E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Gunsmith's response kind of proves the point: this is a purely emotional vote, not a rational one.

Let's **** up the world economy in a fit of asshole bravado, because we're too ignorant to realise that we're just projecting onto the EU our disgruntlement with how our own elected politicians have been screwing us over for decades. Let's go full self-destruct in a fit of nationalist pique, spurred on by power-hungry public schoolboys telling us they're in it for the common people, because that has always worked out so well in the past.

Anyone who thinks about it for ten minutes realises that a Brexit will solve absolutely nothing. Just because your concerns feel valid doesn't mean your understanding of their causes and your 'solution' are. I mean, Leave doesn't even have an exit plan. If you don't even have a PLAN, how do you know it is going to WORK?!? This is how ****ing stupid this thing is.

 

When you put it like that makes it sound like a lot of fun....

 

I doubt there's ever been a rational vote in politics, it's unlikely to start now.

 

Not going to pretend I've read all 23 pages of this thread, but i've dipped in and out.

I'm not a massive fan of the way this has been handled by pretty much everyone in positions of power. Every few days we get another raft of "influential people" rolled out either supporting (or not) one side or the other. It feels like it's turned into a game of top trumps - who can get the biggest person to vouch for their side.

The way it's been run by the government also annoys me (a lot) - THEY used the referendum as a bargaining chip in a previous election (to give the people a choice) and now it feels like they just want to ram it down our throats why we shouldn't leave.

IMO the government (and other parties) should have remained a little more impartial on the whole thing - present the facts in a balanced way and allow people to make their own decisions.
Vote Leave/Vote stay could run their own campaigns but without any political bias - let the people make the choice and let them make an informed one. I want to make an informed decision - for my future and for future generations.

 

Well, it's your lucky day. You have all the information you need at your fingertips via the miracle that is the internet and Google Search. Don't take anyone's word for it; do your own research and question everything.

And above all keep in mind that neither side cares about you, your kids or the future of Britain. This referendum is just a proxy war between two groups of rich public schoolboys vying for the throne of government.

 

Personally i think that's more down to who or rather what side of the political spectrum those people in positions of power come from, i maybe exhibiting confirmation bias but it seems what we're seeing in the media are the typical responses of certain types of politicians.

It's even more annoying when you consider some politicians on the leave side supported faster integration of Turkey into the EU like Mr Johnson did in his book from 10 years ago called The Dream of Rome.

And it's annoying that Mr Cameron invokes visions of war, sodom and gomorrah and hell on earth, if things are going to be so catastrophic if we left the EU then isn't it hubris or extremely foolhardy to take that chance?

The only thing we can class as a fact are things that have already happened and even then the fact can be difficult to prove, anything that could or may happen in the future is nothing more than supposition and conjecture.

If you want information without the political bias may i suggest FullFact.org, although you may not get definitive answers you'll find lots of information based on nothing but the fact so you can make up your own mind.

 

Indeed. Let's take for instance:

Does being part of the EU really mean free movement of EU immigrants into Britain?

If the UK supposedly has an open door policy, how come 6000 refugees are living in crap in a camp in Calais? The UK has border control; it is not part of Schengen. It can refuse entry to anyone who it doesn't like the look of: the EU’s 2004 citizenship directive makes it clear that the free movement of people within the EU is NOT an unqualified right and can be restricted on grounds of “public policy, public security or public health”. Nearly 6,000 European Economic Area nationals have been prevented from entering Britain since 2010.

EU membership also means that Britain has access to the Schengen II database, which has details of 250,000 wanted or missing suspects across Europe. The flow of foreign fighters returning from Syria has extended the EU databases tracking their movements.

But the government has cut funding budget for the Border Force by 15 per cent only this year. The UK also only belatedly opted in a series of criminal justice measures known as the Prüm package, which allows the sharing of information on suspected criminals, such as fingerprints and DNA, because many Eurosceptic MPs voted against it.

 

Just playing devils advocate here so don't expect much of an argument.

But while it's true we can and have refused entry based on public policy, public security and public health grounds, ultimately it’s up to EU courts how those criteria are defined.

It's also worth noting that it's not a given that we'd "gain back control of our borders" if we left the EU as we'd have to leave the European Economic Area (the single market) as well for that to happen and as that's not something we're having a referendum on how that's handled would be down to the politicians.

 

Yup, but it is up to the member state how they apply them. And since the most influential member states have the same concerns about immigration as the UK, there will not be much of an argument.

The whole EEA question is indeed a tricky one, that Leave has studiously avoided answering. If it were down to people like Ian Duncan Smith, the UK will leave the EEA and EFTA altogether --which means WTO rules, 9% slapped on import and export duties, loss of a chunk of the financial service market and a drop in value of GBP by roughly 18%. Boris Johnson on the other hand wants to stay in the EEA and just use the referendum as leverage to negotiate a more advantageous relationship in the EU for the UK.

Which is unlikely to happen, because if Leave wins, we'll see a big, nasty power struggle within its ranks as it suddenly dawns on different parties that although they wanted the same thing, they were pursuing different goals. There will be big fights as they try to decide:

- What relationship are we going to renegotiate?
- What are we prepared to compromise on?
- What are we definitely NOT prepared to compromise on?
- Who will lead those renegotiations?

You know, the important questions that really matter but the electorate get no say in.
This against a backdrop of a massive reshuffle of the Tory cabinet as Cameron is ousted. Meanwhile the two-year negotiation time window with the EU is closing fast, after which the relationship defaults to the WTO situation described above. UKIP and other extreme Leavers know that of course, so all they have to do is keep bickering and stalling the formation of a renegotiation party with a clear mandate to get what they want.

