In other words is the EU really being asked to enter negotiations with the Conservative party ahead of the next election rather than the current UK government?

Or can this all be thoroughly ignored by the rest of us in Europe until after the next election?

I fail to see how the UK government as constituted can negotiate a deal to be presented by the next government.

Never mind German election timetables, or what’s on the EZ’s agenda, the timing of this whole thing is bizarre and unwelcome. I feel genuinely sorry for British civil servants working for either the UK or within EU institutions. A 5 year pregnancy…

Thus an independent Scotland within the EU doesn’t appear to be an option. If Scotland votes for independence they are voting to leave the EU. This may be the reason it will pass! The Scots don’t especially want to forgo the net tax subsidy they now get from England, but it may be worth it if they can cut themselves loose from the Greeks, Italians, Irish, and Spanish before those countries drag down the economies of every country that stays in the lifeboat with them.

Then again — one has to wonder how much anything in the EU’s various treaties can be expected to matter any more. Maastricht (the treaty that set up the Euro) promised that no member would be asked to bail out another; we know what’s happening there. On the other hand, somebody might still want to use the “ever closer Union” pledge in the Treaty of Rome to forbid any country leaving.

But I predict that we’re within a year of the next World War, which will mean all these things cease to matter, and the decisions that last will be made after the peace.

Any review of the evidence (in terms of the benefits of trade, free movement of people, budget contributions to low-income regions, common regulations, and so on) shows that the UK’s presence in the EU is beneficial – both to people in the UK and to people in other EU states.

The other strategy was boundary review which they privately said would put them into permanent govt. The backbenchers messed that up by antagonising the Lib Dems who would otherwise have co-operated in this project.

So Cameron’s options are reducing rapidly.

There’s not really a comparison. The recession in the US was caused by an unelected and (to most people) invisible technocrat. The one in the UK has been caused by the very visible (and disliked) chancellor. This has been so obviously self-inflicted (when even your plumber mentions this, clearly there’s some awareness beyond the chattering classes) that he can’t escape responsibility. There’s been huge criticism of it from economists, the opposition and even the bloody IMF. Osbourne has made promises that have not just been missed, but spectacularly so in some cases. And when he keeps just repeating that he’ll stick to the plan, no matter what, he comes across as a man totally out of his depth.

What the Tories have done, and this really is typical of their incompetent administration, is to own the recession/depression. By the election people will largely have forgotten Labour’s involvement in the crash, but will still remember it as a more optimistic and prosperous time.

B: “This is the same kind of spectacularly ignorant nonsense.”

A’s second sentence may be disputable, but the first sentence I think clearly stands. People in the UK (I’ll use my brother, who lives there, as my datapoint of 1) just don’t understand how much many people in the rest of the EU would *prefer* that they leave. You really have this comical situation where the UK is saying, “We’ll leave unless we get what we want,” thinking the reply will be, “Oh no, what a horrible idea! We’ll do anything to keep you.” In fact many would just say, “Well, okay, fair enough, don’t hurt yourself on the way out.”

A lot IMHO. What makes the Eurozone weak is that there is a disconnect between political governance and the Euro. It is difficult now to have parliamentary/democratic oversight because the European parliament consists of non-Euro countries. Without the UK, the list of non-Euro countries dwindles, and the list of important non-Euro countries would go to zero. Sweden and similar countries will find itself in a very, very difficult position, with basically three choices: 1) leave the EU itself; 2) join the euro; 3) or (most probably) let the Eurozone remake the rules of the EU game so that the Eurozone can use the political apparatus of the EU. So, if the UK leaves the EU, it is positive for a longer existence of the euro. On the way, while the rules are changed (scenario 3), the opportunity might be taken to give Greece the boot.

The most likely outcome would be that Britain would find itself as a scratchy outsider with somewhat limited access to the single market, almost no influence and few friends. And one certainty: that having once departed, it would be all but impossible to get back in again.