Viking Supporters Co-operative
Viking Chat => Off Topic => Topic started by: Nudga on May 24, 2016, 07:05:19 am
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Ive just spent two hours reading about the pros and cons of in/out and I am still non the wiser.
I've listened to top figure heads from NHS, Bank of England etc saying stay but can't work out if they've been told to say stay by their paymasters.
And then listened to the vote leave experts but they just come across as ntionalistic idiots.
Help!
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Campaigning on this is terrible. I can see pros and cons to either so for me it's a choice of which I feel most strongly about. I expect I'll vote leave but would there be a huge amount in it for me? Probably not.
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Campaigning on this is terrible. I can see pros and cons to either so for me it's a choice of which I feel most strongly about. I expect I'll vote leave but would there be a huge amount in it for me? Probably not.
This is the trouble with a lot of voters - they vote for "me" when what they ought to be doing is voting for "us", for the children, for the less advantaged, for society as a whole.
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I'm in the Leave camp, but I found myself in agreement with Nicola Sturgeon yesterday. The idea that you should try to persuade floating voters by trying to scare the Bejaysus out of them is surely counter-productive.
Also I take George Osborne's "Treasury Forecasts" with a huge pinch of salt. Not necessarily because they might be wrong, but because of what Osborne himself did. He created the Office for Budget Responsibility in 2010 because he claimed Treasury forecasts were not only inaccurate but open to manipulation by ministers! Go figure!
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Well I'm in the leave camp and all this doom and gloom propaganda from the stayers, especially Cameron and his arse licker Osbourne is only strengthening my resolve, aparently after the referendum date if we vote to leave the world will end! 😀
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What's the opposite of scaremongering? False hope-mongering?
If Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Michael Gove and Ian Duncan Smith want us to leave then I'm definitely in the REMAIN camp.
Can you imagine living in a country governed by that set of muppets?
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What's the opposite of scaremongering? False hope-mongering?
If Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Michael Gove and Ian Duncan Smith want us to leave then I'm definitely in the REMAIN camp.
Can you imagine living in a country governed by that set of muppets?
If you decide which side to vote for based on the personalities involved then you may repeat the errors of 1975. A No campaign lead by the likes of Enoch Powell and Tony Benn didn't appeal to middle of the road voters, but if you look back at what they said about the EEC, almost everything has come true.
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TRB
Then don't listen to the Treasury predictions. Listen to the predictions of pretty much every senior economics academic in the world. They are all saying the same thing.
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What's the opposite of scaremongering? False hope-mongering?
If Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Michael Gove and Ian Duncan Smith want us to leave then I'm definitely in the REMAIN camp.
Can you imagine living in a country governed by that set of muppets?
Does a leave vote automattically install those people in Government?😳😳😳
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What's the opposite of scaremongering? False hope-mongering?
If Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Michael Gove and Ian Duncan Smith want us to leave then I'm definitely in the REMAIN camp.
Can you imagine living in a country governed by that set of muppets?
If you decide which side to vote for based on the personalities involved then you may repeat the errors of 1975. A No campaign lead by the likes of Enoch Powell and Tony Benn didn't appeal to middle of the road voters, but if you look back at what they said about the EEC, almost everything has come true.
I'm not basing my decision on personalities, but the possibility of a UK government made up of a cabal that are committed to dismantling the welfare state and NHS confirms that the decision I have made based on the likelihood of a negative impact on the UK economy in, at least, the short/medium term if we left the EU.
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What's the opposite of scaremongering? False hope-mongering?
If Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Michael Gove and Ian Duncan Smith want us to leave then I'm definitely in the REMAIN camp.
Can you imagine living in a country governed by that set of muppets?
Does a leave vote automattically install those people in Government?😳😳😳
Not automatically, but it is widely accepted that Cameron is toast in the event of a Leave vote (or maybe even a narrow Remain vote) and that Johnson having led a successful Leave campaign would be selected by the Tory party to be its leader (which has always been his endgame anyway, his position on the EU was only deciced once he knew which way Cameron was leaning).
I would also expect him to award Farage with some government position, plus all the pro-Leave Tory cabinet members would be a shoe-in.
Frightening.
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TRB
Then don't listen to the Treasury predictions. Listen to the predictions of pretty much every senior economics academic in the world. They are all saying the same thing.
I wonder how many of those Economists thought the Single Currency was a good idea and/ or that it would be damaging to the UK if we didn't join it?
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Can anyone explain to me why the campaign is so long? Did Cameron want it that way, or is there some legislation that says certain voting issues need a minimum length of time for campaigning?
For me the vote should have been in late April or early May. The scaremongering and misinformation on both sides is horrific and goes on and on.
For me financial aspects (which are all based on wild predicting of consequences of an event which has had no previous parallel), although important, are not the main issue.
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What's the opposite of scaremongering? False hope-mongering?
If Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Michael Gove and Ian Duncan Smith want us to leave then I'm definitely in the REMAIN camp.
Can you imagine living in a country governed by that set of muppets?
Does a leave vote automattically install those people in Government?😳😳😳
Not automatically, but it is widely accepted that Cameron is toast in the event of a Leave vote (or maybe even a narrow Remain vote) and that Johnson having led a successful Leave campaign would be selected by the Tory party to be its leader (which has always been his endgame anyway, his position on the EU was only deciced once he knew which way Cameron was leaning).
I would also expect him to award Farage with some government position, plus all the pro-Leave Tory cabinet members would be a shoe-in.
Frightening.
Whatever the result of the referendum (my money's on a narrow Remain) I think you will see a fundamental realignment of British politics. The sort of thing not seen since the SDP split.
The Tories are too deeply divided over Europe, and the nature of the Remain campaign will only serve to deepen those splits. Labour is pretty united on Europe, at least as far as MPs are concerned, but deeply divided over just about everything else.
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Can anyone explain to me why the campaign is so long? Did Cameron want it that way, or is there some legislation that says certain voting issues need a minimum length of time for campaigning?
For me the vote should have been in late April or early May. The scaremongering and misinformation on both sides is horrific and goes on and on.
For me financial aspects (which are all based on wild predicting of consequences of an event which has had no previous parallel), although important, are not the main issue.
The 1975 referendum was much shorter. Royal Assent was given to the Bill in early May and the referendum was held on 5th June.
I think the complication here was the Local Elections. The Electoral Commission ruled (correctly, IMO) that the referendum could not be held at the same time as these. The timescales were also affected by the need to designate an official Leave campaign.
In terms of its most recent UK parallel, the Scottish Independence referendum, the campaign is actually quite short. The SNP demanded a long campaign because they thought it would build momentum. Being cynical, I think they hoped if it ran long enough then the wind would turn in their favour eventually!
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Thanks TRB. I guess it is just circumstances then.
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I can't believe we have got another month of listening to this constant drivel! The fact is no one has got the foggiest what will happen if we vote to leave.
The one thing I know is that I simply don't trust this Tory Government in its current state with the current budget but to have Johnson, Gove & IDS in charge with even more public resources and more power and without any say from the EU in terms of how certain aspects of that money is spent this country would be screwed once and for all!!
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TRB
Then don't listen to the Treasury predictions. Listen to the predictions of pretty much every senior economics academic in the world. They are all saying the same thing.
I wonder how many of those Economists thought the Single Currency was a good idea and/ or that it would be damaging to the UK if we didn't join it?
No need to wonder TRB. There was a poll in 1999 on that very theme.
http://www.economist.com/node/199382
Two-thirds of the economists polled thought it would be broadly in the UK's interests to join the Euro. That fact has been pushed hard by the Leave camp over the past week in a, frankly, disgraceful effort to misinform. Because they cannot find any serious economists to support Leave, they are playing the "Economists!?! Hah! They are ALWAYS wrong" card. That is deeply mendacious and is designed to bring the debate down as low as possible. Because Leave want the decision to be a gut one, not an intellectual one.
Right. Back to the 1999 poll.
As the Economist article says, the headline numbers mean very little. "A simple tally of ayes and noes, however, does not tell you very much. Some thought that the arguments on one side were very much stronger than on the other. Others said that their judgment was finely balanced. (Indeed, two respondents split their votes: one came down 0.7-0.3 in favour, the other 0.6-0.4 against.) And more important than the crude totals are the arguments on either side. We interviewed economists on both sides of the question, to get a sense of the debate."
And that is the point. There were very strong arguments in both directions on the Euro question. It was not by any means a clear-cut decision. It was a balanced judgement.
There is actually a strong argument that, had the UK joined the Euro, and had the UK been more forceful in pushing a Keynesian line, rather than the madness of German OrdoLiberalism, the EuroZone could well have stood the storm of 2008-11 much better than it did. But that is in the realms of counterfactual history.
The key point is that the Euro issue was a genuinely nuanced debate amongst economists, with serious debate and discussion going on, and even individuals themselves being uncertain. The EU leave/stay issue is nothing like that. There is barely a serious economist in the country who believes that leaving will be anything other than disastrous.
But the Leave campaign don't want you to hear that. They want you to believe that these guys are Ivory Towers w**kers who are always wrong.
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Those who vote to leave have got to ask themselves, with the billions we will be saving, will this Tory government re-invest it into the projects that were traditionally funded by the EU, or will they keep it to help lower taxes and balance the books?
Think of recent projects in Doncaster, the widening of White Rose Way, Robin Hood Airport link road, Racecourse expansion, Frenchgate Centre expansion - all part-funded by EU structural funds. Would the government have funded these projects?
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BJW.
That is an excellent point.
When you hear Johnson, Farage and Gove talking about keeping OUR money instead of giving to the EU, ask yourself who the "we" is that they are referring to. And when you fulminate that "our" money is being used to subsidise the poorer parts of the EU, recall that by the later 1990s, after the carnage of the previous Tory Govt, South Yorkshire was officially one of the poorest parts of the EU, and we had money poured into our region from tax payers across Europe. The earlier of the developments that BJW mentions didn't come out of thin air, and they certainly weren't going to be funded by a Tory Govt.
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And let's not forget exactly how much money we are going to save.
This is how an average year's worth of tax breaks down into government expenditure...if you look carefully you will see that less than 1% goes towards funding the EU
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At least being part of the EU means there will be regional (and Northern!) development, regardless of what the government doesn't want to spend money on! Having bureaucrats in brussel spending money on the UK is not always a bad thing!
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At least being part of the EU means there will be regional (and Northern!) development, regardless of what the government doesn't want to spend money on! Having bureaucrats in brussel spending money on the UK is not always a bad thing!
How was the new road in Doncaster funded?
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Those who vote to leave have got to ask themselves, with the billions we will be saving, will this Tory government re-invest it into the projects that were traditionally funded by the EU, or will they keep it to help lower taxes and balance the books?
Think of recent projects in Doncaster, the widening of White Rose Way, Robin Hood Airport link road, Racecourse expansion, Frenchgate Centre expansion - all part-funded by EU structural funds. Would the government have funded these projects?
Don't forget, that will be after we've spent shedloads of that money on recruiting, training, equipping and housing all the extra Border Control personnel we'll need to control immigration as properly as they say we need to. And how much is policing the seas to keep other countries out of UK fishing waters going to cost as well, have the Brexiters given us any figures for that at all yet..? And how much is administering Customs clearance documentation from an extra 27 countries (inbound and outbound) going to cost, anyone heard any whispers..?
No doubt there's lots of other things we'll suddenly find ourselves having to cough up for once we leave that the Brexiters are keeping schtum about. Things that WILL need to be paid for, not might have to be paid for. If only they would stop slagging off everybody else as scaremongers for long enough to give us some actual details.
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I've changed my mind on this, initially I was stay in but I will now vote leave,even as a tory (boo,hiss) I've found the stay campaign paticulary terrible..Obamas pre written speech,Osbournes calculations based over a decade on whats best can be described as fag packet predictions when in truth he hasn't had much success on 2 year predictions with hard figures to factor in our current economy,now we have Camerons disgraceful scaremongering comments on anything from world war 3,it helps daish and recession and jobs based on little fact.I'm not saying the out campaign are blameless either though.its been a shocking debate all round..I'ts been hard to find neutral information to base a descision on but those I have read lead me to vote out...
Like I said I've always been a conservative all my life,this is the first time I've been on the other side of their coin and it's really opened my eyes on how they go about things..If there was a general election tomorrow I honestly couldn't vote for anybody because my views are not represented by any of them anymore...
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At least being part of the EU means there will be regional (and Northern!) development, regardless of what the government doesn't want to spend money on! Having bureaucrats in brussel spending money on the UK is not always a bad thing!
How was the new road in Doncaster funded?
I guess you already know, but if you mean the Great Yorkshire Way, then it was approx two thirds from private enterprise (Peel who own the airport, Verdion who own iPort and a housebuilder) and one third from the Regional Growth Fund (ie central Government) plus tuppence ha'penny from DMBC.
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Wing Co
What Leave arguments do you think have convinced you to change your mind?
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I've changed my mind on this, initially I was stay in but I will now vote leave,even as a tory (boo,hiss) I've found the stay campaign paticulary terrible..Obamas pre written speech,Osbournes calculations based over a decade on whats best can be described as fag packet predictions when in truth he hasn't had much success on 2 year predictions with hard figures to factor in our current economy,now we have Camerons disgraceful scaremongering comments on anything from world war 3,it helps daish and recession and jobs based on little fact.I'm not saying the out campaign are blameless either though.its been a shocking debate all round..I'ts been hard to find neutral information to base a descision on but those I have read lead me to vote out...
Like I said I've always been a conservative all my life,this is the first time I've been on the other side of their coin and it's really opened my eyes on how they go about things..If there was a general election tomorrow I honestly couldn't vote for anybody because my views are not represented by any of them anymore...
So your simply voting out because you don't like what Gideon and Dave have to say that's a grown up way of using your vote especially when the Leave campaigners are talking just as much drivel with their finger in the air figures!
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At least being part of the EU means there will be regional (and Northern!) development, regardless of what the government doesn't want to spend money on! Having bureaucrats in brussel spending money on the UK is not always a bad thing!
How was the new road in Doncaster funded?
I guess you already know, but if you mean the Great Yorkshire Way, then it was approx two thirds from private enterprise (Peel who own the airport, Verdion who own iPort and a housebuilder) and one third from the Regional Growth Fund (ie central Government) plus tuppence ha'penny from DMBC.
Exactly. It's frustrating to hear that the world ends if we leave Europe. Just as much as those saying leaving solves the problems we face. Neither are true.
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BFYP
True. But there is no argument on the economic side. There is not a serious economist who doubts that leaving the EU will result in a very serious downturn.
The issue for the Leave side shouldn't be to poo-poo those analyses. It should be to make the case for why that is a price worth paying.
But they are not doing that. There are vague hand waving arguments about how we might be able, magically, to instantly negotiate favourable trade terms with China, India, USA et al. But no depth or firmness to any of these aspirations.
Comes down to two questions for me.
1) Are the rewards of leaving so great that they are worth more than the undoubted self-inflicted recession that will come immediately if we do leave?
2) Given that the entire Leave argument is predicated on a "trust us: it'll be fine" argument, are you REALLY prepared to trust the unsubstantiated beliefs of Gove, Johnson, Grayling, IDS and Farage against pretty much everyone else on the planet?
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Don't be stupid,i based my end decision on researching and listening to people whose opinion i trust...The ex leader of the Fsb.Was someone I've met and admired and I found his views valid,i also work in the steel industry which has been crippled by EU regulation meaning we can't in the interest of free trade impose Levy's on cheap imports...it's all well and good getting all these workers rights but then asking us to compete with country's who work for 50p an hour without offering protection...it's bad for big conglomerates I can understand, but they pay no corporation tax anyway and are still moving labour overseas..like HSBC this very week... immigration and the spiraling cost is also a factor....Norway was told it would suffer yet has prospered well enough...I just don't believe the figures on the cost of leaving and I'm struggling to see how the benefits of staying in outweigh leaving..
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If we vote to leave and the Tories don't pass any monetary savings to the right areas we can at least vote them out at the next election.
We vote to stay in and the EU can dictate what we can and can't do almost with impunity. I can see them wielding the big stick once we have committed to remaining inside.
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I trust none of any of our government, they continually lie. I will base my decision on what i see as the safest option for our country in the long run. The vote decides what sort of country the young kids will grow old in, while also thinking how comfortable you will feel when you are old, and living in this country.
The government wins both ways, the way i see it, they will get they're little perks whether in or out. The country badly needs a rest from the lies and corruption, and the way we the people are treated. Politics is supposed to be a way of making a big amount of peoples lives better, that's supposed to be the reason they get into it, not trying to get every grubby penny going.
What happened to the notion that an mp serves his or her community?. I don't mind them being well paid, i think it's disgusting that bbc executives are paid better than the prime minister, he has a pressurised job, and whatever he decides, he can't please everybody!.
What does bother me is them continually bringing laws in, that siphon the pocket of the hard working parent, the old, the sick and disabled.
This country badly needs a new start it gets more corrupt by the day!. The hatred this goverment is causing between people is astounding.
We badly need a combined government, who get paid the right amount for the pressure jobs they are in, so they don't have to falsify things.
The best people from each party, working together for the people they represent. One party will not solve the problems in this country!. The tories have rode roughshod over press freedom of speech, and many other laws, unlike no other who has been in power.
Does anybody truly feel they can say what they really think about anything?. Do you feel free to speak your mind?. Do you think freedom of speech exists anymore?.
Because i don't and things are just getting worse. There will come a time when people have had enough, don't be surprised if the vote is to leave, some just out of protest at how badly things are being run!.
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WingCo
You cannot in all seriousness be comparing us to Norway?
They have had 40 years of sharing huge oil wealth around a population smaller than that of Yorkshire. Of COURSE they have "done alright". They'd have had to f**k up spectacularly to have done badly.
Switzerland is a better example. They have had every advantage imaginable, except membership of the EU. It took them ten years to negotiate a trade deal with the EU. During that time they had significantly worse growth than any of the bug EU countries, despite have strong industrial, pharma and financial sectors and perfect geographical placement.
Funny how you never hear the Leave campaign discuss that.
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Given our trade deficit are we sure other countries would wish not to trade with us? I find it difficult to believe they wouldn't.
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Given our trade deficit are we sure other countries would wish not to trade with us? I find it difficult to believe they wouldn't.
It is not countries that trade with us, it is individual companies.
And they will typically choose a supplier based on price, quality and ease of doing business.
So, if you've got 2 suppliers offering the same price and quality, but one is in the EU (with whom your country has preferential trading terms eg no tariffs, reduced documentary requirements etc) and one is in the UK (who are having difficulty in negotiating a new trade treaty, and will be for the next 1o years), which one would you choose?
The rest of the world is busy organising itself into trading blocs, but the BREXIT boys think that it's a bettter idea to go it alone! Countries that are not currently aligned with a trading bloc include Turkey (desperately want to be EU), Ukraine (ditto), Iran (international pariah), Mongolia (!), China (huge strength on their own), Japan (notoriously insular). Why does anyone think that leaving the EU could be good for trade in the short/medium term?
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cb/Trade_blocs.png/1280px-Trade_blocs.png)
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If Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Michael Gove and Ian Duncan Smith want us to leave then I'm definitely in the REMAIN camp.
... AND Muttley that is the crux of my problem too
Cameron and Osborne say STAY ... and they are the biggest 2 weasels in Politics at the moment with George the weasliest f***** on the Planet so instinctively I want to make sure they don't succeed, but then Gordon Brown says stay too
The 3 you mention are not that inspiring I agree but then there are several people I DO respect saying leave so no wonder I change my mind more often that my Post Count on here changes !
At the moment I am almost in the not voting Camp because I can see the argument for staying AND leaving and I cant vote for both. Truth is I don't think we should ever have got in this mess as we elect Politicians on our own Streets, Locally, Nationally and even within the EU to govern US for better or worse and not to abdicate their responsibility once they come up against a "difficult" decision.
FFS if THEY don't know the answer how do they expect US to be able to come up with a credible answer ? The danger is Remain could be the best bet long term - as could Stay - but we are in a position as a populace where we may pick totally the wrong horse and there wont be another Race coming straight up will there ?
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The problem with the EU is accountability. The unelected can make decisions that affect the whole of Europe and go spectacularly wrong before lurching to the next ridiculous decision.
It's like being in a large family and trying to keep everybody happy.
I feel that it has grown too big and is corrupt and out of control. Sepp Blatter would have been a good fit for a position there.
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If we vote to leave and the Tories don't pass any monetary savings to the right areas we can at least vote them out at the next election.
We vote to stay in and the EU can dictate what we can and can't do almost with impunity. I can see them wielding the big stick once we have committed to remaining inside.
That's not the way the EU works - they can/would not choose to treat any one member as a whipping boy, the EU endeavours to work in the best interests of all its members, and the members have influence in line with their population (so UK has >10%) - any decisions have to have broad support of the membership.
If you've got the time and inclination, have a read of the attached document that explains how the EU works.
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Thanks Muttley. I do worry that 10% still leaves another 90% that might not agree with us. I know that democracy means that you look after the majority first but worry that our autonomy/independence will shrink at an alarming rate. There is a big difference between a trading bloc and a federal Europe. Will we or are we creating a monster that will run out of control?
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I love this certainty that we would be able to demand whatever deal we wanted with the rest of the EU. This utter certainty that we have power to swing around.
Have a look at how much trade Switzerland does with the EU once they finally got the deal sorted. And then have a look how the EU slapped them down when the Swiss said they wanted to drop out of the freedom of movement agreements.
Anyone who things that the EU will roll over and give us whatever deal we want has not got the faintest idea of how EU politics works. If we smack them in the face, they will NOT say, "No problem lads. Now let's have a nice friendly chat."
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Wolf.
Missing the point. It's not JUST Dave and Gideon in the Remain side. If it was, I'd agree with you. It's the fact that it is nearly everyone else, apart from the Rabid Right and a slack handful of flat-earth Far Lefties.
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Hi BST
I did get the point but I saw Muttleys Prile of IDS Farage and Boris and raised him a Cameron and an Osborne
The trouble as I tried to point out was that there are Scary Monsters and Supercreeps on both side of the debate as well as a set of well balanced Politicians, Non political luminaries and Heads of Big Businesses all lined up on opposite sides of the debate too !
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So badically no Kitson really knows?
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I know, but I'm f**ked if I'm telling you.
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I haven't a clue what's the right thing to do. I don't trust Cameron and distrust Osbourne even more. It wouldn't surprise me if those two actually wanted to leave, but were voting tactically in favour of it in the hope that their unpopularity will sway people to vote the other way.
I'm edging towards in favour of leaving, but I fear what the above two would do to the ordinary people of this country if they were let loose with no EU restrictions.
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Shamelessly stolen off someone else, but a good summary...
Alright, you filthy animals. I don't normally do this, because I believe that everyone should have the right to vote how they want at elections, but a) this ain't an election, it's a referendum so go shit yourself, and b) I honestly believe that the stakes are too high for me not to get involved here. If I can influence even one person with this post, then I'll feel like I've done something important. As a result, feel free to share this far and wide as I've done a veritable f**kload of research and I don't want all my hard work going to waste.
So, I'll put my cards on the table: I believe, very very strongly, that we need to stay in the EU. I never thought I'd find myself agreeing with David 'PigFellatio' Cameron, but in this unfortunate case I am, and here's why.
We stand to gain SO MUCH from staying in the EU. "How much", you're (probably not) asking? Well, I made a convenient list for your perusal, WITH sources, so you can't be a t**t and say 'you're making that up!' and froth at the mouth like a rabid Kitson.
I know people on the internet like listicles with clickbait titles, so here are "14 Reasons Why We Shouldn't Leave The EU That Everyone Should Know! You Won't Believe #8!":
1) The EU provides easy access to 1/3 of the world's markets by value (in other words, the EU's combined market value is 1/3 of the entire world's, and we can tap into it whenever the f**k we want). [1] It also gives UK businesses preferential market access to over 50 countries OUTSIDE the EU, including some of the fastest-growing economies in the world like South Korea and South Africa. [2]
2) The EU gives us better product safety. You know, so your toddler doesn't impale him/herself on a shittily designed toy, or swallow a load of poisonous plastic. [3]
3) The EU gives structural funding to areas hit by industrial decline (hello, Cornwall). [4]
4) The EU gave us lead-free petrol. [5]
5) The EU gives us cheaper mobile charges. [6] It also gives us cheaper air travel. [7] f**k yeah, cheap things!
6) The EU gives us cleaner beaches, rivers and air (hello again, Cornwall). [8]
7) The EU gives us improved consumer protection and food labelling, so you actually know what it's in your Chicken McNuggets (hint: it's chicken. It wasn't always chicken, though). [9]
8) The EU has helped break up monopolies. [10] If you don't know why monopolies are a Very Bad Thing, try playing the popular board game 'Monopoly' and see how many friends you have left when you win.
9) The EU gives us cross-border policing to combat human trafficking, arms and drug smuggling, and terrorism. [11]
10) Being a member of the EU means no paperwork or customs for exports throughout the single market, as well as the freedom to travel, live and work across Europe. [12] This one is particularly important for me as someone who likes to live, work and travel abroad. Do you have ANY IDEA how f**king great it is to be able to travel and work visa-free?! Having to a get a visa for every single country you enter is a nightmare, believe me. If you've ever tried to travel around Asia, Africa or South America, you'll understand what I'm saying.
11) The EU creates and helps uphold all kinds of awesome human rights, such as equal pay legislation, holiday entitlement, and the right not to work more than a 48-hour week without overtime. [13] I'd also like to point out that it's some of these same human rights that David 'Porkt**tter' Cameron tried to erode back in 2014, with the EU playing a major role in stopping him. [14]
12) The EU creates and upholds all kinds of great animal welfare legislation; it has the strongest wildlife protection laws in the world and contributes to improved animal welfare in food production. [15]
13) The EU funds incredible scientific research and industrial collaboration (including, most recently, a project that may be the catalyst for a cure for breast cancer being found in the next few years, I shit you not). [16]
14) Finally, and arguably most importantly, the EU has for 60 years been the foundation of peace between European neighbours after many years of bloodshed. [17] It has also assisted in the extraordinary social, political and economic transformation of 13 former dictatorships, now EU members, since 1980. [18]
SOURCES:
[1] http://news.cbi.org.uk/…/eu-business-facts/10-facts-about-…/
[2] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-1080_en.htm
[3] http://ec.europa.eu/…/general_product_safety_d…/index_en.htm
[4] http://ec.europa.eu/…/general_product_safety_d…/index_en.htm
[5] http://ec.europa.eu/environme…/…/project/Projects/index.cfm…
[6] https://www.theguardian.com/…/europe-abolishes-mobile-phone…
[7] http://europa.eu/…/citizens/travel/passeng…/air/index_en.htm
[8] http://www.theguardian.com/…/england-beaches-bathing-waters…
[9] http://ec.europa.eu/…/la…/labelling_legislation/index_en.htm
[10] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w…/European_Union_competition_law (I know I'm not supposed to use Wikipedia as a source for its less-than-rigorous academic standards, but f**k YOU I'm not in uni anymore, I'll do what I like).
[11] http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage…
[12] http://ec.europa.eu/…/borders-and-…/visa-policy/index_en.htm
[13] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…/European_Convention_on_Human_R…
[14] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/…/David-Camerons-plan-to-scrap-t…
[15] http://ec.europa.eu/food/animals/welfare/index_en.htm
[16] http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/94691_en.html
[17] The Second World War, motherf**ker. Read a history book.
[18] The Cold War, motherf**ker. Read a history book.
And now, let's take a moment to address some of the arguments for leaving the EU. Apart from the fact that I can't find a single reputable study that suggests we'd be any better off outside of the EU (and believe me, I've looked; I want to research my counterarguments as thoroughly as my arguments), the most persuasive arguments I've found are what I'm going to term 'the trade argument' and 'the immigration argument'.
