Actually what I’m arguing for is that the external competence of the EU should precisely mirror “internal” competence under the Treaties, rather than go in further than it, as it does currently.

Take oil and gas supplies from Russia. By acting as a single entity the EU has been able to put together pipeline and supply agreements that would be almost impossible through bilateral agreements. However, given the current short-termist greed of some member states, Russia has been able to play off one against the other, through separate bilateral deal. Only by acting together can Russia be restrained somewhat.

World trade (eg WTO) negotiations would be even more difficult if each EU member state were to argue their own corner. Certainly the levels of WTO tariff agreements would be far fewer than at present.

NB why do you think the BRIC nations now try to reach a common approach before each WTO round? They find that this preliminary “levelling out” of differences gives them greater negotiation power. ie they are deliberately adopting the EU negotiating approach.

That seems to me difficult to defend: arguably a better rule is that member states should be able to conclude bilaterals that are consistent with EU rules, except in areas where the EU has exclusive competence expressly (like world trade) or “internally” (like conserving fish stocks). A reasonable safeguard would I think be for draft agreements to be submitted to the C’ion in advance so it could object to any inconsistency with EU law, and make proposals for a common European approach if justified on the merits.

Getting very drily tecchy now, sorry.

What’s amazing is the ignorance of their positions. David Davis mentions foreign policy; but we already have a complete veto on that. What’s to be gained by repatriation? He also mentions crime, asylum and immigration. But again, we have a complete opt-out, or rather opt-in, to that, so repatriation makes no difference.

In comparison I think Cameron’s idea of repatriating social policy is quite sane (for the avoidance of doubt, Jon, I don’t agree with it!). It does need to be made clear though what aspects of social policy he means – presumably those that we opted into at Amsterdam, plus working time.

I’d have thought from a Tory (as opposed to secretly UKIP) viewpoint by far the best target would be an amendment of the national parliaments’ “yellow card” to boost it into some sort of “red card”.

ABSOLUTELY. I have been arguing the same thing for years!

1) Irrelevant question. The point is about powers not policies. The EU should not have these powers and sovereign UK should.

2) When your a net contributor you have a strong negotiating hand, so yes I would expect the other member states to pay attention when their UK taxpayer subsidies are cut off. ( After all we have the Blair/Brown betrayal on the budget to recoup ).