EU referendum

[buctootim]

Can you imigane the outcry from lefties if a Tory minister talked on any other issue and said paying the poor more was not " necessarily a good thing " .

 

The fact that there's not a peep is more evidence that the Lefts swivel eyed devoution to be seen as Good Europeans, trumps all their principles . Of course people like Tony Benn , Michael Foot , Bob Crow all understood the impact the EU have on the poorest in society , most on the left nowadays don't understand or don't really care. So long as it's good for Islington , **** the peasants.

 

Nice rant. Why should the left be up in arms? No-one expects anything different from him - he's a Tory who has spent his whole career getting paid extremely well for running retail operations paying his staff at or near minimum wage. Its the Conservatives he embarasses , not the left.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Nice rant. Why should the left be up in arms? No-one expects anything different from him - he's a Tory who has spent his whole career getting paid extremely well for running retail operations paying his staff at or near minimum wage. Its the Conservatives he embarasses , not the left.

 

He was speaking as chairman of BSE , a remain group.

 

Still if you're happy to vote against something that will increase the pay of the poor , thats up to you . I always thought the left were pro the low paid, now they're siding with The Man

[CB Saint]

With regards to our motor industry - being in the EU didn't prevent the transfer of the Transit plant from Eastleigh to Turkey, and all the uncertainty regarding our in / out status didn't dissuade Aston Martin agreeing to create another 750 in Wales last week.

[buctootim]

He was speaking as chairman of BSE , a remain group.

 

Still if you're happy to vote against something that will increase the pay of the poor , thats up to you . I always thought the left were pro the low paid, now they're siding with The Man

 

How odd.

[Wes Tender]

Europe may wish to continue trading but on their terms not ours, its that simple and no amount of wishful thinking will alter that.

 

Is it really that simple? So simple in fact that people produce 400 page documents to outline the procedure that should be followed after a Brexit.

 

And then there is the debate about who holds the aces and who has most to lose from making free trade between us difficult and expensive when we are the largest export market for many of the EU countries. So I very much doubt that Europe will be in the commanding position that you envisage if we left and despite the bluster, the German Car manufacturers will not carry out those threats to pull out of production in this country and risk a large fall in their sales here as reprisals from an angry British public

[Wes Tender]

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/03/03/swiss-parliament-withdraws-bid-to-join-eu/

 

Good for them.

[Batman]

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/03/03/swiss-parliament-withdraws-bid-to-join-eu/

 

Good for them.

 

little switzerland-ers

 

https://woodfordfunds.com/economic-impact-brexit-report/

Edited 3 March, 2016 by Batman

[Batman]

A TV debate looks like it is going to happen, 2 days before the election with a 12,000 audience at Wembley Arena.

 

To represent the leave side..

Boris

Farage

IDS

Galloway

 

To represent the remain side

Osborne

Caroline Lucas

Alan Johnson

Tim Farron

 

 

be interesting if that comes off

[simo]

I see some french geezer has came out with the threat about giving us our own Calais if we left, Some other french geezer then denied it could happen ! It's heating up.

[TwoPints]

With regards to our motor industry - being in the EU didn't prevent the transfer of the Transit plant from Eastleigh to Turkey, and all the uncertainty regarding our in / out status didn't dissuade Aston Martin agreeing to create another 750 in Wales last week.

Well, it would seem that being in the EU hasn't driven down wages as much as we're led to believe as the reason the Transit factory moved was because of the cheaper labour in Turkey.

 

I also wonder whether the Aston Martin decision was based on an exceptional regional growth fund loan from the UK Government which allowed them to broaden their export markets to places such as China and the Middle East. So, seemingly were able to export to countries outside of the EU even while we're a part of it! Who would have thought!

[solentstars]

With regards to our motor industry - being in the EU didn't prevent the transfer of the Transit plant from Eastleigh to Turkey, and all the uncertainty regarding our in / out status didn't dissuade Aston Martin agreeing to create another 750 in Wales last week.

the ford plant was in swaythling for a start and turkey have been associate membership of the eu since the 1960s giving them certain privalges,has for aston martin i,m sure if we leave you will find that the next time they go for investment they will move it to the eu mainland unless we can have full access to the single market and theres also the possibility they may back track on there commiment to wales .

[solentstars]

The day after Brexit the CEOs of VW, Daimler AG and BMW will be banging on the door of Merkel's office to negotiate a favourable free-trade agreement with Britain. They aren't going to want to get involved in a tariff war with their largest foreign market.

 

(Or so I've heard - that's the counterargument at least).

 

The other one being that Nissan threatened to pull their factory out of Sunderland if we didn't join the Euro, and have since doubled their workforce.

theres nothing to stop them building the cars in the eu and leaving us with a few parts factory,just look at bmw who build cars in amercia now when people used to say they had to be built in germany and the ford transit is still the uk s top van despite be built in turkey,don,t seem the public care that its been moved out of the uk,and ithe fact that our car industry is foreign owned anyway.unless the out campaign a explains how they will get access to our biggest export markets with out paying in for access and freedom of movement,i can,t take them seriously. Edited 3 March, 2016 by solentstars

[Sour Mash]

Well, it would seem that being in the EU hasn't driven down wages as much as we're led to believe as the reason the Transit factory moved was because of the cheaper labour in Turkey.