The trade argument goes as follows: if we left the EU, we could negotiate a sort of 'amicable divorce' where we somehow retain strong trading links with the EU while not being subject to its laws. Many people point to Canada as a good example of this model, which recently negotiated a CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement- do I have to google EVERYTHING for you?) with the EU. I have two retorts to this argument. My first retort: Canada was never a part of the EU in the first place. To return to the divorce analogy outlined above- whereby the EU and the U.K. are a sort of 'married couple' and trade is their kids- the U.K. seeking a CETA after leaving the EU would be like a nasty, messy divorce where one parent uses the kids as a weapon against the other, threatening to take them away whenever their demands aren't met. Canada's CETA, meanwhile, is like a married couple approaching someone else to have a threesome at a swinger's party, which sounds a lot more fun and exciting, I'm sure you'll agree. My second retort to the above argument is simple: why even take the risk? If we stay in the EU, our trade with them will continue to be prosperous and full of great sex while the kids are asleep (okay, I've taken the analogy too far now). If we leave, however, there's a chance any trade agreement could fail catastrophically and leave our economy in a shitstorm. In fact, I would argue the likes of Germany, France and other leading EU nations would not simply let us pick and choose what rules and trade agreements we adhere to, so the likelihood of us being absolutely fine, trade-wise, after leaving the EU seems overly optimistic. Plus negotiating a CETA of any kind could take years and have a completely uncertain outcome. Again, why take the risk? An additional point: arguments no. 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, and 12 above are examples of really great laws and regulations the EU has introduced. If you say you want to leave the EU so we have autonomy over our own laws, you know that you're effectively handing control of our country over to David 'HideTheSausageLiterally' Cameron, don't you? In terms of making laws that benefit all of us, I trust the EU way more than that guy.
The immigration argument tends to centre around the whole 'visa-free work and travel' thing, and is generally espoused by people terrified of dem immigantz stealin are jobz. Alternatively it's espoused by people afraid of terrorists being able to come here more easily, but for that I'd refer you to point no. 9 above; we're safer from terrorism in the EU because we can share intelligence and resources with other countries more easily. But back to the 'stealing our jobs' fear; while it's true that technically speaking there could be an influx of foreigners coming to claim your particular job at any moment, just remember, we've been part of the EU for 43 years now and it hasn't happened yet, despite what the mainstream media may tell you (and you DEFINITELY shouldn't trust those guys; more on that later). Seriously, do you know ANYONE, personally, that has had their job stolen by a foreigner? Be honest now. I'd be willing to wager that you don't, and I'll explain why that is too: the immigrants that are coming here are not stealing YOUR jobs, specifically. They're either starting their own businesses (in which case they're actually creating jobs), or they're skilled labourers taking jobs there just aren't enough trained British people to take (such as doctors or surgeons), or they're unskilled labourers taking the jobs that you don't want (like toilet cleaning or washing dishes). Incidentally, about a year ago I taught English to some Eastern European immigrants who worked in a salad-packing factory in Lichfield. One Latvian girl was actually a teacher back home, but she was making more money as a salad-packer here than she was as a teacher in Latvia(!)- the point being that unskilled immigrant workers are generally happy to work shitty menial jobs that no British person wants, and your cushy 9-to-5 office job is not under threat. Not even a little bit- so don't worry your xenophobic little head about it. Oh, and one last thing on this subject, to paraphrase Louis CK: maybe, if an immigrant with no contacts, no skills and no local knowledge of the language and/or culture can steal your job, maybe, just maybe, you're shit at your job.
If you've made it thus far through this absolute essay of a post, congratulations! You're nearly at the end! But before I go, I just want to hit you with one final thought. Over 80% of UK newspapers are owned by five right-wing media billionaires (aka five massive Kitsonstacks): Lord Rothermere (Daily Mail), Rupert Murdoch (Sun/Times), Richard Desmond (Express), and the Barclay Brothers (Telegraph). Murdoch is an Australian living in New York and Rothermere lives in France, while the Barclay Brothers live in the tax havens of Monaco and Guernsey. All of them use tax haven entities to avoid UK taxes. And guess who wants to stop billionaires using tax havens to avoid paying their taxes? That's right, the EU. So of COURSE the British newspapers are trying to persuade you to leave the EU; it benefits their owners personally. The moral of the story is, don't gather your views from newspapers. Do some research like I have with this post, you lazy twonknoggin.
In conclusion: we're in a really great position right now. We're part of the EU with all the benefits that entails, but without being tied to their notoriously unstable currency. Leaving the EU would not only be hypocritical since we spent so much time telling Scotland they shouldn't leave the UK this time last year with all that lovely 'better together' rhetoric, it might also be downright stupid and harmful to our economy.
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I know, but I'm f**ked if I'm telling you.
... BUT we might all be f***** if you don't !
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Wolf
Who are these "well balanced politicians" on the Brexit side?
As far as I can see, there is UKIP, the right wing of the Tory party, and a couple of awkward squad minor Labour MPs who have always had views which sit as well with UKIP as with Labour. Oh aye. And Boris, who would flip to "Remain" tomorrow if he thought it would get him closer to being the next PM.
There really isn't a balance here. The overwhelming spectrum of politicians supports Remain. The overwhelming majority of economists support Remain. The majority of business leaders support Remain. The majority of military and security leaders support Remain.
The fact that you have the impression that there is a balance here is a reflection on the BBC's obsession with presenting a "he says this, but the other side counters with this" approach. It gives an impression of finely balanced difference of opinion between experts, where nothing could be further from the truth.
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Wolf
There really isn't a balance here. The overwhelming spectrum of politicians supports Remain. The overwhelming majority of economists support Remain. The majority of business leaders support Remain. The majority of military and security leaders support Remain.
Probably true ... which begs the question I keep raising here and elsewhere ... namely :
Why did the overwhelming spectrum of Politicians bother to leave it to us with the risk of getting the wrong result ? We as an uneducated electorate* may well s*** this up as I posted earlier
* I mean on this particular issue of course not in the I.Q. department
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To neuter UKIP. It's that simple.
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The EU vote is basically about dealing with an otherwise insoluble civil war on the right of British politics. It is only people on the right of British politics who have any interest in this question (barring the worst of the flat-earth Socialist Worker remnants). For everyone else, the answer is so bleeding obvious that it doesn't even need asking.
But on the Right, they have been tearing themselves apart over Europe for 30 years. The centre and the right of the Tory party have fundamentally incompatible philosophies about what our relationship with Europe should be. One side has to get ascendancy over the other. The only way to do it is to let the people decide, and for the winning side to crush the losing side.
What we are doing, is risking the long term economic well being of ourselves, and potentially the long term security/stability of Europe in order to cut the Tory party's Gordian Knot.
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As usual we will bear all the s*** and fallout when it ends "inconclusively" as it may well do. Neither of the opposing factions in the Tory Party / UKIP and others will be happy if the result lies anywhere like for example 45 - 55 or 55 - 45
No doubt Cameron would claim 55 Remain to 45 Leave "a conclusive triumph" and "the people have spoken clearly and unequivocally" while Boris and Farage would be calling it "inconclusive"
Reverse the numbers to 45 remain and 55 leave and the very same protagonists would have exactly the opposite opinions on the result - or have I joined the supposition party as well ?
Extra time and penalties anyone ? Just what we f*****g need
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Anyone who despairs at the quality of the debate on the referendum question (and I very much include myself in that group) needs to remember what is the level of debate that many of the voters can deal with.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36373649
God f**king help us. This woman may have the vote that tips the balance for my kids' future.
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Many thanks Muttley :) I enjoyed reading that stolen essay. He's not wrong either is he?
One question though: I thought the perjorative 'Kitson' was a purely local Donny thing. A thing we'd hit upon because of a few odd matches that twonk played against us. So how come your correspondent used 'Kitson' too? Is he a Rovers supporter? Or is 'Kitson' in much more widespread use than I imagined?
Thanks Muttley!
BobG
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Anyone who despairs at the quality of the debate on the referendum question (and I very much include myself in that group) needs to remember what is the level of debate that many of the voters can deal with.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36373649
God f**king help us. This woman may have the vote that tips the balance for my kids' future.
[/quote
I reckon the EU should force legislation for involuntary euthanasia :)
Bob
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I also wondered about the use of the word Kitson in the article, thinking it was purely a VSC forum word, used only its members. In fact it might have been me that invented it!
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Lol! I wondered if the article was one of Billy's from another forum somewhere!
Bob
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I wondered that, but then realised I agreed with it too much for it to be him! ;)
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I'm voting out.
I want to be able to vote out a government that doesn't do what it said it would. Not a unelected bunch of people who tell us what we can or cannot do.
I want us to be able to say who can come into our country. Not being told we have to let anyone of 500million European citizens who want to come here without being able to say no.
I want to be part of Europe, as my wife is a "foreigner" but not ruled by them.
As for all these lovely signs that say built with funding from the EUSSR, remember people it's our money what we've paid in anyway.
But the big one for me is, why are the so called big news channels, BBC ITN and Sky not reporting what is actually going off in Europe with the migration epidemic. I know from speaking to the wifes family members it's like a war zone. Riots everywhere, people are actually getting killed, parts of towns and cities you can no longer go, yet nothing on our news.
The wife's Grandmother thinks they will be another war throughout Europe, not country against country but each country fighting itself from being taken over. Her words echo in my head every day. "When the Nazi arrived in the long black coats and shinny boots we knew who we were fighting. Now the Nazi sits behind a desk with no face yet is more powerful ".
I know who I believe n she's 94.
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Can't actually find the word Kitson (I read it this afternoon and agree it's very well written) but I wonder if it's actually "Kitson" and the swear filter has changed it for you two.
Hopefully not though. :laugh:
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The problem with the EU is accountability. The unelected can make decisions that affect the whole of Europe and go spectacularly wrong before lurching to the next ridiculous decision.
It's like being in a large family and trying to keep everybody happy.
I feel that it has grown too big and is corrupt and out of control. Sepp Blatter would have been a good fit for a position there.
I was thinking the same myself. Unless there's strong accountability an transparency the EU 'family' could grow into a monster, ripe for mismanagement and corruption as we beg for slices of the cake. That's just one concern.
One the other hand, a vote to leave will undoubtably lead to a period of uncertainty and instability however,this cannot be a vote for the short term.
This has to be about a vote for our children and our children's children. Can we thrive as a country in the longer term by having more autonomy and making decisions that improve all aspects of life?
One thing is clear to me. We will need drive, determination and collective responsibility to succeed. We will need better government. I'm not sure our current political system is fit enough for that purpose.
If you think we can provide better health, education, economic conditions for business to prosper, educate the next generation of entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, accountants, tradespeople by making decisions about raising our own taxes and investing country wide etc., then we should take the short term risk to leave.
Stay, without close scrutiny, we may lose more control although across the EU, there is likely to be more economic equalisation, which may be a good thing.
Stay or leave, we are still a European country. There will always be migration both within and outside the EU.
I was too young to vote first time. Likely I will not get another chance. But it's not about me. It's too late for me.
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ZZ
I despair mate.
I'll tell you now, if we do leave and if Europe does start to fragment as a result, there will be only one person who will benefit. He sits in the Kremlin. He will bully and intimidate and bring to heel the countries of Eurooe one by one. I am astonished that no-one on the Leave side is prepared to address this.
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My swingometer has swung to the remain side today.
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Tbh, I am softening to the side of stay BUT, likihood is more pence out of your £1 our Euro will be taken up with bureaucracy. Our younger generation are comfortable with being EU citizens and perhaps feel more secure and free. No problem with that.
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ZZ
By the way, the very biggest lie that the Leave campaign peddles is that we will be able to reject freedom of movement and also be able to be part of the single market.
We won't. Not a chance in a million. Look at what the EU did to Switzerland when they voted to reject freedom of movement. (I'll give you a hint. The very first thing they did was to threaten to kick Switzerland out of the European agreements for university teaching and research - ie exactly the things that underpin training of the next generation of high level thinkers that will drive an economy - the ones you want us to train more of.
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My swingometer has swung to the remain side today.
Mine swings slightly to the left.
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Mr Putin will not have to do anything. Mr Junker is doing it all for him. My old mate from work came from East Germany after the wall came down. He says it's just like being back home in the old days. Bit by little bit they take from you, just little things that you don't notice over time. Then you wake up one day and your no longer a free man. I said that could never happen. He replied that's what my grandparents said about AH in 1936. We know how that turned out.
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British governments have successively done more to take away our freedoms bit by bit than the EU ever has. In fact the European Court has prevented many attempts by British governments to take away freedoms by making British governments adhere to the Human Rights Convention.
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ZZ
And it's that sort of idle rubbish that is the most depressing thing about our attitude to Europe.
Are you REALLY saying that the EU is equivalent to Putin's Russia, or the USSR's satellites, or Hitler's Germany?
Give me f**king strength. Think about what the EU and it's forebears have actually done for Europe over the past 60 years. And be bloody well grown up about it instead of making infantile comparisons like the ones you've made in this thread.
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No I'm not comparing the EU with Russia. What I'm saying is Putin will be sat at home laughing his trolleys off at what is happening in Europe. As for the Hitler remarks I was just repeating what some prople said to me who have lived under the boot of the Nazi and heel of the Big Russian Bear so they are a lot more qualified to comment on such things than you or I.
As for the 60yrs. Yes there has been some amazing things achieved by the countries of Europe, bringing down the wall was probably the best. The start of the Common Market was a damn fine idea. Alas it's no longer like what it was ment to be. I believe it's time for a change. I believe each country should govern itself, your entitled to your opinion as am I. That's what living in a free democratic country is all about.
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So go on then. What specific things about the EU did they suggest make it like the Soviet system or the Nazi regime?
Does the EU stop political troublemakers from working or travelling abroad? Does it send opponents of the system to forced labour camps? Does it run gas chambers? Does it make certain sections of its population wear marks on their clothing to identify them?
Tell me. What are these horrific EU diktats that make your life and the life of your friends do intolerable?
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ZZ
By the way, the very biggest lie that the Leave campaign peddles is that we will be able to reject freedom of movement and also be able to be part of the single market.
We won't. Not a chance in a million. Look at what the EU did to Switzerland when they voted to reject freedom of movement. (I'll give you a hint. The very first thing they did was to threaten to kick Switzerland out of the European agreements for university teaching and research - ie exactly the things that underpin training of the next generation of high level thinkers that will drive an economy - the ones you want us to train more of.
Ffs BST. We will be able to trade inside and outside of Europe. We will be able to move inside and outside of Europe. There maybe conditions for us doing so, but in the run of things it may cost less.
There's risks both ways and no one can predict how well or how poor it will work. Fact is though, if we do come out we'll have to work harder and smarter.
I'm surprised that you don't think we can't stand on our own two feet and be a good nation for people to want to live and work no matter what our origins.
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DBR
Of course we will be able to trade. Of course we can stand on our own two feet.
The question is, what will be the COST of doing that after leaving the EU.
It's not a Paradise/Hell on Earth choice. It is a choice of whether we deliberately choose to cut ourselves off from the largest, freest and richest trading bloc in the world.
We will NOT be part of the Single Market if we leave the EU and stop freedom of movement. Freedom of movement is a basic principle of the Single Market. The point I'm making is that the Leave side are peddling you a lie.
Put up the shutters by all means. Make every Pole and Latvian apply for a visa to enter the UK. Do it by all means to show that we can stand on our own two feet and control our borders.
And then see what the economic consequences are.
PS. What do you mean when you say that in the long run, it may cost less for us to trade with and move around Europe if we are out of the EU? Do you think that everyone else in Europe is thick? Do you think that they sign up for the EU deal and all the constraints it brings, without there being an overwhelming economic advantage to doing so? Do you think that we are smarter than France, Spain, Sweden, Italy etc in seeing through the big con trick?
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I'm still baffled that people think a government such as our current one will actually spend the money we save if we leave?
They will balance the books, use it to lower the deficit and lower taxes. There's no legislation telling them they have to do otherwise so why would they?
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The campaigning has been poor, often dishonest, and full of dodgy stats and forecasts...but that's mostly from politicians so we are not surprised.
I favour democracy and accountability, which is not perfect in the UK but is better than EU.
Economically the EU is struggling, we are (relatively) a star performer. But is the EU holding us back or helping? The modern world is global, via the Internet and travel, and we are naturally a trading nation. Even the City does most of its business with non EU countries. On balance I feel we will be successful out of the EU. And then there is immigration, which surely must be controlled.
My mind is made up and the politicians will not change my decision.
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I agree about the campaigning and their lack of honesty (Politicians)
I wish I was as decisive as you seem to be because I can change my mind several times a day - and I am sure I am not alone in that. As I said above some time ago I may not vote simply because I cant decide AND if I had 2 votes I would cast one each way !
I still cant believe the Politicians we elected to take decisions on our behalf have suddenly abdicated that responsibility when they get a curved ball - with one they cant decide / agree on and so leave us open to coming up with the "wrong" answer whatever that may be !
Whichever way we go I hope people can look back in about 10 years and say "EU Referendum - ah yes - what was all the fuss about"
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Ferriby, economically the World is struggling and we were a strong trading nation in days of sailing ships and when the US, Russia and China were either protectionist or fighting/recovering from a civil war. Many things have changed since then.
What will be the cost of increasing trade with those countries? American companies running our public services with Chinese construction companies, using Chinese labour and Chinese supplies building our infrastructure whilst Russian oligarchs own the best real estate? Look at the Premier League, how many clubs are owned by foreign investors? Yet how many sports franchises across the world are owned by Brits. It is a big world you would have us compete in.
Yet can we trade on the world economy isn't really the question. What we have to decide next month is can we afford to give up trading with our single biggest market? Because trade with that market involves unresticted travel for its members. Will the traders who currently deal in the City suddently move to Paris or Frankfurt because they have better access to that market for instance?
I dont have the answers but I cant see how creating uncertainty is going to benefit us and we should therefore stay in.
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Yet can we trade on the world economy isn't really the question. What we have to decide next month is can we afford to give up trading with our single biggest market? Because trade with that market involves unresticted travel for its members. Will the traders who currently deal in the City suddently move to Paris or Frankfurt because they have better access to that market for instance?
It's not a case of giving up trading with the EU countries, it's a case of giving up the advantages of being in a Single Market with them, with RED TAPE AND CUSTOMS DUTY FREE movement of goods from one country to another.
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I agree about the campaigning and their lack of honesty (Politicians)
I wish I was as decisive as you seem to be because I can change my mind several times a day - and I am sure I am not alone in that. As I said above some time ago I may not vote simply because I cant decide AND if I had 2 votes I would cast one each way !
I still cant believe the Politicians we elected to take decisions on our behalf have suddenly abdicated that responsibility when they get a curved ball - with one they cant decide / agree on and so leave us open to coming up with the "wrong" answer whatever that may be !
Whichever way we go I hope people can look back in about 10 years and say "EU Referendum - ah yes - what was all the fuss about"
I am on the oposite side of the fence to you there Wolfie. Thereason we are having the EU Referendum is that 15 million people voted for a party that had it as a major part of their manifesto and campaign. It isn't the politicians who wanted it - most of them didn't - but a good percentage of the population.
Which I think is good. People should be more involved in political decisions which are supposedly made on our behalf. Do we or do we not want this or that? Where would we like to see our funding go? Only 66% of the population bothered to vote in the last election - yet nearly 90% voted in the Scottish Referendum. Because on single issues your voice matters. And the politicians have to deal with the result and get on with it. As they will on 24th June.
I hope you do vote. I hope everyone votes. Because only then will it be a true reflection on what the country wants.
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Even though my mind is made up I do hope more people get engaged in the debate and do vote.
I did a poll at work a few weeks ago and winning by miles was an alliance of undecideds and "what referendum?".
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From one point of view, financially, I don't know how is your country affected by EU. From the other point of view, immigrants, and not only this refugees, but also polish, romanians etc (even though I still want another chance to come and stay there, but this time without getting in the hospital :lol: ), your country is one of the most affected, and from this point of view, an exit from EU is what you need. From my point of view, no country should be obliged to accept immigrants, only if the people from that country wants it.
In the end, I'm sure you'll vote what you think it's best for your country.
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I'll say it again because it doesn't seem as though many people are picking up on this.
We CANNOT stop freedom of movement (ie: EU immigration) and still be part of the Single Market.
Full stop.
You either have all the benefits of the Single Market AND immigration. Or you control EU immigration and get kicked out of the Single Market.
It is as simple as that. Make your choice with that understanding.
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In the need, I'm sure you'll vote what you think it's best for your country.
No. People will vote for what's best for them personally. Cos dem imigrantz tuk r jobs.
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Horses Billy. Horses and water.....
BobG
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All the water is owned by foreigners though Bob.
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I'll say it again because it doesn't seem as though many people are picking up on this.
We CANNOT stop freedom of movement (ie: EU immigration) and still be part of the Single Market.
Full stop.
You either have all the benefits of the Single Market AND immigration. Or you control EU immigration and get kicked out of the Single Market.
It is as simple as that. Make your choice with that understanding.
So the Worlds 5th biggest economy would be bullied by the EU regarding who can and can't come into the country although we would not be part of the union? Come on then, how does that work?
Just as an aside Billy, how many of the 28 countries are net contributors to the EU?
Some food for thought Nudga!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR-gewWitjc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcqBnVd6tOY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xskWLMu5Ggo
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Savvy
It's not about opinions mate. That's all I've heard from the Brexit side. Opinions from IDS and Gove and Johnson and Farrage. A bunch of liars and swindlers telling us "Trust me! It'll be fine!"
But it's not about opinions. It's about facts. As I keep saying, and no one seems to take on board, look at Switzerland. They do pretty as much trade with the EU as we do. They had a referendum and voted to stop free movement of people from the EU. Go and have a look at the EU's response. And then tell me why we would be different.
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Or to put things another way Savvy, you are telling us that we can withdraw our funding from the EU with no repercussions? How does that work?
Its like stopping your season ticket at Rovers and then asking to be let in for free! No, you have to pay for every game - which will cost you more in the long run.
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No. People will vote for what's best for them personally. Cos dem imigrantz tuk r jobs.
Exactly, putting this vote in the hands of people who didn't vote for someone because of the way he ate a bacon sarnie is madness.
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Wilts
Or, as an EU official once said, the attitude of some British people to the EU is like a man going to a wife swapping party and not taking his wife.
They seem to think that we can have all the benefits of the EU without sticking to the common set of rules that everyone else plays by. Presumably because we are British and therefore fundamentally better than anyone else in Europe.
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Or to put things another way Savvy, you are telling us that we can withdraw our funding from the EU with no repercussions? How does that work?
Its like stopping your season ticket at Rovers and then asking to be let in for free! No, you have to pay for every game - which will cost you more in the long run.
Which facts do you refer to Billy? One mans glass is half full is another mans glass that's half empty! Opinions are all that's being put forward by both sides, but thats not exactly ground breaking is it? What has been interesting is the amount of times the words "Could" "may" possibly" have been used by the Remainins and the BBC. If my Auntie had Bollox she COULD be called my Uncle!!!
Now, how many of the 28 member countries are net contributors to the EU?
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So the Worlds 5th biggest economy would be bullied by the EU regarding who can and can't come into the country although we would not be part of the union? Come on then, how does that work?
In exactly the same way as it does with Norway. Access to the Single Market includes free movement of people, full stop. Do you honestly think we can leave the EU and then tell them what terms we demand in order for the UK to still have access to the Single Market - an EU institution? Come on then, how does that work - when every other country in the EU will be happy to have us outside the Single Market in order to make our products more expensive and thus protect their own industries?
PS The conditions for access to the Single Market aren't an opinion, they're a cold, hard fact. Conditions that you seem to think an opinion trumps.
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Savvy
Read up on it.
http://openeurope.org.uk/intelligence/immigration-and-justice/norway-and-switzerland/
As for the net contribution:
1) I don't really care how many net contributors there are. It's irrelevant. The net amount that we pay is the about 0.3% of our GDP. To put that in context, it's the equivalent of the cost of a bag of crisps every three days for someone earning £500 per week. It's flagged up as some horrific figure, but in national terms it is coppers. What really matters is what the money does.
2) The purpose of these contributions is to have a flow of structural funds from rich areas to poorer areas. That is something I wholeheartedly agree with on both moral and hard-headed economic and security grounds. If you want a peaceful and prosperous future, you do it by bringing everyone up to a prosperous level. The EU has been an astonishing success at this over the decades.
3) The "net" contribution totally ignores the benefits from being able to trade with more prosperous neighbours. These VASTLY outweigh the top line figure that the Outers spout (which itself is wrong, they know it's wrong and they still refuse to admit that it's wrong).
4) Even if there WAS a net benefit to leaving the EU, do you honestly think a Govt comprising Gove or Johnson or Farage would spend it on South Yorkshire...
5)...like the EU did when we were one of the poorest regions in Europe. That money came from the net contributions from Germany and Holland and France and Italy. Do you reckon we should tax the citizens of Doncaster to pay those countries back?
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Here we go again, with the made up figures, I'm not interested in Norway or Switzerland, the deal we get will be a deal that is suitable to the 5th biggest economy in the world. Ask yourself this question, if the referendum was a vote on whether or not to join this union rather than to remain in it, would you join.
How many countries are net contributors to the EU Billy?
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What made up figures Savvy?
Our net contribution is around £7bn per year.
(Source: Office for National Statistics: http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-perspectives-2016-the-uk-contribution-to-the-eu-budget/)
Our GDP is around £450bn per quarter or about £1.8tr per year.
(Source: Office for National Statistics: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp)
So our net contribution is about 0.39% of our national income.
0.39% of a £500 per week income is £1.94, or about 28p per day.
Walkers grab bag crisps cost 75p.
(Source: http://m.thegrocer.co.uk/526846.article?mobilesite=enabled)
I don't know who you normally talk to, but some of us make a living by getting numbers right, not making them up.
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And yes, I would vote to join. And, as I said earlier and you ignored, Switzerland does about the same amount of trade with the EU as we do. So what makes you think we are going to be able to bully our way to a better deal?
And on the other question you're obsessing over, typically around 10 countries make net contributions Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and us. Varies from year to year but generally those countries all make net contributions.
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And yes, I would vote to join. And, as I said earlier and you ignored, Switzerland does about the same amount of trade with the EU as we do. So what makes you think we are going to be able to bully our way to a better deal?
And on the other question you're obsessing over, typically around 10 countries make net contributions Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and us. Varies from year to year but generally those countries all make net contributions.
7 billion you say Billy, My man says 11billion (3 minutes in).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9nDCmqjn8
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Here we go again, with the made up figures, I'm not interested in Norway or Switzerland, the deal we get will be a deal that is suitable to the 5th biggest economy in the world.
So the figures are made up - despite being sourced - but your argument about the 'deal' isn't a fantasy?
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And yes, I would vote to join. And, as I said earlier and you ignored, Switzerland does about the same amount of trade with the EU as we do. So what makes you think we are going to be able to bully our way to a better deal?
And on the other question you're obsessing over, typically around 10 countries make net contributions Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and us. Varies from year to year but generally those countries all make net contributions.
7 billion you say Billy, My man says 11billion (3 minutes in).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9nDCmqjn8
A partial Brexiter's claim beats the National Office of Statistics?
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Savvy
I'm genuinely disappointed. I really thought you were more intelligent than that.
The numbers are there in that ONS link. Are you REALLY telling me that you trust DANIEL HANNAN over the Office for National Statistics? In a profession rightly castigated for stretching the truth to breaking point, Hannan is an absolute master. He relies on the approach that if he trots out apparently authoritative numbers with his superciliously self-confident tone, people will believe him. Trouble is, he rarely gets the numbers right.
https://hugo-dixon.com/2015/10/11/hannans-wayward-way-with-facts/
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/08/13/daniel-hannan-national-disgrace/
https://identityspace.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/dan-hannan-is-a-liar/
http://www.kosmopolito.org/2014/02/21/lying-with-statistics-feat-ecr-and-daniel-hannan/
I am genuinely disappointed Savvy. I thought you were better than just being prepared to uncritically accept lies from someone because they are what you want to hear.
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Billy, I'm far more rounded that to make my decisions based on one persons view or say so. What about Patrick Minford, is he talking rubbish as well?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leKEUT1TiLU
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Savvy
I'm rather busy to be honest. Was there a specific point about our contribution to the EU buried in that half hour video?
