Rather predictably, we see the Speccytwats getting excited about Ian Milne's pamphlet on leaving the European Union – available from Civitas at a price I am not prepared to pay.

What Milne cares to reveal in The Spectator, however, does not fill one with confidence, as he sketches out his ideas of an exit, thereby displaying a less than complete understanding of the legal and practical issues that would arise from our withdrawal.

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When the commie bloc countries became free , they just used the same rules , formats , paperwork until gradually replaced by their own newer system .

And you mentioned trucks going to the continent . what trucks ?
The cars I presume would still be going there as the French need the tourist trade .

We are a nation of 60 odd millions, true, we have been thoroughly subsumed and undoubtedly it has had a corrosive effect on every part of the administration, government and international trade, treaties, agreements etc, etc.

I pose this question, if the EU goes belly up - would we not be in an rather similar situation?

We ran an empire once, surely these odds [leaving the EU] are surmountable - or do you think we are so dumb, after years of thraldom Richard?
Do the Norwegians take fish out of our waters? I thought their fishing grounds were the richest on the European shelf - they conserve their fish. And, on patrolling - I am sure a few ex-mariners would love to patrol the waters [we must have a few seaworthy tubs to 're-use'] - kick a few French/Spanish ar**s.

Everything is doable, if the will is there and is it not true that, most of the barriers preventing Britain leaving the EU are not physical but man made - therefore easy to unravel.

Believe me it would take no time at all to have adequate fisheries protection in place....as long as you don't leave it all to the Navy. I know what I'm talking about on this one.

The mechanism within the Lisbon treaty for member states to leave is deliberately penal and humiliating. No self-respecting country would want to go down that path.

Last Autumn the European Central Bank produced a paper on states leaving the EU. They were actually just as interested in kicking out monetary and fiscal delinquents as they were in a country deciding to go of its own accord. They went through a great deal of labyrinthine administrative technical detail and tended to conclude that expulsion would be very difficult.

On the matter of a country leaving, they came to the conclusion that there were no means of restraining such an event, if there was a settled, political will to do so BECAUSE THE EU LACKED THE MEANS OF COERCION.

SO it would seem that Henry VIII had the right answer - an Act of Supremacy cancelling all authority of outside powers (in this case the Treaty rather than the Bishop of Rome) to make any laws binding within the Realm and an Act in Restraint of Appeals to stop British citizens taking any cases to outside jurisdictions like the ECJ. There would also be the need for an Act giving a quick repeal mechanism for thousands of EU measures by statutory instrument. I believe this provision should be available for all the statutes post 1967 when the Wilson government repealed the Act of PRAEMUNIRE which also restrained British citizens from appealing to foreign jurisdictions and would have made the negotiators trying to join the EU liable to criminal action with most unpleasant consequences.

Once the first two Acts were on the book, we then negotiate as an independent power making concessions (perhaps of a temporary financial nature) where necessary, to make the consequences of the fait accompli as little inconvenient as possible for all parties concerned.

I think it's even simpler than Milne suggests, can't we just repeal the ECA and have done with it…?

As the other commenters here have suggested, we are where we are, we just keep them that way and address each "competence" on the basis of urgency, in the same way that these things were insinuated into our law by the EEC/EU and their puppets in Westminster and Whitehall. Indeed, if there is problem, it is there rather than Brussels.

It doesn't take long to shut the doors to free movement, we are not even in Schengen, and as for fishing, surely we just adopt the Canada/Greenland model and keep vessels out of certain areas, and stop drowning what has been caught because of stupid quotas.

I think retirees are slightly different, they do not demand much from their host nation, as they pay their own medical costs and draw their pensions from their former employer schemes and National Insurance.

Of course that does not dispute your assertion Richard, that full disntanglement won't in reality take many years either.

The European Union and the EU Commission draws upon its LEGAL BASIS on budgetary maters from Article 268 to 280 of the EC Treaty. As the European Union has not performed or been in legal compliance for 17 years we should now be able to withdraw from the European Union using the provision of Article 61 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties

Article 61 Supervening impossibility of performance

A party may invoke the impossibility of performing a treaty as a ground for terminating or withdrawing from it if the impossibility results from the permanent disappearance or destruction of an object indispensable for the execution of the treaty. If the impossibility is temporary, it may be invoked only as a ground for suspending the operation of the treaty.

17 years of non compliance feels fairly permanent to me.

When one is tied to a drowning man, especially if he is determined to drown, as the EU is today, the best thing to do is untie yrself as fast as possible, then worry about the consequences.