 

I also wonder whether the Aston Martin decision was based on an exceptional regional growth fund loan from the UK Government which allowed them to broaden their export markets to places such as China and the Middle East. So, seemingly were able to export to countries outside of the EU even while we're a part of it! Who would have thought!

Who has suggested Eu membership has driven our wages onto a par with Turkey? And who has said we're currently unable to export to countries outside the EU?

 

Making stuff up yet again.

[TwoPints]

Who has suggested Eu membership has driven our wages onto a par with Turkey? And who has said we're currently unable to export to countries outside the EU?

 

Making stuff up yet again.

'kin ell, your back again talking ****. If you bothered to read back through this thread you'll find both topics discussed. Maybe if you put a bit of effort in before posting you wouldn't come across as a complete idiot.

 

Anything constructive to add yet by the way? No thought not.

[Jonnyboy]

Can you imigane the outcry from lefties if a Tory minister talked on any other issue and said paying the poor more was not " necessarily a good thing " .

 

The fact that there's not a peep is more evidence that the Lefts swivel eyed devoution to be seen as Good Europeans, trumps all their principles . Of course people like Tony Benn , Michael Foot , Bob Crow all understood the impact the EU have on the poorest in society , most on the left nowadays don't understand or don't really care. So long as it's good for Islington , **** the peasants.

 

Why would you bring up the opinions of famous lefties that you normally despise? Undermines your whole argument.

[Sour Mash]

'kin ell, your back again talking ****. If you bothered to read back through this thread you'll find both topics discussed. Maybe if you put a bit of effort in before posting you wouldn't come across as a complete idiot.

 

Anything constructive to add yet by the way? No thought not.

Just picking you up for making stuff up I'm afraid.

[TwoPints]

Just picking you up for making stuff up I'm afraid.

I'll not tell you again, but maybe if you bothered to put some effort in you might realise you're talking **** before you starting typing.

[moonraker]

Is it really that simple? So simple in fact that people produce 400 page documents to outline the procedure that should be followed after a Brexit.

 

And then there is the debate about who holds the aces and who has most to lose from making free trade between us difficult and expensive when we are the largest export market for many of the EU countries. So I very much doubt that Europe will be in the commanding position that you envisage if we left and despite the bluster, the German Car manufacturers will not carry out those threats to pull out of production in this country and risk a large fall in their sales here as reprisals from an angry British public

Im glad your so certain that the world you desire will come to pass, I am not.

[CB Fry]

No one should be making any decisions until we've heard what Jermaine Jenas has to say.

[melmacian_saint]

The EFTA would be a great project to reactivate. Back in the day it was a competitor to the EC, and indeed produced excellent results for about 15 years.

 

It was a curious alliance as well. Aside from Norway & Switzerland, and Ireland which was in economic union with the UK anyway, there was also Portugal, Sweden, Denmark & Austria. I know for a fact it was responsible for Portugal becoming one of the fastest-growing nations in the 60s.

 

However, it seems to have become obsolete with the Single European Act and Maastricht (and the creation of the EEA). It has very little legislative power (free trade deals, which are subject to massive EU market restrictions and own trade agreement rules anyway) and I can honestly see the EU forcing its members to join at some point.

[badgerx16]

No one should be making any decisions until we've heard what Jermaine Jenas has to say.

 

QT tonight, as usual, is clear evidence of the truth implicit in the question "How do you know a politician is lying ?"

[moonraker]

and I can honestly see the EU forcing its members to join at some point.

 

Really, and just how are they going to do that?

[Wes Tender]

Im glad your so certain that the world you desire will come to pass, I am not.

 

Of course I'm not certain of anything, any more than the remain brigade are.

 

But as I said, nothing about it is simple whichever way the referendum vote goes. But a few generalities about how human nature could help colour the result are worth consideration.

 

There will be resistance to believing fear tactics if soothing noises can be made to reassure people by those trusted by the public that there is massive exaggeration of the consequences of us leaving. Threats from major corporations in the EU that they will pull out of production in the UK can be taken with a giant pinch of salt if it can be seen to be cutting off their nose to spite their face.

 

The electorate, apart from those who are undecided, will put more stock in the arguments that they want to hear. The issues like immigration, the economy, sovereignty, border controls, etc, have a different order of importance for each voter. In order to have a complete debate, all of these issues need to be addressed and debated in a sensible, balanced way.

 

Arguments highlighting the supremacy of the EU legal system over ours, that we have lost much sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats, that we have no control over our own borders, are powerful weapons for the leave cause. Labelling those who deplore these developments as "little Englanders", is not going to help the remain cause. Neither is it helpful to have character profiling of the average remain voter or leave voter in what might be taken to be derogatory terms. However, having characterised the leave voters as typically being over 55, there is a probability that they are more likely to vote, so a close poll rating prior to the actual vote could translate to something quite different on the day.

 

The electorate have reason to wonder why Cameron promised to support the campaign to leave the EU if he didn't get the reforms that he wanted, when having received very little in the way of those concessions, he now is firmly in the remain camp and making predictions of massive economic upheaval if we left. The public aren't stupid and don't believe that we gained anything of value from these negotiations.

 

They can also see that despite the referendum question rumbling on for years and only needing to be held before the end of 2017, there seems to have been an unseemly rush to hold it before the end of June. The electorate will realise that they are being rushed into this because of the immigration crisis which will take off big time in the Summer.