And Patrick Minford? Sweet Jesus! The renegade economist who persuaded Thatcher to go for the crazy monetarist experiment that threw us into the horrific recession in 1980/81, resulting in the carnage in the South Yorkshire economy?
Are you for real?
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My postal vote to leave has been posted. I remember BST castigating the German Banks for screwing Greece over and leaving them in the crap.
Rightly or wrongly a Federal Europe won't work and that seems to be the route that we are going down.
Come and see the school that my daughter teaches in or any of the inner city schools in Bradford. Look at Offsted reports for the schools here. Teachers are leaving in droves. Two of my grandchildren go to Hanson Academy another two pay to go to Bradford Grammar. The difference is unbelievable at every level. We don't need any more primary school children that do not speak English as a first language.
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Idler.
There is a big difference between the Euro and the EU.
The way in which the Euro has been managed is a disgrace. But the last thing we should do as a response is to walk away from the EU. There's more if a need than ever to have a strong counterweight to Germany and their specific obsessions.
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2) The purpose of these contributions is to have a flow of structural funds from rich areas to poorer areas. That is something I wholeheartedly agree with on both moral and hard-headed economic and security grounds. If you want a peaceful and prosperous future, you do it by bringing everyone up to a prosperous level. The EU has been an astonishing success at this over the decades.
You mean like the more prosperous nations bully the smaller nations into bankruptcy like Greece?
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BST, I just can't see it changing. The bureaucracy just seems to be growing out of control. The common man in any country is getting less and less influence on policy.
People in this country can argue and then ditch a government in a general election. That isn't an option in Europe and there is little chance of the people in twenty odd countries agreeing. I think that if we remain the EU will increase pressure on the UK in coming years possibly including forcing us to join the euro. Only my opinion but I have voted my gut instinct. I think the vote will be to remain because more people have a fear of what will happen if we leave than those that fear what will happen if we stay.
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Ps if I don't reply it's not that I'm hiding. I'm off to Pilates.
It's great being retired. Well some days it is.
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Filo
That is a structural problem with the management of the EURO. It is totally different from the EU structure and EU structural funds.
I fully agree that the way in which Germany has handled the Greek issue is a catastrophic mistake. But to use that as a reason to walk away from the EU is simply not logical.
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Filo
That is a structural problem with the management of the EURO. It is totally different from the EU structure and EU structural funds.
I fully agree that the way in which Germany has handled the Greek issue is a catastrophic mistake. But to use that as a reason to walk away from the EU is simply not logical.
My belief is the end game of the EU is total political and monetery union, is that what we really want? I don't thats for sure
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Filo
Not a chance in hell within our lifetimes. The whole momentum across Europe is against further integration. There's no appetite for it. And even if there was, there's no possibility whatsoever of us going for that. It's a bogeyman that's thrown up by the Leave campaign.
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Filo
Not a chance in hell within our lifetimes. The whole momentum across Europe is against further integration. There's no appetite for it. And even if there was, there's no possibility whatsoever of us going for that. It's a bogeyman that's thrown up by the Leave campaign.
That may be true for the people of the EU, but it sure as hell isn't for those running the key institutions of the EU.
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It's great being retired. Well some days it is.
I find every day is a Saturday anyway !
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It's great being retired. Well some days it is.
I find every day is a Saturday anyway !
I certainly don't miss Mondays, unless it's a bank holiday.
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TRB
But the people running the EU are not the ones who will make those decisions. It is national-level electorates, either directly through referendums or indirectly through general elections. There is no chance of major moves towards further political integration being passed over the next few decades. It is a non-issue that is being hammered by the Out campaign and being lapped up by people who think that we alone in Europe have a fierce sense of national identity.
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Ah yes, referendums! Sadly the EU has a tendency to run those until it gets the result it wants. Ask the Danes and the Irish.
It may seem that integration is off the agenda at the moment but I think the Eurozone problems and possible Brexit have simply pushed it onto the back burner.
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Ah yes, referendums! Sadly the EU has a tendency to run those until it gets the result it wants. Ask the Danes and the Irish.
But the EU doesn't determine whether a country holds a referendum on a particular issue, that is determined by the government of the country in question.
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TRB
If you start from a position of assuming that the EU is a monster, then it's going to be hard to look at things with any degree of objectivity.
Both Ireland and Denmark chose themselves to run second referendums after negotiating specific opt-outs or assurances on key issues following the original NO votes. Both countries then had large majorities in favour of the treaties in question in the second referendums. That sounds to me like hard-headed negotiation.
And how come the Leave people always remember those examples and never, say, the French and Dutch rejection of the proposed European Constitution?
I just don't get this blinkered insistence that them bas**rds over there are a homogenous collective who will destroy our unique British freedoms.
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As for further integration, it's on the back burner for a generation at the bare minimum.
The Great Crash highlighted the fundamental disparities between the different EZ economies, and the catastrophe of turning a blind eye to this and hoping for the best. That puts the kybosh on any near-future attempts to ram countries' economies closer together.
The failed ECB response to the crash (ironic really, since it was one that ties in with right-wing Brexiters' favoured economic approach...) has produced resentment across the EZ.
And the migrant crisis has emboldened far-right nationalists across Europe, from Farage to Le Pen to Orban. There is no way that any country is going to go for more political integration with those domestic backgrounds.
We've seen the high water of EU integration for my lifetime. You're fighting a 10 year old battle TRB and missing the really important issues.
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Here's the key question for the Brexit supporters.
Why do you think Putin is funding far-right anti-EU parties in France, Hungary, Netherlands, Austria and elsewhere? And doesn't that worry you at all? Because it scares the living shite out of me.
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Ah yes, referendums! Sadly the EU has a tendency to run those until it gets the result it wants. Ask the Danes and the Irish.
Ah yes, referenda! Those things the EU has never held. Not once.
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The EU can't run referenda Glyn. It has no constituents to poll. Only nations can do that. And there have been several such - exactly as TRB says.
Cheers
BobG
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Bob mate. Read TRB's and Glyn's posts again. I think you've missed the gist.
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Interesting.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36441188
The committee chair, Keith Vaz, is a blatant self publicist but is also a Remainer. One would have expected him to blame the Home Office and the fact that he refers to the EU making this process more difficult is telling.
I also think he's right on overall immigration numbers. I would have more respect for the Remain campaign in general and Cameron in particular if they admitted we can't control overall migration levels BUT also said the overall benefits of the EU outweigh any downsides.
Some proper objective evidence to back up such a statement would, of course, be nice but I wouldn't be holding my breath.
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TRB
But they can't make that case, because the whole immigration discussion has been made so toxic by the media. Decades of the front pages of the Mail and the Express printing lies and exaggerations. Resulting in the absolute certainty among millions of people that immigrants bring our economic performance down and are all scroungers.
The truth is the absolute opposite of that. But you will not get that message across in the heat of a campaign. Anyone who tries to say anything positive about immigration is immediately a target. Or is disgracefully accused of not being impartial because they receive EU funding (as the Leave campaign has done with the likes of the IFS and NIESR - Neil f**king Hamilton and Nigel f**king Farage, leaders of a party that refuses to publish its funders and may well be taking money from Putin accusing professionals of being bought. Grand, eh?)
So, all the Remain side can do is to try to neutralise the issue. It's not ideal but it IS politics.
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I'd argue that the issue of immigration was initially made toxic by the failure of Government in the late 1990s / early 2000s to implement time -honoured controls. They then made matters worse by allowing immigration from EU accession countries (eg Poland) before they were obliged to.
As a result people do not trust mainstream politicians over immigration.
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TRB
Look at these poll figures. They are repeated time after time after time in poll after poll
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/81ewaf2bx0/YG%20Trackers-Issues%202-Most-Important-Issues-070115_W.pdf
Look at the numbers from last Sept as an example.
What are the most important issues facing THE COUNTRY?
Immigration 71%
What are the most important issues facing YOU AND YOUR FAMILY?
Immigration: 24%
This is a common theme. People, on the whole, don't think immigration is a massive problem for them personally. But they think it is a massive problem for the country.
There is also a wealth of polling data that shows that the most anti-immigrant opinions are in the areas with fewest immigrants.
Where do you reckon those attitudes come from, if not from a media that fires a relentless barrage of lying or exaggerated immigrant horror stories?
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I'm afraid you can make opinion poll data prove just about anything. Just because people do not put Immigration as the number one issue for them doesn't mean they are not concerned about it.
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There we go again. Brexit supporter sees evidence he doesn't like and the response is "oh, you can make numbers say what you want."
TRB. I'm surprised at you. It's a plain as day. In that YouGov poll, people were allowed to choose SEVERAL issues that they thought were important. 71% chose immigration as an important issue at national level. Only 24% at personal level. And this facet has been seen for years. It's been studied in detail by political scientists. There is no correlation between people's attitude to immigration and the effect that it has on them personally.
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Maybe because when you say what concerns you and yours you identify symptoms. When you say what concerns you nationally you identify what you think are root causes.
In addition, people's perception of immigrants within their immediate community may be more positive than their overall perception that immigration is too high / out of control. That would, for me, be a powerful argument in favour of controlled immigration.
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So, let me get this right. People are OK with immigrants that they know. But they still think that immigration is bad overall?
Where do they get their information about what immigration is like outside their own circle of people whom they know?
And why are there so many people who repeat the factually incorrect claim that immigration damages the economy? Where do THEY get that idea from?
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You're confusing / conflating two different statements. "Immigration is bad" and "Uncontrolled immigration is bad."
Immigration that is controlled is a good thing IMO. But some time in the last 20 years we as a country lost/ gave up our ability to control it.
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And the evidence overwhelmingly shows that the immigration that we currently have is beneficial to our economy. We are NOT inundated by hordes of foreign benefit scroungers. The vast majority of immigrants are fit, healthy and prepared to work damn hard and pay into the system. They pay, on average, more in tax than they take out. They contribute more per head than the "native" population.
But try getting people to believe that. We are a uniquely misinformed people on this issue. We have far more negative views about immigration than many countries that really DO have massive problems with uncontrolled immigration, like Greece and Italy.
Read this and see just how different our judgements are than other countries with equally high or higher migration levels.
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/DownloadPublication/1634_sri-perceptions-and-reality-immigration-report-2013.pdf
If you don;t want to read the whole lot, have a look at the following.
Figure 3.2 on p50
Figure 4.2 on p60
Figure 6.1 on p88
Section 6.3 on p97
(The most depressing fact of the lot in there is that the average figure given my UK respondents when asked how many non-UK born people there are in the UK was 30%. The actual figure is less than 10%. That's the level of ignorance that we are dealing with, fed by the media's obsession to demonise and refusal to educate.)
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And whilst we're on the topic of Brexit and media failings...
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/the-media-and-brexit-redux.html
"...to sum up, most people do not think they will be worse off after Brexit, economists (including academics) overwhelmingly do think people will be worse off, and people have a high level of trust in what academics say. I can only think of one plausible explanation that is consistent with these three facts, and that is that people do not know what the overwhelming majority of academic economists think."
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It can be portrayed as a failing of the media, but also of the politicians running the campaigns.
I see Remain are at it again today, wheeling out some high-up at J. P. Morgan to warn of the terrible consequences of Brexit (rather than the positive benefits of staying in.) This also ignores the fact that if there's one group less popular with the public than politicians it is bankers.
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TRB
I'm not sure I follow your logic here and I suspect that there is a logical fallacy at the core of all the complaints about "Project Fear".
The consequences of leaving are being presented relative to the datum of us staying in. So, if the consequences of leaving are that we have a worse situation, by definition, staying has benefits.
I'd sympathise with the Brexit side if the Remain side were saying, "Oooohhh! Don't really know WHAT might happen if we leave. Best to stay, eh?" But they are not. They are presenting detailed assessments by experts from all walks of life, all of which are giving detailed reasons why leaving is a bad thing.
if leaving is a bad thing, saying that leaving is a bad thing is not avoiding debate. It is central to the debate.
On the Leave side, by comparison, I've heard nothing but "We don't know what the future will hold, so ignore the experts and vote how you feel in your gut." THAT is the very essence of avoiding intelligent debate.
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It's almost as if the Scottish independence referendum is being rerun on a grander scale...
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England will vote to leave, the Jocks and Taffs will keep us in
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That was kind of what I was thinking. In the Scottish referendum, the No side made clear and detailed arguments about what the economic cost of break-up would be. They attempted to explain the problems that there would be for a small country, without its own currency, with a volatile commodity as one of its main sources of income. The Yes side called that "Project Fear" and said, "It'll be fine. Don't believe the so-called 'experts'. Oil income is fine. Och, anyone who tells you it'll drop below $110 per barrel is awa' wi' the fairies."
The oil price has now been in the range $35-65 for 18 months. The Scottish economy would be utterly crippled if they had gone independent. Things wouldn't have turned out to be just fine is the voters had ignored "Project Fear".
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It may be nothing more than chance but every single time I've seen the Referendum reported this week when they've asked the man in the street every one has been a Brexiter giving the same ill thought out reasons to vote leave. Bloody ostriches the lot of em.
I can see nothing but a leave result.
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I was in a pub in Tory stronghold Pickering last night and ALL the locals present wanted out of the EU.
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That's my Room101. A room full of Tory pub bores and nowhere else to go.
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Thank you Billy. You are right. Sorry John. Sorry Glyn.
I had a fearsomely depressing conversation last Saturday. A mate. A very clever mate with a decent degree from Cambridge. He's a Tory Councillor in Milton Keynes. But despite that unfortunate fact he does use his brain. Until now. He spent 2 hours trying to persuade me that:
1) Boris Johnson is a man of probity, conviction and steadfast policy
2) Immigration does not bring any benefit to this country
3) We will be better off if we leave the EU.
I'm buggered how anyone (anyone!) can say with conviction that we will be better off. Or indeed, worse off. How the hell do they know??? Are they looking into the future? And my very intelligent mate totally failed to grasp the idea that some people, well, me anyway, are really not interested in being 'better off'. Some people, me, look at slightly bigger issues - like the moves towards consensus and conversation that have done so much to keep the peace in Europe for 70 years. And to cap it all, this mate was moved to exclaim that David Cameron has lost the plot and is a dead man walking. He may be. But for a publicly avowed Conservative to be so disloyal so early strikes me as a scary symbol of the move to the right that this country and this debate are making.
Bob
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We need some immigration, what we don't need are criminals that are littering our prisons. We need doctors, nurses, we also need factory workers, we need a wide variety of people coming in, it makes the economy bigger more people earning and paying taxes.
We also get the benefit of learning from other cultures, that's if they mix with us. We also need to deport a lot of people, look at hexthorpe and tell me it is a better place after immigration. You cannot allow areas to be ruined like that, because the government hasn't the guts to deport people.
We need control over stopping those coming in that we don't want in, the sea protection of our country is laughable. The best way is to use the aussie points scheme, people must be of benefit to the country otherwise they don't come in.
We cannot deal with the massive influx of people potentially coming, and not expand services, the tories are cutting services not making them bigger.
I don't personally think either position gives you everything you want. If we leave this government won't put the money into improvements, it will disappear down a hole never to be seen again. I remember in the early nineties saying all these bits and pieces funded by the eu, is just money to get us involved fully with them.
Before this, nothing at all was being invested in improvements to facilities, but the local councils, did proper jobs on the roads, not the half a job efforts done now.
The bins were collected regular, there was less waste lying around encouraging rats. There is no doubt that someof buildings were paid for by the eu, but most of this was money that was just coming back to the original giver.
Like it or not, we don't live in a safe and secure world, when has it ever been?. I hope that when this government leaves power, because the people are starting to notice that they are using the tactics that got them in power, that the government following, will invest the saved money back into it's own country, and getting it functioning better if leave is the decision.
Leaving isn't isolating the country, it's getting back the freedom to make it's own decisions, and making it a safer place by securing the borders, and by accepting immigration on our terms, if you have the skills you are welcome, if not sorry.
I do believe we should take a small percentage of people in danger who need homes. But i think the priority needs to be first our own people, stop giving billions away, and spend it so that people like ex armed forces people have a home. Invest in making young peoples opportunties better by taking away any debt for university. Invest in sports clubs, technology, invest in what we used to be Great Britain, not everybody else!.
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We already do have control to stop people who we don't want coming in. And the way you say we don't need criminals littering our prisons almost suggests you think the majority of prisoners are foreign. :laugh:
Not being funny but all you've done is sum up the thread in one post and chuck in a load of cliches and bandwagon jumping. So you've said f**k all, really.
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TRB
I'm not sure I follow your logic here and I suspect that there is a logical fallacy at the core of all the complaints about "Project Fear".
The consequences of leaving are being presented relative to the datum of us staying in. So, if the consequences of leaving are that we have a worse situation, by definition, staying has benefits.
I'd sympathise with the Brexit side if the Remain side were saying, "Oooohhh! Don't really know WHAT might happen if we leave. Best to stay, eh?" But they are not. They are presenting detailed assessments by experts from all walks of life, all of which are giving detailed reasons why leaving is a bad thing.
if leaving is a bad thing, saying that leaving is a bad thing is not avoiding debate. It is central to the debate.
On the Leave side, by comparison, I've heard nothing but "We don't know what the future will hold, so ignore the experts and vote how you feel in your gut." THAT is the very essence of avoiding intelligent debate.
This kind of makes my point far better than I was able to:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/06/03/remain-is-paying-the-price-for-its-lack-of-ambition/
And before anyone says, "well, the Torygraph would say that" the paper has editorially been sitting on the fence. You could even argue it is trying to be a Candid Friend to the Remain campaign.
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Idle nonsense in that article. The worst kind of selective journalism.
It bases its argument on Remain's case being built around lying civil servants and superstars.
What about NATO's heads? What about the heads of the security services? Are they lying civil set ants? We don't know the Telegraph's view because they just ignore them.
What about the IFS? The NIESR? Respected and independent economic forecasters who have given clear warnings of the effects of Leaving, with detailed scenarios. What about the 90% of academic economists who believe that leaving will result in significantly worse performance in the future? The Telegraph's response is that most infantile one: Well the future is unknowable so let's just ignore people who study these things and go with our guy feel eh?
It's like planning for D-Day and saying, "Phew! You can't really predict these things. Experts eh? What do they know? Let's ignore Montgomery and Eisenhower and just do this on a whim of what might make the British people feel better about themselves."
Crap, immature journalism.
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I'll give you a positive take though.
We are the luckiest, wealthiest, safest, best educated set of Europeans that have EVER lived on this continent. For 1700 years, competing powers in Europe, us included, have fought, argued, cheated, lied, schemed and hated. We put individual aggrandisement above the collective good and the results were catastrophic in terms of potential wasted and lives wrecked.
Europe is the most wonderful place on Earth. Full of innovation and energy and diversity and resilience. What the EU has done, for all its faults, is to channel those attributes into net positives across the continent. Go back to nation states trying to get one up on their neighbours, and you'll be back into the frictions and fractures that tore Europe apart every generation from the fall of the Roman Empire to the fall of Berlin.
THAT's the big picture that I see. It's a United, strong, collective Europe that I want my grandkids to grow up in. Not the fragmented and bitter one that my grandparents were born into.
That's what the real issue is in a couple of weeks.
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Because I'm still undecided, and that's putting it mildly considering I haven't got a clue which way to vote, what do you experts on the subject reckon to this analogy i've copied off Facebook?
If you don’t understand what all the fuss is about. Here is the EU put simply.
A son goes to his Dad having saved up some money from his weekend job.
Son “ Dad I’ve saved up £350 pounds to buy the new laptop I need for my college course”
Dad “Well done son, give the money to me and I’ll help you”
Son “Ok now what?”
Dad “I will allow you £185 pounds back less my handling fee of £5 so £180 which you may only spend on a new phone”
Son “But I need a laptop!”
Dad “No, we’ve decided you can only buy a phone and you may only buy a phone from Germany and it must be pink. You must also source the phone within 2 days otherwise I will not release the money”
Son “But it’s my money!”
Dad “I’m afraid you are a member of this family and you must contribute to everyone else’s needs. I will decide how the money is spent”
Son “So what happens to the £165?”
Dad “Well your sister needs a new dress”
Son “She has already had many new dresses”
Dad “We’ve put it to the vote and I’m afraid you’re outvoted”
Son “But I need a laptop to continue my course!”
Dad “My decision is final”
Son “But that’s not fair, will I ever have a say in how my money is spent”
Dad “No, and by the way we’ve got a couple more people moving into your room and you’ll have to pay for their keep”
Son “Well I’m leaving then”
Dad “Don’t be like that lad, we need your money. And if you leave you won’t be able to buy a pink phone from Germany you’ll have to buy one here instead”
Son “I NEED A LAPTOP!”
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That's not an analogy in the slightest. It's a piece of propaganda designed to appeal to those who don't want to think to much about reality.
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That'll be the hilarious piece of wit that started life on the Vote Leave Facebook page last week and is being passed round by hilariously witty wags all round the Internet, eh BB?
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Don't know BST, I'm not a wag.
Glynn, doesn't everyone who tries to convince others to agree with them use propaganda?
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BB
No. Some people try to use reasoned, balanced argument. Unbalanced, illogical propaganda is the equivalent of having to dive to win at football. It's what you do when you place winning above the actual issue at stake.
In football terms, to me, winning is not the really important thing. It's the process by which you win. If you can only win by blatant cheating, that victory is pointless.
In politics, winning for the sake of winning is not just pointless. It's positively dangerous. Changing people's opinions through lies and refusal to engage with rational discussion takes you down a very dangerous road. As America might be in the verge offending out.
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You said that without moving your lips Glynn!
BST,
The problem there is who's using propaganda and who's not, or in football terms, who's cheating and who's not.
I reckon if one side was guilty of it and the other wasn't, it'd be a walkover.
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An analogy has to have some correlation with reality in order to simplify that reality to make someone understand it more easily. Your example has no correlations whatsoever, it explains nothing and as such is typical of the 'scaremongering' the Leave side are supposed to be so disapproving of.
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So let me get this right. are you saying that the remain side haven't used scaremongering as a tactic?
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BB
If you have any examples of the Remain side disseminating idle snd pointless shite like this, feel free to share it.
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Apropos this business of the future being unknowable - how come the Leave lot get away, every time, with claiming the Remain lot are wrong, or talking out of some orifice where the sun don't shine, or are taking money and so can't be trusted? Even if that were all true, it plain don't mean that what they are saying is incorrect, inaccurate or plain wrong. Yet no one ever says that the Leavers are 'wrong' with their forecasts.
Example: we will save £10Bn a year they claim. Well whoopy do. About a gnats bite of our annual budget. It sounds a lot. Ooh a billion quid... Luvverly. But £10Bn is sod all. Go on. Check. FYI the total Govt budget this FY is £759.5Bn. So to save 1.3% of the budget we are proposing to turn our backs on security, influence and safety.
Unbelievable Geoff.
BobG
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Bob, you know when you said "It's just soo sad the number of people who haven't got a damn clue about what the EC is and what the EC is not. And you know what's worse? These people are actually allowed to vote. It's downright scary. Just imagine. They could be sat on a jury one day too. Ignorance in all its glory"., Do I take it that you were referring to people like me, who are too thick to decide, or people who just had a different opinion to you, like your very intelligent Tory mate you mentioned the other day?
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Thick or not my wife and I have voted to leave. My son-in-law is a police inspector and also probably voting to leave. At least if BST, Glynn and Bob G vote to stay they will cancel us out.
If you three want to live in Bradford for a few years then maybe your views might change.
This isn't an opinion based solely on immigration either.
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Idler
Surely the immigration issue in Bradford revolves around Pakistani/Bangladeshi immigrants?
I fail to see what that has to do with the EU.
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So let me get this right. are you saying that the remain side haven't used scaremongering as a tactic?
Obviously the fallacious logic the Leave side have used in their 'analogy' is contagious as it is plain to anyone with eyes that I haven't said that at all, even by implication.
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I'll give you a positive take though.
We are the luckiest, wealthiest, safest, best educated set of Europeans that have EVER lived on this continent. For 1700 years, competing powers in Europe, us included, have fought, argued, cheated, lied, schemed and hated. We put individual aggrandisement above the collective good and the results were catastrophic in terms of potential wasted and lives wrecked.
Europe is the most wonderful place on Earth. Full of innovation and energy and diversity and resilience. What the EU has done, for all its faults, is to channel those attributes into net positives across the continent. Go back to nation states trying to get one up on their neighbours, and you'll be back into the frictions and fractures that tore Europe apart every generation from the fall of the Roman Empire to the fall of Berlin.
THAT's the big picture that I see. It's a United, strong, collective Europe that I want my grandkids to grow up in. Not the fragmented and bitter one that my grandparents were born into.
That's what the real issue is in a couple of weeks.
BST
I suggest you try telling Greeks that Europe is the most wonderful place on earth.
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Example: we will save £10Bn a year they claim. Well whoopy do. About a gnats bite of our annual budget. It sounds a lot. Ooh a billion quid... Luvverly. But £10Bn is sod all. Go on. Check. FYI the total Govt budget this FY is £759.5Bn. So to save 1.3% of the budget we are proposing to turn our backs on security, influence and safety.
A very large chunk of those 'savings' will be needed to protect the borders that the Leavers say we need to tighten. And its not only at every port and airport - the new land border between Eire and Northern Ireland will cost a bit to keep secure once all the 'hordes' of EU immigrants that the Leavers keep talking about realise that they only have to go from any other EU country to Eire under Freedom Of Movement then walk across the border into the UK...but the costs of keeping them out never seem to get mentioned by the Leavers, apparently all the savings going to be magically spent on the NHS by a Tory government..!
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TRB
I fully agree that the way Greece has been treated is a disgrace. I've said that enough times. That is the result of a flawed Euro and particularly flawed macro-economic obsessions in the German administration.
That is a totally separate issue to the central thrust of the EU.
The treatment of Greece is wrong in my opinion. No question. However, I'll make 3 observations.
1) Even after that, Greece is still in a unrecognisably stronger position than it was 30 years ago before joining the EU. Greece's economy grew SEVENFOLD between joining the EU and the great crash. Even after the wrongheaded austerity, it's as big as it was in 2005.
2) Despite what it has been put through, the Greek people still don't want to leave the EU. Point?
3) Biggest point of all. Last time Greece had a massive socio/economic fracture, 40-odd years ago, it resulted in a coup d'etat byba quasi-fascist military junta. After 30 years in the EU, for all its weaknesses, Greece's democracy has survived the appalling problems of the past decade.
If that is the best counter argument you can come up with, it's really making my point for me.
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TRB
What about the rest of my earlier post. Put Greece to one side. Do you agree with the rest of the argument? If not, which bits and why not?
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Idle nonsense in that article. The worst kind of selective journalism.
It bases its argument on Remain's case being built around lying civil servants and superstars.
What about NATO's heads? What about the heads of the security services? Are they lying civil set ants? We don't know the Telegraph's view because they just ignore them.
What about the IFS? The NIESR? Respected and independent economic forecasters who have given clear warnings of the effects of Leaving, with detailed scenarios. What about the 90% of academic economists who believe that leaving will result in significantly worse performance in the future? The Telegraph's response is that most infantile one: Well the future is unknowable so let's just ignore people who study these things and go with our guy feel eh?
It's like planning for D-Day and saying, "Phew! You can't really predict these things. Experts eh? What do they know? Let's ignore Montgomery and Eisenhower and just do this on a whim of what might make the British people feel better about themselves."
Crap, immature journalism.
Sorry to say this, BST, but your posting sums up the Remain attitude to this campaign. That was what I was trying to get at earlier, and you've illustrated it fqr me nicely.
We have a great example today. Current (although I'm not so sure about Jeremy) and former leaders of the Labour party telling working class voters that they should vote Remain. So basically you have politicians who have failed these people before to vote the way they think is best for them. And we wonder why the Left is fast becoming irrelevant?
