Will Great Britain Ditch the EU?

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard explains why it should:

Just when you thought the EU could not go any further down the road towards authoritarian excess, it gets worse.

The European Commission is calling for EU powers to vet budgets of the 27 member states before the draft laws have been presented to the House of Commons, the Tweede Kamer, the Folketing, the Bundestag, the Assemblee Nationale, or other national parliaments. It applies to Britain even though we are not in EMU.

Fonctionnaires and EU finance ministers will pass judgement on the British (or Dutch, or Danish, or French) budgets before the elected bodies of these ancient and sovereign nations have seen the proposals. Did we not we not fight the English Civil War and kill a king over such a prerogative?

Yet again we are discovering the trick played on our democracies by Europe’s insiders when they charged ahead with EMU, brushing aside warnings by their own staff economists that monetary union was unworkable without fiscal union. Jacques Delors knew perfectly well that this would lead inevitably to a crisis, but it would be the “beneficial crisis” that would force sovereign parliaments to submit to demands that they would never otherwise accept.

This is now playing out before our eyes. Club Med governments have built up €7 trillion sovereign debt under the cover of monetary union, which shut down the warning signals for borrowers and creditors alike. We are now near – or beyond – the point of no return. Eurozone states must go along with this cynical entrapment, or risk economic catastrophe. The conspirators have succeeded. The €750bn shock and awe package agreed over the weekend clearly alters the character of the European Project, crossing the line towards an EU debt union and an EU Treasury. How long will it be now before the EU acquires direct tax-raising powers?....

The moment of definition is fast arriving from Britain. The measures now being demanded to save monetary union cannot and will not be accepted by this Government, Nick Clegg notwithstanding. The most eurosceptic people I have ever met are those who have actually worked for the European Commission, though it takes a while – and liberation from Brussels – for these views to ferment.

The outcome – une véritable gouvernement économique – will put Britain and the eurozone on such separate courses that it will amount to separation in all but name. The sooner we get the nastiness of divorce behind us, the better.

Britain Props Up Banks

Britain has committed more than $60 billion in taxpayer money to prop up three banks.

“The action we are taking is unprecedented but essential for all of us,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown said at a press conference in London.

The Royal Bank of Scotland announced it would seek around $34 billion to boost its capital as part of the bailout program.

The deal is likely to result in the British government acquirng an almost 60 percent ownershp position in Royal Bank of Scotland along with more than 40 percent of HBOS and Lloyds TSB, which are negotiating a merger.

Europe of the Future: Germany Shrinks, France Grows, but UK Population Booms

Britain will overtake Germany and France to become the biggest country in the EU in 50 years' time, according to population projections unveiled yesterday. A survey of demographic trends by the EU finds Britain's positive birth rate contrasting strongly with most other large countries in Europe.

The survey predicts that Britain's population by 2060 will increase by 25% from the current figure of just over 61 million to almost 77 million.

Germany is the biggest country in the EU, with more than 82 million people, but it is likely to shed almost 12 million by 2060, says the report.

The French population will rise to almost 72 million by 2060.

Of the biggest six EU countries (Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Poland) Britain has by far the greatest birth rates. Only Luxembourg, Cyprus, and Ireland are growing faster than the UK.

The average age of Europeans is now just over 40; this will be 48 by 2060. The average age for Britons is 39 and will be 42 in 2060 - the lowest age in Europe with the exception of Luxembourg.

The EU's population now stands at 495 million and is projected to rise to more than 520 million by 2035, before falling to 505 million by 2060.

The strongly Roman Catholic countries of Europe are having fewer babies. The Italian population will stay the same over the next 50 years, while Poland's and Lithuania's will shrink considerably. Spain's population is forecast to increase by 6 million. Life expectancy is also rising. In Ireland, women will live to 89 and men to 85. Almost one in three Europeans will be of pensionable age if 65 remains the threshold.

Google Honors A Classy Lady

While Great Britain is giving Martha Stewart a difficult time about entering the country, because of her "Show Trial" conviction for lying to the U.S. government's SEC, Stewart was a "Guest of Honor" in San Francisco this past June at the annual Google National Sales Conference.

The theme of this year’s conference was The Edge. Google considers Stewart's company as being a leading edge organization.

Even Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, showed up to "help" Martha.