 

Although the Labour Party excuse their lack of input into the Referendum as liking to sit back and watch the Conservative Party arguing against each other, they are the Opposition Party. If they wished to be considered as an electable alternative government, it is about time that their leadership stopped sitting on their hands and started to state their case.

 

People who are prepared to vote a particular way because they don't like the personalities or politics of the main protagonists on either side are shallow. The referendum is one of the most important events in most peoples' lifetimes and will influence our future for the next few decades. As such, it is far too important to allow personal animosities towards individuals or party allegiances to cloud the vote.

[ScepticalStan]

Although the Labour Party excuse their lack of input into the Referendum as liking to sit back and watch the Conservative Party arguing against each other, they are the Opposition Party. If they wished to be considered as an electable alternative government, it is about time that their leadership stopped sitting on their hands and started to state their case.

 

The problem for Labour is that they want to stay within the EU for the exact same reasons that the Tories do and if they were being honest, agree with everything Cameron has been saying. They just can't admit it.

[moonraker]

Of course I'm not certain of anything, any more than the remain brigade are.

 

But as I said, nothing about it is simple whichever way the referendum vote goes. But a few generalities about how human nature could help colour the result are worth consideration.

 

There will be resistance to believing fear tactics if soothing noises can be made to reassure people by those trusted by the public that there is massive exaggeration of the consequences of us leaving. Threats from major corporations in the EU that they will pull out of production in the UK can be taken with a giant pinch of salt if it can be seen to be cutting off their nose to spite their face.

 

The electorate, apart from those who are undecided, will put more stock in the arguments that they want to hear. The issues like immigration, the economy, sovereignty, border controls, etc, have a different order of importance for each voter. In order to have a complete debate, all of these issues need to be addressed and debated in a sensible, balanced way.

 

Arguments highlighting the supremacy of the EU legal system over ours, that we have lost much sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats, that we have no control over our own borders, are powerful weapons for the leave cause. Labelling those who deplore these developments as "little Englanders", is not going to help the remain cause. Neither is it helpful to have character profiling of the average remain voter or leave voter in what might be taken to be derogatory terms. However, having characterised the leave voters as typically being over 55, there is a probability that they are more likely to vote, so a close poll rating prior to the actual vote could translate to something quite different on the day.

 

The electorate have reason to wonder why Cameron promised to support the campaign to leave the EU if he didn't get the reforms that he wanted, when having received very little in the way of those concessions, he now is firmly in the remain camp and making predictions of massive economic upheaval if we left. The public aren't stupid and don't believe that we gained anything of value from these negotiations.

 

They can also see that despite the referendum question rumbling on for years and only needing to be held before the end of 2017, there seems to have been an unseemly rush to hold it before the end of June. The electorate will realise that they are being rushed into this because of the immigration crisis which will take off big time in the Summer.

 

Although the Labour Party excuse their lack of input into the Referendum as liking to sit back and watch the Conservative Party arguing against each other, they are the Opposition Party. If they wished to be considered as an electable alternative government, it is about time that their leadership stopped sitting on their hands and started to state their case.

 

People who are prepared to vote a particular way because they don't like the personalities or politics of the main protagonists on either side are shallow. The referendum is one of the most important events in most peoples' lifetimes and will influence our future for the next few decades. As such, it is far too important to allow personal animosities towards individuals or party allegiances to cloud the vote.

 

I think your summary is very fair. For me (an over 50) the key is what is best for the long term security and success of the UK. Whilst the EU is very far from perfect and requires serious reform, increasing globalisation and polarisation leads me to believe that we will better of collaborating with our nearest neighbours and that the EU is the best mechanism for this. Having read much from both camps the degree of contradiction, scaremongering and downright lying can be weighed in almost equal measure.

[hutch]

Here we go again what is the difference between a statistic and a number? These are numbers and percentages of the actual number so cars made and exported in 2015, to arrive at these “dodgy statistics” one simply counts each car as it leaves the production line and then you count each car that is transhipped to a European Destination, hope that is not to difficult. My real concern despite the out campaign, without any reliable evidence, claim all will be fine and the status quo will be maintained for the motor industry. Even when a major manufacture, inappropriately, puts out statement strongly tending toward saying leaving will cost jobs you still refute that their will be negative consequences. Europe may wish to continue trading but on their terms not ours, its that simple and no amount of wishful thinking will alter that.

 

There is more than one type of dodgy statistic. There is the straightforward random number approach made up by idiots for consumption by other like-minded idiots:

 

Some 500,000 to 1m people at risk. Sounds horrendous.

 

And then there is the cherry picking of what appear at face value to be reasonable statistics, but to use them in a context for which they are not relevant, in an attempt to mislead and pretend that somehow they provide some type of assurance or guarantee. Welcome to the world of the spin doctor.

 

I am not questioning the number of UK-manufactured cars that were exported to the EU in 2015. I am questoning the relevance of that number to the number of UK-manufactured cars that will be exported to the EU in, say, 2020 or 2025. If we stay in or if we leave.

 

I have no idea whether we will produce the same number of cars in 2020, or more, or fewer, if we choose to stay or to leave. But neither does BMW () it said so in it's e-mail to it's staff.

 

But the point remains that the decision on 23rd June will be made on the issue of sovereignty not car production. I don't need to know how many cars will be made in Britain to make my mind up.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

^ Well those not directly, or even indirectly, employed in the motor industry may well elect not to take into account the future prospects of that manufacturing activity in their personal referendum decision. Equally I suppose those who are now retired can safely vote to take what is surely something of a ''gamble'' on our nation's trading future safe in the knowledge that the consequences of that decision may not much effect them individually.

