Well, I think Britain should ask the people who still want to belong to the UK, If they want to cut the ties with the EU?

I believe Scotland will want to stay, as would Wales? The Irish got their independence long ago and voted to keep the anxing english conquers out, will stay!

The real conundrum will be, which way will northern Island go? With their more pragmatic southern celtic cousins, or with the mad dogs and englishmen, who've obviously have just spent far too much time in the noonday sun, to see which side of the bread has the butter on it?
Rhrosty.

None of our business, but no. The EU is a dog's breakfast run by unelected bureaucrats.

It's not so much Britain that should leave the EU - it's the ECB, IMF and Nato that should be booted out the door, preferably with a giant hob-nailed boot.

The ECB and IMF have made life hell for Europe's smaller economies - sinking them into debt and then refusing them the right to any independent means of solving their own financial problems. We all know the horrific example of Greece, which is now a pitiful, artificially induced 'failed state'. Lesser known are other examples, like Ireland, where the banking inquiry has now revealed that the ECB and IMF threatened to cut off all funds to Irish banks unless the Irish government agreed to a bailout package to protect, not the Irish economy, but the EU's 'senior bondholders' - i.e. uberwealthy investors.

Also, it's become increasingly clear that Nato is using the EU to further its expansionist ambitions - the Ukraine being the most recent and obvious example.

Killarney:You do write a lot of risible rubbish!

Everybody knows that the Celtic economic miracle was founded on the simplest of propositions, namely investing in your own people and their better ideas and EU membership.

And then crueled by debt laden foreign speculators and their hugely inflationary activities in the residential real estate market.

Even then the Irish government could have simply allowed these entities to fail and the real estate market to correct itself, but no!

!
As for the ukraine, their real problems started when they discovered shale oil and quite enormous reserves of the stuff, and indeed useful reserves in crimea. And given they seemed to have no problem getting some interest in development partners, and a subsequent removal of russia, as their one and only energy supplier, and given Russia had been using energy products as a weapon to force compliance!

And when all that looked like ending Russia invaded, annexed oil rich crimea and tried to force the division of ukraine along ethnic lines to further control energy development outcomes, not understanding that russian speaking Ukrainians are Ukranian before they are Russian, And given a full blown conflict, would fight on the side of their homeland!

As for Greece they used the EU and their money to prop up a completely dysfunctional economy, and one that employed 3 public servants for every 1 position!

With a state railway that employed an army of maintenance workers. And given the actual traffic numbers could have let those folks go, and back to fishing or waiting on tables or emigrating, and then supplied a free taxi for every one of their passengers. Which would have cost considerably less.

And yes the EU and the IMF eventually ran out of patience and had to tell the recalcitrants in Ireland, Greece and Spain there is no money tree and it was time to live within their means and indeed, pay for some of their incomprehensible decisions!

>>(Russians) not understanding that russian speaking Ukrainians are Ukranian before they are Russian<<

- a statement coming apparently from somebody who better understands the historical and cultural entaglement and ethnic differences between Russians and Ukraininans than they themselves?

Besides, I am sure that the vast majority of Iraqis would have preferred an invasion in 2003 that would have cost them only three lives, like the Russian “invasion” of Crimea (to prevent their naval base at Sevastopol to fall into NATO hands), Crimea, whatever their problems, has not been sunk in a civil war like Iraq. Even the support for Donbas insurgents to prevent American troops coming some 300 miles from what used to be Stalingrad, cost about 6000 lives, compared to hundreds of thousands of Iraquis.

Rhrosty

It’s unhelpful to tell people they write rubbish, just because you don’t agree with them. I’ve asked you in the past to not attack me personally.

There are all kinds of theories as to why countries like Ireland got into financial difficulties, but at the end of the day, their membership of the EU and their adoption of the euro have made it virtually impossible to find their own way out of it. The fact is that Ireland did not have an economic crisis – its REAL economy was and still is in good shape. What it had was a banking crisis, fuelled largely by toxic non-Irish real estate investment (lessons for Australia?), and the ECB and IMF have intimidated the government into protecting its EU investors at the crippling expense of the Irish people.

As for the Ukraine, George has covered much of that, so I won’t bother