E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Archtronics, what I said in my posts wasn't directed at you.


I was referring to groups and individuals who've thrown accusations at us and our community. One example is the UAF group. Last year we saw the EDL come into our community, they were not invited and not welcome by the majority. The UAF group came into our community in the weeks before the protest and made every bit as much trouble as the EDL did. They even picketed our local primary school, handing leaflets out to parents as they were dropping their kids off and picking them up. When the headmistress asked them to move away from the main gates she was met with a torrent of abuse, being called a racist and bigot.

We, as a community group, put a statement out that the EDL and UAF were both unwelcome and unwanted here. They came not to assist locals but to push their own sets of beliefs on others, through intimidation and general loutish behaviour. It was a sad day to see it happen in our community. I almost suffered a smear campaign after this from several local UAF members, but the silly sods were using an open Facebook page to discuss their efforts and it was seen by everyone who mattered. It was like a poorly written script for some dodgy TV show.

When we talk openly and frankly about the problems here, those who cannot argue the points we put across reasonably accuse us of being racists or bigots, it happens a lot. There are just as many people who accuse British people of being lazy and that we have brought our own situation on ourselves as a result of this. These people often fall into three categories, one being employers, two being politicians and three being people who have never even set foot in the communities that have been decimated like ours.

 

Why are my taxes going to fund the IN campaigns argument?

Personally I'm leaning towards voting IN but stunts like this are really pushing me to vote OUT.

 

in addition to using public money its 2m over the set limit and a week earlier then allowed.

/slow clap

 

Politicians have absolutely zero psychological insight... then again, people keep voting for them so psychological reactance theory obviously doesn't apply...

 

Tbh I've had so much anti-EU propaganda through the mailbox that I actually enjoyed watching them lose their **** over this leaflet. I'm mostly on the fence about the EU personally. I get the feeling I'll be screwed either way.

 

The country that provides the best drinking water to it's people is Switzerland.
UK is pretty far down the list at no. 7.

 

I think that the known benefits of staying outweigh the assumed benefits of leaving. In the current global economic state, better the devil you know.

The timing of this referendum has been horribly bad, and another example of how the current government is breaking this country with incompetence. It just has experienced another drop in productivity while Osborne has been slashing public infrastructure spending in half. Companies are reluctant to invest or employ while the UK's membership to the EU remains uncertain. Meanwhile he cuts taxes so there is even less government income. This is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing.

 

What really P's me off is that people say they want the "facts" so they've spent £9 million of our money on a leaflet that from what i gather (not see it myself) is nothing more than propaganda.

People keep asking for facts but I'm not even sure if they know what a fact is, there are no facts no matter what side you come down on, i wish people would stop besmirching what actually makes a fact, a fact.

There's not going to be any facts about the referendum, there's not going to be any facts proving IN or OUT would be better, there's not going to be anything close to a fact for at least a decade after you've cast your vote.

/Rant

 

There can't be facts around what will happen if you leave. As what will happen will be based on the reaction of many leaders from many countries to many political situations involving Britain. All of whom may or may not be in power over the next few years. The system is too complex to be predicted. I imagine there are very few knowns if you leave. You won't have to pay dues and you won't be subject to EU law internally in Britain. Anything on things like economic benefits or negatives or political power and influence within the EU is going to be a crapshoot.

 

Indeed. So the question is: in this already unpredictable and fragile times do you choose the devil you know or the devil you don't? We know what we have now. We won't know what we'll get if the UK chooses to leave the EU. But if it turns out to be bad there is no going back.

It's one hell of a gamble to stake your future, your children's future and the very economic survival of the UK on some vague passed-off-ness with the shenanigans of a bunch of MEPs.

 

I think that The Facts generally boil down to some really rich people benefiting from eliminating foreign competition through duties and trade restrictions, while other really rich people benefit from having free access to the common market. So they ******** us around with rhetoric and turn us against each other, until the whole referendum ultimately ends up becoming a national racism test.
Do we hate foreigners enough to politically sever ourselves from the rest of Europe? Yes/No.