 

On the other hand those working in UK car plants, facilities that would almost certainly not exist today were it not for our EU membership, may well take a different view of that matter as airy notions surrounding sovereignty and independence take second place in their mind to the very real problems of feeding children and paying off mortgages.

 

Like many questions how you answer is all a matter of perspective.

[Wes Tender]

 

On the other hand those working in UK car plants, facilities that would almost certainly not exist today were it not for our EU membership, may well take a different view of that matter as airy notions surrounding sovereignty and independence take second place in their mind to the very real problems of feeding children and paying off mortgages.

 

Like many questions how you answer is all a matter of perspective.

 

Of course there will be people voting because of their own vested interests, like those who receive grants and subsidies from the EU for example. But try telling the former workers of Ford's Southampton Transit plant that their jobs are more secure because we are in the EU.

 

Whilst we're about it and with some interest to local workers in an important industry right here in Southampton, this might have a bearing on how many vote here:-

 

http://capx.co/the-eu-is-about-to-crucify-the-uks-thriving-ports/

 

However, I take issue strongly with your dismissal of our nation sovereignty, independence and the control over our borders as "airy notions", as if they are some theoretical mumbo-jumbo rather than the cornerstones of a democratic nation.

 

Yes, the debate so far lacks perspective, but the remain campaign have employed fear tactic rhetoric over whether people will be able to feed their children and pay their mortgages if we left the EU and that is to be condemned as underhand scaremongering.

[solentstars]

^ Well those not directly, or even indirectly, employed in the motor industry may well elect not to take into account the future prospects of that manufacturing activity in their personal referendum decision. Equally I suppose those who are now retired can safely vote to take what is surely something of a ''gamble'' on our nation's trading future safe in the knowledge that the consequences of that decision may not much effect them individually.

 

On the other hand those working in UK car plants, facilities that would almost certainly not exist today were it not for our EU membership, may well take a different view of that matter as airy notions surrounding sovereignty and independence take second place in their mind to the very real problems of feeding children and paying off mortgages.

 

Like many questions how you answer is all a matter of perspective.

 

good post and i expect closer to the truth.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

Those who decide to stress the so called ''fear'' tactics of the remain campaign without even bothering to mention the veritable barrage of blatant anti-EU propaganda that much of our press has been peddling to the British public for decades now risk ridicule methinks ...

 

Yes basing your stay or leave decision on pure economic self-interest, rather than on more esoteric notions such as sovereignty or political independence, may lack a certain degree of nobility I suppose. However, in my experience that is how millions of ordinary people think and I'm not about to come on here and lecture these people on the error of their ways.

[Wes Tender]

Those who decide to stress the so called ''fear'' tactics of the remain campaign without even bothering to mention the veritable barrage of blatant anti-EU propaganda that much of our press has been peddling to the British public for decades now risk ridicule methinks ...

 

Yes basing your stay or leave decision on pure economic self-interest, rather than on more esoteric notions such as sovereignty or political independence, may lack a certain degree of nobility I suppose. However, in my experience that is how millions of ordinary people think and I'm not about to come on here and lecture these people on the error of their ways.

 

You should recognise the difference between the two cases, surely. The "fear" tactics have only really surfaced since Cameron's risible attempts to gain reform of the EU as a condition of our continued membership failed. He had said that he would campaign for us to leave if he didn't get those reforms agreed and he failed substantially to get very much by way of the reforms he wanted and there is no guarantee that even they will be passed by the EU if we vote to remain. Ridicule deserves to go Cameron's way for the sheer brazen two-faced way that he has blustered his way through these negotiations and now tries to convince the electorate that the economic repercussions of us leaving will be much worse than they would have been had we left without them.

 

That there was a barrage of blatant anti-EU rhetoric in the press for decades must surely tell you something. Could it be that there had been successive treaties changing the entire basis of our membership of the European adventure from one solely based on trade, towards an inexorable march towards a federal Europe and the electorate was impotent in being denied a vote on it? Was there no foundation to the scandalous excesses of waste and bureaucracy, the way that subsidies produced gluts of produce or gave an unfair advantage to some countries and sectors of their industrial or agricultural organisations over others?

 

I see that you have now upgraded your assessment of the importance of national Sovereignty, the supremacy of out legal system and control of our borders from "airy notions" to "esoteric". You really are one for damning such important issues with faint praise. I suspect that many of the electorate might well conclude that there is little to choose between what the economic effects would be either way, but that issues like immigration, the legal powers of the European Courts and the loss of sovereignty meaning that we have lost substantial controls over the future development of the direction that the EU is heading are all tied with those very airy notional esoteric issues. In particular, the immigration issue is the one that has far more impact on the man in the street, who has noticed the numbers of people they encounter speaking in languages they don't recognise, their local schools being filled to bursting point, the NHS struggling to cope and the shortage of housing becoming acute. It is easy to make the connection with how this is happening when the TV news features one or other of these particular issues connected with immigration every night.

 

But if you feel that the electorate don't make the connection with this problem being caused by the freedom of movement of people as a condition of our membership of the EU and the ability to trade in its single market because it is an airy or esoteric notion, then you might be in for a shock come R day.

[buctootim]

...

