Should Great Britain leave the European Union

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YEREVAN BRUSOV STATE UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Research paper

Subject: «British studies»

Topic: «Should Great Britain leave the European Union»

Professor: Miss M. Nazaryan

Student: Grigoryan Mariam

TIC faculty, 3^rd year, group N5, tourism& English

Yerevan 2016

Introduction

In this research paper I will discuss the impact of the European Union on Great Britain. What Brexit is.

Whether Britain should leave the EU or not. What Britain will get or lose from the leave and what will lose or get the EU. The effect of the leave on each sphere of the economy of Great Britain (Membership fee, Trade, Investment, Sovereignty, Immigration, jobs, Security and etc.).To do this, I will be looking at the beginning of the relations between the European Union and Great Britain. The purpose of this research paper is to know the pros and cons of the leave from the European Union. I will look at both positive and negative sides of the argument. I will avoid taking sides, but rather the aim is to merely give information on the positive and negative effects of the EU on Britain.

1. Great Britain and the European Union

The European Union - often known as the EU - is an economic and political partnership involving 28 European countries. It began after World War Two to foster economic co-operation, with the idea that countries which trade together are more likely to avoid going to war with each other. It has since grown to become a "single market" allowing goods and people to move around, basically as if the member states were one country. It has its own currency, the euro, which is used by 19 of the member countries. In 1973 - Britain was finally allowed into European Economic Community under Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath. But in 2016 Britain voted for exit from the EU, which got the name Brexit. What does Brexit mean? It is a word that has become used as a shorthand way of saying the UK leaving the EU - merging the words Britain and exit to get Brexit. A referendum was held on Thursday 23 June, to decide whether the UK should leave or remain in the European Union. Leave won by 52% to 48%. The referendum turnout was 71.8%, with more than 30 million people voting. Since the referendum Britain has got a new Prime Minister - Theresa May. The former home secretary took over from David Cameron, who resigned on the day after losing the referendum. Like Mr Cameron, Mrs May was against Britain leaving the EU but she says she will respect the will of the people. For the UK to leave the EU it has to invoke an agreement called Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty which gives the two sides two years to agree the terms of the split. Theresa May has confirmed this will be done by the end of March 2017, meaning the UK will be expected to have left by the summer of 2019, depending on the precise timetable agreed during the negotiations.http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887

2. The pros and cons of leaving the EU

The greatest uncertainty associated with leaving the EU is that no country has ever done it before, so no one can predict the exact result.

Membership fee

Leaving the EU would result in an immediate cost saving, as the country would no longer contribute to the EU budget, argue Brexiters. Last year, Britain paid in Ј13bn, but it also received Ј4.5bn worth of spending, says Full Fact, "so the UK's net contribution was Ј8.5bn".

What's harder to determine is whether the financial advantages of EU membership, such as free trade and inward investment (see below) outweigh the upfront costs.

Trade

The EU is a single market in which no tariffs are imposed on imports and exports between member states. "More than 50 per cent of our exports go to EU countries," says Sky News. Membership of the bloc means we have always had a say over how trading rules are drawn up.

· Consumer protection laws existed before the EU and would remain after Britain left

Remain

· People in Britain save an average of Ј450 a year because prices are lower as a result of EU membership

· Flights and mobile phone charges are among the goods and services that are cheaper

· The EU ensures that imported goods meet European quality standards

Britain also benefits from trade deals between the EU and other world powers. "The EU is currently negotiating with the US to create the world's biggest free trade area," says the BBC, "something that will be highly beneficial to British business."

Britain risks losing some of that negotiating power by leaving the EU, but it would be free to establish its own trade agreements. Eurosceptics argue that the vast majority of small and medium sized firms do not trade with the EU but are restricted by a huge regulatory burden imposed from abroad.http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32793642

Investment. Inward investment was always predicted to slow in the run-up to the vote, due to the uncertainty of the outcome and its consequences: that's what happened in before the Scottish independence referendum in 2014.In the long term, there are diverging views: pro-Europeans think the UK's status as one of the world's biggest financial centers will be diminished if it is no longer seen as a gateway to the EU for the likes of US banks, while Brexit campaigners suggest that, free from EU rules a regulations, Britain could reinvent itself as a Singapore-style supercharged economy. It said the departure of one of the EU's most powerful economies would hit its finances and boost populist anti-EU movements in other countries. This would open a "Pandora's box", said the Daily Telegraph, which could lead to the "collapse of the European project". The UK would then be seen as a safe haven from those risks, attracting investors, boosting the pound and reducing the risk that Scotland would "leave the relative safety of the UK for an increasingly uncertain EU". european political brexit

