Brexit? I hope not.

[chrishansenhome]

One of the Brexit campaign's objections to President Obama's encouragement of the United Kingdom to remain in the EU has been that the United States would never surrender sovereignty to another organisation. The fact is, the US doesn't need to do that in most instances. Economically it needs to be in the WTO, and has surrendered some sovereignty to that organisation. Politically, it's a member of several multinational organisations, NATO, the UN, the OAS, for example, and has surrendered sovereignty to those organisation. But those are tiddling. The UK punched above its weight internationally for centuries. Now, it cannot do that without assistance.

And as for the Brexiteers saying that the President is wrong when he says that it might take 10 years to negotiate a free-trade agreement with a UK out of the EU, when it only took two years to negotiate one with Canada or Australia, or even some small African countries, there were existing agreements with them, and the treaties were only formalising the trade. An agreement with the UK will take backstage to the TTIP and various other trade agreements currently on the menu.

So I'm voting to remain in the EU. I have decided not to post this on the Book of Face as I don't want a sh*tstorm of harassing comments.

Comments

[rejectomorph]

As the UK still has its own currency (a smart move, I think) it is effectively still a sovereign state, regardless of any obligations it may incur (probably no more onerous than those imposed by some other treaties) by being part of the EU.

I could understand Greece (and maybe some other peripheral nations) wanting out of the Eurozone, which lately has not been working at all well for them, but what substantial benefit could any nation in the region gain by leaving the EU itself?