Edited 5 March, 2016 by buctootim

[Lord Duckhunter]

Wes makes a great point about Cameron .

 

In Jan 13 Cameron said it was against the nations interest to stay in an unreformed eu and we need treaty change for reform . We haven't had treaty change , but now it's " dangerous " to leave . He was either telling lies then or is telling lies now . His reforms aren't worth a JArthur let alone enough to swing the pendulum from one end of the scale to the other .

[buctootim]

Wes makes a great point about Cameron .

 

In Jan 13 Cameron said it was against the nations interest to stay in an unreformed eu and we need treaty change for reform . We haven't had treaty change , but now it's " dangerous " to leave . He was either telling lies then or is telling lies now . His reforms aren't worth a JArthur let alone enough to swing the pendulum from one end of the scale to the other .

 

Are you saying Cameron is dishonest, slippery and will say anything for a vote? Who'd have thought? Its a pity more of you didnt realise that in May.

[Wes Tender]

Are you saying Cameron is dishonest, slippery and will say anything for a vote? Who'd have thought? Its a pity more of you didnt realise that in May.

 

Most people realised that as slippery as Cameron was, Red Ed would have been even worse, and had Corbyn been the Labour leader, Labour's chances would have been even slimmer.

[Verbal]

Those who decide to stress the so called ''fear'' tactics of the remain campaign without even bothering to mention the veritable barrage of blatant anti-EU propaganda that much of our press has been peddling to the British public for decades now risk ridicule methinks ...

 

Methinks thou hast a point.

[TwoPints]

But try telling the former workers of Ford's Southampton Transit plant that their jobs are more secure because we are in the EU.

 

So what are you trying to say here? That the Ford plant wouldn't have closed if we weren't in the EU, that no companies should close and move abroad if we're in the EU or that being in the EU caused the closure? Either way it's nonsense.

[Wes Tender]

So what are you trying to say here? That the Ford plant wouldn't have closed if we weren't in the EU, that no companies should close and move abroad if we're in the EU or that being in the EU caused the closure? Either way it's nonsense.

 

You've entirely missed the point. What is nonsense is companies like Ford threatening to pull out of the UK if we leave the EU, when they are perfectly happy to do it while we remain in. It is really so much hypocritical bluster. And of course, what convinced Ford to do it, is lower unit labour costs in Turkey and a very low interest loan from the EU bank.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

You should recognise the difference between the two cases, surely. The "fear" tactics have only really surfaced since Cameron's risible attempts to gain reform of the EU as a condition of our continued membership failed. He had said that he would campaign for us to leave if he didn't get those reforms agreed and he failed substantially to get very much by way of the reforms he wanted and there is no guarantee that even they will be passed by the EU if we vote to remain. Ridicule deserves to go Cameron's way for the sheer brazen two-faced way that he has blustered his way through these negotiations and now tries to convince the electorate that the economic repercussions of us leaving will be much worse than they would have been had we left without them.

 

That there was a barrage of blatant anti-EU rhetoric in the press for decades must surely tell you something. Could it be that there had been successive treaties changing the entire basis of our membership of the European adventure from one solely based on trade, towards an inexorable march towards a federal Europe and the electorate was impotent in being denied a vote on it? Was there no foundation to the scandalous excesses of waste and bureaucracy, the way that subsidies produced gluts of produce or gave an unfair advantage to some countries and sectors of their industrial or agricultural organisations over others?

 

I see that you have now upgraded your assessment of the importance of national Sovereignty, the supremacy of out legal system and control of our borders from "airy notions" to "esoteric". You really are one for damning such important issues with faint praise. I suspect that many of the electorate might well conclude that there is little to choose between what the economic effects would be either way, but that issues like immigration, the legal powers of the European Courts and the loss of sovereignty meaning that we have lost substantial controls over the future development of the direction that the EU is heading are all tied with those very airy notional esoteric issues. In particular, the immigration issue is the one that has far more impact on the man in the street, who has noticed the numbers of people they encounter speaking in languages they don't recognise, their local schools being filled to bursting point, the NHS struggling to cope and the shortage of housing becoming acute. It is easy to make the connection with how this is happening when the TV news features one or other of these particular issues connected with immigration every night.

 

But if you feel that the electorate don't make the connection with this problem being caused by the freedom of movement of people as a condition of our membership of the EU and the ability to trade in its single market because it is an airy or esoteric notion, then you might be in for a shock come R day.

 

1> The Common People.

What I try to ''recognise'' is typical human behaviour as I perceive it - i.e. most people in my experience will put practicable considerations, such as paying off mortgages and feeding their children etc, ahead more esoteric notions concerning constitutional reform or the supposed advantages of leaving the EU. You can (and probably will I suspect) continue to object to this, but do try to comprehend that not everyone thinks as you do and you may well be somewhat atypical.

 

2 > Border Control.

I must inform you yet again that even if we were to vote to leave in the coming referendum then any new free trade arrangement we could REALISTICALLY negotiate with the EU would almost certainly entail the UK continuing to accept the principle of the free movement of workers. That afterall is implicit in the ''Single Market'' concept as it applies to major industrialised nation states in Europe. I can easily understand why you personally find this to be somewhat uncomfortable, or at least inconvenient. Nevertheless, this seems to be the fact of the matter.

 

3 > Project Fear.

