Time for the final Grexit

Grexit, Grisis, Great news for eurozone; whatever your want to call it the time for a decision on Greece's future is rapidly approaching.
At time of writing there are still some hopes that a deal can be struck, however, even these are slim. The concessions proposed by the Greek government may buy them some time with their creditors but it will only be  a stop gap measure and likely to anger their own electorate.
Having campaigned on a platform of standing up to the European Union, preserving pension rights and combating austerity Greek Prime Minister Alex Tsipras and his ruling Syriza party will find it uncomfortable to explain why they are now making such a dramatic U-turn. On Tuesday it looked questionable whether he would be able to get the support in parliament to follow through on any agreement which included a concession on pensions making the plans even more unrealistic.
While the  proposal to combat Greece's mounting  debt has been greeted with cautious approval by some, including EU President Jean-Claude Juncker, others, including head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, are not even this optimistic of a solution.
Greece is hedging its bets on the idea that other eurozone countries will see Grexit as too much of a risk and therefore so long as they put on a good show of trying to compromise they will they will get what they want. Even if a bailout is agreed upon this time though it will only be a temporary measure. Unless Greece dramatically cuts its spending, raises the retirement age and curbs its more excessive tendencies then this will be just one round of a never ending fiscal game between the eurozone nations.
The issue for Germany et al though is  that having shown that they will bend over backwards to keep Greece in the zone they will have lost a key bargaining chip and created an inevitability for any future negotiations.
At this stage it could prove to be a greater risk to actually keep Greece in the eurozone. What critics of this opinion are quick to point out is that the zone was created with the specific concept that once joined it could not be left. To allow for Grexit would therefore create a dilemma for the bloc as member nations face an uncertain future, with any member potentially leaving and avoiding its responsibilities should the going get tough, examples of Spain and Portugal are thrown around considerably with this argument.
Such future exits would undoubtedly be painful and costly for the zone in the short term. If the eurozone is to survive in any format however this will be its only chance. By reducing the number of nations the remaining members will be able to create a more secure sustainable regime likely to increase productivity.
It would also not necessarily mean to collapse of the financial systems of leaving countries and the subsequent decent into anarchy and autocracy which has been predicted. The outflow from a prosperous regenerated eurozone is likely to bleed into these countries through trade and treaties, which with their new found ability to manage their own capital and current accounts more effectively is likely to help boost economies over the long term.
On a practical level the argument that should countries be allowed to leave the eurozone it would create some form of mass exodus must surely if true, which is unlikely, prove a decisive reason why it should be allowed. An economic regime which everyone wants to leave by definition has been proven to have failed and should be discarded in favour of a more effective one.
Without a real threat of exit there is no genuine means by which eurozone members can force others to acquiescence. Any negotiations will therefore prove pointless with a predetermined policy of paying an inevitability. An exit will without any question be painful, the rebuilding costly and many would sufferin the short term  Failing to allow it though would be catastrophic in the long run with the long term effects precipating a global financial crash to make the last decade seem a minor inconvenience.

Leaving Europe is a bad breakup we don't need

The future of Europe is one of those great discussions where it doesn't appear to actually matter if someone knows what is going on for them to make a contribution.
This is a good thing otherwise I would obviously be unable to wrIte about it.
In recent weeks the call from Conservative MP's to leave the EU, or at least calling for such unacceptable changes to the treaty agreement that they leave little other choice, has grown to more than 100. The Conservatives' For Britain group has appeared in a ghastly parliamentary parody of a bad boyfriend deliberately making unreasonable demand in the hopes that his girlfriend will break up with him and leave him looking like the injured party.
At the time of writing British MP's are debating the European Union Referendum Bill, the legislation required for the much heralded in out referendum to take place in 2017. As forgone conclusions go this was a safe bet. Everyone knows that it will pass. There is just too much pressure for a referendum to take place for it not to. It isn't whether we have a referendum now which matters, it is how we vote in that referendum.
The EU is far from perfect and in many ways could do with significant reform. This won't happen just because Britain stamps it's feet and cries though. It won't happen quickly and it most certainly won't happen in one go. The eurosceptics pushing for a renegotiation of the UK membership, supported by a number of disgruntled failed cabinet ministers looking to put the boot in,  know this. If they don't then they have either deluded  themselves or they really should not be allowed close to the debate. They know that the EU cannot change just because Britain says so. Likewise it won't even consider changing when there is a chance that the UK could leave anyway. International politics is a game and relies on states playing it in order to maximise their own preferences and gains.
The question which should be being debated in parliament is what is in it for everyone else. If we were serious about requesting reforms which would ensure that we stayed in the EU then we should be looking at how other states perceive their positions and what the relative gains will be. At the moment Britain had offered nothing in return for getting everything it wants.
An additional issue, and one which seems to be lost on many eurosceptics, is that leaving the EU will diminish Britain's absolute gains on the international stage. At present the United States sees the UK as a gateway into dealing with the rest of Europe. With its exit Britain's special relationship will sour quickly. This is of course something which will please the more nationalistic elements of the debate and what they are hoping for. The problem is that as the UK loses a great deal of support from America's declining hegemony it will lose its importance on the international stage.
This split will lead to a loss of trade which on its own could have been absorbed. Combined with the loss of trade and resources from Europe however it will prove crippling. Trade with China, based in no small measure with an understanding of Britain's ties to the US and its access to the EU economy, will not take long to dry up.
Britain is no longer an empire and it seems that too many people have forgotten this. We live and work in a globalised networked society. An EU exit has only one possible outcome for the UK, economic isolation and collapse. Better the long crawl to reform than the short sprint to crisis.