Britain Will Join the Euro

15 january 2013

This is the story that had us all choking over our cornflakes this morning:

Britain ‘will join euro before long’, says German finance minister
Britain will have to abandon the pound and join the single currency “faster than people think”, Germany’s finance minister has said.

As an example of political delusion that’s really rather hard to beat.

I’ve pointed out here before that I’m biased on these matters, being a convinced anti-European Union sorta guy. But the idea that anyone could manage to get Britain into the euro in anything less than geological timescales is simply nonsensical.

And it’s not for economic reasons either, good as those are. Being in control of your own monetary and fiscal policies is, as Southern Europe is now showing us, really a rather good idea. But leaving those aside there is absolutely no chance of convincing the British electorate that we should ditch the pound and enter the euro.

All three major political parties (and of course the fourth, UKIP, coming up fast on the inside and the one that I belong to) have promised that there would be a national referendum before joining. This is simply not winnable. This is nothing to do with my own views, not even with the economics of anyone’s position.

It’s simply that everyone in the country has been shown 6 months worth of footage of riots in Greece, every newspaper in the land has been carrying stills. We’re all continually bombarded with the news that it’s all going horribly wrong. The details of all this don’t in fact matter: there, in the belly of the beast, lurking in the corner of the national mind which is what a referendum consults, is the opinion “The euro? Wha’ wiv’ all ‘em riots n’stuff? Nah, rubbish, innit?”

I agree it’s not the most sophisticated of analyses but that is the way a vote would go. The UK joining the euro simply isn’t going to happen, not this side of financial Armageddon at least.