Make no mistake: to vote Leave is to vote for the most extreme isolationist right-wing scenario. There will be no middle ground.

 

That's not my understanding of the public policy, public security and public health caveats, the UK could refuse entry based on any of those criteria but it could then be taken to the EU courts to defend its decision, basically the EU courts decide if the reasons for refusing entry are valid.

The way you put it makes me want to vote leave, we'd have years of fun watching as recriminations fly all over the place, political parties implode, and the ending of political careers.

 

And lots of death and hunger due to civil unrest.

 

I'd love to see that myself; it's just the whole nation freaking out and going 1939 Hitler Germany that puts a bit of a damper on things...

Here's how crazy things are. Bernard Jenkin, the leading Tory Eurosceptic MP and Constitutional Affairs select committee chairman is convinced that if the electorate votes for a Brexit, Cameron will not make good on his bluff to pull the trigger on Article 50 immediately --that the Conservative party won't let him. He proposes instead that the best strategy would be to play for time for the next 4 years or so to let the UK economy stabilise and the (new) cabinet decide what relationship it actually wants to negotiate.

So Vote Leave wants a Brexit... just not right now.

Let's see if UKIP will go along with that. Let's see if the EU will.

 

Another interesting bit of info I stumbled across.

Does EU immigration really cost the UK money?

 

That's sensationalism right there for you!!

 

Hey, you better have a zombie plan, is all I'm saying.

 

Nexxo, there are conflicting studies on the true cost or benefit of immigration, you can cherry pick studies but the fact is that no-one actually knows the real cost or benefit. As an example of this, look at the Fiscal Effects of Immigration to the UK chart on this page:

https://fullfact.org/immigration/how-immigrants-affect-public-finances/

The difference in the amounts given is eye watering! The fact that our government cannot give a reliable account is more alarming than what side the scales tipped onto for me.

We have immigration statistics that are unreliable, fiscal accounts that conflict and are being told massively conflicting stories. Our government can't even give us a truly accurate account of the number of immigrants coming to the UK. That is a massive problem on it's own because we just don't have an accurate overview from which we can work.

The OECD claims 140,000 migrants coming to the UK a year for the next 50 years. The Office for National Statistics wouldn't agree, they estimated the figure for the year ending September 2015 was 323,000. That is quite some disparity.

I could go on and on pointing out the conflicts in what we are being told but there is no point. This is the crux of the problem and I'm pretty sure it feeds the anti immigration sentiment a hell of a lot too. People feel they are being lied to or that our government has lost control of immigration. When you consider the masses of conflicting studies, reports and biased opinions you can hardly blame them for that.

You want the British public to be more accepting and open to the freedom of movement, you must accept the inadequacies of the current system and put forth fair and reasonable proposals to fix the system. Until now the EU has resolutely fought the prospect of this, how much longer will the EU keep it's head buried in the sand? Stop blaming people for being suspicious and unwelcoming, blame the people who cannot give rational and entirely fact based answers to the questions they are asking.

 

For us ordinary Jo Blogs they're eye water but when compared to GDP or total governmental expenditure and TAX revenues the numbers are a drop in the ocean, depending on what year and source you use the government revenue is around £500bn so £1-5bn is a tiny amount in the grand scheme of things, the NHS cost roughly £2.2bn per week so a £1-5bn saving wouldn't go very far.

That certainly seems like a lot doesn't it, although again it's all about perspective, it sounds a lot until you compare it with how many births there are each year in England and Wales, it's around 700,000, or how about the 500,000 deaths each year, or maybe a more relevant statistic would be the amount of people emigrating to other countries, that would be 300,000.

The only reason people feel that way is because the vast majority believe what their told, they don't bother or don't have the time to confirm or disprove the rhetoric being pumped out from both the media and politicians, maybe if more people did they'd spot *the dead cat on the table.

*No cats were harmed in the writing of that article.

Hears my fix for the problems, start holding our politicians to account and stop blaming everyone else for our problems, stop being distracted by politicians throwing dead cats on tables.

 

The point I was trying to make was that there is absolutely NO consensus on the topic of immigration, the impact and the scale. With that in mind, I think it would be extremely unfair to say that people who are concerned and also somewhat suspicious are wrong or that their concerns are unwarranted. You could spend weeks, months or even years studying the topic and you would still be no nearer to definitive answers.

I do agree that we are never going to see an improvement in our political system until more people are prepared to get off their arses and use their votes to hold our politicians accountable. I also think the EU is flawed and if we are to stay there needs to be reforms. Isn't the whole EU thing about our problems being our problems in the context of the EU rather than UK?

 

Yea i got the point you were making, it's just in the grand scheme of things the differences between all the research and studies are negligible, yes £1-5bn sounds a lot, yes 150-200k immigrants sounds a lot but when looking at the bigger picture the impact is negligible.

It's like going to the doctors because you're worried about a bee sting and not bothering to mention that you've been coughing up blood.

Well it's not like the EU is immune to change, it has, and probably always will, introduce reforms to the way it works.

Shifting the blame isn't going to fix those problems though, we need less recriminations, more solutions, less talk, more action, less negligence, more accomplishments.

 

In the short term, maybe. We shouldn't be looking at short term though. This is a problem most politicians suffer from, they just can't see past or refuse to look past the next election.

We're not hearing anything of substance from the EU though on what reforms could be discussed, what timeframes we can expect or anything generally useful. If the EU wants to convince people it's worth keeping the relationship alive, they better damned well be telling people what they are going to be doing or are proposing. The onus is on them not us.

Shifting blame, agreed. Accepting faults and then moving on with solutions to those faults, most definitely. My own confidence this will really happen in my lifetime.........negligible.