Re: Britain could leave the Bloc and do things better!

European Union national leaders are set to discuss the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal using a nerve agent at a summit in Brussels next week.
European Council president Donald Tusk said he was ready to put the issue on the agenda at the planned European Council meeting on 22 and 23 March.

“I express my full solidarity with PM Theresa May in the face of the brutal attack inspired, most likely, by Moscow. I’m ready to put the issue on next week’s European Council agenda,” he said.

There is little doubt Putin wanted Britain to leave the EU. There is evidence he used the social media Bots to influence the referendum result.

Solid organisations such as the EU and NATO represent a threat in his world of paranoia.

Inside the EU Britain had that collective political power and authority of other nations against aggressors.

Being alone in the world has just got a little bit lonelier for Brits.

Re: Britain could leave the Bloc and do things better!

Being in the EU plays no part in our security.

The EU has no defensive or combat capability.

If anything the meddling of the EU in Ukraine was a major progenitor of the conflict there.


Being a member of Nato is the best security for the UK.


Far from being lonelier, the Salisbury Incident has brought the USA, Germany and France shoulder to shoulder with the UK........
The USA aren't in the EU and we are leaving thereby proving the EU is irrelevant to our security and irrelevant to the security of the other 230 countries on the planet outside the EU.

Your post highlights the ignorance and fantasies many Remainers have regarding the EU. Amazing how easily indoctrinated some, especially the young can be.

Re: Britain could leave the Bloc and do things better!

Hi

The EU wish to expand into the Ukraine and Turkey would have been a disaster.

I want no part of this.

Re: Britain could leave the Bloc and do things better!

To suggest the EU plays no part in the security of the UK is if I may say so just plain wrong and an indication of some misunderstanding of what Britain's relationship with the EU is and how it functions.

NATO is a military alliance which provides the physical muscle to any threat. It acts principally as a deterrent force.

However it's the politics and unanimity between nations with shared or equal interests that prevent conflicts. As an EU members Britain's interests would have been the same as Germany's, France et al.

Here are five crunch points on security and defence for the EU and UK after Brexit. I’ll try to be brief.

1. Data sharing
Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6, Britain’s overseas intelligence service, said this week that sharing data is “central” to fighting crime and monitoring terror threats.
“We won’t be round the table with our voice, with our weight, stressing the vital importance of these data exchanges to our national security,”

2. Foreign policy - The EU has said no outside country can take part in its foreign policy decision making. Britain will no longer have a seat at the EU’s foreign affairs council or political and security committee.

3. Closer EU defence co-operation - Britain is leaving as the EU launches its latest — and most serious — attempt at forging closer defence ties. All but three of the 28 member states — UK, Denmark and Malta — signed up in December to Permanent Defence Co-operation (Pesco).

4. Industry- The UK wants its companies to be able to access EU-backed defence industrial projects and the new European Defence Fund (EDF). The EU has said that during the transition phase the UK will only be invited to bid for funds from the EDF, which will rise to €1.5bn a year after 2020, on a case-by-case basis

5. UK role in EU defence mission - The EU has said that after next March the UK will no longer take part in the decision making structures of its common security and defence policy. Brussels has also said that Britain will not be able to command joint EU missions.

Re: Britain could leave the Bloc and do things better!

The EU is a pointless talking shop. It has ambitions to be a military power , as you have highlighted, but it isn't a military power and the world does NOT need another military superpower.

We would be at war with Russia right now if the EU had a military capability because of Ukraine.....Thank God we are a NATO member and you are wrong to suggest that NATO is just soldiers and hardware......it is intelligence also, in fact it's primarily intelligence!!!

The recent Salisbury Incident is proof that Western democracies will sing from the same hymn book when it's security is threatened and the EU and UK Govt have made the point very, very clear that intelligence sharing and data sharing is NOT to be part of the Brexit negotiations, Even tho' we have the best intelligence agency in Europe

You highlight that the UK , Denmark and that other military Superpower......Malta failed to sign up to Pesco.....so hardly a united front and imagine trying to get all 27 to agree to military action!!

I'm glad that the UK takes care of it's own Foreign Policy. That is a plus. I couldn't give a fig what a bunch of unelected commissioners think and don't want to part of an organisation that will bully it's members to toe the official line.

As for possibly missing out on possible EU defence contracts...Big deal.. We are too dependent on arms sales anyway in this country. We can diversify if necessary but my guess is we will still win a lot of those contracts

The EU is going way beyond it's remit and that's why I'm glad we binned it!

Nothing you say makes the case for an EU army and I think it is a dangerous and unnecessary development.

Re: Britain could leave the Bloc and do things better!

Bearing in mind that we are still fully paid up members of the EU it will be astonishing if the EU, at their meeting, do not fully support the UK.

But don't hold your breath!

Re: Britain could leave the Bloc and do things better!

That's rather my point 'stronger together' was not just a slogan it actually means something.

Just ask Putin and other enemies of the UK what they would prefer. A united block of 28 nations politically facing them down or a small insignificant island with a clown as Foreign Secretary?

Re: Britain could leave the Bloc and do things better!

Exactly, the Brexiteers have left us vulnerable in all areas, isolated, without our European allies. And the vultures are already circling. No surprise Putin would prefer an isolated UK, the USA would too, hence Trump's encouragement of Brexit. They'll exploit our desperation for trade and isolation for their own ends.

This attack shows the sort of contempt for the UK which will be world wide post Brexit

Re: Britain could leave the Bloc and do things better!

The remainiacs never give up, do they.

I expect that in a hundred years time, after we have been independent for most of that time, they'll still be whingeing about it!

Re: Britain could leave the Bloc and do things better!

Very true.

Like us, they hide behind the US as part of NATO, though we at least pay our whack.

The infamous European Army they are planning will be there for one reason only: to dissuade any member countries from attempting to go it alone.

They just don't realise it yet.