crouch

The "meta procedures" you name are a variety of ways of achieving the objective and the implication is that the meta procedure is a matter of choice. The LPF regulations are likely IMV to mandate a common meta procedure so the net result is that any diversity is reduced. In fact it's fairly well known that much of the regulatory push in the EU is based on German standards. No, I mean that, in your terms, if the LPF does mandate a common meta procedure then that results in less diversity and therefore reduces the scope for innovation. Another aspect is that of tax harmonisation which the EU has been pushing recently. This has been criticised by Eire which has a low corporate tax rate to encourage FDI and they have been very successful in this. Tax harmonisation might kill this off completely and prejudice the economy of Eire. The point is that each country has strengths which it can exploit but if it is forced into a strait jacket by EU regulation then it is less able to exploit these strengths. Even in a fully federal system like the US you have juridictional competition because the 10 th amendment guarantees states' powers and the ability to diverge from what other states are doing. The EU being a hybrid organisation, edging towards a federal union, has the dysfunctionalities of a hybrid without the advantages of a federation. The net effect of all this is to drive divergence rather than convergence -precisely what the EU doesn't want.

Markets have been subject to regulation for thousands of years for the reasons you state. If the regulations are not legal they are moral. Adam Smith, perhaps the first person to analyse a market economy, was not an "economist" he was primarily a moral philosopher. It may be useful to distinguish objectives from process. The objective of a regulation is food of certain quality; water of a certain purity...... The process by which you get there can vary; there is more than one way to achieve the stated objective. Each country has a different history in these matters but all have regulations of some sort. The problem with the LPF approach of the EU is that it might have a tendency to mandate process as well as objective and in this way eliminate differences between countries, differences that may be perfectly acceptable in terms of realizing the objective but not in meeting the process. In this way LPF is yet another tool of eliminating competition, and indeed and perhaps more seriously, innovation within the bloc

Well, I can't deny that.

At the back of this there is a very simple but fundamental issue: is diversity a driver of progress? My answer is unequivocally - yes. Diversity does not mean lower standards for workers' rights; it's much more complicated than that. In the EU LPF is about reducing jurisdictional competition but if you reduce competition you reduce growth and welfare in the long run. In the EZ LPF is, as I see it particularly inapposite, because it is putting members in a strait jacket and is simply augmenting the divergences within the EZ. Putting it another way LPF is simply another road block for the likes of Italy who desperately need to free themselves of EU constraints.

If it is to take place over one year - difficult. If it's to take place over a thousand years - much easier.

Initially the EEC was seen (as opposed to what it actually was) as a trade project which would bring people together by the mechanism of trade. The full fruition of this can take hundreds of years. However in 1983 the Solemn Declaration of the European Union brought peoples and states together and this I think changed the character of the union.

Companies are the prime economic actors but the state facilitates so you cannot really separate the two. Also this race to the bottom is quite wrong. In general LPF has been related to high German standards. See this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Berlin-Rules-Europe-German-Way/dp/1784539295/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1VB11LLLF3RYR&dchild=1&keywords=paul+lever&qid=1595576577&sprefix=paul+lever%2Caps%2C153&sr=8-1 What is good for the majority of the population might be said to be a secondary consideration. Unfortunately you're right but I'd hope to see much more invested in R & D support in the coming years. Common approach may be fine but the issue, to me, is the encouragement of diversity and thereby innovation.

Actually I disagree with you; not only do I not think it's not impossible ( this coming together slowly through trade); I think it's very likely. The problem is, as you highlight with Scotland, is that it takes hundreds of years because it is an organic concept, almost anthropological, not a political process. Bureaucracies can't wait that long. If the process was incremental as you suggest there would be few problems; the problems have arisen because the bureaucrats can't wait.

The fact that it is a large bloc means nothing; the key point is how it works. The LPF, which is a major aspect of EU economic policy, eliminates large aspects of "jurisdictional competition". Jurisdictional competition is a very wide area of policy which could cover: tax policy ( see the Eire scrap with the EU on tax harmonisation); regional policy; state aid; education; help for small businesses'; R& D policy and a host of other things. As I said it does have a competition policy but I'm unable to say how it works.

The ECSC/EEC/EU was modelled on the League of Nations. The democratic element was the Assemby ( the EU Parliament); the Council (Council of Ministers) and a Secretariat (Commission). The League failed for many reasons but a major reason was the "national veto" which meant that proposals had to surmount a high voting hurdle. This made it very difficult to do anything. Jean Monnet worked for the League and was determined that the EEC would not fall into the same trap and that actual power would devolve to the Secretariat (Commission) an elite cadre who would operate with few democratic checks. I think common sense tells you that an organisation of 27 disparate countries is difficult to manage short of a federal union, and even this may not work because of that diversity, so the need to downplay the democratic aspect grows with the size of the whole.

Alan Sked is Emeritus Professor of International History at the LSE - that hotbed of Brexiters. Ad hominem attacks - go for the man not the argument - lazy.

Perceived self interest; inertia. For those in the EZ (most) it is the cataclysmic consequences of leaving. If we were in the Euro I would have voted to remain and let the EU disintegrate of its own accord.