The anti-EU say we'll be in charge of our own future. First of all, who the hell is We? Because the last time I checked, the bloke who earns enough to buy five Veyrons per year and myself barely making £1.5k a month, don't belong to the same We. That guy has done nothing but screw me over in the past, and will continue to do so in the future regardless. If anything, I'll be even more screwed once he and his peers are calling the shots with nobody to answer to. But for the time being he wants my vote, so he's my buddy and he's worried about my freedom and independence.

He's my buddy and he's concerned about how my taxes are being spent. But I know for a fact that my taxes are simply cash that is taken from me and goes into someone else's pockets in exchange for absolutely nothing. Because I didn't get any help from anyone when my house was broken into 3 times, and the nhs wouldn't treat my hernia, back injuries, arthritis etc. Then they took my taxes and used them to drop bombs in other countries far away with whom we don't even share borders, several times. The EU didn't make them do it. Seems like they're perfectly capable of making utterly ****ed up decisions on their own, whether we're in the EU or not. So, since we've established that my taxes are basically lost cash, I can only assume that the Anti-EU is just upset because they'd rather keep all of the taxes for themselves.

TL;DR, politicians are fighting over who will get to screw us over the most, and they've managed to spin it into how much we collectively hate foreigners.

 

I don't think "better the devil you know" is a good enough argument to stay in though. Especially if you disagree with the devil you know. It's still an argument from ignorance after all. If democracies were representative, which I don't think they are and I think Britain is even less representative than other democracies based on the voting system used. But if democracies were representative then there would be a strong argument for leaving.

I think it comes down to how well the EU reflects your own political standpoint. Do you think Europe's tempering of your political system reflects your own values or do you believe the full gamut of political parties that can come to power within Britain better reflects your own values. Not just your preferred party, but all of them. Political power will ebb and flow after all.

Its probably better to abstract the decision back to something as simple as who do you broadly agree with, because there are no certainties leave or stay.

 

The question is, for me at least, is if those unpredictable and fragile times have been caused, at least in part, by our membership of the EU, or if being a member makes the situation more unpredictable and fragile.

I get the feeling we would've been worse off if we hadn't kept the pound, especially during the 08 financial crisis.

 

I think that Hyperion basically summarises it best: politicians are fighting over who will get to screw us over the most, and they've managed to spin it into how much Brits collectively hate foreigners.

Forget politics, because our political opinion doesn't matter. Forget what happens to our taxes, because where we want it to be spent doesn't matter. Forget about immigration, border controls, the strength of the Pound, "British values", terrorism or whether MEPs get to blow our taxes or the MPs. We have no control over any of that either way.

All that we can ask ourselves is how membership of the EU benefits us personally, in terms of working and studying and retiring abroad, or accessing health care if we get sick abroad (fun fact: treatment of UK tourists falling ill on holiday costs France and Spain £40 million each per year, whereas treatment of French or Spanish tourists costs the NHS £5 million and £3 million respectively. So who is getting the better deal here?), or buy stuff from abroad. And, of course, how badly other countries want to do business with us.

You want to take a leap in the dark with an isolationist policy at a time when the UK economy is at its most fragile, and try over the next five years to renegotiate a favourable trade relationship with a US which may by then be led by an isolationist neocapitalist in a bouffant, and with a Chinese dictatorship that will go over the corpses of its own people to overtake the former, and with an EU that will harbour less than warm fuzzy feelings towards the UK as it has its own problems to sort out? Do you think that the UK has anything special to offer them? I think it's time to wake up from your dreams of Empire.

But go on; jumps in the abyss. I'm Dutch; I'll still be able to access the EU. I just hope my British pension is still worth something when I retire.

 

To be honest none of that seems like a good reason to stay. How many British people care about things like that? I can't imagine the amount of British people that work, study or retire abroad makes up a significant amount of the population. Surely healthcare abroad can be solved by buying some health insurance for your trip. Most people I know that are working abroad are either in Australia or America, neither of which are in Europe. Granted some are in the UK.