You may have swallowed whole this so called ''Project Fear'' line being peddled by the likes of Boris Johnson and his cronies in the press. However, a equally valid interpretation would be that the Prime Minister is calling the situation as he sees it and warning people of the potentially serious long term implications for this nation of a Britex victory. I for one don't see that there is very much wrong with him doing that frankly - if that is what he honestly believes. Even if I did accept that ''scare tactics'' are indeed being employed in this debate, then any suggestion that only one side of the argument here would stoop so low is nonsense of course.

 

4 > The Papers.

It seems to me quite evident that many of our newspapers are indeed notorious purveyors of anti-EU propaganda. ''Exhibit A'' in the case for the prosecution being virtually any edition of the Daily Mail published in the last twenty years! If you consider that this widespread and virulent Eurosceptic attitude among the editors and owners of our national press is founded on some high minded and principled objection to EU Treaty amendments (mostly agreed to by our leaders and endorsed by our Parliament by the way) then good for you I suppose. Others methinks may well suspect that the real motivation here is more connected to selling newspapers to that ''Little Englander'' segment of our population that still exhibited some degree of latent xenophobia in their attitudes.

 

5 > R Day.

With months of arguing still ahead of us I'm not going to be so rash as to try and predict the winner now in a race as close as this one surely is. However, I reckon that the chances of you waking up on R Day+1 morning with a nasty shock to the system are at least as high as mine are right now. Time will tell.

[buctootim]

I think a lot of the people who want out are unhappy with globalisation - the way in which countries have lost much of their distinctiveness. Local quirks and traditions have been eroded and everywhere has become a bit more homogenous. The same few brands dominate from China to Burundi and voters are treated as consumers cultivated for the benefit of global corporations. Personally I'd like to see a lot more localism - but don't see leaving the EU as helping that. If we left Britain would be more subject to prevailing winds, not less imo.

[Lord Duckhunter]

I think a lot of the people who want out are unhappy with globalisation

 

What a load of pony

[Orange]

1> The Common People.

What I try to ''recognise'' is typical human behaviour as I perceive it - i.e. most people in my experience will put practicable considerations, such as paying off mortgages and feeding their children etc, ahead more esoteric notions concerning constitutional reform or the supposed advantages of leaving the EU. You can (and probably will I suspect) continue to object to this, but do try to comprehend that not everyone thinks as you do and you may well be somewhat atypical.

 

2 > Border Control.

I must inform you yet again that even if we were to vote to leave in the coming referendum then any new free trade arrangement we could REALISTICALLY negotiate with the EU would almost certainly entail the UK continuing to accept the principle of the free movement of workers. That afterall is implicit in the ''Single Market'' concept as it applies to major industrialised nation states in Europe. I can easily understand why you personally find this to be somewhat uncomfortable, or at least inconvenient. Nevertheless, this seems to be the fact of the matter.

3 > Project Fear.

You may have swallowed whole this so called ''Project Fear'' line being peddled by the likes of Boris Johnson and his cronies in the press. However, a equally valid interpretation would be that the Prime Minister is calling the situation as he sees it and warning people of the potentially serious long term implications for this nation of a Britex victory. I for one don't see that there is very much wrong with him doing that frankly - if that is what he honestly believes. Even if I did accept that ''scare tactics'' are indeed being employed in this debate, then any suggestion that only one side of the argument here would stoop so low is nonsense of course.

4 > The Papers.

It seems to me quite evident that many of our newspapers are indeed notorious purveyors of anti-EU propaganda. ''Exhibit A'' in the case for the prosecution being virtually any edition of the Daily Mail published in the last twenty years! If you consider that this widespread and virulent Eurosceptic attitude among the editors and owners of our national press is founded on some high minded and principled objection to EU Treaty amendments (mostly agreed to by our leaders and endorsed by our Parliament by the way) then good for you I suppose. Others methinks may well suspect that the real motivation here is more connected to selling newspapers to that ''Little Englander'' segment of our population that still exhibited some degree of latent xenophobia in their attitudes.

 

5 > R Day.

With months of arguing still ahead of us I'm not going to be so rash as to try and predict the winner now in a race as close as this one surely is. However, I reckon that the chances of you waking up on R Day+1 morning with a nasty shock to the system are at least as high as mine are right now. Time will tell.

 

1. Why would they hold us to ransom over free movement if we are their biggest export market? It's a bizarre notion that in order to enjoy trading without tariffs we must also open our borders to over 500 million people. Don't think that concept exists anywhere else in the world?

 

2. On the project fear thing. You say 'swallowed as if it's some sort of illusion. I'll stop calling it project fear when i start to hear ANY positive arguments from the In camp. Start making the positive case for an unelected legislature, the continued centralisation of power into a furthered supranational governance , the common agriculture/fisheries policy, open borders, the EU's record so far (whether that be the Euro or migrant crisis). There is no getting around the fact this is what the EU is, so let's hear the positive case for it. But it won't really be made, because the establishment know the majority of people don't really want these things. So the best way to persuade people in their eyes is to convince them not that the EU is good or has a successful record we can trust, but instead that the alternative is scary and worse.

[Verbal]

1. Why would they hold us to ransom over free movement if we are their biggest export market? It's a bizarre notion that in order to enjoy trading without tariffs we must also open our borders to over 500 million people. Don't think that concept exists anywhere else in the world?

