Don't Blame Me;I Voted Along with 33% Who Were Right, Against Britain Joining The EEC

Here's the head of the World Bank Robert Zoellick telling it like it is now that he is retiring. Followed by a report that the UK is making "contingency plans to restrict the possible flood of job seekers from the EU once/if it collapses into financial anarchy.


Actually, with Spanish unemployment at 25% (50% for young job seekers) it is surprising that the net 250,000 job-seeker growth per annum in the UK is not higher. One thing for certain is that if the collapse comes it will rocket as Britain is seen as some sort of safe haven-which it won't be of course.


As the report rightly says, unless Britain leaves the EU it has no legal manner of restricting the expected mass inrush of Spaniards/Greeks etc etc. One option is for a "go slow" i.e. to tie up applicants in bureaucracy until the backlog makes the crush unsustainable. More realistically, at that point Britain should leave the whole rotten mess.


As I stated-don't blame me! I voted against the Harold Wilson instigated Common Market referendum in June 1975. Unfortunately only 33% of us voted NO! It seemed logical to me that Britain had a more sustainable relationship with the Commonwealth countries, who could supply low cost food, and that Britain would still be able to compete in Europe.


Ironically only two constituencies voted to stay out, one of which was The Orkney's, which was the electorate of Jo Grimond the leader of the Liberal Party, who were the most vociferous about getting in. They were the closest part of the U.K. to Norway which also, wisely, voted not to join. There is little pleasure, 37 years later, in being able to say "I told you so" because the spectacle of another European collapse, which may bring the world into depression once again, is sad.


In Passing I reproduce an interesting piece of ephemera from the time. One of the major newspapers produced "Britain's first political comic" which had, I recall, one edition and was a pro-market propaganda piece from cover to cover. I can't imagine there would be more than a few of these in existence.
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Here, via the Daily Mail, is what he, Robert Zoellick, really thinks about what's going on in Europe and the global financial markets:

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• "financial markets face a rerun of the Great Panic of 2008.

• It's ‘far from clear that eurozone leaders have steeled themselves’ for the looming  catastrophe amid fears of a Greek exit from the single currency and meltdown in Spain.‘Events in Greece could trigger financial fright in Spain, Italy and across the eurozone. The summer of 2012 offers an eerie echo of 2008.... ‘If Greece leaves the eurozone, the contagion is impossible to predict, just as Lehman had unexpected consequences.’'There will not be time for meetings of finance ministers to discuss the outlook and debate the politics.... 'In panicked markets, investors flee to safe assets, sparking other flames.’

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  Read the full article at the link below

  
  

  If Greeks flee their country, the EU would never let us turn them away

By JACK DOYLE

PUBLISHED: 10:09 GMT, 28 May 2012 | UPDATED: 11:14 GMT, 29 May 2012

We learned this weekend that, supposedly, emergency border plans are being drawn up in case of a catastrophic meltdown in the Eurozone.

There is a justified concern that, were the Euro to go belly-up, it would not just be the economic shockwaves that spread across the Channel.

Were the worst to happen, and the debt contagion spread from Greece to Spain and even several other European countries, it could lead to Britain facing a major immigration problem.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2151031/Europes-elite-allow-close-borders-Greeks-flee-country.html#ixzz1wuZgOeW9