This is an article which summarises this view. I don't think it's the source I was thinking of but the views are the same: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/09/nation-states-have-been-the-making-of-europe/ One of the major problem with blocs is that they end up neutering competition which is fatal for economic efficiency and growth. To be fair to the EU it has recognised, at least formally, of the importance of competition and the need for regulation. How effective this has been is difficult to assess. The very existence of the idea LPF tends, to my mind, to indicate that there is a greater concern to eliminate competition rather than encourage it. In fact the EU has I believe been clear about the need to eliminate "jurisdictional competition" between members. These apparently contradictory impulses imply to me that the rules on competition may be less robust than they appear and that the underlying meme is "crony capitalism lite" rather than competition, but this is speculation on my part.

The nearest historical analogy to the EU was the Holy Roman Empire. In the early seventeenth century the Holy Roman Emporer mandated the Catholic religion throughout the Empire. There was a revolt by the northen Protestant states and this inaugurated the Thirty Years' War in 1618 which ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, a settlement which marks the beginning of the modern nation state. Oddly enough you can discern a gradual drift in the EU towards this state of affairs and I do wonder if there will ever come a time when the members do revolt against the hegemony of an all powerful central body. The Commission's power does grow, almost by stealth, and it does see itself as ultimately the government of the EU, a permanent cadre of the elite above minor democratic checks and concerns. But this was always the intention. In addition many historians believe that it is the diversity, cultural , economic and social of the nation state and the competition between them is the reason Europe became great. The advent of the EU is arguably something designed to neuter that very diversity and competition.

You mean calling people "thickos"?

FOM is basically a good idea, certainly from the economic point of view. From the social point of view it can be mixed because a sudden influx (or outflux) can be very destabilising for communities which are affected. But even from the social point of view it can be managed. As I see it the problem with the EU is that you have a perfectly acceptable economic principle which is compromised by other deficiences. To take a specific example: after the accession of Poland to the EU there was, as everyone is aware, a large migration to the UK and other places. This not only put pressure on the host countries because the influx was sudden, it also deprived Poland of young people as they, in common with many, have huge demographic problems. So this migration was not only an issue for the host country; it was also an issue with the donor nation. Looking at it from the EU perspective this was nevertheless a good thing; labour movements from relatively low to relatively high productivity countries will boost EU GDP. Socially the results are questionable, and were questioned. Map those changes accross to a fully federal US and it has to be at least a possibility that some of these problems would not have occurred. A Polish province in a federal EU would automatically receive funds because it was poorer than the rest and this would have discouraged migration from Poland in the first place and thus ameliorated changes in both the host and donor provinces. One of the major issues with the EU is that is it a hybrid, an amoeba that grows messily and in a way that has tended to create as many problems as it solves. Its competencies have grown by crisis as much as consensus and this leaves much of its architecture incomplete and dysfunctional.

Reasonable doubt is a high fence. to jump. Is the issue: was the referendum "rigged" or was it that the result was changed by the rigging? Merely showing that there was an attempt to sway the vote does not mean the vote was swayed in which case it made no difference. And how do you demonstrate that the vote was swayed?

The EU contains a very wide variation in members; politically socially and economically. The nearest modern equivalent is the US which any compare and contrast exercise would show up the EU asa a pretty ricketty structure with doubtful sustainability. Perhaps the nearest analagous system overall would be the Holy Roman Empire which, although it lasted for hundreds of years, eventually broke up on the reefs of relgious toleration and the Thirty Years' War, the ending of which in the Peace of Westphalia inaugurated the modern nation state.

I can see the reasons for it but its effect is to dilute the vote. In a grouping of 27 it's very difficult to get a satisfactory balance between power and democratic sufficiency and the net result is that frustrations build in the system. The EU is a hybrid and IMV has ultimately to decide to go to either a full federal system or loosen its grip.

It's very rare that any system is all right or all wrong; the point is: where are your trade offs?

The UK has one MEP for every 880,000 voters; Malta has one MEP for every 70,900 citizens. There may be good reasons for this but its effect is quite likely to erode the ability of the larger/ medium sized countries to have a different opinion from the mainstream; smaller countries are much more likely to tow the line. All this is entirely deliberate. Jean Monnet saw the elimination of the national veto as a necessary condition of effective action and QMV is a route to that.

This is quoted by many on this thread but it is misleading. It states what the formal structure is and how that is supposed to work. But what is far more important is to discover how things work in practice and how power is actually distributed. The Commission has always been seen as the core of a prospective European government. The founders of the EU saw democratic control as preventing efficiency and purposive action. The ending of the national veto and the introduction of QMV have gradually seen the neutering of power by the larger members such as the UK. I believe I read somewhere that QMV means that Malta has around 15 votes effectively for the UK's one. These measures may seem reasonable in themselves but they result in less accountability and an erosion of real power by the member states. Furthermore the Commission is known to indulge in "mission creap" over the years whereby it arrogates by stealth increments of powers and this further undermines the distribution of power by the members. Its MO is to create "facts on the ground" which then become incorporated into standard procedures and a further accretion of power to the Commission. And it uses crises to "tumble forward" into a new stateof affairs, this most notably in the area of the Euro.

If you've understood the difference between an actual and a theoretical loss then you've understood.

More or less everything is relevant to someone but the question is: is it relevant here and the answer is - no.

Irrelevant to the point at issue.