are correct) most of the rest of the country, are inclined to favor an exit from the EU, so he&#8217;s attempting a number of things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He wants to take the wind out of the sails the right wing nativist UK Independence Party, which is on a path to reduce the Tories&#8217; Liberal Democrat coalition partners to 4<sup>th<\/sup> place and irrelevance.<\/li>\n<li>He wants to pacify his own right wing.<\/li>\n<li>He wants to put Labor leader Millibrand in the position of supporting the EU which is an unpopular position.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Truth be told, with what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/politics\/2013\/jan\/11\/cameron-merkel-eu-treaty\">Merkel is looking to do<\/a>, I would be a Euroskeptic myself:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">It is understood that Merkel, the only EU leader who has been calling for a revision of the Lisbon treaty to underpin new governance arrangements for the eurozone, has given up on the idea of a major treaty revision for the moment.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">The German chancellor is said to have decided it is fruitless to push for a treaty revision in the face of strong opposition from France and elsewhere. Instead she has decided to try to stabilise the eurozone by setting up what are described as &#8220;work streams&#8221; in three areas. These cover banking union, the subject of the last EU summit where Cameron won guarantees for Britain; greater fiscal co-ordination among eurozone members; and <b>labour market reform across the EU<\/b>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(<i>emphasis mine<\/i>)<\/p>\n<p>If I lived in the EU, the idea that the Germans, who <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country#cite_ref-CRHRP-2008_13-108\">have no statutory minimum wage,<\/a>, and a long history of dubious treatment of immigrants, would be driving &#8220;labor market reforms&#8221; it would fill me with dread.&nbsp; It translates into f%$#ing the ordinary working bloke.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, David Cameron is a member of the Conservative party, so &#8220;f%$#ing the ordinary working bloke&#8221;, is kind of an article of faith for him.<\/p>\n<p>I still maintain that the real problem with the EU is German hegemony in the EU, because they have much like the Bourbon Kings, &#8220;They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>In the lame poodle category, Cameron is saying that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2013\/01\/11\/britain-us-europe-idUSL5E9CB98S20130111\">US has given its permission for him to ask for this<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Britain&#8217;s &#8220;special relationship&#8221; with the US looks increasingly like a relationship between a prostitute and a pimp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He is due to give a speech in Brussels demanding that some powers be returned to Britain, most notably those dealing with criminal justice, immigration, and foreign workers. Truth be told, I think that he is trying to walk a tight rope. A large majority of the Tories, and (if polls are correct) most of &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,984,964,978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-europe","category-foreign-relations","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}