I had a chat with a woman who works as a domestic carer the other day. She mentioned the referendum, not me (I'd rather talk sport or music). She was undecided, but she said every one of her clients was voting Leave (or Out, as she put it.) These ard people who are, not to put too fine a point on it, at the bottom of the food chain. I'm not sure they understand what the EU does particularly, but I get the idea that they are f**ked off with politicians in general. I doubt they are any more enamoured of Boris and Gove than they are of Cameron and Corbyn. And you know what? I reckon this scenario could be played out in just about any country in the EU. It's just that we're having the Referendum now.
Whatever the result, the EU either reforms itself and starts working in support of the people of Europe, or it is history. Telling people how much worse it could be won't work - because they don't think things could be worse.
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BST
Have the Greeks been asked if they want to leave the EU? If they have, I must have missed it.
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TRB
What about the rest of my earlier post. Put Greece to one side. Do you agree with the rest of the argument? If not, which bits and why not?
BST
If you're arguing that an artificial, political construct is superior to free nations working with each other then I would disagree. It never ends well - see under Yugoslavia but also the Ottoman Empire.
I've never been against a European Community. Just a European Union that wants to centralise power and create a super-state.
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Idler
Surely the immigration issue in Bradford revolves around Pakistani/Bangladeshi immigrants?
I fail to see what that has to do with the EU.
BST, Bradford is now a melting pot. My two youngest grandchildren live in an area that is fast becoming a minority for white British or even British of any colour over 30 to 40 years of age.
There are Slovakians that are fast becoming a problem. Romanians and various other nationalities including Poles, Afghans, Iraqis, khazakstanis etc.
We have recently received some 200 Syrians as we are a multi cultural city. Apparently we get a grant to help these unfortunate people but after 12 months the council shoulder the burden. As a city we cannot cope whether it be housing, school places, jobs or health.
Even a lot of immigrants think that it has gone too far.
Teach, treat, house and employ those that are here before making the situation worse.
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Idler
So how does leaving the EU deal with Afghans, Kazakhs, Iraqis etc?
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With all of them here Billy there is no room potentially any Albanians, Turks etc.
Some people that have seen jobs disappear to foreigners of any nationality have little time for the EU on that score alone. The EU have helped fund a cycle path between Bradford and Leeds to the tune of several million pounds. This has narrowed the roads leaving traffic chaos in certain places.
A total waste of money in most people's eyes. That isn't winning the remain camp many votes.
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TRB
Whereas "Free nations working with each other" worked just fine for a millennium and a half eh?
If you ignore the Wars of the Holy Roman Empire, the Viking pillaging, the Hundred Years War, the Peasants' Revolt in Saxony, The Thirty Years War, the Anglo Dutch Wars, The Seven Years War, the Wars of Austrian and Spanish Succession, the Wars of the French Revolution, The Napoleonic Wars, the 1848 Revolutions, the Wars of German Unification, the Franco-Prussian War, the Italo-Ottoman War,the First Balkan War, the Second Balkan War, WWI, the Greek-Turkish War, the Polish-Soviet War, the Spanish Civil War, WWII and the Greek Civil War?
Does that trump your collapse of Yugoslavia?
PS: I'll ignore your implicit equivalence between the EU leaders and Tito or Suleiman the Magnificent. Because, frankly, if you REALLY meant that, then we're outside the boundaries of anything remotely close to sensible. So I assume it was a mistake on your part.
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TRB
You don't like the fact that Remain don't tell a positive story? Can you see why it's a bit hard to do that, when your response to a positive angle is to compare the EU to Communist dictators and military conquerors and oppressors of defeated nations? Do you get an inkling of why the debate is not hitting the heights here? And in the light of your bizarre comments, can you see why the Remain side pull a grim smile when they are accused of being a bit over-exuberant with their claims.
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Example: we will save £10Bn a year they claim. Well whoopy do. About a gnats bite of our annual budget. It sounds a lot. Ooh a billion quid... Luvverly. But £10Bn is sod all. Go on. Check. FYI the total Govt budget this FY is £759.5Bn. So to save 1.3% of the budget we are proposing to turn our backs on security, influence and safety.
A very large chunk of those 'savings' will be needed to protect the borders that the Leavers say we need to tighten. And its not only at every port and airport - the new land border between Eire and Northern Ireland will cost a bit to keep secure once all the 'hordes' of EU immigrants that the Leavers keep talking about realise that they only have to go from any other EU country to Eire under Freedom Of Movement then walk across the border into the UK...but the costs of keeping them out never seem to get mentioned by the Leavers, apparently all the savings going to be magically spent on the NHS by a Tory government..!
Not forgetting, Glyn, the veritable fortune it's going to cost to wire and patrol the entire Anglo Scottish border which will be come neccesary pdq once we choose to leave and the Scots decide they're having none of it. Leave that border open and guess what will happen......! Funny how the Leave gang never mention the risk to the union that their position poses or the vast influx of illegal migrants it will bring in its wake. It could, very easily and very quickly become our very own Mexican border - even after spending all of that wonderful £10Bn they keep banging on about in a vain attempt to close the border.
BobG
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Bob.
No, but that Kitson Salmond is mentioning it. Subtly goading the English folk who dislike Scots to vote leave as a way of provoking a second independence referendum and cutting Scotland off. It wouldn't surprise me if SNP supporters vote Leave to try to tip the balance.
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I had dinner tonight with a few Oxbridge types who had been down to publicly discuss the vote. Their consensus was that the result will be 51/49 or 52/48 in favour of staying in. But, and this would be immense fun, England will clearly vote to leave whilst Scotland and Wales will vote to stay in enough numbers to just tip the balance. Just imagine the froth that that would cause.........
Who was it said England is a nation of shopkeepers? Wasn't wrong was he? We know the price of everything. And the value of nothing.
BobG
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We already do have control to stop people who we don't want coming in. And the way you say we don't need criminals littering our prisons almost suggests you think the majority of prisoners are foreign. :laugh:
Not being funny but all you've done is sum up the thread in one post and chuck in a load of cliches and bandwagon jumping. So you've said f**k all, really.
Red, is it because you disagree with me?, or is it because you have taken a dislike to me through my posts?, because i can't remember you once agreeing with anything i post, fair enough on either, the dislike isn't mutual if that's what it is.
I don't think they are cliches, i don't jump on bandwagons, i look at all points of view and form my opinion, as you are learnt at school as a historian. I don't think i know that much about how things are done properly, i am constantly trying to improve with everything i do.
I am not cast iron on either option, it's very hard to be, because there are so many opinions to mull over, i am just edging towards leave, because i feel the country can be better long term out. I'm voting thinking of my nieces futures as well as my own, i want as safe a country as possible for when they are adults!.
I don't think the majority are foreign in our prisons, it's not an easy task working out who is a good person, and who is a danger to the public.
The majority in our prisons are our own citizens.
What i am saying is overall, don't stop immigration, but make it a points system where we get good skilled tradesman,also factory workers, solicitors, nurses, doctors. We need a wide range of skilled people, what we don't need is more immigrants than we can handle without the whole system having to be enlarged quicker than we can manage.
Both decisions have plusses and minuses, i am not against foreign people, a good person is the same in any language. Some have come here and improved things, the cafe in collonades, they are lovely people, very polite, run a good business and are a credit to our town, Another one near the white bear, again really nice friendly people, some of our people could learn from them with manners and work ethic.
I feel both sides have ulterior motives, that's why it is hard to decide just going on there opinions, and that's all they are, they know more than we do, but nobody can know what will happen in the future.
What's really surprised me is jeremy corbyn being so against staying in, then at the last minute he wants to stay!.
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I had dinner tonight with a few Oxbridge types who had been down to publicly discuss the vote. Their consensus was that the result will be 51/49 or 52/48 in favour of staying in. But, and this would be immense fun, England will clearly vote to leave whilst Scotland and Wales will vote to stay in enough numbers to just tip the balance. Just imagine the froth that that would cause.........
Who was it said England is a nation of shopkeepers? Wasn't wrong was he? We know the price of everything. And the value of nothing.
BobG
Just a thought Bob.
Those that you think aren't intelligent enough to deserve a vote are they fit to fight for our country and possibly die for the course?
People far more intelligent than you and I are divided on this issue so I take it you consider anyone opposed to your view aren't intelligent enough to grasp reality?
I've cast my vote so if we stay I carry on, if we leave I'll do everything that I can to make it work. I don't mind even being worse off personally if the country as a whole benefits.
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TRB
Project Fear eh?
Leave side this morning:
IDS: If we stay in the EU, we could end up in a supranational government zone, forced into the Euro with powers taken from national Govts.
Farage: if we stay in the EU, women could face being gang raped by immigrants.
Johnson: repeating that £350m lie.
What a bunch of disgusting chancers. To think that this cabal could be determining the future of our relations with Europe, and possibly running the f**king country after the referendum. God help us.
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I'm still astonished that no-one seems to be drawing any conclusions from the fact that the only senior politicians supporting Leave are Johnson and a gang from the most rapidly right-wing of the political spectrum. That's it. No-one else.
This is how far out of the mainstream they are. Listen to John Major talking about them.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/john-major-launches-stunning-attack-8117492
He calls them squalid and deceitful. He says that the idea that they would put money into the NHS is a deceit. "Gove wanted to privatise it. Johnson wanted to charge people for using it and IDS wants a social insurance system. The NHS is about as safe with them as a pet hamster with a python."
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I had dinner tonight with a few Oxbridge types who had been down to publicly discuss the vote. Their consensus was that the result will be 51/49 or 52/48 in favour of staying in. But, and this would be immense fun, England will clearly vote to leave whilst Scotland and Wales will vote to stay in enough numbers to just tip the balance. Just imagine the froth that that would cause.........
Who was it said England is a nation of shopkeepers? Wasn't wrong was he? We know the price of everything. And the value of nothing.
BobG
Add Northern Ireland to Wales and Scotland there Bob. The last polls (Belfast Telegraph 5 June) show 54% remain, 35% leave and the rest undecided or will not vote. Interestingly 70% Unionists are likely to vote Brexit, but 80% Nationalists wish to remain in the EU alongside RoI. So it might be Scotland, Wales and Sinn Fein keeping us in the EU ;)
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/bill-white/eu-referendum-70-of-unionists-voting-for-brexit-34761354.html
P.S. Not sure why you believe Oxbridge types so much - Bill Clinton and Blair all the way through to the current crop do not have my trust.
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I had dinner tonight with a few Oxbridge types who had been down to publicly discuss the vote. Their consensus was that the result will be 51/49 or 52/48 in favour of staying in. But, and this would be immense fun, England will clearly vote to leave whilst Scotland and Wales will vote to stay in enough numbers to just tip the balance. Just imagine the froth that that would cause.........
Who was it said England is a nation of shopkeepers? Wasn't wrong was he? We know the price of everything. And the value of nothing.
BobG
Add Northern Ireland to Wales and Scotland there Bob. The last polls (Belfast Telegraph 5 June) show 54% remain, 35% leave and the rest undecided or will not vote. Interestingly 70% Unionists are likely to vote Brexit, but 80% Nationalists wish to remain in the EU alongside RoI. So it might be Scotland, Wales and Sinn Fein keeping us in the EU ;)
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/bill-white/eu-referendum-70-of-unionists-voting-for-brexit-34761354.html
P.S. Not sure why you believe Oxbridge types so much - Bill Clinton and Blair all the way through to the current crop do not have my trust.
I think Wales is rather more Eurosceptic than people might think. UKIP did quite well in the recent Assembly elections.
However I think the overall figures Bob has come up with probably won't be far off.
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TRB
Project Fear eh?
Leave side this morning:
IDS: If we stay in the EU, we could end up in a supranational government zone, forced into the Euro with powers taken from national Govts.
Farage: if we stay in the EU, women could face being gang raped by immigrants.
Johnson: repeating that £350m lie.
What a bunch of disgusting chancers. To think that this cabal could be determining the future of our relations with Europe, and possibly running the f**king country after the referendum. God help us.
The hyperbole on both sides is depressing, and Farage's statement clearly falls into that camp. On IDS's comment though, I do fear this could eventually happen. Not soon, but it's pretty clear that the Single Currency and the Eurozone will be made to work, whatever the consequences might be.
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I'm still astonished that no-one seems to be drawing any conclusions from the fact that the only senior politicians supporting Leave are Johnson and a gang from the most rapidly right-wing of the political spectrum. That's it. No-one else.
This is how far out of the mainstream they are. Listen to John Major talking about them.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/john-major-launches-stunning-attack-8117492
He calls them squalid and deceitful. He says that the idea that they would put money into the NHS is a deceit. "Gove wanted to privatise it. Johnson wanted to charge people for using it and IDS wants a social insurance system. The NHS is about as safe with them as a pet hamster with a python."
John Major should spend more time at The Oval. Otherwise people might start reminding him of his role in the ERM fiasco.
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What scares me is how right wing those who are pioneering Brexit are. Gove, IDS, Farage et all scare the living daylights out of me.
I am also frustrated by the lack of highlighting how positive the EU has been. Workers rights (working time directive, minimum wage, paternity and maternity leave) , security cooperation, combatting climate change, clean beaches, improvements and regeneration of poorer areas. There are probably numerous more that I have failed to mention.
Then you have prominent parties (scientists, economists, scholars etc) who have all stated how important staying in the EU is. I'd rather believe those than Mr Gove and Mr Farage.
The leave campaign have not come up with anything concrete, from a positive point of view. They have concentrated on migration and are campaigning on fear...sadly it seems to be working
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Idler - I mean what I said. Yes. £10Bn is a lot of money. But in the scale of what this county this country budgets each year, it's trivial. So publicising the '"10 billion pounds" by the Leave bunch is an exercise in both greed ('Oooh goody. All that lovely dosh') and disinformation by claiming it will make a significant difference. it won't. It will be swallowed up, and more, by having to guard the border with Scotland. So yes, I suggest again that the Leavers are trading on the fact that we know the cost of everything - and the value of nothing. What have they offered to replace the valuable things we will lose? Nothing. Pious hopes at best. So again, they, and by implication, we, know the value of nothing.
They have offered nothing to replace what would be lost - except scare, scurrilous mendacity and character assasination. The fact that the Leavers have failed to mention the huge risk to both the Union and their beloved immigration controls posed by their position shows just how intent on misleading this country they are. Like I said, they know the cost of everything, and the value of nothing.
BobG
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TRB
So, the Remain side, providing detailed economic forecasting is scaremongering. But the Leave side, hypothesising some distant future scenario is being fair and sensible?
And, I beg to differ on Farage's comments. They are not "hyperbole". They are revolting dog-whistle racism and are a bloody disgrace.
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I'm still astonished that no-one seems to be drawing any conclusions from the fact that the only senior politicians supporting Leave are Johnson and a gang from the most rapidly right-wing of the political spectrum. That's it. No-one else.
This is how far out of the mainstream they are. Listen to John Major talking about them.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/john-major-launches-stunning-attack-8117492
He calls them squalid and deceitful. He says that the idea that they would put money into the NHS is a deceit. "Gove wanted to privatise it. Johnson wanted to charge people for using it and IDS wants a social insurance system. The NHS is about as safe with them as a pet hamster with a python."
John Major should spend more time at The Oval. Otherwise people might start reminding him of his role in the ERM fiasco.
John major, Kinnock and numerous others are protecting pensions they get. Both sides are nothing short of a disgrace, the actual information to help with the decision of voting is miniscule.
Both sides are using scare tactics. Those in the leave group are trying to get up the ladder to the top job, i don't believe that Boris johnson is voting this way because he believes in it, and i am currently siding with leave!.
Personal ambitions, prejudices and plain old self interest, protecting money that they will lose if we leave. It's human nature to protect money that will help your family to have a great life.
None of these politicians care how it affects our lives, if the country goes seriously downhill, they have the money to buy property almost anywhere they want.
It's me and you the normal guy on the street that has to deal with the mess their decisions could cause. It shouldn't be about party politics, personal interest or whatever, it should be for the good of the majority, not a few to line there pockets, but unfortunately we live in a corrupt society, it is a long long time since a politician took up the job to improve others lives, it's a myth, they don't exist any more for me!.
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Sammy
That post is a symptom of one of the most worrying features in the modern debate.
What you post about politicians is simply untrue. There ARE some who go into politics for personal aggrandisement - Boris Johnson is the most obvious example. There are plenty who are not brilliant at what they do. But the overwhelming majority are hard-working, diligent, and in it because (whether you agree with them or not) they have a belief that they can help to make things better for the people of the country.
I vehemently disagree with pretty much everything that IDS and Gove believe in. But they DO believe in their main political ideals and they work damn hard to try to get them implemented because they fervently belief that they would make the country a better place.
Your post is an exemplar of the modern cynicism that assumes that everyone in politics is out for themselves and no-one else. It never was true and it isn't today. Go and speak to a politician. Go and speak to the local ones like Lucas, Winterton or Miliband. Book a session at their surgery. Spend 5 minutes in their company and get an idea of the drive and zeal and nous that they have.
What really scares me is that the sort of wrong-headed ideas that you have are very, very common. It is, frankly, ignorance parading as intelligent scepticism. And when people are as disconnected as that from politics and politicians, it leaves us open to be seduced by the smart, savvy snake-oil salesmen who really ARE only in it for themselves. Like the Kitson who is angling to replace Cameron.
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Sammy
That post is a symptom of one of the most worrying features in the modern debate.
What you post about politicians is simply untrue. There ARE some who go into politics for personal aggrandisement - Boris Johnson is the most obvious example. There are plenty who are not brilliant at what they do. But the overwhelming majority are hard-working, diligent, and in it because (whether you agree with them or not) they have a belief that they can help to make things better for the people of the country.
I vehemently disagree with pretty much everything that IDS and Gove believe in. But they DO believe in their main political ideals and they work damn hard to try to get them implemented because they fervently belief that they would make the country a better place.
Your post is an exemplar of the modern cynicism that assumes that everyone in politics is out for themselves and no-one else. It never was true and it isn't today. Go and speak to a politician. Go and speak to the local ones like Lucas, Winterton or Miliband. Book a session at their surgery. Spend 5 minutes in their company and get an idea of the drive and zeal and nous that they have.
What really scares me is that the sort of wrong-headed ideas that you have are very, very common. It is, frankly, ignorance parading as intelligent scepticism. And when people are as disconnected as that from politics and politicians, it leaves us open to be seduced by the smart, savvy snake-oil salesmen who really ARE only in it for themselves. Like the Kitson who is angling to replace Cameron.
Miliband has done some good things for people around my area, i personally think he needed to be himself rather than trying to fit what everybody wanted him to be.He could have led the country just as well as cameron.
Where i think he went wrong, he attacked anybody doing well, yes you need to look after the poor, but you shouldn't go after any certain class set. To be prime minister you need to be for all of the people.
The big companies are the one's who are not paying a fair share, but even them you can't go too far as you make them not want to trade in your country. The government make loopholes available, a people or companies use them, then years down the line they are attacked for doing it!
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There is one potential future leader that i see, who could do the job, who also has the capabilities of a prime minister, and that's Ed's brother, David. I look at all the parties and i don't see people who could do the job, they all miss vital things needed to lead a country.
Boris, his buffoonery, get's tiresome after a bit. I was a little over the top saying no politicians care, because there are some that care, and compared to big companies they don't get paid that well.
BBC executives are paid more than Cameron, like him or not, he has a highly pressurised job, you can't please everybody in that job.
It's a job that ages people very quickly. My worst fear would be to see George Osbourne or Boris in charge, because i think they would be worse than cameron, Osbourne especially, i see him as a man with no heart for anybody!.
Our country, is still a great place to live, but if you are going to have immigration, you must have the time, to build the infrastructure to cope with it. You have to add to the size of things, not cut them like the tories have been doing. That's why i think leave is just about the best option, it could slow things down for a while, until confidence is restored, but overall, at the minute, leave makes more sense to me.
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Sammy
That's a more sensible post mate. You should stay up will 4am more often!
On school building, it's not so much the time as the political will. The very first thing that Michael Gove did when we took over as education secretary in 2010 was to slash the school building programme.
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/jul/05/school-building-programme-budget-cuts
Gove presided over the third biggest cut in state education spending as a proportion of GDP in the past 200 years. (The other two were in WWI, WWII and under Thatcher in the early 80s).
That was ideological madness. for two reasons
Even if you accepted the Austerity argument at the time, the very worst thing you can cut is capital investment. The money that you spend on capital projects both produces infrastructure for the future, and keeps people in work, thus supporting the economy at a time of massive problems in the rest of the economy. That was one of the reasons why our economy flat-lined from 2010 to 2013 (after which, the school building programme was quietly re-started as part of Osborne's surreptitious pre-election spending boom).
Secondly, it has put massive pressure on school places. Pressure which is no being blamed on immigrants.
And this is the Michael Gove who tells you that the imaginary billions he will save by leaving the EU [1] will be re-invested in public services. My f**king arse.
[1] Once again, the independent and widely-respected IFS slapped Gove down yesterday on this issue in the strongest of tones. http://www.ifs.org.uk/about/blog/346 How can anyone take that man, or those arguments from the Leave side with any seriousness?
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Watching the ITV debate now. Farage seems to respond to questions with chest-beating patriotism that says nothing and "I never said this thing that I said" handwaving. People seem to fall for it. Ho hum.
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Yeah well. He would wouldn't he. He's the biggest liar in politics.
Remember the 2010 UKIP manifesto? The one with plans to give a £250,000 per year tax cut to anyone earning £1m per year and plans to require taxi drivers to wear uniforms and train companies to paint their trains in "traditional colours"?
When Farage was asked about it in 2014, he said it was barking mad. Then when asked why those policies had been accepted, he said it was nothing to do with him as he'd never read it. He was right on the barking mad. But he ought to have read it because he wrote the foreword to the manifesto and launched the thing at a press conference.
That's how Farage acts. When he's cornered, he brazen it out and just lies. He knew EXACTLY what he was doing on the immigrant/sex attack theme. He blows the dog whistle, then throws his hands up and says, "I never said that!" The nastiest and most dangerous bas**rd in British politics.
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I don't honestly know why they picked Farage, out of the out politicians. Boris has been the main man in that camp. Farage will always have racism levelled at him, it was a strange decision for me to pick him.
Why couldn't they genuinly go head to head, rather than the watered down effort we got?. I seem to remember reading the prime minister refused to, i don't know if i am remembering wrong.
Both sides have gone down the all or nothing route, where the truth lies between them. Leaving won't solve all the problems we have, as staying in won't. I see this as a very tight vote i wouldn't like to call it.
A question i don't know the answer to, when are people who have come to our country allowed to vote in our elections, on this subject and all others?.
What i don't like is one minute it was the unemployed who were the scurge of society, now it's the immigrants, who is next?. They seem to pick on minority issues rather than dealing with the real problems.
Our country would have moved forward quicker, if manufacturing our own things had been encouraged. The system needed a boost to get it going.
From articles i have read the debt we owe keeps climbing, yet the tories have tightened the belts of the country. It's not all to do with being in the eu, nothing as as ''black and white'' as that, many things all add upto why the country, isn't running quite how it should.
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An excellent post Sammy. That is excactly what UKIP and far right tories want to do: blame immigrants and get us to vote leave on the issues of immigration, pocket the money that would have been spent on the eu and then push through policies that the EU wouldn't have allowed.
The way I see it; if we leave the EU they will continue to make trade deals and laws that ultimately affect this country, whether we like them or not. A vote to leave means you don't care if the UK is in the room having a say on those deals or laws. Personally, I'd rather the UK be in the room with the ability to veto, which Cameron managed to secure on a number of fronts. It is that simple.
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Listening to that wazzock Farage on Jeremy Vine's radio show yesterday and subsequently some of the listeners' comments following the interview it's clear that there's at least a proportion of the "out" voting populace who will merrily scapegoat the EU with every prejudice they have against Johnny Foreigner and his wicked ways.
One listener's reason for voting to leave was that she wanted her grandchildren to be brought up with English values and be allowed to celebrate Christmas and Easter. Damn those pesky Beaurocrats and their plans to ban festivals celebrated across the continent!
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One listener's reason for voting to leave was that she wanted her grandchildren to be brought up with English values and be allowed to celebrate Christmas and Easter.
lol WTF?
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Kind of the point I was trying to make to TRB earlier in the week about the power of the bigots in the tabloid press at forcing the immigration issue.
I'm sure that old bint has never had a Paki shit through her letterbox for having English values or celebrating Christmas. But "Eeeehhh, we've all read them stories in the papers..."
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Aye and Pakistan, Europe, Africa, IT'S ALL THE BLOODY SAME.
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They're all that way on.
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So the campaign goes on, senior politicians for leave and remain will continue to blag, exaggerate and lie for two more weeks.
Meanwhile the country is basically ok, being run by someone???! So I'm thinking basically we have too many politicians in the UK (and probably Europe). Whatever happened to the idea of reducing the number of MPs which was mooted at the time of the expenses scandal?
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The referendum result will be greatly influenced by which politicians people dislike least, or most, if you know what I mean.
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I think it is getting to the point, where a lot of the public, don't believe in any of the parties. The time is coming where the best politicians, need to be picked from each party, to form a stronger government, than the mish mash of abilities in each party at the minute.
I think the ideas are old, the thinking not forward enough, the same old mp's being moved from one post to another, not really achieving much.
At the minute parties are constricted from getting the best man or woman for each job. For example the tories are in, but won't pick the labour man who should be chancellor, as he is the best equipped for the job, because he isn't in they're party.
Or the education secretary is weaker than the man or woman, the liberals, would appoint if in power. It restricts what the country could achieve if it had the best people in each position.
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Who do you have in mind, Sammy? I can't think of any Labour MP who would be an outstanding chancellor. And I'm no fan of the present incumbent.
Ditto the Education Sec. Actually I CAN think of lots on both sides of the house who'd be better than her!
I think there's a lot to be said for your first paragraph. IMO the old parties are no longer fit for purpose. I think this Referendum campaign, whatever the outcome, might see the start of a realignment.
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TRB
For all his faults, at least McDonnellunderstands basic textbook economics. Unlike the current incumbent in No11, who has repeatedly demonstrated his ignorance in the topic, and his willingness to follow any bit of voodoo economics that suits his political angle.
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I'd like to thank George Osbourne for giving the leave campaign a boost last night, ripped a new arshole by Andrew Neil last night and exposed as the lier he is, even producing a part for the airbus and stating that airbus would leave the UK even though they have already stated they would stay
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Just when you thought the tactics couldn't sink any lower, I've just received a shocking flyer in the post from the Leave side.
Front page gives every impression that it's an independent publication trying to even-handedly discuss the issues. Then on the inside, it repeats all the worst lies and half truths that Leave have been peddling for months, from the £350m per week lie to the we can have a deal like Switzerland without freedom of movement lie. The only indication that it is an official Vote Leave publication is in small print on the back page so small that it's virtually unreadable.
That's the sort of country that Vote Leave want you to live in. One where you can be safely assumed to be so pig ignorant that you can be fed lie after lie after lie and have your opinions bent and twisted like this. I wonder what their real drive is? They KNOW thst there's not a scrap of truth in these arguments. So why are they peddling them? What's the real issue at stake for them?
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That's the sort of country that Vote Leave want you to live in. One where you can be safely assumed to be so pig ignorant that you can be fed lie after lie after lie and have your opinions bent and twisted like this. I wonder what their real drive is? They KNOW thst there's not a scrap of truth in these arguments. So why are they peddling them? What's the real issue at stake for them?
We allready live in that sort of Country with the current Tory Government, George Osbourne proved that last night
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That's the sort of country that Vote Leave want you to live in. One where you can be safely assumed to be so pig ignorant that you can be fed lie after lie after lie and have your opinions bent and twisted like this. I wonder what their real drive is? They KNOW thst there's not a scrap of truth in these arguments. So why are they peddling them? What's the real issue at stake for them?
We allready live in that sort of Country with the current Tory Government, George Osbourne proved that last night
What do you make of Sarah Wollaston's decision because of Vote Leave's Big Lie then Filo?