 

2. On the project fear thing. You say 'swallowed as if it's some sort of illusion. I'll stop calling it project fear when i start to hear ANY positive arguments from the In camp. Start making the positive case for an unelected legislature, the continued centralisation of power into a furthered supranational governance , the common agriculture/fisheries policy, open borders, the EU's record so far (whether that be the Euro or migrant crisis). There is no getting around the fact this is what the EU is, so let's hear the positive case for it. But it won't really be made, because the establishment know the majority of people don't really want these things. So the best way to persuade people in their eyes is to convince them not that the EU is good or has a successful record we can trust, but instead that the alternative is scary and worse.

 

1. You've got this the wrong way round. We are not the EU's biggest export market - not by a mile. However, 55% of what the UK earns in goods and services came from other EU member countries. This is why the Brexiters' Project Clueless is so far off-beam. While they prattle on about all the treaties they can sign to repair the damage, they ignore the politics of negotiating those treaties. The EU member-states will have the upper hand in those negotiations - and some, like Germany, will feel more able and ready to compete more aggressively, particularly with the City, for the services we export. That's not 'fear' but reality.

 

2. You falsely assume that those who support 'remain' do so uncritically. The EU has a democratic deficit, a political inertia when it comes to fast-moving events (like the refugee crisis and the migrant problems that have been piggy-backed onto it), and longstanding structural problems integrating such disparate economies into a single currency. However, the EU's economy is also by far the largest in the world, dwarfing China and the US.

 

A good number of those who intend to vote remain may have changed their vote were the Brexit campaign not conducted so cretinously. The best the Brexiters can manage is their hero, Boris Johnson, waving his arms at a supposed conspiracy of remainers to silence the brave little voices of the leavers.

 

What's needed, instead, is some hard information, some actual evidence, on what the consequences of leaving are. Brexiters prefer to wallow in their hard-done-by puddles of grief, and are severely hampered by a campaign that's led by what must be one of the worst line-ups ever: Farage, Galloway, IDS, with Agent Boris making a complete ass of himself.

 

So in the interests of having a discussion about something with a little bit of evidential meat on it, here's an independent evaluation carried out by three economists from the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance. They model an 'optimistic' impact on the UK economy (which is still damagingly negative) and a 'pessimistic' one which is frankly disastrous - an impact in the UK alone equivalent to the credit crunch, only much more long-lasting.

 

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/EA022.pdf

 

To whoever made the half-witted comment earlier about how this referendum is not about jobs but about sovereignty, I very munch doubt that British employees up and down the country will think their job is worth sacrificing for any supposed 'loss' of decision-making powers in the Palace of Westminster.

[Wes Tender]

 

whoever made the half-witted comment earlier about how this referendum is not about jobs but about sovereignty, I very munch doubt that British employees up and down the country will think their job is worth sacrificing for any supposed 'loss' of decision-making powers in the Palace of Westminster.

I don't recall anybody making the claim that the referendum was not about jobs but about sovereignty and would be delighted to see you quote the passage, so that we can see whether you were making it up, or whether it is simply a case that your comprehension is poor. There naturally has been some debate as to what the electorate will feel is important to them, and if somebody is unlikely to have their own job affected by Brexit like the majority of people, I suspect that immigration is high up on their list of issues that might determine their vote, together with sovereignty and the loss of the supremacy of our legal system. Immigration is the issue that the remain lobby insist is inextricably attached to the UK continuing to trade with the European single market if we left, despite other nations outside Europe managing to trade with Europe without having to endure mass movements of people as the price. The idiocy of the remain lobby comes when they insist that this must follow with us if we left, because Norway and Switzerland had to agree to it.

 

When it comes to personalities and your assessment of them as cretins, you will just have to open your eyes and your mind to the deep unpopularity of Cameron and Osborne among a sizeable section of the electorate, who consider them to be liars, shallow and lacking conviction and they have a deep loathing of them. As a Conservative voter usually, I accept that there is a section of the electorate who would vote the opposite way to them purely out of hatred of them. Also, it must be said that the leader of the Labour Party who supports the remain camp, is presumably somebody who you hold in very low esteem, otherwise why would you have insisted that there is no way that he could ever be elected as leader of Labour? As I said earlier, something as important as this shouldn't be based on personalities, but issues, as that is a very shallow position to take, isn't it?

 

I won't even bother to look at that link you posted, because regardless of whether there were three or thirty economists expounding their theories, there will others taking the opposite view. In any event, their crystal balls cannot with any certainty predict the outcome of any horse-trading regarding our future trade with the EU, or indeed what we could arrange with the rest of the World. In short, evidential meat is something that they do not bring to the debate. You yourself label it an evaluation. i.e an educated guess. Excuse me also in believing cynically that there are no totally independent opinions. Everybody comments from some position of bias, including yourself, despite your earlier protestations that you are sat on the fence. Anybody can see from your opinions, your disdain towards those who don't agree with you and the source of the champions of the arguments you choose to believe that you were probably never open to persuasion towards leaving the EU.

[moonraker]

Watching and listening to Boris on the Andrew Marr show was revealing, I was not convinced he was convinced by Brexit.

[buctootim]

Watching and listening to Boris on the Andrew Marr show was revealing, I was not convinced he was convinced by Brexit.

 

I heard his Dad being interviewed on the morning after his announcement. He was trying really hard to be supportive of his son and not critical, but it was obvious he was baffled. He was talking about how Boris was brought up in Brussels when his dad was an MEP and that Boris had never been anti European. imo it was a cynical leadership bid for the Tory party - a really bad one which will backfire. A pity because I would have much rather seen him as leader than Osborne.

