Britain joins the Euro

What would have been the effects of Britain joining the Euro along with all the other countries at the very beginning?
 

hammo1j

Donor
Pre-requisite would be Brown out the way. Blair wanted it and we went in 2003 in Blair's second term with chancellor Straw.

Initially the currency performed very poorly and Chinese imports were increased in price and interest rates went up curtailing house prices inflation. Eventually the situation stabilised and people began to appreciate not having to visit the bureau-de-change everytime they went abroad.

The Tories ran a referendum on Europe type policy but, though his majority was reduced, Blair's charm won the day again.
 
And unlike several other countries in Europe, Britain's experience of decimalisation in the '70s meant that prices were monitored very carefully and the rounding up (way up in some cases) that occurred elsewhere was less of a problem in the UK. 10 years later people wonder what all the fuss about the Euro was about and knee-jerk symbolic Britishness, e.g. keeping imperial measures starts to seem very old fashioned.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Britain doesn't offer its support towards the invasion of Iraq, which was a war to protect the hegemony of the US Dollar against the rising star of the Euro.
 
Problem you have to get past is that all parties promised a referendum in 1997 and thereafter - Labour dropping its commitment to a referendum would just be perfect for the Tory Party. And I think that any referendum would be very likely to fail - in fact I think it would be extremely unlikely to pass unless everything just went wrong for the 'No' campaign. Not to say it's implausible of course - there is a possibility that Blair at the height of his popularity in his first term could just go 'screw it' and ram it through the House of Commons and the Lords, but then again he would have to get it past Brown and Eurosceptic Labour backbenchers.
 
Problem you have to get past is that all parties promised a referendum in 1997 and thereafter - Labour dropping its commitment to a referendum would just be perfect for the Tory Party. And I think that any referendum would be very likely to fail - in fact I think it would be extremely unlikely to pass unless everything just went wrong for the 'No' campaign. Not to say it's implausible of course - there is a possibility that Blair at the height of his popularity in his first term could just go 'screw it' and ram it through the House of Commons and the Lords, but then again he would have to get it past Brown and Eurosceptic Labour backbenchers.

While I agree that a yes in the referendum is not obvious result, it is certainly not impossible or ASB. However it doesn't matter too much how Britain joins the Euro. What I'm interested in is the effect on like the economy of Britain, Europe, America ect.
 
None of the other reasons make sense, especially the oft-quoted "to secure the oil supply".
Perhaps, just perhaps, there wasn't a single reason? It's not like the US didn't have its own voice(s) in OPEC who could have blocked such an attempt, especially since Saddom conveniently had most of the ME against him.
 
What would have been the effects of Britain joining the Euro along with all the other countries at the very beginning?
This is very important. The Euro didn't have a good start, and the already quite eurosceptic Brits would pick up on that.

If it isn't ASB to begin with, ofcourse.
 
Probably what we'd see is an initial rough patch, then things would be basically fine for a while, then when the recession hit in 2007, Britain would be in much worse shape than it is now due to inability to devalue and problems with the ECB's deflationary bias.

The interesting question would what impacts Britain's participation in the Euro might have on the shape of EU institutions. If the U.K can tip the balance of power away from the German inflation hawks, then the E.U might be more disposed to economic growth in the '97-'07 period.

There's still going to be the problem of monetary lock-in which will cause the same problems we've seen in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, etc., and the E.U still lacks a fiscal union that's necessary for counter-acting the monetary lock-in.
 
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