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That's the sort of country that Vote Leave want you to live in. One where you can be safely assumed to be so pig ignorant that you can be fed lie after lie after lie and have your opinions bent and twisted like this. I wonder what their real drive is? They KNOW thst there's not a scrap of truth in these arguments. So why are they peddling them? What's the real issue at stake for them?
We allready live in that sort of Country with the current Tory Government, George Osbourne proved that last night
What do you make of Sarah Wollaston's decision because of Vote Leave's Big Lie then Filo?
Nothing, MP's are defecting on a regular basis, it's usually for their own gain
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That's the sort of country that Vote Leave want you to live in. One where you can be safely assumed to be so pig ignorant that you can be fed lie after lie after lie and have your opinions bent and twisted like this. I wonder what their real drive is? They KNOW thst there's not a scrap of truth in these arguments. So why are they peddling them? What's the real issue at stake for them?
We allready live in that sort of Country with the current Tory Government, George Osbourne proved that last night
What do you make of Sarah Wollaston's decision because of Vote Leave's Big Lie then Filo?
Nothing, MP's are defecting on a regular basis, it's usually for their own gain
Really? What she going to gain then, apart from a lot of abuse from the Brexiters?
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Filo
I didn't see that programme but you are not being fair here. I've seen the transcript of the interview and Osborne did NOT say that Airbus would leave the UK after Brexit. He said EXACTLY what the chief executive of Airbus said, which is that Brexit would threaten Airbus's future investment in the UK.
There's no equality here. One side is lying every day. The other isn't. It's that simple.
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Nothing, MP's are defecting on a regular basis, it's usually for their own gain
Well, it explains Boris jumping on the Leave bandwagon at the last minute because it suits his masterplan.
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Nothing, MP's are defecting on a regular basis, it's usually for their own gain
Well, it explains Boris jumping on the Leave bandwagon at the last minute because it suits his masterplan.
I agree, you can't have it both ways Glynn
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Nothing, MP's are defecting on a regular basis, it's usually for their own gain
Well, it explains Boris jumping on the Leave bandwagon at the last minute because it suits his masterplan.
I agree, you can't have it both ways Glynn
But I can see why Boris has done it for personal gain, whereas I can't see what personal gain Wollaston stands to get. Perhaps you can enlighten me?
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Filo
I didn't see that programme but you are not being fair here. I've seen the transcript of the interview and Osborne did NOT say that Airbus would leave the UK after Brexit. He said EXACTLY what the chief executive of Airbus said, which is that Brexit would threaten Airbus's future investment in the UK.
There's no equality here. One side is lying every day. The other isn't. It's that simple.
You should watch it if you get the chance, totally humiliated
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Nothing, MP's are defecting on a regular basis, it's usually for their own gain
Well, it explains Boris jumping on the Leave bandwagon at the last minute because it suits his masterplan.
I agree, you can't have it both ways Glynn
But I can see why Boris has done it for personal gain, whereas I can't see what personal gain Wollaston stands to get. Perhaps you can enlighten me?
Prrhaps she has an eye on a cabinet position if a teshuffle occurs should we remain, Cameron will want rid of remain campaigners that is for sure
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What? And you reckon that thought suddenly came to her last night?
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What? And you reckon that thought suddenly came to her last night?
Timing Billy lad, timing 😊
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It's also interesting how so many of the Leave campaign are complaining about the extension to register for vote, as if it's an advantage for the remain campaign? Surely allowing more people the chance to vote is only beneficial to democracy?
Just as a side note I saw a great quote recently,
"Not all people who vote to leave the EU are racist, but all racists will be voting to leave the EU"
:whistle:
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Another line in that reprehensible flyer that I received this morning.
"Expert opinion is divided. It's up to you to make your own decision."
Breathtaking. In the economic effect of Brexit, I assume by "divided" they mean "9 in 10 senior economists are on one side, a few are unsure and a slack handful of people with a history of pushing failed ideas are on the other", then I guess they are right.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/28/economists-reject-brexit-boost-cameron
This is the main tactic of Leave. Disparage everyone who produces sober, cautious expert consideration, but up no counter arguments other than "they are all wrong because we say so" and trust people to vote from an uninformed position.
Dreadful for democracy and potentially dreadful for the country.
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Actually, the longer the campaign goes on, the more the Leave side looks like the mad far right of the Republican Party. For years they have been sticking the boot into anyone who espouses views against their core beliefs. Not through the usual approach of reasoned argument, but by claiming that the experts who oppose them have been bought off and can't be trusted.
That is exactly what Leave have been doing throughout this campaign.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/25/vote-leave-attacks-ifs-thinktank-brexit-austerity-paid-up-propaganda-arm
It is utterly disgraceful to accuse the IFS of being a "paid up propaganda arm of the EU". And it plays into this desperately corrosive attitude that you should trust no-one and just go with your own uninformed prejudices.
Would you trust your own ideas on how aircraft work or would you prefer to believe the experts who study and apply the fundamentals? Would you trust your own idea of how to build a 200m long bridge, or would you prefer to have expert engineers do it?
I've long thought that anyone who believes that everyone in public life is a charlatan, a fool or a crook is probably revealing more than they should about themselves.
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And the mendacity just keeps on rolling in.
John Redwood today in the Express.
http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/678044/Life-post-Brexit-money-spending-UK-NHS-EU-referendum-regulations-John-Redwood
"After all, we know we can spend our own money on making more people in the UK better off by providing them with decent jobs with better public services."
Sounds wonderful eh?
Hang on. John Redwood? John Redwood?
Oh aye. It's THAT John Redwood who called the IFS the "paid up propaganda arm of the EU." It's THAT John Redwood who published a book last decade giving the detailed case for why we should stop spending public money on public services and privatise them instead.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Third-Way-Private-Enterprise-Public-Service/dp/1898253498
As one reviewer said:
"(Chapters 2 and 3)...look at public monopolies and free enterprise services respectively - every one of their advantages and disadvantages examined, with the conclusion that introducing free enterprise wherever possible means a better service. These chapters stand alone as wonderful cases for privatisation, and provide a very good reference point for anyone involved in that debate.
The rest of the book is then devoted to ideas on transport policy and why private finance and other ideas offer the best hope for Britain's roads, rail network and skies."
But now, THIS new John Redwood would take the figure of £350m per week that he lies about and he'd spend it on nice cuddly things like schools and libraries and nurses. Bless him.
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Just when you thought the disgraceful lies couldn't get any worse, we now have John Major and Tony Blair advising leaving the EU could have an impact on the NI peace process. This, out of everything that has been said, is the most ill thought stance to take. Nobody wants to go back to the days of the troubles so even suggesting this is a possibility with absolutely no factual backing is deplorable.
How Tony Blair even has the audacity to show his face in public when he should held accountable for war crimes, never mind spouting out this rubbish is beyond me.
Their comments have rightly been condemned by those in NI who have to live with any consequences that this pathetic statement may incur. I actually believe the remain will win at a canter but these kind of lies do appear to have an air of desperation about them.
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They just can't help themselves, can they?
"Northern Ireland would face a “serious difficulty” if the United Kingdom votes to leaves the European Union, the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, has said.
In a sign of the deep unease in Dublin at the prospect of a British exit, Kenny suggested that the success of the Northern Ireland peace process was in part linked to the UK and the Irish Republic’s joint membership of the EU."
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/25/northern-ireland-irish-republic-eu-referendum-enda-kenny (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/25/northern-ireland-irish-republic-eu-referendum-enda-kenny)
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In what way can't they help themselves?
The more this campaign goes on, the more people are corralled into this conspiracy that the Brexiters have concocted. Basically, anyone who points out the potentially negative aspects of Brexit are labelled as scaremongers, being on the gravy train or liars.
Why on earth the leaders of Ireland, France, Germany, India, Australia, Japan, China, Canada and the USA should all be conspiring to lie to the British people is beyond me.
At some point, you have to sit down and make a list of the people who are warning on the consequences of Brexit, and the ones who are saying it'll be fine. And when you've made that list, look at is dispassionately. Strike through the names of all the people whom you have a reasonable reason, based on track record, to consider to be mendacious. Then see who you e got left.
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In what way can't they help themselves?
The more this campaign goes on, the more people are corralled into this conspiracy that the Brexiters have concocted. Basically, anyone who points out the potentially negative aspects of Brexit are labelled as scaremongers, being on the gravy train or liars.
Why on earth the leaders of Ireland, France, Germany, India, Australia, Japan, China, Canada and the USA should all be conspiring to lie to the British people is beyond me.
At some point, you have to sit down and make a list of the people who are warning on the consequences of Brexit, and the ones who are saying it'll be fine. And when you've made that list, look at is dispassionately. Strike through the names of all the people whom you have a reasonable reason, based on track record, to consider to be mendacious. Then see who you e got left.
As I've already said. Exactly how the independence referendum 'debate' panned out. The SNP's rebuttal came in the form of "stop talking Scotland down" type rhetoric.
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I'm sorry BST - I didn't make my sarcasm obvious. Apologies for that.
The link I posted was a news item about the fact that the Irish PM had said earlier in the year that peace in Ireland could be under threat if the UK voted out of the EU.
In my not at all clear way, I was pointing out that the idea that the destabilisation of Ireland was not some BS concocted by Major and Blair, and that - in fact - this had been mooted by a pretty credible source.
In short (sort of): I agree with you, BST. I'm sick of 'Leave' folks jumping up and down like mardy little gobshites, clutching at a right load of old ballacks and masquerading as the folks who want to make the country 'great' again, etc etc etc. That and the scrotes that hate foreigners/Muslims/others [delete as appropriate], but definitely aren't voting to leave because they're racist... Again, etc etc etc...
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This whole campaign has been a terrible moment for British politics. Full of lies and scaremongering on both sides. As others have alluded to, damn shame no one put forward a mainstream left wing campaign for leaving. No doubt in part due to the death of Tony Benn and muffled half-baked opinions of Corbyn and the Green party. I wanted to hear more about the effects of the CAP, schengen block, and Euro trading bloc on developing countries; about the rise of corporatism and the state of inequality in Europe; on localism, democracy and the rise of bureaucracy. Instead we're in this weird malaise again where the choice is somehow tied to the economic fortunes of "us". As if "we" are all equal. If by 'us' they mean the capitalist class, big business, neo-liberal economists and an incumbent group of politicians who support them, then we might just be better off being worse off. A far more meaningful and convincing argument to me would have been on the fate of social arenas such as science and education for example. In such areas, the best guesses show 'we' would indeed be worse off by leaving.
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I'm sorry BST - I didn't make my sarcasm obvious. Apologies for that.
The link I posted was a news item about the fact that the Irish PM had said earlier in the year that peace in Ireland could be under threat if the UK voted out of the EU.
In my not at all clear way, I was pointing out that the idea that the destabilisation of Ireland was not some BS concocted by Major and Blair, and that - in fact - this had been mooted by a pretty credible source.
In short (sort of): I agree with you, BST. I'm sick of 'Leave' folks jumping up and down like mardy little gobshites, clutching at a right load of old ballacks and masquerading as the folks who want to make the country 'great' again, etc etc etc. That and the scrotes that hate foreigners/Muslims/others [delete as appropriate], but definitely aren't voting to leave because they're racist... Again, etc etc etc...
So Enda Kenny doesn't have another agenda? The UK leaving the EU wouldn't possibly have a detrimental effect on Ireland so he's willing to join in with the scaremongering?
Do you seriously believe that a leave vote could result in the troubles starting back up? I wasn't aware the republicans and unionists made UKs membership of the EU an important factor of the Good Friday Agreement.
The point I was making is the continual lies from both sides don't help anybody in what is a serious important decision. For what it's worth I'm undecided but you should've told me earlier that the debates as simple as, if you want to remain you're a good person and if you want to leave you're a racist. Why don't they just make the ballot paper "Are you a racist yes or no"? To say the polls are calling it almost neck and neck your beliefs don't say much for a large proportion of the UK population do they?
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The comment about racists was made because I had an argument elsewhere with an EDL supporter/sympathiser about the EU. He called me a Leftie, and when I pointed out that sharing anti-Muslim "jokes" and 'fit it in or pack your bags and f**k off home' slogans (and a whole raft of other filth) seemed to suggest he was a bit racist, he didn't agree with me oddly enough... I am certainly not suggesting that EVERYONE that wants to vote 'Leave' will do so because they're racist or unpleasant. I would, however, argue that there are a helluva a lot of people in this nation of ours that will vote to leave the EU entirely because of immigration and because they are a bit racist.
I was expressing a bit of frustration about an experience I've had. Nothing more.
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Sorry Lipsy. My misunderstanding.
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I'd have thought it was bleeding obvious why Brexit could stoke up trouble in NI.
The Troubles fed on two issues: mutually incompatible views of nationality and economic backwardness.
The EU has helped hugely on the economic side. That is its primary purpose. It invests money in poor areas to bring them up. Turn off that tap and the old economic frictions will be back in a generation. (And don't say: well we British could invest our own money in NI thank you very much. We had centuries to do that and we failed spectacularly.)
The bigger one is nationality. The biggest success of the peace process has been downplaying nationalism and getting both sides to see that they are part of a bigger whole. Brexit will inevitably mean a more muscular re-assertion of British identity and national status. The implications of that in NI are obvious.
But no. I'm sure it's not about that. It's just a bunch of politicians all over the world making things up again eh?
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So the multi party governing system that is currently in place will also be scrapped as part of the UK leaving the EU? Processes have been put in place that have been signed into constitution to hopefully stop some members of NI being effectively classed as second class citizens. Would an elected British Govt really risk changing this set up and relighting the fire just because it is no longer a member of the EU? I personally don't believe it would.
Look at who is also suggesting this scenario. Enda Kenny, a man who is holding onto office in Ireland by his finger nails and should really have resigned following the recent election. John Major, the least said about him the better and Tony Blair who will hopefully get his comeuppance shortly. As opposed to the current NI First Minister who branded the comments "disgraceful" but her views don't sit with the remain point of view so I guess they don't matter.
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The comment about racists was made because I had an argument elsewhere with an EDL supporter/sympathiser about the EU. He called me a Leftie, and when I pointed out that sharing anti-Muslim "jokes" and 'fit it in or pack your bags and f**k off home' slogans (and a whole raft of other filth) seemed to suggest he was a bit racist, he didn't agree with me oddly enough... I am certainly not suggesting that those that want to vote 'Leave' will do so because they're racist or unpleasant. I would, however, argue that there are a helluva a lot of people in this nation of ours that will vote to leave the EU entirely because of immigration and because they are a bit racist.
I was expressing a bit of frustration about an experience I've had. Nothing more.
Oh aye...the EDL. They've got a bit quiet now that their one policy of screaming at Islamists telling them to bugger off back to the Middle East worked out really well, haven't they?
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I heard on Radio 4 tonight various folk slagging off John Major and Tony Blair for claiming exit could close the nigh on century old open border between NI and Eire. Some fathead woman claiming it had been open all through the Troubles so why would it shut just because of a vote to leave the EU?
There's none so blind is there.... How else are you going to stop all these terrible Jonny Foreigners walking across the border from Schengen Eire into the welfare handout paradise that is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
And, by the way, just how are the exit people proposing to stop countless hordes of those self same Foreigners from walking across the border between Carlisle and Gretna and all the other places when the Scots vote to leave the union and stay in the EC after we take our ball home? We'd either have no bloody control at all then, or, all those wonderful 350 million would have to be spent creating a new Hadrian's Wall to keep the buggers out.
BobG
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The EDL and their like are not nearly quiet enough for my liking, sadly. Perhaps they appear to be a little more subdued because they see this EU vote as a small step in the right direction. That was certainly the sense I got when I had my little disagreement with the little scrote.
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Just this. I appreciate it's a couple of years old, but it's just bloody perfect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft338yltVLE
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So the multi party governing system that is currently in place will also be scrapped as part of the UK leaving the EU? Processes have been put in place that have been signed into constitution to hopefully stop some members of NI being effectively classed as second class citizens. Would an elected British Govt really risk changing this set up and relighting the fire just because it is no longer a member of the EU? I personally don't believe it would.
Look at who is also suggesting this scenario. Enda Kenny, a man who is holding onto office in Ireland by his finger nails and should really have resigned following the recent election. John Major, the least said about him the better and Tony Blair who will hopefully get his comeuppance shortly. As opposed to the current NI First Minister who branded the comments "disgraceful" but her views don't sit with the remain point of view so I guess they don't matter.
It's not the people who believe in the peace agreement who are the potential problem though - it's the ones who dont. There were Republican paramilitaries on the streets as recently as April - and protestants rioting with the police because they couldn't have their way in last years marching season. They may be a minority - but they are a bloody dangerous one.
Will a period of economic uncertainty cause social unrest and allow these fringe elements to recruit a new generation of unemployed, angry and frustrated youngsters who want to take out their frustration on someone somewhere? In Northern Ireland they dont have far to look.
I agree it is all part of 'Project Fear' to link this possibility up with the EU debate - but I wouldn't be so glib as to just laugh it off if I were you. History goes back a long way over there.
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So the multi party governing system that is currently in place will also be scrapped as part of the UK leaving the EU? Processes have been put in place that have been signed into constitution to hopefully stop some members of NI being effectively classed as second class citizens. Would an elected British Govt really risk changing this set up and relighting the fire just because it is no longer a member of the EU? I personally don't believe it would.
Missing the point. It's not about the top-down effect. It's about the bottom-up effect. What happens when the economy falters because of the economic effects of Brexit? What happens to the unemployed kids? And in an environment where a more militant British nationalism has been "vindicated"
Look at who is also suggesting this scenario. Enda Kenny, a man who is holding onto office in Ireland by his finger nails and should really have resigned following the recent election. John Major, the least said about him the better and Tony Blair who will hopefully get his comeuppance shortly. As opposed to the current NI First Minister who branded the comments "disgraceful" but her views don't sit with the remain point of view so I guess they don't matter.
Lovely. So three politicians that you disapprove of are spinning a line. But one who agrees with you is being fair and honest? Do you think that a senior DUP politician might have an agenda here? Putting the Catholics on the back foot and re-assuring the grassroots that DUP is first and foremost a UK-supporting organisation?
Or, just possibly, all people passionately believe in the truth of what they are saying, and we should look at the arguments on their merits?
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So the multi party governing system that is currently in place will also be scrapped as part of the UK leaving the EU? Processes have been put in place that have been signed into constitution to hopefully stop some members of NI being effectively classed as second class citizens. Would an elected British Govt really risk changing this set up and relighting the fire just because it is no longer a member of the EU? I personally don't believe it would.
Look at who is also suggesting this scenario. Enda Kenny, a man who is holding onto office in Ireland by his finger nails and should really have resigned following the recent election. John Major, the least said about him the better and Tony Blair who will hopefully get his comeuppance shortly. As opposed to the current NI First Minister who branded the comments "disgraceful" but her views don't sit with the remain point of view so I guess they don't matter.
It's not the people who believe in the peace agreement who are the potential problem though - it's the ones who dont. There were Republican paramilitaries on the streets as recently as April - and protestants rioting with the police because they couldn't have their way in last years marching season. They may be a minority - but they are a bloody dangerous one.
Will a period of economic uncertainty cause social unrest and allow these fringe elements to recruit a new generation of unemployed, angry and frustrated youngsters who want to take out their frustration on someone somewhere? In Northern Ireland they dont have far to look.
I agree it is all part of 'Project Fear' to link this possibility up with the EU debate - but I wouldn't be so glib as to just laugh it off if I were you. History goes back a long way over there.
Not sure where I've been glib about anything or attempted to laugh anything off, I just don't see the purpose in attempting to use the NI peace process as a political football in the EU referendum debate. Agree there are, and possibly always will be, underlying fractions but we have just gone through one of the worst economic periods in modern history and I don't believe this was ever raised as a potential threat to the peace process.
I don't want to get into a debate on NI per say but it's just another example of 'Project Fear' as you aptly name it, rather than having a real debate. Do I believe Farages comments are disgusting and out of order for trying to stir up prejudices against immigrants, absolutely I do. Do I also believe using the NI peace process as a scare tactic, again yes.
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So the multi party governing system that is currently in place will also be scrapped as part of the UK leaving the EU? Processes have been put in place that have been signed into constitution to hopefully stop some members of NI being effectively classed as second class citizens. Would an elected British Govt really risk changing this set up and relighting the fire just because it is no longer a member of the EU? I personally don't believe it would.
Missing the point. It's not about the top-down effect. It's about the bottom-up effect. What happens when the economy falters because of the economic effects of Brexit? What happens to the unemployed kids?
Lovely. So three politicians that you disapprove of are spinning a line. But one who agrees with you is being fair and honest? Do you think that a senior DUP politician might have an agenda here? Putting the Catholics on the back foot and re-assuring the grassroots that DUP is first and foremost a UK-supporting organisation?
[/quote]
That was also my point and isn't that what you're doing? Believing the politicians who you agree with but seeing any that sees things differently as spinning a line?
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Not quite.
I'm giving you reasons why the politicians that I agree with might be right.
I've heard no such argument from Leave. All I've heard is immediate shouting down of anyone who disagrees with them. But no explanation of WHY they are wrong.
I set out reasons why *I* think that Brexit would be dangerous for NI peace and why, therefore, I agree with the judgement of Blair and Major and Kenny. And Obama.
If you disagree with the arguments I set out, tell me why. That's how it's supposed to work.
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As I've said, I don't believe a vote to leave would cause a return to the troubles in NI due to the steps that have already been agreed with the multi party governing that is in place, even though you believe this is missing the point and isn't really relevant.
I also don't believe any elected govt would risk amending this agreement in light of the ramifications this would incur.
With regards bottom up, as I said, I don't recall the peace process being brought up as being under threat during the significant economic downturn and deep recession that the UK went through recently, so why would it be an issue in any economic down turn that would suffered following a leave vote? If you have evidence to show it was highlighted as being under threat then send me the link. Or is your argument because the British element in NI would be walking around with an inflated militant attitude due to not being a member of the EU?
A lot of work has been done on the peace process, work that was not dependent on EU membership, resulting in amendments to the constitution to put safeguards in place to hopefully arrest any slide back into the state of affairs that existed during the troubles.
I'm not sure what comments Obama made on the Brexit decision relating to the NI peace process so can't comment on this. If you think it's ok to use scare tactics and describe absolute worse case scenarios on a vote to leave then fair enough, but we'll have to differ on that.
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Regarding Irish terrorism and the recession.
The economy started tanking and unemployment rising from 2007 (although, interestingly, having been the basket case of the U.K. for generations, unemployment in NI in the last recession was lower than in the North East, North West, Yorkshire and Humberside and the West Mids in the UK.)
Anyway. I digress. Issue is that in late 2008, Sir Hugh Orde, the head of PSNI (who started in that role in 2002) said that the terrorism threat was the highest in his term in office.
Have a look at the activity of the Real IRA in the period before the Great Recession and during/after it.
You might not have heard much about economic conditions being a threat to peace. It doesn't mean that the threat didn't increase substantially.
In 2008/09, Hugh Orde
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'Project Fear' they're calling this. Someone I know has just tried to pass this off as their own (I think it was 'authored' by a chap called Peter Giles), and it appeared on my Facebook page a little while ago. I have cross-referenced some of this (I can't - and can't be arsed - to do it all), but - feck me - some folks will believe just about anything. Apologies in advance for the length of this, but - hey - those who believe that we should remain are the scaremongers...
Those who Facebook will be seeing this over the next few days. Probably. 2,500+ shares and counting...
"Something for the IN voters to think about, look at how much we've lost since joining the EU. There's not a lot left !!!
Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.
Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.
Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.
Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant.
British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.
Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.
Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.
M&S manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.
Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with with EU grants.
Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.
Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.
Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.
Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.
Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.
ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs
Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.
JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.
UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.
Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.
Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online.
Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada.
39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU
The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.
Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn't paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Name me one major technology company still running in the UK, I used to contract out to many, then the work just dried up as they were sold off to companies from France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc., and now we don't even teach electronic technology for technicians any more, due to EU regulations.
I haven't detailed our non-existent fishing industry the EU paid to destroy, nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing, don't even go there.
I haven't mentioned what it costs us to be asset-stripped like this, nor have I mentioned immigration, nor the risk to our security if control of our armed forces is passed to Brussels or Germany.
Find something that's gone the other way, I've looked and I just can't. If you think the EU is a good idea,
1/ You haven't read the party manifesto of The European Peoples' Party.
2/ You haven't had to deal with EU petty bureaucracy tearing your business down.
3/ You don't care."
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Eeeh them f**king Europeans, eh? Nasty, grabbing bas**rds. Shame we've got nobody that savvy at the heights of British industry and finance...
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Regarding Irish terrorism and the recession.
The economy started tanking and unemployment rising from 2007 (although, interestingly, having been the basket case of the U.K. for generations, unemployment in NI in the last recession was lower than in the North East, North West, Yorkshire and Humberside and the West Mids in the UK.)
Anyway. I digress. Issue is that in late 2008, Sir Hugh Orde, the head of PSNI (who started in that role in 2002) said that the terrorism threat was the highest in his term in office.
Have a look at the activity of the Real IRA in the period before the Great Recession and during/after it.
You might not have heard much about economic conditions being a threat to peace. It doesn't mean that the threat didn't increase substantially.
In 2008/09, Hugh Orde
You might not have heard much about economic conditions being a threat to peace. It doesn't mean that the threat didn't increase substantially.
Ok, I'll have to trust you on this one!
But my original point still stands, I think so anyway. By all means massage figures that relate to employment, how much pensioners will have left in their purse, how much we'll save from leaving, how much we'll lose from leaving. But when it comes to issues such as the peace process, if the politicians want to introduce it as an issue then they should be explaining why, rather than just presenting the doomsday scenario and leaving it at that.
It shouldn't be used as a one liner headline grabber designed to scare. They should have stated the reasons why it could happen and in reply why it couldn't happen.
Me and you have debated it tonight but I shouldn't have to be sat here googling "RIRA activity in 2008" at 1 in the morning!
I'm off to bed now, goodnight.
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For information, the Irish Republic is not in Schengen and the border issue was dealt with by a treaty of 1923.
Given how the Irish people were shafted over the Euro, I think if we voted to leave many of them would want to join us.
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For information, the Irish Republic is not in Schengen and the border issue was dealt with by a treaty of 1923.
But they are in the Single Market and therefore have freedom of movement.
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I've heard no such argument from Leave. All I've heard is immediate shouting down of anyone who disagrees with them. But no explanation of WHY they are wrong.
I think you'll like this quote from Arron Banks (Co-founder of Leave.EU) that was in the i newspaper yesterday:
'If turnout is low we win. If it's high, we lose. Our strategy is to bore the electorate into submission and it's working.'
So it's not about the facts in the slightest for them.
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Dn
Aye. I was already fast asleep. But yes, that's how this sort of issue should be assessed. We should go beyond the headlines and read about issues. I couldn't agree more that both sides are using the scare headlines. My opinion though is that the Leave side are taking that to another level in their peddling of what they know to be utterly misleading information, and their disgraceful attacks on independent bodies who disagree with them.
TRB
It's not about Schengen. It's about the Single Market. Gove and Farrage (who appear to be making up policy on a whim each day) are now saying that we wouldn't have to stay in the Single Market [1]. But if we don't, then the NI/Ireland border becomes the border between the UK and the Single Market. So you need customs checkpoints there. And the freedom of movement across the border that currently helps the social and economic aspects of both countries will grind to a halt.
Just because the Brexit side is making up stuff as they go, it doesn't mean that the other side are equally culpable. There are real, deeply serious consequences to Brexit. If we stumble into the vote without thinking about them, we deserve everything we get. As with so many issues, the Leave side's response is, "Don't worry. It'll be alright." Which actually means, "we haven't thought about this and we don't want you to think about it either."
[1]Of course they are. Because one lie that they haven't been able to maintain is that we could stay in the Single Market but not have free movement of people. So we can't have a Switzerland arrangement. We can't have a Norway arrangement. We'll have a...oh, we'll sort it out later arrangement.
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Glyn. That can't be right. I thought the leave side had high-minded principles about democracy and the need for British democracy to stand against the tyrants in Brussels.