[aintforever]

I heard his Dad being interviewed on the morning after his announcement. He was trying really hard to be supportive of his son and not critical, but it was obvious he was baffled. He was talking about how Boris was brought up in Brussels when his dad was an MEP and that Boris had never been anti European. imo it was a cynical leadership bid for the Tory party - a really bad one which will backfire. A pity because I would have much rather seen him as leader than Osborne.

 

I think it's a bit of a no-lose gamble as most of the Tory party members are anti EU.

[moonraker]

I had an interesting chat with my 92 year old father about the referendum. We had not really discussed it before and I was a little surprised that essentially he is completely baffled as to why anyone would want to leave. His view is there is no such thing as the good old days and that the EU has been a key contributor to a quality of life he never expected to achieve.

[Saint86]

You should recognise the difference between the two cases, surely. The "fear" tactics have only really surfaced since Cameron's risible attempts to gain reform of the EU as a condition of our continued membership failed. He had said that he would campaign for us to leave if he didn't get those reforms agreed and he failed substantially to get very much by way of the reforms he wanted and there is no guarantee that even they will be passed by the EU if we vote to remain. Ridicule deserves to go Cameron's way for the sheer brazen two-faced way that he has blustered his way through these negotiations and now tries to convince the electorate that the economic repercussions of us leaving will be much worse than they would have been had we left without them.

 

That there was a barrage of blatant anti-EU rhetoric in the press for decades must surely tell you something. Could it be that there had been successive treaties changing the entire basis of our membership of the European adventure from one solely based on trade, towards an inexorable march towards a federal Europe and the electorate was impotent in being denied a vote on it? Was there no foundation to the scandalous excesses of waste and bureaucracy, the way that subsidies produced gluts of produce or gave an unfair advantage to some countries and sectors of their industrial or agricultural organisations over others?

 

I see that you have now upgraded your assessment of the importance of national Sovereignty, the supremacy of out legal system and control of our borders from "airy notions" to "esoteric". You really are one for damning such important issues with faint praise. I suspect that many of the electorate might well conclude that there is little to choose between what the economic effects would be either way, but that issues like immigration, the legal powers of the European Courts and the loss of sovereignty meaning that we have lost substantial controls over the future development of the direction that the EU is heading are all tied with those very airy notional esoteric issues. In particular, the immigration issue is the one that has far more impact on the man in the street, who has noticed the numbers of people they encounter speaking in languages they don't recognise, their local schools being filled to bursting point, the NHS struggling to cope and the shortage of housing becoming acute. It is easy to make the connection with how this is happening when the TV news features one or other of these particular issues connected with immigration every night.

 

But if you feel that the electorate don't make the connection with this problem being caused by the freedom of movement of people as a condition of our membership of the EU and the ability to trade in its single market because it is an airy or esoteric notion, then you might be in for a shock come R day.

 

Smack on Wes.

 

Ultimately, if you forget all other arguments, being in the EU means that the British people are governed by people we did not elect. Britain, the country that carried democracy to the world in the modern era, is giving its democracy up. That goes completely against the British way of live and ideals, something that has been eroded by successive governments recently in all walks of life. And lets not even get started on the shear bureaucratic corruption that infests high level European politics and bodies... Just look at both Fifa and UEFA... For that reason I am voting out regardless...

 

But add to that the shear gibberish they are spouting under "project fear" to try and sway the public to their arguments... We are such a major economy that us leaving will cause a global recession... but we can't survive alone? Or make our own decisions? Are they fecking joking? It costs us £135m a week to be in, the NHS could be saved with that kind of money let alone with the end to health tourism? And we have a trade deficit with europe... it is not a trading or economic superpower and we would be far better off trading with the rest of the world and the commonwealth which represents a group of nations with diversified economies..... And lets not forget the thinly veiled threats of "punitive trade sanctions", holiday home taxes bla bla bla... who gives a toss? Get out, take back control of our economy, allow us to dredge rivers again, take back our fishing rights etc etc... people are brainwashed into thinking we need europe... we don't, it is the other way around completely, without us, it is just Germany and France and whole host of financially dodgy nations (simplification i know)...

 

Anyway, the debate is irrelevant.

 

52% of the country voted UKIP or Tory in the last election. approximately 50% of labour supporters are pro brexit... And just look at the bi-election turn outs for UKIP that didn't manifest itself in the GE.... Add to that the fact that people are not passionately European... people simply will not turn out in their droves to vote for "Bremain" but my god they'll vote Brexit.

 

And one final point? Who would you listen to and trust, snobby pension raiding osborne and cameron, or a combination of Boris, Ian Duncan Smith and Farage? Even Corbyn wants out of the EU and tore the "reforms" apart in PM question time before sitting down and being weak once again by saying labour supports Bremain... Far too many weak politicians with no back bone.

 

I'll vote for democracy and to be ruled only by people that Britain elects... Not the EU. Worry about how bad the EU is for us afterwards.

[buctootim]

Lets not even get started on the shear bureaucratic corruption that infests high level European politics and bodies look at both Fifa and UEFA.....I am voting out regardless... It costs us £135m a week to be in......get out, take back control of our economy, allow us to dredge rivers again.

 

Excellent satire of the Brexit argument, top work!