Immigration. Under EU law, Britain cannot prevent anyone from another member state coming to live in the country - while Britons benefit from an equivalent right to live and work anywhere else in the EU. The result has been a huge increase in immigration into Britain, particularly from eastern and southern Europe. According to the Office for National Statistics, there are 942,000 eastern Europeans, Romanians and Bulgarians working in the UK, along with 791,000 western Europeans - and 2.93m workers from outside the EU. China and India are the biggest source of foreign workers in the UK. By contrast, Farage insisted immigration should be cut dramatically, and that leaving the EU was the only way to "regain control of our borders". Other pro-Brexit campaigners would not necessarily reduce immigration, but said that it should be up to the British Government to set the rules. Cameron claimed that the concessions he won during the renegotiation of Britain's EU membership would reduce immigration as new arrivals will receive a lower rate of child benefit.

Leave

· It is impossible to control immigration as a member of the EU

· Public services are under strain because of the number of migrants

· High immigration has driven down wages for British workers

· Points-based system for migrants to the UK should be extended to include those from the EU

Remain

· Immigrants, especially those from the EU, pay more in taxes than they take out

· Cameron's EU deal means in-work benefits for new EU migrant workers will be limited for the first four years

· Outside the EU the UK would still have to accept free movement to gain full access to the single market

· Immigration is good for the economy

Jobs

The effect of leaving the EU on British jobs depends on a complex interplay of the factors above: trade, investment and immigration. Pro-EU campaigners suggested that three million jobs could be lost if Britain goes it alone. However, while "figures from the early 2000s suggest around three million jobs are linked to trade with the European Union," says Full Fact, "they don't say they are dependent on the UK being an EU member." If trade and investment falls now the UK has voted for Brexit, then some of these jobs would be lost - but if they rose, then new jobs would be created. A drop in immigration would, all else being equal, mean more jobs for the people who remained, but labour shortages could also hold back the economy, reducing its potential for growth.

Security

Former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who was in favour of Brexit, said we were leaving the "door open" to terrorist attacks by remaining in the EU. "This open border does not allow us to check and control people," he said.http://www.theweek.co.uk/brexit-0

Leave

· Membership of Nato and the UN Security Council are more important to Britain's defence than the EU

· The EU interferes with defence procurement and wants to set up its own army

· Britain would have more influence on the world stage as an independent country

· Being in the EU makes it easier for terrorists to come to the UK

· Supremacy of EU courts makes it harder to deport violent criminals

· Britain would still co-operate with other European countries to fight terrorism after Brexit, as currently happens with the US

Remain

· Working with EU neighbours to tackle shared threats has helped keep Britain safer

· Britain does not have open borders because it is not in the Schengen area

· Europol membership allows the UK to share intelligence and fight cross-border crime

· The European Arrest Warrant has returned over 1,000 criminals to face justice in the UK

Travel and living abroad

Leave

· International law means current expats could not be forced to return to the UK

· The UK has deals with lots of other countries to help Britons living abroad

Remain

· Flights to Europe and using mobile phones on holiday are cheaper thanks to the EU

· British tourists enjoy free or cheaper healthcare in other EU countries

· There is no guarantee that expats in the EU would be able to stay after Brexithttp://campaignforanindependentbritain.org.uk/the-economy/

Conclusion

Great Britain has been a member of the European Union for many years. With the EU it had up and downs and finally decided to leave the EU. For Outers, leaving the EU will allow Britain to re-establish itself as a truly independent nation with connections to the rest of the world. But Remainers fear that Brexit will result in the country giving up its influence in Europe, turning back the clock and retreating from the global power networks of the 21st century. Brexit would bring some clear-cut advantages. The UK "would regain control over fishing rights around its coast", for example. But it concluded that the most likely outcome would be that Britain would find itself "a scratchy outsider with somewhat limited access to the single market, almost no influence and few friends". Though leaving the EU can bring some benefits, but it may have negative impact on it. Also it can have negative influence on member countries too, as being economically developed Great Britain has an incomparable role on the EU. In my opinion, if Great Britain doesn't want to depend on the European Union in any case, then it should leave and of course if the government is sure that it won't harm the people too.

Bibliography

1.http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887

2. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32793642

3. http://www.theweek.co.uk/brexit-0

4. http://campaignforanindependentbritain.org.uk/the-economy/

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