Why are these people so cross with Nigel Lawson?

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It's a bad sign for David Cameron when the old guard come out against him like this

He needs to take the hint and listen but I bet he won't

Yep, particularly when Norman Tebbit says "Vote UKIP" at every opportunity.

In recent years, the EU debate has been dominated by UKIP and the other parties have sat back quietly because they know they are losing public support. A bit of shouting about the benefits of the EU is long overdue. For example, just last week the EU stopped Owen Patterson from keeping neonicotinoids legal in the UK.

I'd really like to see the main parties give the 'positive' side of the EU. They'd lose even more support if they did that. UKIP would make mincemeat out of them.

It's irrelevant. We should be making our laws, not someone else. Even if some of the laws that come out of the wretched thing are "good", that's beside the point.

The Irish Nationalists might have privately not minded some laws that came out of the UK parliament, but that still didn't mean they wanted anything to do with the UK.

Well, for example, the EU has negotiated a very good new trade deal with the USA, and the UK stands to benefit the most from that because of the common language. If we left the EU, we'd need to negotiate our own trade deals, and we wouldn't have the same clout. Imagine if California left the US, it wouldn't be able to do as well for itself as it can as part of the union.

I think most people who passionately want out of the EU are already voting UKIP. I seriously doubt UKIP could "make mincemeat" out of anyone, they rely on popularist rhetoric, and their official manifesto contains climate change denial and suggests cutting the deficit whilst dramatically reducing taxation and increasing defence spending, for example. I think they'll suffer as they come under more intense scrutiny as a party.

Good laws are good laws, no matter who is coming up with them. Increased closeness with Europe and legal consistency throughout the continent is an unequivocally good thing.

Why have Greece and Cyprus gone under then if the Eurozone is such a good thing? It all seems highly unstable to me and we may well have gone under with them if we'd been in it.

And the Human Rights legislation seems to be preventing us from deporting criminals.

We were right to stay out of the Eurozone, but the Eurozone is not the EU... in any case, the crises in Greece and Cyprus are not caused exclusively or even primarily by being in the Euro, but it does mean that financial instability spreads with greater ease. I doubt we'd have gone under, France for example didn't, but we'd probably have had to pour more money into bailouts.

Human Rights legislation occasionally stops us deporting criminals to countries where they wouldn't face a fair trial. It didn't stop us deporting Abu Hamza. The ECHR upheld the decision of UK courts that it would not be right to send Abu Qatada to Jordan. Again though, the ECHR is not the EU.

I'm sure they would have every much as clout. At the moment, we are forbidden from making our own trade deals. Even Hong Kong can make its own trade deals. One of the biggest and most successful countries is forbidden from doing that. Doesn't that bother you any?

Which would be advantageous to us. We could make deals in the best interests of the UK, rather than have someone else - people who we didn't vote for and cannot remove - doing it.

Remember that none of the four EFTA countries have any intention of joining the EU, and they're all much, much smaller than the UK. They negotiate their own trade deals with the rest of the world, and the Swiss export much more to the EU than the UK does.



On what do you base that assertion?

California is a very strong part of the U.S. on its own. If California, or Texas, or Scotland wanted to secede, and there was a democratic majority that wanted it, I wouldn't stop them.



Not necessarily. A lot of people don't vote, as they think that the politicians are all the same. The more politically-engaged types may well be though, yes.



It doesn't contain climate change denial. It contains scepticism of AGW, which is a completely different kettle of fish. Even the most trenchant of UKIP's AGW critics confirm that the climate changes constantly and has done pretty much since this planet has ever existed.



By also making cuts in areas where we consider that cuts can be fairly easily made. Like in the EU, like in most of the QUANGOs, like in much of the foreign aid budget (we shouldn't be providing a welfare system for the Indians, Egyptians or Pakistanis - that's their job), like in the fake charities, and so on.



Bring it on.



The colonies of the British Empire shouldn't have been given independence because the British knew what was best for them.



Damn the people, damn actual democratic self-determination, damn what anyone else wants. The EU must remain supreme.

This is a fundamentally anti-democratic project and we should be looking for the exit door ASAP. When that happens, other EU countries will join us too when they see us doing well with a trade agreement with the EU.

Are you more ideologically opposed to the EU, or pragmatically opposed to it?

Sigh... I think most people know what is meant by "climate change denial".

It is a well established fact that global average temperatures are rising. It is also well established that greenhouse gases cause warming. We know how they do so. We know warming has accelerated dramatically since the industrial revolution, when greenhouse gas emissions dramatically increased. We know that historically, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases correlate very closely indeed with global temperatures.

I do not use this lightly, but someone who does not believe that humans are causing the average global temperature to rise is either mad or stupid, and should not be in a position of power.