As I've said before, they KNOW that their substantive points are all built on lies and half-truths. I wonder what the REAL purpose is behind their zeal to get us out of Europe?
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The Schengen point was in response to an earlier poster who claimed that the Republic was a member of Schengen.
As for customs, that would depend less on the Single Market and more on the arrangements negotiated between an independent UK and Ireland, something which might not please the Eurocrats but would be massively in the Republic's interests.
One key point about Remain: Their whole case appears to be based on the notion that the UK is fundamentally weak. So while the EU would go on its merry way without us, we would be bankrupt. I do not believe that to be the case. Far from it.
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NO TRB.
It would NOT work like that. Ireland is in the Single Market. Ireland will STAY in the Single Market. Therefore the border between NI and Ireland will be de facto a border between the UK and the Single Market.
Ireland could not independently negotiate its own deal with a third party without being kicked out of the Single Market.
As I say, yet another example of the Leave side simply not thinking through the consequences of Brexit.
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And by the way, you're setting up straw men. No one says that we are fundamentally weak. No one says that we would be bankrupt outside the EU. It doesn't help that you set up arguments that haven't been made to attempt to strengthen your own case.
What I personally believe, and what I've seen time and again from the Remain side is that we would be substantially better off and safer inside the EU. The sky wouldn't fall in if we left. There WOULD undoubtedly be a sharp initial recession. I don't think anyone disputes that, and that in itself seems like a very foolish thing to wish upon yourself. But after that, we would find ways to make our situation work. It just wouldn't work as well as it would have done by staying in. We'd be on a worse trajectory (which would compound on the fact that we've already dropped onto a worse trajectory of economic growth due to the stupidity of Austerity. (see here and expand the timescale to MAX http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-per-capita)
It'd be a long, slow decline, not a collapse. My grandkids would inherit a fundamentally worse UK than they needed to do.
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One key point about Remain: Their whole case appears to be based on the notion that the UK is fundamentally weak. So while the EU would go on its merry way without us, we would be bankrupt. I do not believe that to be the case. Far from it.
Why would we be bankrupt? We'd be disadvantaged in the market place but not bankrupt. Another example of hyperbole like Farage's, perhaps?
As for the UK being weak, it's not about the UK being weak, it's just a fact of life that trading entities (whether that is individual countries or a bloc) that are smaller than who they are negotiating with are always at a disadvantage. Leaving the EU trading bloc would put us at a substantial disadvantage in negotiating trade deals compared to being part of the EU bloc. If you think differently I'd love to hear the logic behind it.
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The EU is not a trading bloc, though. It was when we joined it but it is now a Federal Super-state in the making. Had it remained a trading bloc, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
And you are ignoring the fact that we buy more from the EU than they buy from us. I can't see them wanting to cut off one of their biggest and best markets.
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The EU is not a trading bloc, though. It was when we joined it but it is now a Federal Super-state in the making. Had it remained a trading bloc, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
And you are ignoring the fact that we buy more from the EU than they buy from us. I can't see them wanting to cut off one of their biggest and best markets.
The EU IS a trading bloc. It might have become more than that now but it still IS a trading bloc when dealing with non-EU members and it therefore has more power in trade negotiations that the UK has on its own.
And please please please stop thinking that the UK outside the EU wil get something other countries outside of the EU don't get. We won't, no matter how much the Brexiters keep deluding themselves and others. Yes, the EU will keep trading with the UK but the costs of both imports and exports will go up unless the UK has the same arrangement as Norway - but that comes with freedom of movement attached and there will be no exception from that for the UK. However, the assumption that Brexiters have that once the UK leaves the EU that the EU will then bend over backwards and give the UK whatever it wants is Little Englandism of the worst kind - the EU will negotiate the best deal for THEM, and bugger what the UK wants. We won't get Full Free Trade without being in the Single Market. Even if we get EC Tariff Preference (which would only be for goods deemed to be of UK origin, the rules for which are incredibly complex) there are still costs in going through Customs both ways as even though there may not be any Customs Duty liable, a Customs Declaration has to be made to record the movement of the goods - whch doesn't have to be made when in the Single Market. Freight Forwarders charge about £100 per consignment to process Customs Declarations....
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The EU is not a trading bloc, though. It was when we joined it but it is now a Federal Super-state in the making. Had it remained a trading bloc, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
And you are ignoring the fact that we buy more from the EU than they buy from us. I can't see them wanting to cut off one of their biggest and best markets.
What you are in effect saying there TRB is that we can withdraw £350m per week (Vote Leave figures) from the EU Budget and there will be no repercussions for us. Do you really believe that? Why?
Because rational thought - and the German Finance Minister - think otherwise:
Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has slammed the door on Britain retaining access to the single market if it votes to the leave the European Union.
In an interview in a Brexit-themed issue of German weekly Der Spiegel, the influential veteran politician ruled out the possibility of the UK following a Swiss or Norwegian model where it could enjoy the benefits of the single market without being an EU member.
“That won’t work,” Schäuble told Der Spiegel. “It would require the country to abide by the rules of a club from which it currently wants to withdraw.
“If the majority in Britain opts for Brexit, that would be a decision against the single market. In is in. Out is out. One has to respect the sovereignty of the British people.”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/10/no-single-market-access-for-uk-after-brexit-wolfgang-schauble-says
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Interesting how Gove, that very particular wordsmith is using his words in that article.
He's pushing the line that "we will still have access to the Single market after Brexit.
Of course we will. That is bleeding obvious. Amazonian rainforest dwellers can buy and sell into the single market if they want to.
The issue is, at what cost?
This is all very reminiscent of the Scottish referendum. Salmond crowed about how "We can keep the Pound." That was never in question. They could use whatever they wanted as a currency. Pounds, dollars, Turkish Lira or Irn-Bru bottle tops. Anything. The real question was "at what cost?"
Mind, back to your main point Wilts, I have to say that the idea of Schaueble wading into the debate is enough almost to drive ME to join Leave. The man is a t**t who bears more responsibility than anyone for the Greek tragedy. He's a bully and an obsessed ideologue. He's pushing this particular line too far. It is perfectly possible for the UK to have a Swiss or Norweigian deal outside the EU. Although the Leave don't want that anyway as it would require acceptance of freedom of movement. So it's a pointless discussion and he should have just kept his oar out.
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The EU is not a trading bloc, though. It was when we joined it but it is now a Federal Super-state in the making. Had it remained a trading bloc, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
And you are ignoring the fact that we buy more from the EU than they buy from us. I can't see them wanting to cut off one of their biggest and best markets.
What you are in effect saying there TRB is that we can withdraw £350m per week (Vote Leave figures) from the EU Budget and there will be no repercussions for us. Do you really believe that? Why?
Because rational thought - and the German Finance Minister - think otherwise:
Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has slammed the door on Britain retaining access to the single market if it votes to the leave the European Union.
In an interview in a Brexit-themed issue of German weekly Der Spiegel, the influential veteran politician ruled out the possibility of the UK following a Swiss or Norwegian model where it could enjoy the benefits of the single market without being an EU member.
“That won’t work,” Schäuble told Der Spiegel. “It would require the country to abide by the rules of a club from which it currently wants to withdraw.
“If the majority in Britain opts for Brexit, that would be a decision against the single market. In is in. Out is out. One has to respect the sovereignty of the British people.”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/10/no-single-market-access-for-uk-after-brexit-wolfgang-schauble-says
I don't believe there will be no repercussions. However I don't think they will be anything as severe as the worst-case scenarios that the Remain campaign has put out. Largely because of the way that the Euro has worked out. Of course, that could change, but one of the reasons I'm voting Leave is because the EU is fundamentally (psychologically?) unable to adapt to changing circumstances.
And I would agree with BST, Schauble's intervention is not helpful to Remain, even though he probably intended it to be so.
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I am beginning to draw the conclusion that we'll vote to leave. My gut's been thinking that for the last week or so, and now we're hearing more and more that 'Leave' is pulling away.
That said, I was sure that Scotland was going to vote for its independence.
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Lipsy, I'm with your conclusion on the vote but then I have been all the way through. My reasoning being nothing more sophisticated than the fact that there are enough people amongst the working classes in this country sufficiently gullible to vote in a tory government, and the same gullibility will see them voting us out of the EU.
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It's what happens when you have for two generations, a culture which supposes that all people in public service are corrupt liars. It's a really, really dangerous attitude to take root in a democracy. It leaves you wide open to snake oil salesmen like Farage or Trump coming along, putting an arm round your shoulder, saying, "Yes, we understand that you are getting a shit deal. Yes, we agree that 'The Estsblishment' works against you. It works against us too. Yes we know that it's the Pakis/Poles/Mexicans who are to blame. The Establishment will never admit that. They wouldn't because they are all liars and in it for themselves. But you and I know it don't we."
That's what's been happening on both sides of the pond. Trump is within touching distance of the White House. Farrage is within touching distance of starting to bring the European project crashing down.
And I've STILL heard no-one from the Leave side say why it is they think that Farage never has a bad word to say for Putin.
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Part of what keeps the wolves away from the door here at chez Lipsy involves a certain amount of social media and, whilst I appreciate that you can't always take too much from the invisible tub-thumpers, some of the stuff I am reading and seeing is positively depressing.
That said, on my own Facebook page my cousin's husband has just shared something pretty vile referring to Eddie Izzard as a 'she' (complete with a picture of him in his current choice of attire) as a legit reason to vote out. That's the level we're at with this right now. Grim and pathetic.
Historically-speaking, we've often held ourselves in the middle when our neighbours have veered to the right - that's what I have been reminding myself. I just don't think that's going to happen this time and the fact that we don't have a credible leader of the 'Remain' campaign really doesn't help.
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Id just like to say that thread, and the information in it has enabled me to make my mind up, vote posted cheers lads and lasses
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Lipsy, I'm with your conclusion on the vote but then I have been all the way through. My reasoning being nothing more sophisticated than the fact that there are enough people amongst the working classes in this country sufficiently gullible to vote in a tory government, and the same gullibility will see them voting us out of the EU.
Agreed 100%. The working classes are being conned by the 1% to think they can be like them too. The impossible dream.
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I'm saddened too by the fact that such a lot of thuis debate, nationally I mean, has been reduced to 'cost'. I'll be better off if we're in - or out - depending upon your point of view. For me, cost, money, drinking tokens, is the absolute least important thing that matters. We couldn't avoid retreating from Splendid Isolation a 100 years ago. And we were, relatively speaking, pretty rich back then both financially and militarily. Now we have neither in such abundance. Yet the threats have multiplied like topsy. There is a dangerous, dangoerus man sitting in the Kremlin. There are dangerous people who, one day, will find a way to bring mass destruction to the shores of the west. There is economic imperialism of the very worst kind leaching across the Atlantic. And we think we can stand by outside the halls of power? It's delusional.
BobG
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BST do you know of or anything about Jim Mellon?
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I see the Chairman of Tesco has come out in support of the remain campaign, he says that leaving would be catastrophic for small business, leading them to be bullied out of business. Yes thats the same Tesco that bullies their own suppliers into signing an agreement to be exclusive to Tesco and who Tesco can ditch on a whim!
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BST do you know of or anything about Jim Mellon?
Nope. Never heard of him.
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My other half had an interesting e-mail from her Israeli friend who couldn't get his head around the fact we saved Europe twice in the last century, it would not look like it does today without us. Yet we look likely to be leaving?!?! Crazy to him.
To me the eu's feked and will fall apart anyway. I don't want us to be the reason. There will be abject poverty when it happens and with that will come wars! I'm happy that at the min the weaker nations look to Germany as the self serving nation of Europe. Id hate the whole region to point at us and collectively say you did this! Scary.
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If the 'Remain' campaign is 'Project fear' then what in the name of all that is unholy is this?
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck1TIHcXIAEq0H2.jpg:large)
That, right there, is a disgrace. Naturally, the moron brigade are showing their true colours by offering their support to this garbage. Do remember that you're not allowed to use the 'r' word about anyone supporting 'Leave'.
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If the 'Remain' campaign is 'Project fear' then what in the name of all that is unholy is this?
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck1TIHcXIAEq0H2.jpg:large)
That, right there, is a disgrace. Naturally, the moron brigade are showing their true colours by offering their support to this garbage. Do remember that you're not allowed to use the 'r' word about anyone supporting 'Leave'.
Totally agree, it is a disgrace. The leave argument isn't and shouldn't be about that, shame on them.
A few old colleagues of mine lost friends in Orlando, some of them also attend that club, so it makes it even worse to me that anyone would use that.
There is a point in extremism being worse and open borders can harm us in some ways in allowing movement of people, but to say it will stop it is wrong. They could still get here and how many terrorist attacks in the country have been caused by foreigners?
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Everyone seems to think it is a f**king disgrace. Apart from Farage. He's done his usual thing of throwing his hands up and saying "Leave.eu? Nothing to do with me!" Even though he has consistently backed the organisation and regularly discusses strategy with their leaders.
He was given ample opportunity to express his disgust at that poster today. He flatly refused to do so. The man is beyond disgusting.
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I actually find it unbelievable. Surely that must have passed through a number of people's hands before being released, people educated to some level, and not one of them questioned the morality of releasing it.
Surely it's also been counter productive. I can't imagine anyone changing their vote to leave because of that poster/tweet but can imagine a lot of undecided or people marginally voting leave changing to remain.
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That poster is so ridiculous it actually looks like a spoof one you'd see in Private Eye rather than an offical one!
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Dn
That's the generous interpretation.
The cynical one is that they know damn f**king well what they are doing; anything and everything to keep immigration the No1 issue in the public debate.
It's interesting that Farage refused all those opportunities to disown that poster today, but he chose instead to hammer on the immigration issue. So the cynic in me does wonder if it is an utterly deliberate policy. Which, frankly, is more frightening that disgusting.
We already know that there is no bigger liar in politics than Farage. I don't for a moment believe that he's above orchestrating this sort of stunt to give him a stage to push his line.
Remember that he's not trying to win a rational argument. He's appeal to gut instincts. It does make you wonder what depths he'd consider to be too low to plumb if he's not prepared to condemn the use of the murder of 50 people for political purposes.
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It actually does look like a fake, doesn't it? Sadly, it's not.
I think that the thing that bothers me (aside from all the obvious things) is that idea that, as you said Dn2Dn0, people saw it and thought it was fine to put it out there. Not only that but those very same people figured it would strike a chord with 'Brexiteers'... Depressingly, there were plenty of people who saw it that agreed with it.
They walk among us.
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I see Trump has said:
The immigration laws of the United States give the president powers to suspend entry into the country of any class of persons. ... I would use this power to protect the American people. When I'm elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we fully understand how to end these threats.
So that'll mean, off the top of my head:
UK
Ireland
France
Belgium
Germany
Italy
Spain
f**k me. To think that this dipshit might actually win in November.
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I used to think Bush the Younger was a buffoon. Not any longer. There's only 2 possibilities aren't there? Either Trump really does believe this idiotic statement, or, he's saying it to get votes. But if it's that, what the chuffing hell does he think will happen if/when he opens the front door of the White House?
Remember all that stuff about 'Terrorists won't make us change our values or the way we live'? Hmmm. Airports? Surveillance. 50 billion plods on the streets of France this month. A state of national emergency in France that's now entering, what? It's 4th month? Rampant racism and xenophobic nationalism becoming acceptable in mainstream politics on both sides of the Atlantic. All at least partly, if not wholly, due to the impact that terrorism has. Just think for a few minutes - add Trump to that and what will we all get....?
BobG
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It's very sad to see most of the world, giving way to hatred, you can feel it building. Leave or stay in should have nothing to do with hatred, when you vote, you vote for what you think is right. Immigration is part of it, but there are many other things to consider before putting you're cross in the box.
People think the world is bad now, wait a while, and see people like farage, trump etc get any sort of power, and you will want time to go back to where we are now.
Both those men appeal because of what is seen as them being straight talking, and they are supposedly thinking like you. These sort of people reveal very little until in power, they hold back the real extreme views they have, give them power and you could very easily be putting into power similar men to hitler.
I know some will say, they wouldn't do anything like he did, how do we know?. I'm sure many thought the same of hitler, before he was in power, we live in ever increasing dangerous times, that tell me we have learned very little from history.
I am concerned about many things in our country, and the world as a whole, i have already finished my vote, and it didn't take in either sides prejudices, i voted for my future, my families, and that which i think is best for the country. The world is in chaos at the minute.
All i would say to anybody who hasn't voted, don't let any hatred into you're heart, choose what's best in you're opinion for you're family and friends.
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This is the man who could soon have his finger on the red button.
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/
Compare and contrast.
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/
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That nasty European Court of Justice eh?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36526158
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Isn't the nasty European Court of Justice all about bringing us to our knees, whilst the EU has spent years asset-stripping this once great nation of ours? I am reading from the right script, yes?
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I'm afraid Tom Watson is misleading people by suggesting that free movement rules can be changed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36523759
Cameron would have loved to have brought back that sort of change.
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Surprised to see the polls largely showing a leave lead at the moment, it would still very much surprise me. Fair to say it's a tight race.
The campaigning on both fronts gets no better though does it?
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Vote Leave have tweeted this.
https://mobile.twitter.com/vote_leave/status/742747673598517252
Interesting polling data but I'm not sure I draw the same conclusions that they do. If the lukewarm Remainers haven't been persuaded to the Leave side by now, is it likely that they will be in the last few days?
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Just as a matter of interest has anyone in this thread had a change of opinion regarding which way to vote?
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Just as a matter of interest has anyone in this thread had a change of opinion regarding which way to vote?
Not me, I'm voting to leave
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Just as a matter of interest has anyone in this thread had a change of opinion regarding which way to vote?
Not me, I'm voting to leave
Likewise. Tough choice but my mind hasn't changed.
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Nope. Voting Remain.
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The only positive of a leave result would be that Cameron would get what the t**t deserves. The satisfaction of that though would be short-lived given that we would lumber ourselves with Boris Johnson. The debates on here have only strengthened my conviction to remain.
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Remain, I'm no EU fan but its not our job to destroy it. That would be the ultimate outcome. Stay in, keep out of the euro zone and restrict the damage when it implodes in 2yrs time.
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Just as a matter of interest has anyone in this thread had a change of opinion regarding which way to vote?
Not me, I'm voting to leave
Don't moan when the self-inflicted recession comes along then Filo.
Turkeys and Christmas...
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Considering the vast majority of Leave's arguments have been debunked by facts, and yet are mystifyingly still being peddled, nope, I'm still Remain.
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The only to reason to leave would be that life is that bad there's no alternative, which is of course not true for the vast majority of British citizens. You've got the economic/trade argument and, of course, the immigration issues. It looks more and more likely that if we leave immigration from the EU won't change dramatically as EU countries will demand free movement of people in return for favourable trade deals, and even with those deals our economy will shrink and suffer, especially in the short-term. So why leave?
You've also got this big amount of money we will save that can be spent on other things, such as the NHS, schools, British forces. Now, who in their right mind thinks the Tories will spend any money we save on these things??
*Drops the mic*
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You've also got this big amount of money we will save that can be spent on other things, such as the NHS, schools, British forces. Now, who in their right mind thinks the Tories will spend any money we save on these things??
This in my view is actually not relevant to the debate. The point is we would have those funds as a country and the ability for our government directly elected by our people to decide what it should be spent on. Not a European parliament spreading it far and wide. There's many things different parties have and will choose that I'm no fan of, but it doesn't make any difference to the stance on Europe.
As for Sturgeon's comments about voting remain to prevent another party doing what she doesn't want, that's out of order. The people of the country have decided in elections who should be in power and that should be respected. It's certainly not a reason to vote to stay in the EU at all.
As for Osbourne's so called 'revenge budget', that scaremongering is not right and should be frowned upon, though it doesn't surprise me with him either.
I still would be surprised to see leave win, but it's close.
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BFYP
You're doing the accountant thing. You're looking at those numbers in isolation.
We will NOT have that money to spend as we see fit, because what we may gain in reduced payments to the EU will be lost many times over in reduced economic performance. That is the overwhelming consensus of economists in this country and abroad.
Put it this way. Our net payment is less than 0.5% of GDP. The CBI estimates that membership of the EU boosts our economy by 4-5% of GDP compared to any rational alternative arrangement.
You're being conned I'm afraid.
Leave is, at core, an ideologically driven idea. It's about the notion of sovereignty. Now, we can discuss that concept on its merits, but the economic aspect is about as clear as any issue can be in that field. If we leave, we are knowingly choosing a significantly poorer future. Anyone who tells you differently is either bullshitting you (Farage, Johnson, Gove, IDS et al) or is from the furthest fringes of economic wrongheadedness (eg Minford).
The Leave economic case is built on:
a) lies about this £350m per week contribution.
b) refusal to engage in any macroeconomic discussion or projections about alternative scenarios.
c) insistence that "it'll be alright."
d) Throwing out slurs and questioning the motives of anyone who does present detailed projections.
There isn't an economic argument to support Leave. That's why they don't engage in a discussion beyond those 4 points.
Make your decision on sovereignty if you wish. But don't do it whilst convincing yourself that we'll be economically better off leaving. You owe it to yourself and to the country to be honest and clear about that.
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In the short term it is obvious we will be worse off as a country but don't you think that long term we could be stronger?
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In the short term it is obvious we will be worse off as a country but don't you think that long term we could be stronger?
Yes, we could. But then Nigel Farage could also be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. I'm not wasting any money at the bookies backing it though.
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As John Maynard Keynes said, in the long run we are all dead.
Point is, there is no sensible economic modelling that indicates that we WILL be better off in the long run. Meantime, we know as well as we can know anything in economics that we WILL be worse off in the short to medium term. And the effect is cumulative. Lose 1% of GDP per annum for 5 years and we end up £250bn poorer as a country.
What gets me about the Leave argument is that, when faced with that, they say:
a) I don't trust those numbers: you can't predict what will happen
Followed by
b) But we'll be better off in the long run anyway.
See the logic breakdown? Either you CAN predict, in which case accept the overwhelming consensus that Leave will hit us hard for the rest of the decade. Or you CAN'T predict. In which case, you are guessing what the future will be. You can't have it both ways.
But the single most mendacious argument from Leave is "oh, the economic predictions are mixed."
No they are not. Not in the way that we'd normally consider that to mean. Economists overwhelmingly believe that we will be worse off both in the short term AND in the long term.
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3739/Economists-Views-on-Brexit.aspx
The Leave side is telling you to ignore that. To trust instead the judgement of Farage and Johnson. Of Nigel Lawson who brought you the mad late 80s boom, inflation and early 90s recession. Of Norman Lamont, who brought you Black Wednesday. Of Patrick Minford who brought you the insane monetarist experiment of the early 80s which failed to control inflation and gave us 2-3m unemployment for a decade.
And they then say that anyone who questions their arguments is scaremongering.
Like I say, vote Leave if you wish. But do it from a position of having carefully thought about the economics and the economic arguments. Don't deceive yourself that there is a subtletly balanced argument here. There isn't.
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PS:
The Leave economic case is built on:
a) lies about this £350m per week contribution.
b) refusal to engage in any macroeconomic discussion or projections about alternative scenarios.
c) insistence that "it'll be alright."
d) Throwing out slurs and questioning the motives of anyone who does present detailed projections.
On the radio this morning, an hour or so after I posted that, a UKIP MEP used EXACTLY those 4 arguments, in that order.
The same woman, in the same interview said, within the same 60 seconds:
We have the equivalent of the city of Newcastle arriving every year through immigration. We are going to have 10m more immigrants.
Followed by:
You can't plan public services if you don't know how many immigrants we're going to have.
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BFYP, if it isn't relevant to the debate why are the leave politicians using it? To con the gullible amongst us into supporting them.
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Vote for either stay or leave, and we still have the same problem, trying to guess what's going to happen in the future, the answer is nobody truly knows.
The politicians have been no help at all, both sides laying the extremes out, they haven't made it easy for any of us to decide where the cross goes.
There is too much infighting and jockeying for position going on. If only labour had a leader that could take advantage of all this turmoil that the tories are in. Unfortunately labour are a bigger basket case than they are!.
How i see it look at the area you live in, look at the opportunties that are available to your kids when work comes along. Are you happy if the village you live in has a big influx of people?. Are there enough houses for them to have a home?. Will immigrants improve you're area? or make it worse?.
Can you get you're kids into the local school?, if yes will it be likely to be like that in the future?. Have the government been building a bigger system to cope with extra people coming here to live?.
Is it safer to have people coming from different countries?, or is it safer to have some control over borders with our own government deciding?, i know Schengen will be quoted, but is it working?.
Will companies start training our own kids if we leave, with a view to employing them?, as some are not bothering as foreign workers have already been earmarked for the jobs!.
Do you think the government has your best interests at heart when they say stay?. Are Boris& co so determined because they are worried about you're future?. Will the government if it leaves spend the money saved on improving the country?.
If we leave will the government put more funding into training our own people so they can qualify to be nurses and doctors?. If we stay will the increased presence of nurses and doctors in the nhs who don't speak proper english lead to more mistakes?.
Which is safer for you're kids future taking a guess, for communities to be pretty much where they are now, with mixed values and beliefs?, or with a lot more people in each area with mixed values and beliefs?.
Would the nhs collapse without these hardworking people from abroad?. Is our nhs capable of treating a new cities worth of extra people?.
Finally which is safer, taking a guess because that's all we can do, is it safer to go back to how we were?, or is it safer to have millions of people flooding into the country?.
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Hahaha, "guess"? one side has set out an economic argument, the other has basically said "trust us, we'll be alright".
And as for the immigration argument, if that's your sole reason for voting to leave, then f**king hell.
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Last few Polls showing consistent if small leads for Leave. Going to be very close either way.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/743357571667419137/photo/1
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Last few Polls showing consistent if small leads for Leave. Going to be very close either way.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/743357571667419137/photo/1
Still 20% who might yet change their mind
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClDuE7UUYAAMcsg.jpg)
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I think that the final result will be a small majority to remain.
This ought to tell both the British government and the EU that there are serious issues that a good percentage of the electorate think need addressing.
Most aren't necessarily against what the Common Market was formed as but are very concerned about what the EU is becoming without having any influence on changing it.
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I think that the final result will be a small majority to remain.
This ought to tell both the British government and the EU that there are serious issues that a good percentage of the electorate think need addressing.
Most aren't necessarily against what the Common Market was formed as but are very concerned about what the EU is becoming without having any influence on changing it.
Inclined to agree. The experience of the Scottish Referendum is that quite a lot of people switched sides at the last minute.
I go back to poll Vote Leave tweeted. Unlike them I'm not sure they can count on more than 3-4% of those who are wavering Remainers.
https://mobile.twitter.com/vote_leave/status/742747673598517252
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Also interesting that both Teresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have talked about further reform of the EU if we stay in.
One disadvantage that Remain has which the No campaign in Scotland didn't have is that Remain can't offer concessions in the face of increasing Leave support. Talking about reform is the nearest they can come to that. Although it does beg the question as to why Cameron couldn't secure something more far-reaching.
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BFYP
We will NOT have that money to spend as we see fit, because what we may gain in reduced payments to the EU will be lost many times over in reduced economic performance. That is the overwhelming consensus of economists in this country and abroad.
Put it this way. Our net payment is less than 0.5% of GDP. The CBI estimates that membership of the EU boosts our economy by 4-5% of GDP compared to any rational alternative arrangement.
And here is my point, it's based on assumptions. Neither you or I can confirm what will happen either way, though I don't think anyone would argue against a short term shock. I then would expect the economics to settle down simply because we are not as entwined in Europe as anyone thinks. I'm also pretty convinced a free trade deal could be done, the EU has more to lose than us.
It isn't solely about economics for me though. You ask me to admit that and I do, it's about more than that.
My stance is fairly clear. Integration and common sharing of strenghts is good, I've no issue with that, but it is all far too far. Freedom of movement, imposed laws, imposed financial contributions and mass redistribution of wealth continent wide are not positives to me. We can be a co-ordinated Europe, but we should still clearly be Britain, France, Germany, Spain etc - we should work together but still be seperate. It is the movement towards a European state that I don't want to part of. We are still vitally important in or out and we've not a great amount to fear upon leaving. It won't all be positive, but it won't all be bad.
