Now the “FUD” will commence as the campaigning starts in earnest.


A while ago there was a request for 5 reasons:



Sovereignty.
Within this comes -

Control of national borders.


Responsibility for the security of the nation which has always been a primary responsibility of any government – and that goes way beyond the basic concepts of security (based on “home” and “foreign” policy) to the health of the citizens and many other aspects.


Responsibility for the economic well being of the nation – there is much more to this than a simple consideration of trade (see the economic crisis thread).
So, “Security” relates to both home policy and foreign policy – for the latter we have very much permitted the EU to take over via their efforts in the past few years to develop such a single policy with non elected bureaucrats carrying out some functions e.g. the World Trade Organisation has EU representation which acts on behalf of all the nations of the EU.


As something of a subset consideration, but totally relevant, I think it is necessary to remember that none of the modern geo-political blocs in this world developed to where they are now without spilling a considerable amount of blood.
The USA got off relatively lightly via its' mid-19th century civil war in the sense that it did not last very long.
The Peoples' Republic of China is the current result (it may well change yet) of the deaths of perhaps 70m people (estimates vary); via yet another civil war (the long march) and then the cultural revolution (wave your little red book at this point).
Russia is a classic of the genre, with years of internal conflict, revolution, and control by despotic rulers.


What I am saying is that the EU cannot achieve its' own declared aims without its' own internal conflict, far beyond anything that we have seen to date, in Greece for example.
I cannot be sure in my own mind what is the best for the UK in these circumstances; we got sucked into WW1 after staying out of European problems for all of 99 years (1815 - 1914) and we have been much more closely involved ever since then. But nowadays, NATO is the main plank of our foreign defence policy.



Sense of community.
It seems to me that there may be an optimum level of identification by those of a country with their nation – the “citizen effect” that politicians tend to pontificate about.
It is hard to pin it down, but there can be little doubt that it exists.
Nor does it seem to relate to the physical scale of the country or any other particular factor; it just “is” - it exists.
The Germans have a term “Heimat”. They had their own TV series with that title quite a few years ago.
It seems likely that the Scottish have the same sense of belonging. The Catalonians also.
The optimum size of a country is what? I don't know – there are so many factors to it, but Europe has always been so diverse that the current aims of the EU are not compatible with the populations of the 28 existing countries much less any potential new entrants (97% of the land mass of Turkey, for instance, lies within Asia – to have a trade agreement with that country would be fine but to integrate? - how can that be?).
There are currently 24 official languages in use across 28 nations – that will work OK?


The legal system.
As outlined previously, continental law is derived from Roman practice later modified by Napoleonic law.
UK law is based on case law over 1000+ years including key stages such as Magna Carta.
The two are simply not compatible – nor am I saying that our system is perfect, it has problems but trying to bring in commonality with Europe when there are so many other issues at present makes little sense to me.


Trade.
Ability to act as a single entity; where does the optimum lie for the future?
An independent Britain could take it's own seat at the WTO; we are nominally there at present, but we allow the EU to represent us, as do other EU nations.
We hold a seat on the UNSC and, no doubt, various other bodies; for instance, we recently joined the AIIB.
(We can be pretty sure that the EU would like to take on the UNSC role, from both France and the UK - the latter are 2 of the 5 permanent members).
Coming up we have TTIP (check on that).
Personally, I don't buy the ridiculous argument that the UK, with its' history of trading, cannot manage without the EU.



Financial/Economic.
This has probably been covered adequately in this thread, although there is much more to follow now that the terms of the “agreement” have been negotiated, subject to ratification by the EU parliament after the date set for the UK referendum.
If not, then there is quite a bit more at the economic crisis thread in the HUBB pub.
The UK has much more chance of dealing with the econ crisis as a standalone nation then it has as one of 28 all trying to share the responsibility for the EU decisions.
As identified earlier, the theory is that the EU makes decisions without having to be held responsible for the consequences of those decisions e.g, the current state of Greece – the undoubted issues that lie within the borders of that troubled country could have been helped by the EU/ECB, but the Eurozone was the only priority when it came down to it.
In practice, the central powers of the EU – often referenced as the “Troika” in commentary, exert undue influence to put it in diplomatic language.
Judge by what they do and not so much by what they say.


As a summary point, for any and all of this we really do need a better standard of leadership than is extant at present.
This comment applies at all levels of society frankly.
The selfishness that is evident in many many case studies will continue?

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Dave