EU spending is important because it is making things better for people in Europe. In any case, leaving Europe would jeopardise many jobs and potentially make it harder for businesses to trade with Europe.
QUANGOs I will agree on, we can probably cut many of them.
Foreign aid is extremely important. We need to help people who can't help themselves. India and Pakistan have major problems with tax evasion and serious issues with inequality and a lack of infrastructure. I think the world is a better place because we donate small sums of money to help with these issues, ringfencing the foreign aid spend is one of the few Conservative policies I agree with.
You often go on about "fake charities", but I've never seen you explain what you mean by that.

In any case, cutting those areas of spending won't make up for the increases in spending UKIP propose on trivial areas like defence, nor the tax cuts for the wealthy.

Because that's what I said

Seriously don't know how you got from A to B there. If you are seriously comparing the EU to the British Empire, that's pathetic and shows your lack of perspective.

Democracy isn't always a good thing. I'm not going to deny that it has advantages, like stopping despotic dictatorships, but taken too far it can be a disaster. Imagine if schoolchildren were given the democratic right to sack their teachers. Plato realised this thousands of years ago. Indeed, the democracies of the world all work because the common people don't get to decide what happens, rather they elect officials to represent them. The tyranny of the majority is a terrible thing that has led to a great deal of repression. For many years, homosexuality was punishable by death in this country, and then by imprisonment, and most people were happy about that. If most people had their way, we'd be treating immigrants as second class citizens, cutting benefits, leaving the EU, denying criminals fair trials, executing paedophiles (even those who stay away from children and absolutely resist acting on their natural urges), tearing up human rights legislation, and all number of terrible things.

The people are better off under the EU. Not just in this country, but all over Europe. It gets stuff wrong sometimes- banning GE food, for example- but it also stands up for the worst off, and stands up for the repressed.

Climate changes all the time whether we are here or not

There's been both tropical temperatures and ice ages in this very country in prehistoric times so why we get worried about some polar ice melting is completely beyond me! Climates change - it's a fact of nature! If it inconveniences us tough s**t - we are not the only species on this planet and other species will survive even if we don't.

I can't over-emphasise enough how low down my list of priorities global warming is. It's not even on the list and never will be.
It's used as a diversionary tactic from the important stuff we can change. Most people will be of the same opinion. Glocal warming is not an election ticket. Crime and immigration is, both of which are impacted upon by our membership of Europe and the legislation that means we have to sign up to.

We would have been right in the Eurozone as well if we'd followed what some Europhile politicians wanted us to do - it was a major battle to remain out of it. We often don't deport criminals for things as meaningless as their 'right to a family life' as they've managed to get someone pregnant just for the purpose! That's if we even know where they are in the first place as the border agency seems to be not even fit for purpose.

I think that the electorate is so fed up with the incompetence of the major parties that they'd be prepared to risk UKIP f-king it all up - they could hardly do any worse than the over-priviliged idiots we've indulged so far and what if they did better? I'd rather they had a chance. I'm just loving the fear they all have of it potentially happening and I know many others are too People who never usually bother to vote will make the effort just to kick these w*kers out on their arses!

Woah woah woah, did you seriously just say that preventing humanity going extinct (which would mean horrible deaths for billions) should not be a priority?

Yes, climates change, but they do not change as quickly as they are currently changing. It will "inconvenience" many species. For example, there is a delicate equilibrium between atmospheric CO2 and that dissolved in the oceans. If global temperatures change too quickly, the position of equilibrium will shift and the oceans will become more acidic. Organisms are very sensitive to changes in pH so this could be catastrophic- we're already noticing the effect on our coral reefs.

If the climate changes too rapidly, organisms will not be able to migrate to favourable conditions.

What makes you think that crime is related to the EU?

It's really too late to set back the damage caused by anthropogenic global warming, especially with our current population and the desire for third world countries to develop (even if they don't follow the Western industrialisation model, the lifestyle they will adopt will increase emissions). We're going to have to adapt. In the future, our lives will change so much that no-one will care if humans caused the mess (although the scientific consensus is that they did). I think arguing about AGW will be so pointless in 30 years time, let alone making it a party platform to deny it - we will all have to come together and focus on what to do. Science is our best hope. That should be a funding priority, even in a recession. I know the military-industrial complex drives a lot of scientific discovery, but the kind of research we need the most for our future can't come from that sector.

I don't care if we go extinct - it's arrogant to think we're the main species on this planet in my opinion; we are one of many and if we can't adapt we'll die out - simple as that.

I don't think we'll die from climate change though; nuclear or biological warfare is far more of a risk in my opinion or a global pandemic

If only so much focus was put on the imminent risks

We can't last forever anyway - all resources will die out eventually, including light/heat from the sun