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His message is one of hope, apparently...
(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3f510b25581c993fae11fe42817a9c6d3780f376/0_305_5049_3029/master/5049.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=03df8fb02a8b973725b4e6739b8d3c30)
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BFYP
Of course you can't CONFIRM what will happen after next Thursday. No more than you can "confirm" that you'll disembark safely when you climb on a plane.
When you fly, you trust the collective judgement of a lot of very smart people who have devoted their lives to developing models of how complex systems ought to respond to complex situations. They don't know for certain that they are right. They make a best estimate. And YOU put your faith in them every time you fly.
Why won't you do the same thing on the economics arguments about Brexit. Why does that issue become a "well, ANYTHING could happen" response?
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Sammy
That post is a symptom of one of the most worrying features in the modern debate.
What you post about politicians is simply untrue. There ARE some who go into politics for personal aggrandisement - Boris Johnson is the most obvious example. There are plenty who are not brilliant at what they do. But the overwhelming majority are hard-working, diligent, and in it because (whether you agree with them or not) they have a belief that they can help to make things better for the people of the country.
I vehemently disagree with pretty much everything that IDS and Gove believe in. But they DO believe in their main political ideals and they work damn hard to try to get them implemented because they fervently belief that they would make the country a better place.
Your post is an exemplar of the modern cynicism that assumes that everyone in politics is out for themselves and no-one else. It never was true and it isn't today. Go and speak to a politician. Go and speak to the local ones like Lucas, Winterton or Miliband. Book a session at their surgery. Spend 5 minutes in their company and get an idea of the drive and zeal and nous that they have.
What really scares me is that the sort of wrong-headed ideas that you have are very, very common. It is, frankly, ignorance parading as intelligent scepticism. And when people are as disconnected as that from politics and politicians, it leaves us open to be seduced by the smart, savvy snake-oil salesmen who really ARE only in it for themselves. Like the Kitson who is angling to replace Cameron.
And some MPs end up giving more than anyone should ever have to.
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I think that the final result will be a small majority to remain.
This ought to tell both the British government and the EU that there are serious issues that a good percentage of the electorate think need addressing.
Most aren't necessarily against what the Common Market was formed as but are very concerned about what the EU is becoming without having any influence on changing it.
Inclined to agree. The experience of the Scottish Referendum is that quite a lot of people switched sides at the last minute.
I go back to poll Vote Leave tweeted. Unlike them I'm not sure they can count on more than 3-4% of those who are wavering Remainers.
https://mobile.twitter.com/vote_leave/status/742747673598517252
I am inclined to agree with both of you. I settled on Remain ages ago and given I have a Postal Vote sent it off a week ago after which I felt "relieved" and all the arguments both pro and anti are irrelevant to me
However Mrs DW is one who is still genuinely wrestling trying to come up with a definitive and decisive opinion (on this issue - she is usually good on others !). She is agonising because she wants to "get it right" for the generations to come but in truth we cant / probably never will know what choosing one rather than the other would have made.
I don't blame her - I blame the fact that we as lay people have been exposed by Referendum to a horrendous and difficult (almost impossible) choice without any real facts. I said that in my first post when it all kicked off and so it has proven that the campaign would be one of myths and counter myths with phrases such as "a leap in the dark" becoming the norm.
We wanted FACTS and we have not had them because in the main I suppose they aren't available and its such a travesty that we are supposed as an electorate to decide by "hunch" or "personality".... and I can see (guessing) that like Scottish Independence wont go away because the Pro vote there can see chances to bring it up again and again till they win - that if the Vote here is "Remain" by a few percentage points then the issue will continue rumbling on - the losing Leave people will fight on and on. It WONT be a done deal
However the sad thing if we vote Leave (say 51 49) - that will be that surely ? No way back - possibly shot ourselves in foot - negotiating to make a controlled withdrawal - and there will be no chance of the 49% being able to remonstrate. Its over !
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The EU now seems just like the big multi-national companies that flout laws and reach decisions that benefit nobody but themselves and their shareholders.
Reform is needed but unfortunately that seems something that we can't influence.
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Yeah. Like the working week directive. And the Strategy for Sustainable Development. I'm sure Bug Business was campaigning hard for those.
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Yeah. Like the working week directive. And the Strategy for Sustainable Development. I'm sure Bug Business was campaigning hard for those.
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/industrial-relations-dictionary/zero-hours-contracts
"There is no regulation of zero-hours contracts at European level, and their implementation varies between Member States. In Ireland, there is some legal protection for employees on zero-hours contracts while in Italy the use of on-call contracts is restricted by law. In the Netherlands, during the first six months of a work relationship the employer has to pay only for the hours worked. However, after this period, the employer has to pay for the average hours worked in the previous three months for as long as the contract is active, even if the worker is never called in. Collective sectoral agreements can extend this six-month period indefinitely and add other elements.
In the UK, a zero-hours contract is not a legal term and has no specific legal status. Thus its conditions vary from employer to employer. Zero-hours contracts are a particular focus of debate in the UK, where there have been calls from trade unions and employee representative bodies for more regulation."
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And your point is?
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It looks like his point is that the British government hasn't done anything about zero-hours contracts and he thinks the EU should. That's what it looks like anyway.
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But then they'd be interfering in British affairs affecting our sovereignty in order to try to protect workers' rights. bas**rds.
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But then they'd be interfering in British affairs affecting our sovereignty in order to try to protect workers' rights. bas**rds.
It is the British Government's sovereign right to crush the workers in any way they see fit!
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I don't think "We demand the sovereign right to f**k up our own country all by ourselves" would be much of a Leave campaign....
It would at least be honest, mind.
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I don't think "We demand the sovereign right to f**k up our own country all by ourselves" would be much of a Leave campaign....
It would at least be honest, mind.
It'd be interested to see who the government and the Daily Mail etc. blame for the cock-ups when they're no longer able to blame the EU for them!
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Because coming out of the EU will fix the immigration problems, innit? We both know that nothing will change, and EU citizens will end up having the same rights to come and go in and out of the UK as they have now. As such, the DM and the Government will have its old ammo to draw from.
Besides, the DM has the unemployed, unemployed large families, foreigners already here, Muslims, the poor, middle-aged men who run off with younger women, anyone that doesn't vote Tory, Labour, Greens... Oh, I give up - the DM has plenty of people to crap all over to feed the hate(rs).
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I'm voting leave to stop them Pakistanis comin in lol hurr hurr
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"Coming over here, inventing a national dish..." :lol:
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Sammy
That post is a symptom of one of the most worrying features in the modern debate.
What you post about politicians is simply untrue. There ARE some who go into politics for personal aggrandisement - Boris Johnson is the most obvious example. There are plenty who are not brilliant at what they do. But the overwhelming majority are hard-working, diligent, and in it because (whether you agree with them or not) they have a belief that they can help to make things better for the people of the country.
I vehemently disagree with pretty much everything that IDS and Gove believe in. But they DO believe in their main political ideals and they work damn hard to try to get them implemented because they fervently belief that they would make the country a better place.
Your post is an exemplar of the modern cynicism that assumes that everyone in politics is out for themselves and no-one else. It never was true and it isn't today. Go and speak to a politician. Go and speak to the local ones like Lucas, Winterton or Miliband. Book a session at their surgery. Spend 5 minutes in their company and get an idea of the drive and zeal and nous that they have.
What really scares me is that the sort of wrong-headed ideas that you have are very, very common. It is, frankly, ignorance parading as intelligent scepticism. And when people are as disconnected as that from politics and politicians, it leaves us open to be seduced by the smart, savvy snake-oil salesmen who really ARE only in it for themselves. Like the Kitson who is angling to replace Cameron.
And some MPs end up giving more than anyone should ever have to.
Disgraceful that she was killed, it sounded like she helped a lot of people, if all politicians were similar the country would be even better than it already is.
A big loss to politics, but most of all to her kids and husband and family. A crazed idiot doing something so evil, no politics are worth that sort of thing. Democracy is being able to have an opinion, not killing out of hatred, there is far too much hatred in the world at the minute.
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This has been overwhelmingly a long and drawn out campaign, but before I will put my own case forward I will say firstly that without a shadow of a doubt this whole debate (if you care to call it that) has been one big pathetic farce. It's been a debate on personnel rather policy, the media has continued to ignore the facts and instead of circulating useful information so we can make an informed decision they have continued to just display propaganda and scaremongering from both sides: "Brexit will lead to Scottish Referendum" "Hitler would have supported the Remain Campaign" "Brexit will end in World War 3" "Don't give up control". Boris Johnson had the cheek to write an article entitled "Don't believe in Project Fear; Staying in the EU is the real risk".
At each and every election we always look towards the turnout, we analyse who voted in terms of class, age etc., and we always wonder what needs to happen to get more people involved and exercising their democratic right, and by far the biggest referendum most of us will take part in and they behave like this? What sort of advert is this setting for Politics where the scaremongering and peddling of hate and how our very existence is under siege has reached a level where its vaguely possible for us to believe that a man has been pushed to the brink of murder. I'll say it again, it has been a farce.
The one thing I can't contemplate is what is the justifiable reason for us even holding this referendum? Now I may only be 24 and my interest in politics may only stretch to an undergrad level but my understanding as far as I can remember is that the EU has not ever been something that the majority of the British people have ever considered being their number one priority or talking point for a sustained level of time before this referendum was called. In fact I can't even remember a public debate on EU membership before this referendum other than the odd picture shared on Facebook from the like of UKIP and Britain First.
Just 2 years ago the final 7 reports of the Balance of Competences Review undertaken by our civil service was published. It is by and large perhaps the biggest study our Government has ever undertaken which examined almost everything in the EU from the single market and immigration to fishing quotas and trade and its 32 separate reports give you enough reading for about 8 months. The consensus across across every major sector of our economy and society concluded that our membership to the EU gives us greater scope in our policy making throughout the globe and did not have an issue with our membership. Some of the individual measures are questionable and there was some interesting criticisms in terms of implementation but there was no evidence submitted from any person or body which recommended we should leave the EU. Again WHY????
The sad state of affairs is that we are being asked to play someone else's game. Europe has always been the single factor that has either a) ended the leadership of most Tory Party Leaders (including Thatcher it would prove) or b) been the one thing the Tory membership could never be united on. In fact it is accepted in some circles that Cameron won the Tory Leadership in the first-place because he acknowledged in his speech that they lost the election because the Tories were too busy fighting over Europe they were focused on making the party better and not the country. He has tried (and failed) to dodge having to tackle the issue of the EU and has left it in the hands of the British Public and ultimately it will cost him his job as leader of the Conservatives and First Lord to the Treasury (rightfully so, I would argue).
Which again, brings me back to my original point about this referendum campaign being based on personnel rather than actual policy. Of the people I've spoken to when out and about is the same story, there are plenty of sound bites and propaganda from the press but people don't have enough information to make an informed decision and are therefore forced to either a) research it themselves or b) rely on second hand and often distorted and dishonest information.
One example of this 'debate' is the idea that the EU is a body of unelected bureaucrats and that we devolve power and our sovereignty to the EU and that we need to have the power to remove those who govern us. b*llocks! Firstly we do elect the EU directly via the European Parliament and indirectly via the European Council that are either our head of state or a secretary of state. Admittedly there is the European Commission who do propose legislation and this is still reason enough for us to 'take back control' - take back control to who exactly? The House of Lords which seats 840 unelected Peers that propose, scrutinise and vote on our legislation alongside the Commons? In fact our British sovereignty is so stupid that we live in a political system where before something becomes law it requires the assent of an unelected Monarch privileged only by birth and who is banned from even entering the House of Commons.
Another myth being peddled that someone has used as a reason for voting out is because the European Convention on Human Rights can overrule the British Courts regarding deporting immigrants who have committed a crime. Firstly the decision on whether they should be deported is taken by either British Judges or the Home Secretary, criminals can appeal to deportation under article 8 but less than 10% of these appeals are won and these are usually because these criminals have children/spouse in the UK or deportation would result in torture and/or capital punishment. Why people assume our prisons are safe enough for British murderers and rapists but not Albanian ones is beyond me but hey!? Secondly this referendum is on our membership to the EU and not the ECHR, should we vote leave then automatically we will remain to operate under the ECHR until such a time where we legislate otherwise (which will require a full and in-depth review of our Human Rights Act added on top of the review of all current legislation from the EU which is not strictly statute - another waste on tax-payers money in the immediate aftermath).
Another worrying trend is those that think we can vote out and reap the benefits of not beings members with closed borders and no EU membership fees but still enjoy the benefits of free trade without regulation and maintain our trade links with the rest of the world. I think BST has already covered that with Norway and Switzerland perfectly so there is little point me regurgitating that, either way being in the single market and not in the EU will almost undoubtedly come at the cost of accepting free movement of people.
I also think that too many people are exaggerating our influence in terms of trade within the world economy and that going at it alone no major player in the world will be stupid to ignore us in any proposed trade agreements. It is the accepted view that should we then our current trade agreements with the rest of the world will probably come to an end as they were won on the basis that the UK had access to the sing market - we have signed trade agreements by using our access to the single market as a bargaining tool - not being part of that takes away a lot of what we have to offer. USA, China and India amongst others have already said that they will not open negotiations with the UK for trade until they know what the UK's trade deal will be with the EU and whether we will retain access to the single market. EDIT: See Martin Dougan's video below posted by Lipsy for more information on this.
All of this will take time and people. If anyone thinks we have the man power in both Parliament and the Civil Service to undertake all this in under 10 years then you are kidding yourself. Again it just adds more bureaucracy taking up more taxpayers money and straining time that could be spent on shaping policy and legislating.
My final point as I'm aware this is slowly becoming a post too long winded, is that which is probably more personal to me due to family and my own heritage is that of Northern Ireland and our peace process with the Republic. For those of you who haven't visited that area of the UK there is literally no visible border between Northern Ireland and the counties of Donegal, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth. This and with both member states being part of the EU it has become a vital part of our peace process and trying to implement passport and border control, particular in the Ulster counties will not only come at great expense to the tax payer but will undoubtedly result in violence in some scale. Of all the years, the people of Eire are currently celebrating their 100th year anniversary since proclaiming themselves free of British Rule and with the Irish patriotism in the air and it would not surprise me if a small group of "IRA sympathisers" in that area use the implementation of borders as a reason to up-rise against the 'establishment'.
Of course no-one knows exactly how it will pan out, and there are cretins and Kitsons on both sides, personally I have never really questioned our membership with the EU until this debate and therefore I have to conclude our current situation with the EU is not bad enough to warrant us risking everything. But for anyone going into a voting booth on Thursday; please make sure you make your vote in confidence that the information you have used to make an informed decision is not propaganda or scaremongering facts.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USTypBKEd8Y
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That previous video I shared was pretty damn good/interesting, but this is brilliantly funny in places. If nothing else, it's great for lightening the mood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgKHSNqxa8
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I've just been listening to Radio 5's coverage this afternoon and the amount of ignorance about Trade and Tariffs and how they are applied that was spouted by Leaver after Leaver is truly depressing.
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The video below makes perfect sense to me. Anyone voting leave disagree with her, or care to explain why I shouldn't trust an Oxford University professor on this issue?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHFp3-qE_T8
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Damn those experts. Coming over here, making sense...
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Vote leave have come up with absolutely nothing concrete.. how can people vote for such uncertainty? Is hatred for immigrants worth gambling our kids future?
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It's not hatred for immigrants at all. My next door neighbour who I've got on with is Polish. I am voting to leave because where does it all end? Every year more than the entire population of the Doncaster borough and more, because 330k is net migration. When does it finally get to the point where we literally can't have any more?
You'd think the EU was the entire world the way people are going on about it. There's a whole world out there not the 15%.
I can see why the labour voters are confused when the leader of labour party has always been anti eu, but changed sides with his job on the line.
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It's not hatred for immigrants at all. My next door neighbour who I've got on with is Polish. I am voting to leave because where does it all end? Every year more than the entire population of the Doncaster borough and more, because 330k is net migration. When does it finally get to the point where we literally can't have any more?
So it is mainly about immigration then.
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My neighbours are Pakistani and great but there is more to this than immigration.
I've been out with a mate tonight and his step-daughter married a German and lives in Germany.
Her husband Eric says that they daren't have a referendum in Germany because a massive majority would vote out.
There are already rumblings that if we leave the Nordic nations and even the Netherlands might want to follow suit.
I am happy with trading agreements but don't want a federal Europe in any shape or form.
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I don't get what is so dreadful about a federal Europe. The USA is federal and each state still has their own culture and identity - and the USA is hardly a failure...
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I don't get what is so dreadful about a federal Europe. The USA is federal and each state still has their own culture and identity - and the USA is hardly a failure...
Wow. Just wow. United States of Europe.
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Your point being what, exactly?
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Me too Glyn. In a global world the nation state is on the way to becoming obsolescent. Its function is on the road to disappearing as anything other than an interest group for relatively small sub sets of the human race. The primacy of the human race over the artificial national stereotype is becoming clearer by the day almost. You might not like it, I certainly don't like it, but it's a fact even so. (My dislike, btw, is because I value cultural differences and detest world wide Americanisation). Just think of all the moaning that goes on about the inability of nations to control international corporations, capital and corporate tax avoidance. What's that if not an admission that the nation state is approaching its sell by date and that supra national leadership is coming?
BobG
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It's not hatred for immigrants at all. My next door neighbour who I've got on with is Polish. I am voting to leave because where does it all end? Every year more than the entire population of the Doncaster borough and more, because 330k is net migration. When does it finally get to the point where we literally can't have any more?
So it is mainly about immigration then.
No, it's about control. We can't control immigration qualitatively or quantitatively because of free movement.
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I don't get what is so dreadful about a federal Europe. The USA is federal and each state still has their own culture and identity - and the USA is hardly a failure...
A lot of Americans wouldn't agree. Some would prefer to be independent countries, indeed one or two states may go that way.
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I don't get what is so dreadful about a federal Europe. The USA is federal and each state still has their own culture and identity - and the USA is hardly a failure...
You are Jacques Delors and I claim my €5. ;)
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I don't get what is so dreadful about a federal Europe. The USA is federal and each state still has their own culture and identity - and the USA is hardly a failure...
A lot of Americans wouldn't agree. Some would prefer to be independent countries, indeed one or two states may go that way.
You've spent too long with Southern gobshites BYFP. Unfortunately, so have I. They like to shoot their mouths off, but it's not happened through Civil War, Jim Crow, Depression, New Deal and Great Society. It won't happen now.
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Some immigrants themselves have the same worries as we do. It's very lazy to say anybody who doesn't vote the way you want them to is racist, old or just not a nice person, as the government has done.
I don't see it as a vote against foreign people, i see it as a vote for governing our own land, with no interference. We have the whole world to trade with, europe will still trade with us.
And do you know what i think will happen, if we do leave?, it will start an exodus of many more countries. The EU has developed into something that wasn't it's original purpose.
Things won't be all rosy, whether we stay or leave, leaving does leave uncertainty, but it could go wrong, but it could also go very well for us.
We managed for centuries without them, is our country so helpless, that it can't survive without them?. I don't think so, i think it could be an exciting new start for us!.
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Jesus Christ, yet another one who seems to think that someone has said that we won't trade with Europe if we leave. Yes, of course we will, but imports and exports will COST MORE if we leave.
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I don't get what is so dreadful about a federal Europe. The USA is federal and each state still has their own culture and identity - and the USA is hardly a failure...
A lot of Americans wouldn't agree. Some would prefer to be independent countries, indeed one or two states may go that way.
You've spent too long with Southern gobshites BYFP. Unfortunately, so have I. They like to shoot their mouths off, but it's not happened through Civil War, Jim Crow, Depression, New Deal and Great Society. It won't happen now.
Course the southern element is more vocal however it does still exist and to pretend all is rosy would be wrong.
Anyhow back on topic, polling shows it tight but the remain camp has picked up their use of high profile people (Beckham the latest). I still think remain will win but it will be close.
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I've wobbled a bit on whether it'll be close but I've located my knackers.
54-46 for Remain. And then for f**k's sake let's put this whole issue to bed for the rest of my life and start addressing what really matters about our future.
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The leave camp now is basically saying the absolutely huge financial, long-term cost of leaving the EU is worth it just to be able to potentially stop a few hundred thousand immigrants coming to the UK (even though the net result is immigrants contribute far more than they take out)?
It's just f**king barmy.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USTypBKEd8Y
Leave Campaign: "he maybe an expert in the field that has been studying the EU for the whole of his career, but what the f*ck does he know, really?"
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Gove on R4 this morning basically said that there would be no change to immigration until at least 2020.
When pressed on the fact that 200,000 immigrants came to the UK from OUTSIDE the EU last year, and asked a) why he had been a member of a Govt that had accepted this, b) which of the nurses, doctors, accountants, engineers etc if this lot he would stop and c) what that had to do with the EU anyway, his response was to praise Nick Robinson for being an excellent interviewer.
Similarly, when asked to name a single world leader who supported Brexit, his response was, "Ah, well, em....a-be, a-be, a-be. Of course the European leaders want us to stay because we pay the bills." I can't fit the life of me think why he didn't just say "Trump and Putin."
It's f**king pitiful isn't it?
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well a "former" Walthamstow* dog track glass collector
a.k.a. "Mr Beckham" has finally made his mind up whether the glass is "half full" or "half empty" and using his knowledge of "dogs" has decided to let the country"go to the dogs" AND PUT US ON A TIGHTER LEAD by staying in
* guess what the dog track literally went to the dogs for redevelopment
now on a very serious note
google prof minford you tube
or listen to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg4VJPrNFeY
apologies if you've seen this before
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there are other reasons that are never mentioned for leaving .. as it would go over peoples heads or under "david beckhams " feet
none of you have probably heard of the words
"the sion revelation"
inside the shadowy world of Europe's secret Masters
& the old chestnut TTIP
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Sion Revelation? Don't worry, we've got the Freemasons on our side.
We're starting to stray into tinfoil hat territory now, are the arguments that desperate? But then again, if you're going to fall for any old BS, make sure it's a good one!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_of_Sion
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I've wobbled a bit on whether it'll be close but I've located my knackers.
54-46 for Remain. And then for f**k's sake let's put this whole issue to bed for the rest of my life and start addressing what really matters about our future.
I expect it may be closer. Problem is I suspect a lot don't really know what's going to happen. Is there a sense of people being afraid to vote leave for fear of the criticsm some are favouring at the moment, some of which isn't called for. 52-48 is my prediction.
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Coleman
We've dealt with Minford already. He was the economist who persuaded Thatcher that monetarism was the solution in 1981. The consequence was that we turned a normal recession into a catastrophic one and put nearly 4 million people on the dole. Even Thatcher wasn't so ideologically fixed as to keep on agreeing with him. Monetarism was quietly ditched in 1982, but the damage had already been done.
Is that REALLY the best you can do? If you start off by being certain that you are right, and then scrat around for someone who tells you what you want to hear, this is where you go.
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I've wobbled a bit on whether it'll be close but I've located my knackers.
54-46 for Remain. And then for f**k's sake let's put this whole issue to bed for the rest of my life and start addressing what really matters about our future.
I expect it may be closer. Problem is I suspect a lot don't really know what's going to happen. Is there a sense of people being afraid to vote leave for fear of the criticsm some are favouring at the moment, some of which isn't called for. 52-48 is my prediction.
BFYP
This is how legends start. This is how people on once themselves that "we'd have won if only..."
What evidence do you have that people are being stopped from supporting Leave because of criticism?
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I'll start another thread so people can do their predictions of the outcome. Mine is somewhere between BST & BFYP.
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I've wobbled a bit on whether it'll be close but I've located my knackers.
54-46 for Remain. And then for f**k's sake let's put this whole issue to bed for the rest of my life and start addressing what really matters about our future.
I expect it may be closer. Problem is I suspect a lot don't really know what's going to happen. Is there a sense of people being afraid to vote leave for fear of the criticsm some are favouring at the moment, some of which isn't called for. 52-48 is my prediction.
BFYP
This is how legends start. This is how people on once themselves that "we'd have won if only..."
What evidence do you have that people are being stopped from supporting Leave because of criticism?
Minimal it's a musing of something which does happen in elections whereby people may vote for the less credible action but not publicly admit it. It's a potential just as the potential existed last time around for a Tory win, which did come true. IT may not happen but given the points such as being anti immigration makes you a racist - a claim that has been made by some online for instance, it is possibly the case and could sway the polls as they are now. We will know on Friday morning.
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Must admit that whilst I was pretty down about the way the referendum appeared to be going last week, I think there seems to be a change in the mood of the nation as we near the vote. My beef was that the Remain camp seemed unable to counter Leave's attacks and that Leave seemed to be able to spout any old ballacks and folks were lapping it up. Thankfully, Farage went too far and, as that interview with Gove this morning showed, people are beginning to pick apart some of the nonsense BJ and co. have been trying to force down everyone's necks (and yes, I do appreciate that both sides have been talking shite at times, but my feeling (bias?) is that Leave has churned about the most nonsense of the two sides).
Anyhoo, I still think that it's going to be very close but I remain hopeful.
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Poor old Gove, he's not having the best of days... He's had a bit of a kicking from John Barnes. :laugh:
http://snpy.tv/28KNZYd (http://snpy.tv/28KNZYd)
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Well Gove isn't renown for his command of facts is he. He has plenty of previous when it comes to shouting the odds and getting it wrong.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10514113
Followed, two days later by...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10538754
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Sion Revelation? Don't worry, we've got the Freemasons on our side.
We're starting to stray into tinfoil hat territory now, are the arguments that desperate? But then again, if you're going to fall for any old BS, make sure it's a good one!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_of_Sion
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Last stab.
If you are still a convinced Leaver, have a read of this and think deeply.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/20/brexit-fake-revolt-eu-working-class-culture-hijacked-help-elite?CMP=soc_3156
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I've been well nigh traumatised by the amount of advertising, usually with unapproved company and individual 'endorsements', that have been dropping through my letter box and staring up at me on the rag I have to read each morning on the train. So today was a real red letter day: an ad, a proper full page ad in that rag suggesting we should Remain (though the front and back covers were completely taken up with an ad saying'leave!' Lol); a decent Remain leaflet through my door when I got home tonight; another chance to laugh at that utter idiot Michael Gove, and, finally, two people I've been discussing things with on and off telling me this evening they are voting to stay. One of them I'm really quite surprised by too. And lastly, did anyone else spot the newspaper ad, partly in French, from maybe 20 French companies all suggesting we should Remain? Rather nice ad I thought.
Slightly differnt aspect, I do hope you've all seen the growing feeling amongst European politicians from right across the spectrum, that if we leave, they have to ensure that the UK 'feels real pain' to deter anyone else from going down the same road. That's a such a blindingly obvious reaction that only the short sighted and ideologically driven latter day Pyhrrus's can have failed to see it coming. Even the Swedes are saying now that we have to take the pain if we leave - and I see they reckon a deal will take upto 10 years to agree too.
BobG
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Sion Revelation? Don't worry, we've got the Freemasons on our side.
We're starting to stray into tinfoil hat territory now, are the arguments that desperate? But then again, if you're going to fall for any old BS, make sure it's a good one!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_of_Sion
Is this some sort of attempt to convince me that it's not a load of b*llocks?
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Last stab.
If you are still a convinced Leaver, have a read of this and think deeply.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/20/brexit-fake-revolt-eu-working-class-culture-hijacked-help-elite?CMP=soc_3156
PS. Paul Mason wants us out of the EU. And he wants the EU to unfold. But even HE isn't going to vote for a Brexit on the terms of Farage, Gove and Johnson.