Only bureaucrats worry about rules and we've far too many of both. Let the entrepreneurs run free at long last.

When we fell out of the ERM, the economy took off, because for once government was out of the picture, as it had no "plan".

Government and their idiot rules are the problem not the cure.

"we're not even past first base"
You can say that again:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/3 ... egislation

One of the important battles for our future is to get the MSM to report the 'facts' about the EU for if they did the overwhelming majority of the UK population would be baying to come out.

I appreciate many blogs do convey the truth about the EU but it is the MSM we need on our side.

With the MSM saying we would be 'Better off Out' the politicians would follow!

So I pose a question - what strategy and tactics can be adopted to get the MSM to report the facts on the EU?

I cannot remember having read such a miserable, gut-wrenching article as this, on this blog before.
Of course Richard knows his stuff to perfection & struts it with unassailable erudition...but it smacks of hopelessness &, sadly, a defeatism which I find utterly depressing. (let's hope it's simply pre-op depression syndrome)
I recall that we have faced far worse challenges...and survived.

Apart from anything else, we have devolved administrations, with the most active fisheries in Scottish waters. In those waters, we have historic agreements with other nations, which pre-date the CFP, conferring on fishermen grandfather rights which would have to be honoured under international law.

By the time you have sorted those issues, only then are you in a position to decide how you are going to regulate fishing effort, the technical aspects of which are far from clear or agreed. It is one thing to abandon discards ... which is the problem ... and species quotas in mixed fisheries, but there is then no agreement on which regulatory model is most appropriate (there are several, and the Canadian model is not necessarily the most appropriate) - then having regard to the enforcement issues.

Any idea that the UK could come up with an all-singing, all-dancing fisheries policy in the space of two years is sheer moonshine.

Then, then, is just one issue. Now have a look at Eurocontrol and the network of agreements that regulate international air traffic. In forward planning terms, ten years is speed of light ... and Milne thinks we can pull clear of EU involvement within two years? He is seriously, totally, barking mad if that is his view.

Now multiply the same sentiment through all the different policy areas, where there is no good will, because we have walked out of the EU, and the member states are highly pissed off.

I can easily reciprocate by observing, in like style, that rarely have I met a more facile comment. The whole purpose of making the assessment is in order to equip us to deal with the complications. Diving into this highly complex situation with the fullest of technical appreciations is utter madness.

And, if it came to a referendum, do you really think the europhiles are not going to raise these points? Do you think it would be a good idea to be prepared, with a realistic plan, instead of retreating into the puerile fantasies that pass for thinking in the Spectator?

As others are posting, these things are all do-able. In such circumstances, the complexities get cut through.

I'd go with Comet's logic on the other thread. It is a small sign of things going our way that this is in the MSM, no matter how ineptly presented. What is the "sound bite" Joe Public takes away from this ? Our enemies would rather it was never on the agenda.

Ditto Cameron's renegotiation. No, we shouldn't waste energy dicussing renegotiation, just point out that previous attempts have got nowhere. But we've talked about having demands that result in EU sucession as a by-product. So, whatever the europlastics say they want to repatriate, we can agree - yes, these powers must be repatriated.

Fine as analogies go, except we are not tied to a drowning man. We live in a complex, rule-driven world, where conduct is regulated by a myriad of international agreements, the sum total of which makes our global economy function.

If you want to see your entire civil aviation industry come to a grinding halt the day after "I-Day", then go ahead ... do it the Milne way. If you want a seam-free transition, then you are going to have to renegotiate on a bilateral basis a new set of agreements to replace those which you have junked with withdrawal from the EU.

The trouble is here that so few people even begin to understand the complexities of modern government, thus enabling the sort of fatuous comments we are hearing. Do you really want to junk all those rule so that, when you climb into a jet airliner headed for Europe, you can be confident of your safety in an entirely unregulated airspace ... or sit around for six months, because all UK permissions to enter European airspace have been rescinded?

Even down to a matter of details, where routine repairs to civil aircraft have to be certified by the air safety authorities ... which currently reside at an EU level. Can you live with a situation where all UK airlines are banned from European airspace because none of the systems meets EU airworthiness requirements, because no new treaty has been agreed?

You really are not thinking on this one ... but I make no bones about it. Forty years of political and economic integration is NOT going to be unravelled overnight ... not in two years or even ten ... and for every law or treaty we junk, we are going to have to think very hard about whether replacements are needed. This is not going to be easy.