As for foreign trade. I would imagine that will take a hit if Britain leaves. By how much? Will it be significant? Who knows. As I said the system is too complex to make anything but broad generalisations on. Leaving the EU will put up barriers in terms of trade, unless significant international treaties are agreed quickly and even then I doubt business will be as straight forward as trade between EU countries. Given that most of Britain's trading partners are within the EU it might not be easy. I would also hazard a guess that there will be skills shortage in difficult areas such as science and technology if there is a knock-on crack down on immigration.

The Irish will be more than happy to pick up some of that lost trade though.

 

The very fact that you say: "I can't imagine" how many UK citizens work and live abroad (2.2 million BTW) and don't know what the hit will be on foreign trade should tell you that you are making an uninformed decision. It's a wild guess based on wishful thinking.

The effect will in fact be like another economic crash like in 2008, and many of our civil and employee rights will vanish. If the UK leaves the EU, it will be a nightmare.

 

So 0.3 percent? Sounds very significant. Once you account for how many are in the EU and also require the current EU arrangement to continue living abroad what does that figure drop to?

What are you basing your 2008 prediction on? How can you predict the outcome so accurately? Or are you making wild guesses?

 

The figures I've looked at say it's around the 1.2 million mark, i guess that we've both come up with different figures goes to show why there's so much uncertainty, or as theshadow2001 said it's difficult to imagine.

 

The IPPR estimated 2.2 million living in the EU, but has now gone with the UN estimate of 1.2 million. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Consular Directorate still maintains 2.2 million.

As for the prediction of economic impact, the best-case scenario, according to think tank Open Europe is that the UK would be better off by 1.6% of GDP a year by 2030. That is assuming the UK carried out widespread deregulation after its exit and managed to strike favourable trade deals (which is a BIG assumption based on how easy the EU wants to make things for the UK; I think it is safe to say that it is in the EU's interest to make it as hard as possible*). A more realistic range is between a 0.8% permanent loss to GDP in 2030 and a 0.6% permanent gain in GDP in 2030.

The Centre for Economic Performance, at the London School of Economics, says the worst-case scenario is a 6.3% to 9.5% reduction in GDP, "a loss of a similar size to that resulting from the global financial crisis of 2008/09". The best case, according to their analysis is a loss of 2.2% of GDP, although it does not take into account as wide a range of factors as the Open Europe study.

So two institutes that understand the economy a lot better than we do, and still come up with very different figures across a wide confidence interval. That ought to tell us something: nobody knows what will happen for sure. That is one hell of a gamble against a backdrop of a UK economy that is stagnating in growth, has the highest trade deficit since records began which is only going to get worse with the crash of the steel industry, and that depends heavily on a financial sector of which a significant chunk is planning to move abroad if the Brexit happens. The UK is going to be pulverised between the three grinding milestones of the US, Asia and Europe which dominate the global economy and all have problems of their own. And the whole show has to be saved by a government that has shown no sign of economic competence whatsoever and whose key strategy thus far has been the widespread commodisation of UK infrastructure, public land and property and the UK workforce itself in chasing an impossible, random ideological goal of achieving a budget surplus by 2020 that no economist agrees with anyway.

Trust me: I have been doing a lot of reading on the UK economy and it really looks bad (the rest of the world doesn't look that great either). This is not even about the Tories or about nationalism. I'm seriously, deeply worried about this. Whatever your feelings about the EU, now is not the time to gamble with your country's economic future.

* The UK will have a two-year window between deciding to leave and actually leaving to renegotiate trade agreements with the EU, which other countries have taken five to seven years. Do not underestimate the political agendas involved. The UK's fundamental assumption is that the EU needs it more than the UK needs the EU, and we all know that is hubris of the highest order.

 

European employment and civil laws are waved through the house (UK parliament) and written into UK law and stored in stature as UK laws. Please look at London Chambers for commerce and industry (written for companies) paper on the matter where you will see that EU LAWS like working time directive for example (there are literally thousands), have a corresponding UK LAW.

To leave the EU does not remove these UK LAWS, they would have to be actively debated and removed by parliamentary vote. There is no mechanism for these laws to be automatically repealed upon leaving the EU, as they have been passed as UK LAWS.

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