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I've been well nigh traumatised by the amount of advertising, usually with unapproved company and individual 'endorsements', that have been dropping through my letter box and staring up at me on the rag I have to read each morning on the train. So today was a real red letter day: an ad, a proper full page ad in that rag suggesting we should Remain (though the front and back covers were completely taken up with an ad saying'leave!' Lol); a decent Remain leaflet through my door when I got home tonight; another chance to laugh at that utter idiot Michael Gove, and, finally, two people I've been discussing things with on and off telling me this evening they are voting to stay. One of them I'm really quite surprised by too. And lastly, did anyone else spot the newspaper ad, partly in French, from maybe 20 French companies all suggesting we should Remain? Rather nice ad I thought.
Slightly differnt aspect, I do hope you've all seen the growing feeling amongst European politicians from right across the spectrum, that if we leave, they have to ensure that the UK 'feels real pain' to deter anyone else from going down the same road. That's a such a blindingly obvious reaction that only the short sighted and ideologically driven latter day Pyhrrus's can have failed to see it coming. Even the Swedes are saying now that we have to take the pain if we leave - and I see they reckon a deal will take upto 10 years to agree too.
BobG
Nah, we'll be fine. Nige says so.
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http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/queens-brexit-challenge-dinner-guests-give-three-good-reasons-britain-part-europe/
"The Queen’s Brexit challenge to dinner guests: ‘give me three good reasons why Britain should be part of Europe’
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Is this "Let's post a random link" night?
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http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/queens-brexit-challenge-dinner-guests-give-three-good-reasons-britain-part-europe/
"The Queen’s Brexit challenge to dinner guests: ‘give me three good reasons why Britain should be part of Europe’
But surely the challenge is to prove why the status quo should be disturbed...?
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Bob
I saw Gove on the box tonight after the big debate. The BBC had cameras backstage catching arguments between Leavers and Stayers.
Gove was arguing with a Remainer. And he looked bizarre. Every time he finished a sentence, he went all tense and pushed up on his toes which clearly required a tensing of the buttocks. Looked like he was trying to suck a satsuma up his arsehole.
Strange, strange behaviour. And to think, he might be the power behind the throne come Friday.
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Conservative Conference 2009 Thursday 8 October 2009 14.43 BST
Full text of David Cameron's speech
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/08/david-cameron-speech-in-full
look near the end 7/8th's of the way down
"EU But if there is one political institution that needs decentralisation, transparency, and accountability, it is the EU.
For the past few decades, something strange has been happening on the left of British politics. People who think of themselves as progressives have fallen in love with an institution that no one elects, no one can remove, and that hasn't signed off its accounts for over a decade.
Indeed even to question these things is, apparently, completely beyond the pale. Well, here is a progressive reform plan for Europe.
Let's work together on the things where the EU can really help, like combating climate change, fighting global poverty and spreading free and fair trade.
But let's return to democratic and accountable politics the powers the EU shouldn't have.
And if we win the election, we will have as the strongest voice for our country's interests, the man who is leading our campaign for a referendum, the man who will be our new British Foreign Secretary: William Hague"
game set and match
funnily enough we had a conversation tonight as to whether Boris & Cameron would swear their allegances to their causes on the bible so "chameleon" Cameron isn't doing too well
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Conservative Conference 2009 Thursday 8 October 2009 14.43 BST
Full text of David Cameron's speech
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/08/david-cameron-speech-in-full
look near the end 7/8th's of the way down
"EU But if there is one political institution that needs decentralisation, transparency, and accountability, it is the EU.
For the past few decades, something strange has been happening on the left of British politics. People who think of themselves as progressives have fallen in love with an institution that no one elects, no one can remove, and that hasn't signed off its accounts for over a decade.
Indeed even to question these things is, apparently, completely beyond the pale. Well, here is a progressive reform plan for Europe.
Let's work together on the things where the EU can really help, like combating climate change, fighting global poverty and spreading free and fair trade.
But let's return to democratic and accountable politics the powers the EU shouldn't have.
And if we win the election, we will have as the strongest voice for our country's interests, the man who is leading our campaign for a referendum, the man who will be our new British Foreign Secretary: William Hague"
game set and match
funnily enough we had a conversation tonight as to whether Boris & Cameron would swear their allegances to their causes on the bible so "chameleon" Cameron isn't doing too well
Game set and match? Jesus, you really can't understand a speech when it's given can you? All that speech says is that that the EU needs reform and that he promises a referendum. Nowhere does it say that leaving the EU is the best option, it says reforming it is.
Do you even read this stuff you're claiming is 'game set and match'?
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And if a politician's inconsistency is somehow supposed to decide the argument (a completely fallacious viewpoint to have, I'm voting on facts not bluster) then I take your seven-year-old misinterpreted David Cameron Speech and raise you Boris Johnson.
'Look, I’m actually rather pro-European, actually. I certainly want a European community where one can go and scoff croissants, drink delicious coffee, learn foreign languages and generally make love to foreign women.’
January 1997
‘We can’t leave Europe. We’re part of the European Continent. What is the English Channel? It’s a primeval river that got slightly too big … We’re always going to be a part of Europe psychologically.’
August 2015, Der Spiegel
‘We want, in an ideal world, to stay in a reformed European Union but I think the price of getting out is lower than it’s ever been. It’s better for us to stay in, but to stay in a reformed EU. That’s where I am.’
October 2015, BBC interview, Japan
‘The trouble is I’m not an “outer”.’ What he reportedly told eurosceptics trying to persuade him to lead the Leave campaign
January 2016
‘I’ve never been an Outer’. Boris to Eurosceptic Tory MP Bernard Jenkin after he was taunted in the House of Commons.
February 3, 2016
And this is from the Daily Mail!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3457684/How-Boris-Johnson-s-views-Brexit-past-two-decades-veered-like-shopping-trolley.html
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I won't argue with you over Boris's flip-flopping, but I would say that it's perfectly possible to like Europe and feel European while being against the EU.
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TRB
Maybe. Whether it's believable to go from years of prevarication to Churchillian mode as Johnson has done since February is another thing entirely.
Let's be frank. Johnson is in the game for nothing other than Johnson's career. If he thought that the Tory party wanted it's next leader to be someone with only one bollock, he'd have the carving knife out before you could blink.
Johnson's performance in this whole campaign is not in the slightest to do with whether we will stay or leave the EU. It's about him replacing Cameron.
That either happens on Friday, after Leave win. Or if Remain win, it happens in 2019,when Cameron steps down. Johnson has cynically played Osborne out of the game. Osborne, in this instance, is doing the right thing for the economy and the country. But the Tory party is virulently anti-EU. And Osborne has shot his bolt with them. He will not be PM.
Johnson is playing to the anti-EU gallery in his party and its odds on that he WILL be leader.
Great isn't it? THE most important political issue that any of us will have to face in our lifetime, and we're all being played for fools. Because this referendum is not being held to give the people a say. It's being held to let the Eton and Bullingdon Boys figure out who comes out on top.
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TRB
Maybe. Whether it's believable to go from years of prevarication to Churchillian mode as Johnson has done since February is another thing entirely.
Let's be frank. Johnson is in the game for nothing other than Johnson's career. If he thought that the Tory party wanted it's next leader to be someone with only one bollock, he'd have the carving knife out before you could blink.
Johnson's performance in this whole campaign is not in the slightest to do with whether we will stay or leave the EU. It's about him replacing Cameron.
That either happens on Friday, after Leave win. Or if Remain win, it happens in 2019,when Cameron steps down. Johnson has cynically played Osborne out of the game. Osborne, in this instance, is doing the right thing for the economy and the country. But the Tory party is virulently anti-EU. And Osborne has shot his bolt with them. He will not be PM.
Johnson is playing to the anti-EU gallery in his party and its odds on that he WILL be leader.
Great isn't it? THE most important political issue that any of us will have to face in our lifetime, and we're all being played for fools. Because this referendum is not being held to give the people a say. It's being held to let the Eton and Bullingdon Boys figure out who comes out on top.
But everybody - including Johnson - seems to be forgetting the one silver bullet in Cameron's armory. If Dave really wants to shaft Johnson in return, all he has to do if Leave wins is to call a General Election - whilst he is still PM and leader of the Tory party. Boris and the Brexiters would have to back Cameron as loyal Conservatives in such an election, unless they are hell-bent on destroying the party - and would they want to be seen to be so blatantly treacherous and opportunistic?
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I won't argue with you over Boris's flip-flopping, but I would say that it's perfectly possible to like Europe and feel European while being against the EU.
And it's still perfectly possible to want to remain in the EU but want reforms. I know, because that's my position.
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I won't argue with you over Boris's flip-flopping, but I would say that it's perfectly possible to like Europe and feel European while being against the EU.
And it's still perfectly possible to want to remain in the EU but want reforms. I know, because that's my position.
What reforms do you think you'll get? We've tried (and failed) to do that. It just won't happen.
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I won't argue with you over Boris's flip-flopping, but I would say that it's perfectly possible to like Europe and feel European while being against the EU.
And it's still perfectly possible to want to remain in the EU but want reforms. I know, because that's my position.
What reforms do you think you'll get? We've tried (and failed) to do that. It just won't happen.
My big gripe is with how CAP operates. It's been reformed before, it can be reformed again.
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I would imagine going to the EU with a victory for Remain but with a sizeable Leave minority could give the UK a powerful bargaining chip for reform - the EU would unlikely want the UK to call a second referendum so may give further concessions.
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I would imagine going to the EU with a victory for Remain but with a sizeable Leave minority could give the UK a powerful bargaining chip for reform - the EU would unlikely want the UK to call a second referendum so may give further concessions.
That's exactly how I see it and why I'll be happy so long as the Leave figure is above 45%.
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I'm still astonished that no-one seems to be drawing any conclusions from the fact that the only senior politicians supporting Leave are Johnson and a gang from the most rapidly right-wing of the political spectrum. That's it. No-one else.
This is how far out of the mainstream they are. Listen to John Major talking about them.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/john-major-launches-stunning-attack-8117492
He calls them squalid and deceitful. He says that the idea that they would put money into the NHS is a deceit. "Gove wanted to privatise it. Johnson wanted to charge people for using it and IDS wants a social insurance system. The NHS is about as safe with them as a pet hamster with a python."
sorry BST for taking so long to reply about John Major (of more peas spitting image fame ) use of the word deceit
I put sky news on this morning and was abhorred to see him John Major -- I was going to refer to him some time in the future but enough is enough
below are two "alleged" examples of his own "deceipt"
you saw my kettle calling the pan black thread on "branston pickle"
1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-2981375/Edwina-Currie-affair-John-Major-ve-never-regretted-spilling-beans-duty.html
"'I’ve never regretted spilling the beans on John Major and me. It was my duty’: Inside the head of... Edwina Currie"
"
note she spilled te BEANS not the PEAS perhaps she liked his "meat and two veg" is this an example of deceipt ??
2. You did not know that Margaret Thatcher was grooming John Major for leadership I was told this by someone a long time before Majors "moment of wisdom (teeth)"
basically when she needed him he had to have a wisdom teeth removed and couldn't rather inconveniently speak
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SZjpCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT57&lpg=PT57&dq=john+major+wisdom+teeth&source=bl&ots=b4b_-ffpv7&sig=nNCd9Lq1srorW_ctU3ivKEMie7U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwie5ff3rrvNAhXqDpoKHYgrD9w4ChDoAQgoMAE#v=onepage&q=john%20major%20wisdom%20teeth&f=false
the 2 pages in this john major book I've linked are a good read -- I leave it to the reader to decide whether point 2 is "deceipt"
here we go
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2001/jan/16/healthandwellbeing.health3
"And, in 1990, there was the intriguing case of John Major's wisdom teeth, which were operated on during the weekend before the Conservative party's leadership contest between Margaret Thatcher and Michael Heseltine. Although Mr Major's supporters insisted his appointment with the surgeon had been booked long ago, it conveniently rendered the middle-aged chancellor speechless in the week when his ill-fated leader needed all the vocal support she could get. "
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What on earth are you on about?
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CLH has anybody ever told you that you use far too many "quotation marks?"
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Coleman. I'm in awe.
I've never met anyone who argues in such detail and totally misses the point every time.
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Mr Juncker disagrees he says there will be no more negotiation and British people need to learn this. Glyn, take note!
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Aye BFYP.
And according to the BBC website, Juncker was saying that THAT is the case if we vote to leave.
"It is understood Mr Juncker was not referring to the prospect of future reforms in the event of the UK voting to remain in the EU."
But once again, Leave spin that their own, mendacious way.
""If we stay in, there is no prospect of any further change," Mr Johnson said. "This is it, folks. We have been told from the horse's mouth that any hope of further change is absolute illusion."
He added: "It is time for us to show our courage and our commitment to democracy by standing up to these unelected tin-pot figures."
And UKIP's Nigel Farage said it was the "last chance saloon" for the UK."
If you vote Leave, you've bought their lies from start to finish.
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Presumably he was stating that in case anyone thought that we could twist their arms if we went back to the negotiating table after a Leave vote and hope to get something out of them in the belief that they would give us anything we wanted not to actually leave.
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For anyone thinking of staying up to watch the results come in on Thursday night / Friday morning, this will be useful.
https://electionsetc.com/2016/06/22/how-the-bbc-will-be-benchmarking-the-results-on-eu-referendum-night/
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Presumably he was stating that in case anyone thought that we could twist their arms if we went back to the negotiating table after a Leave vote and hope to get something out of them in the belief that they would give us anything we wanted not to actually leave.
And Johnson twists that 180degrees. And the gullible or those who want to hear that message, hear that message.
De-f**king-mocracy eh? And that t**t might be PM by Monday.
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PM by Monday? Come off it, BST!
If Cameron loses and goes, there will be a contest. It won't be a walk in for Boris.
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Presumably he was stating that in case anyone thought that we could twist their arms if we went back to the negotiating table after a Leave vote and hope to get something out of them in the belief that they would give us anything we wanted not to actually leave.
And Johnson twists that 180degrees. And the gullible or those who want to hear that message, hear that message.
De-f**king-mocracy eh? And that t**t might be PM by Monday.
£1k says he's not 😉
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Filo. No, you're right. There won't be a replacement that quick even if Cameron steps down on Friday.
I'll have you a decent bet that Johnson will be PM by September if Leave wins though.
Be careful what you vote for...
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I see a situation si
Filo. No, you're right. There won't be a replacement that quick even if Cameron steps down on Friday.
I'll have you a decent bet that Johnson will be PM by September if Leave wins though.
Be careful what you vote for...
In a Leave win scenario, I can see a situation similar to when Macmillan resigned bit did everything he could to make sure that the obvious candidate Rab Butler didn't succeed him. I bet Cameron would do anything it takes to knife Boris in the back in a tit for tat. To do that he'd have to stay where he is - and the best thing he could do is hold a Commons Motion of No Confidence in the the Government - not him personally - that all the opposition parties would do well to abstain from voting on. Boris and his chums want rid of Cameron, but if they voted the motion down they'd immediately trigger a General Election and the Tories would have to go into it with Cameron as leader....and the party would never forgive those in the party who voted against the party in a No Confidence motion...
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Can Cameron, or any Tory MP, actually put down a no confidence motion? What a startling concept. Brilliant! Be fun if Labour say put down the motion and then they, and everyone else, then abstained in the vote.
If Cameron goes and the Tory party decides it doesn't want the Blonde Liar, (which it won't, sadly) who would then be a reasonable candidate???
BobG
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Can Cameron, or any Tory MP, actually put down a no confidence motion? What a startling concept. Brilliant! Be fun if Labour say put down the motion and then they, and everyone else, then abstained in the vote.
If Cameron goes and the Tory party decides it doesn't want the Blonde Liar, (which it won't, sadly) who would then be a reasonable candidate???
BobG
Teresa May. She has largely kept quiet during the referendum. She has said she's for Remain but has then made speeches that are broadly Eurosceptic.
She might not have much of a sense of humour but she's no mug politically
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Gove eh?
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/22/cameron-gove-has-lost-it-in-comparing-anti-brexit-economists-to-nazi-experts
What an utter Kitson. THIS is where our politics is going. If independent experts set out data and arguments that you don't like, a Cabinet Minister, a f**king CABINET MINISTER accuses them of being lapdogs to the Establishment like those who licked Hitler's arse.
f**k me. I had hoped and expected that by the early 21st century, we'd be putting arrogant, obnoxious toe-rags like Gove behind us and making decisions based on rationality. Instead, millions of people are going to vote tomorrow having been convinced by Kitsons like this one that everyone is cheating and lying to them. Gove's ideal outcome is to keep people ignorant, teach them to ignore facts and encourage them to vote from base instinct. He is a disgrace to the country and his profession.
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Out for me, there won't be any manuel or unskilled jobs for our youngsters who aren't clever enough for further education.
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Jesus...they've done it haven't they? They've convinced people like you that the reason for that problem is the EU and immigrants. And that the likes of IDS and Gove will provide our youngsters with something better.
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This advert was privately paid for and has the benefit of being accurate. It might put some goddamn perspective on the migrant issue, though - for some - I doubt it.
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/s526x395/13516715_10154903732438356_6714595569585544292_n.jpg?oh=0875c5fa238b564ab07e0ff0f75c2de7&oe=57F0DC07)
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I'm going to toddle off to vote later today. I wanted out on the same ticket Tony Benn wanted out. No one can look at institutions like the European commission and tell me it's democratic. I'm very afraid we're in an era of bureaucratic-corporatism so far removed from ordinary Europeans live's as to be only overthrown by a revolution. I think the EU is becoming more insular to the rest of the world and certain things we do are damaging developing countries.
BUT, I'm ultimately going to vote remain because I just don't think we can risk regressing from the free movement of people. I've lived with Latvian, Bulgarian, German and Polish girls in the past (and men of course but that doesn't quite move me in the same way). Beautiful, intelligent, multi-lingual, critical young women. The most bewildering question that always perplexed me was why they came to this little poxy island? The answer in all cases was that they had an unnerving determination to just get on, to better themselves, and to contribute. We're just going to have to work together in the future to sort out the problems.
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Copps.
A perfectly fair approach, and I understand your take from the Left, even if I don't agree with it. Have you read that Paul Mason link I posted a day or two back?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/20/brexit-fake-revolt-eu-working-class-culture-hijacked-help-elite?CMP=soc_3156
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20 years of this shite, served up by our even-handed press:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CloUyXgWgAAwGfk.jpg:large)
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This advert was privately paid for and has the benefit of being accurate. It might put some goddamn perspective on the migrant issue, though - for some - I doubt it.
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/s526x395/13516715_10154903732438356_6714595569585544292_n.jpg?oh=0875c5fa238b564ab07e0ff0f75c2de7&oe=57F0DC07)
let's just talk pie charts (if they are still called that) and numbers
yes that chart looks insignificant 0.5%-
but when you step outside your front door count 200 neighbours down the street that 1 person in 200 brings home reality
at least "french bred snails" coming into the UK bring their HOME with them and don't put demands on infrastructure -- they actually make their "own roads" if you know anything about snails
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Coleman
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/why-do-people-want-less-eu-immigration.html
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Coleman,
I've a shedload of work on today, so I am going to have to be super-lazy in my response to your reply. Sorry about that, but hopefully this is in the same spirit as your recent posts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGMVwcxF2Nk
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And whilst we're at it, if you want a philosophical reason for rejecting the Leave approach...
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/why-defeating-brexit-is-so-important.html
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Copps.
A perfectly fair approach, and I understand your take from the Left, even if I don't agree with it. Have you read that Paul Mason link I posted a day or two back?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/20/brexit-fake-revolt-eu-working-class-culture-hijacked-help-elite?CMP=soc_3156
Yeah. To put it differently, most people (due to the way the campaign has been run) will be voting Politically with a capital P as opposed to a small p. Me included in fact, because the leave people are so far removed from my values that I don't want them gaining any ground.
Its a perverse outcome of this whole thing but it is really a product of a simple YES or NO vote on something that is as complicated as the EU. All I'm hearing from people who I would broadly consider to be regular people (i.e. not ideologically brainwashed either way) is that it is too complicated and they don't fully understand it/can't make an informed decision. And that really is EXACTLY the correct answer to this referendum.
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Which is precisely the reason that referendums on REALLY important issues are such a bad idea. Most people are simple unable or unprepared to put in the mental heavy lifting required to come to rational conclusions. The perfect example being that you so often hear people complaining that they no-one is giving them believable information on the economic effects of Brexit.
LOTS of independent economists have presented data and the overwhelming majority, 90+%, have said that the effect will be bad.
That is as clear-cut a message as you will ever get, but it's not got through to the population. Therefore, people are making a momentous decision without being properly informed.
We elect professional, intelligent, hard working representatives to debate and decide on these issues. That is how these issues ought to be decided. Not on gut instinct of people who barely take a passing interest in the detailed arguments.
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Right then. Sorry for once again aiming for playful but coming across as sarcastic (honestly, I am wrestling with something called Infusionsoft for a client and it's melting my noodle somewhat). It's lunchtime now, so I'll try to do better.
Coleman,
I totally understand that many people are seeing the impact of immigration in and on their communities and that it is being more keenly felt in some parts of the country than others. From my point of view, I see this as something that has been happening ever since this country became an island thousands of years ago - I really am that namby-pamby about this sort of thing. Sorry.
However, it's not as though recent provision to lessen the impact of immigration wasn't made to ensure the schools, hospitals, and other services weren't affected. Can you guess what happened to it? I'll give you a big clue because it wasn't officially announced: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/aug/06/fund-impact-immigration-scrapped (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/aug/06/fund-impact-immigration-scrapped)
Therefore, I'll happily support the idea/fact/thinking that we have our government(s) to blame for the rising tensions and"problems" caused by immigration.
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Interesting note on who can vote that I learned from one of my friends today. EU nationals living in Britain are not permitted to vote, however, nationals from Commonwealth countries (and Ireland) who live in Britain are permitted to vote. The person who flagged this is up is of Polish descent, who moved to Canada and who now lives in Britain. He has both a Canadian and Polish passport but is only allowed to vote on proviso of his Canadian passport and not his Polish!
Flags up contradictions of the whole thing. I wonder how such people will vote more generally.
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Lipsy
Plus, the massive school building project that had gone on throughout the noughties was scrapped in July 2010 by...yep...Michael Gove. The same Gove who now plays to the gallery, stoking up the understandable anger of people who can't get their kids into the school they want. And telling them it's because of immigrants.
Classic far-Right tactics. Shrink State provision. And when people hurt as a result, tell them that it's the nasty, thieving, gold bricking immigrants who are to blame. It's happened throughout history. I'd assumed that we'd be too smart to fall for that line in 2016, but perhaps not.
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The endgame for all of this has been to secure a Tory government for as long as is possible, if not for generations. Who it hurts and what it does to certain communities has never been much of a consideration beyond ensuring that it doesn't negatively impact the Tory vote.
As I made mention before, historically-speaking we've always managed to hold firm against extremism (we'll, that's my memory of history from my college days) - we'll know in about 18 hours(?) if we've managed to withstand it again.
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do we really want this
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20151202IPR05759/All-MEPs-to-have-access-to-all-confidential-TTIP-documents
and this
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+RULES-EP+20150428+ANN-07+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN&navigationBar=YES
as you've no doubt discussed (not debated) out of interest did anyone in Europe vote for TTIP - who exactly came up with the idea WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE -- a very honest question
here's what wiki says (until BST amends it!!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership
Margaret Thatcher got caught out when she didn't read the small print - at least she had the opportunity to read it
It seems the TTIP handcuffs are already around our wrists trouble is the handcuffs have a TWENTY YEAR TIME LOCK on them (BST will know all about this)
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TTIP reminds me of 3 money market traders (to simplify think of two traders) all washed up on a desert island and they all make a living*
*for the avoidance of doubt they don't trade coconuts more likely grains of sands in the "futures market"
rumour has it one of them whilst on the island sold his first aid box via PFI (just like the NHS hospitals were)
remember mr corbyn will vote against ttip so the world is safe
never mind
have a nice day
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Right, I have to go and vote before I pick up the three nippers from school. Then it's back to work until I stop at some point tonight before the results come in. This just came onto my timeline on Facebook and it made me smile.
"Unlike everyone else, who seemingly overnight has become a champion of European legislation and a bastion of the legalities of immigration, I genuinely know f**k all about politics.
Honestly. Can't even tell you the difference between labour, conservatives or the other ones. Is it Lib dems? I don't know what they do. Tories are Kitsons though... That's literally the extent of my knowledge.
It just doesn't interest me because, and I'm aware that this is painfully apathetic and stupid, but it's boring and I don't see how any of it's actually set up to help me. If I was a bank or building society or a business that operated on the global market or just a Kitson who went to Eton and fancied making all my pig diddling mates peers or something then yeah, I'd give more of a shit. But I'm not. I'm just a bloke who works in a call centre 8 hours a day and whether we're in or out of Europe I'll still have £68 pound a month to pay for bus fares. I'm trapped in renting so I couldn't give less of a shit about "community" because I'm not really part of one because I might move again in 6 month so what's point? I'll still be skint either way, the concept of owning a house will remain a sick joke and I'll still have to work until I'm a billion and 30 just to retire on the £8.47 I've got saved up in my work pension (yes I'm aware all of these are political points... Irony's funny, isn't it?) but governments aren't set up for people like me... They're set up for people who are either tragically, tragically poor or people who are almost belligerently rich. Even if we save money by coming out, who gives a shit? What, we're suddenly going to start looking after old folk and buying hospitals are we? Wont we need the four food banks in Leeds anymore? You talk actual piss. Any money saved will go into buying more pigs or moats for duck houses.
The point for me is this though; A university professor of 12 years, what has got an actual PHD, specialising in European constitutional law and the relationship between the EU and its member states, specifically the UK, the single market and the free movement of people has said its a f**king shit idea to leave the EU.
Surely that's enough then? Let's agree with him, surely? He probably knows what's chong and what's not chong.
I mean I know you've got a BTEC in sports science and, yeah... sure, your lass has got her level 1 hairdressing certificate and you both went to Tossa De Mar once for holiday but his points seem to come across better than yours somehow. Like, his arguments are built around solid premises and formulated on numbers and research and shit whereas yours are like "Yeah well The Sun says all black people are w**kers, so...".
The best way I can think of it is in terms of the biscuit club at work. Everybody pays in and everybody gets nice biscuits. Sure you can get your own biscuits if you want but it's a lot of f**king about and you'll only have to share them anyway. What, are you gonna legitimately eat them all to yourself in an office are you Sharon? Right well that's why you wear sports socks and can't find a husband. Yeah, not everyone gets the biscuits they want all the time but if your choice is shit biscuits sometimes or no biscuits ever then it's a f**king no brainer. What if you want help to get biscuits but nobody cares because they're sorted for Jaffas now? What about your relationship with people who are still in biscuit club? You think they'll be happy with you tapping Hob Nobs off them everyday because you forgot to go to Jacksons at the weekend? Get to f**k. "Oh no, loads of new people want to join in with biscuit club now!" So? More people means more / better biscuits. Yeah you might have to share more but what are you, 5? If you don't want to share biscuits then f**k off back to Russia you pinko commie swine. Plus, why do you think they WANT to join? It's because these biscuits are brilliant and they haven't got any. Sometimes people do Ramadan and can't eat biscuits while the suns up... Who gives a shit? Don't have biscuits then. It's ok... Just have them later. Take them home for when suns gone down for all I care. And yeah, some people try and blag it... They don't pay what they should or they eat more than you but you don't just f**k biscuits off all together because of a couple of d**kheads. Grow up you babies. "He hasn't paid for biscuits and by rights he's eating my property!". Yeah... Jason's not paying this week because he's got dick cancer and he's got better things to worry about. Let him have a biscuit you tight bas**rd. f**k me. Plus his wife's got alopecia. Difficult home life mate. Give him a biscuit while he sorts his head out.
I'm just gonna go with the PHD bloke to be honest because he's smarter than everyone else and I f**king love biscuits me."
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This made me smile:
http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/eu-referendum-german-sports-newspaper-bild-vows-to-accept-geoff-hurst-s-england-world-cup-goal-if-a3279161.html
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I have enjoyed reading all your thoughts on this, and personally I hope you stay in, but best of luck today.
We may be in a similar position with Amexit if The Donald gets in! In which case I would be in the leave camp, for Canada!