What if uk joined euro

Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. England, as part of the United Kingdom, is the most notable member of the European Union —at least, until —that has elected not to use the euro.

When the euro was first proposed as a single currency system for the European Union in , the then-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, declared that there were "five economic tests" that must be met for his country to accept the euro, which it did not end up meeting. Blair's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, is credited with creating the "five-test" policy with regard to the United Kingdom and the euro. Many believe that the five economic tests, as constructed, set benchmarks so difficult to satisfy that a movement to the euro from the pound sterling can never be justified.

The British government has not wanted to abdicate control of its own interest rate policy, which would occur under the euro system. For instance, a British firm or investor who is used to exchanging pounds to dollars or vice versa would be forced to adjust to a euro exchange rate. Additionally, the United Kingdom would be forced to meet the "euro convergence criteria" before adopting the currency, which includes maintaining a debt-to-GDP ratio that limits British fiscal policy.

The euro is the official currency for most of the member states of the European Union. The geographic and economic region that uses the euro is known as the "Eurozone. It is also argued that a currency with the backing of the Eurozone economy is better able to compete with the U. Detractors of the euro system say that too much power is concentrated with the European Central Bank , which sets monetary policy for the euro.

This reduces the ability of individual countries to react to local economic conditions. Brexit is an abbreviation for "British exit," referring to the U.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the referendum and campaigned for Britain to remain in the EU, announced his resignation the following day. All of this will cease without individual agreements once Brexit takes place. A five-year old newspaper headline - claiming that all European Union EU countries would have to adopt the euro after - was widely shared on Twitter over the weekend. The headline was originally shared by BrexitCentral, a pro-Brexit website whose editor-at-large is the former chief executive of Vote Leave, Matthew Elliott.

In a now-deleted tweet to her 26, followers, Ms McVey asked whether the public was aware of this as well as "other things" the EU has "planned" after The tweet ended with the hashtags "trust" and "WatchOut".

Some European Union countries have negotiated "opt-outs" in areas of EU policy they do not want to join. In the case of the UK and Denmark, these opt-outs include membership of the euro currency.

So if the UK were to end up not leaving the EU, it would retain all of its current opt-outs, including that one. A country can decide to give up any of its opt-outs, but only a national government can do this ie the EU can't currently force a country to surrender them.

Sweden, a country which has no opt-out, has also been able to resist adopting the euro. In , a referendum was held in which voters rejected joining the currency.

Since , all new EU members are obliged to commit in principle to joining the euro once they meet certain criteria. Yet with no referendum called, their arguments went largely unchallenged. Stuart Smedley is a doctoral researcher at King's College London. His research focuses on historical developments in British public opinion towards European integration from to The issue of a referendum on the Euro is, I would argue, simply a sub issue of a greater problem.

There was one referendum in , and then nothing more until In the meantime, the vast quantity of EU regulations and directives that had an effect on UK law were passed off as initiatives of the UK government, with no explanation of the role of the EU.

This kept the Irish electorate on board as the EU increasingly apparently encroached on Irish sovereignty. Yes there was a missed opportunity. It was the arrogant way in which Labour handled the Lisbon Treaty in Britain which helped to set the conditions for what followed less than a decade later.

We were promised a referendum on the European Constitution but then denied it under the pretence that the Lisbon treaty was something different. Had we decided to leave then, it would have been a lot less painful than now.

Search for:. Stuart Smedley December 3rd, A missed opportunity? Revisiting the euro referendum that never was from a historical perspective 2 comments 12 shares Estimated reading time: 10 minutes. Data have been filtered to adults aged 18 and over in Great Britain in order to reflect those of voting age. Percentages may not total due to rounding. In , the question used was altered to ask the extent to which respondents agreed or disagreed that the euro will lead to various outcomes.

Strictly speaking though, data is not directly comparable to that shown for previous years.