E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Unfortunately out government appears to have been hijacked by the far right, their plane is to force the most extreme outcome possible and they have created a situation that allows them to achieve it by doing nothing.

Short of some legal finagle that cancels article 50 entirely I think Mogg and chums are going to get their way.

 

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Ironically my wife always wanted to leave; I was thinking more of retiring in Wales (a much underrated area of natural beauty). But Brexit made me realise this is not the country anymore that I thought it was, and that as far as many of its citizens and its government are concerned, this is not my home.

It is the betrayal that stings. I came here because I fell in love with this country, at the age of 12, while on my second holiday here. I looked over the rolling hills of Kent in Summer, and I vowed that one day I would live here. For the next 14 years this feeling was like an aching pull in my chest until --in a way quite by accident-- I came here to fill a shortage in clinical psychologists in the NHS. The post I took was one that the Trust had not been able to fill for two years --no Brit wanted to work in such a deprived area, one of the worst in the UK. Personally I loved it: the job, the people, being able to do something meaningful for a community that had so little.

The usual story follows: met my wife here, climbed the career ladder, worked long hours (as we all do in the NHS; 20% unpaid overtime is pretty much the norm), paid my 40% taxes, integrated, contributed. I support local business, I am a member of the local park Trust, I donate to charity. I drink loose-leaf tea, bore people with the history of Victorian science and architecture, keep bees, do model engineering, am passionate about what the NHS stands for. I am pretty much a model immigrant: speak the language fluently, know the country's culture and history, adopted its customs, provide valued skills, pay more into the system than I take out.

Turns out, it means nothing. The message of the Lancaster House speech was clear: this is not my home. I am a queue-jumping, bargaining card citizen-of-nowhere. Not welcome, just tolerated. Not a member of the community, but a commodity. It's just business.

Never tell a Dutchman that it's just business, because we mean business. That's how I am approaching my temporary residence now: I am just here for the job. I will do my tour of duty, and as soon as I can retire I am out of here and I will owe this country --whatever it has turned into-- nothing.

 

For some part of Britain at least, I apologise for this.

My country is not what I thought it was. The way you, my partner and others have been treated disgusts me.

 

It does sadden me to hear that honest, hardworking individuals no longer feel welcome in our country, the one they have made their home. It really does.

I am a Euro sceptic but I have absolutely no problem with anyone wishing to come into the UK to make this their home if they are prepared to work and obey the law etc. I couldn’t care less where they may have come from as long as they are productive, law abiding citizens, be it the from within the EU or further afield. I honestly do mean that. I’ve worked in the NHS on the coal face, albeit on a much, much lower pay grade ( we weren’t even salaried) than you will be on, so I got to know many people who came here to the UK to work. If they suffer as a result of Brexit, then that isn’t right or fair. I get that, I do.

As for Brexit, it’s been a shite shower from day one. As soon as the referendum result was given, our politicians should have been working their arses off but they didn’t. That is true for remain supporting MP’s as it is for the leave supporting MP’s. They’ve done nothing but quarrel like school kids for 2 years. So now we are where we are, I’ve said it before, I’m stuck here whatever happens, so I can either wallow in it or try to make the best of whatever shite storm is coming.

 

Give it long enough and maybe MPs will start waking up to the fact that this whole debacle was brought on because Cameron was pandering to the Eurosceptics in his own part and running scared of UKIP, despite what stuartpb seems to believe.

There's already stirrings amongst Conservative MPs that the ERG should've been kicked out years ago.

 

Weirdly, I wasn't so keen before the referendum. Then I was slightly more keen. About six months later the only thing stopping me was the prospect of being unemployed with my, at the time, somewhat OTT debt. Fortunately my drunk-decision to invest in Brewdog seven or eight years ago paid of handsomely, and I was able to clear it all and buy myself some new toys before we left. She started working here in Germany in September and I was out by November. With no plans to go back.

I suspect a harsh change is on the way that might coerce your good lady into thinking the EU isn't so bad. Apart from the tongue-twister languages that're popular here.

I was born there and it didn't feel like home. I can't imagine migrants have much left of a 'this is home' thought process to cling on to unless their previous country is some war-torn shithole. And frankly, my belief is that the UK is going to end up looking like a war-torn shithole without the hassle of an actual war.

 

It's kind of you to apologise, but you don't have to. Colleagues feel angry and embarrassed and are constantly apologising too, but actually ordinary people are not the problem. It is the actual government saying what it did and endorsing a racist minority view. It shows a preparedness to throw immigrants of the cliff for political expedience, and I'm not sticking around for that.

I'm already suffering. It's been stressful to not know my legal status for the last 2 years. All those fine Brexit promises of unilaterally guaranteeing my right to remain disappeared the day after the referendum; amendments promising the same were voted against by parliament twice since. It is only two months ago that Theresa May conceded we could stay even in the case of a no-deal. And what are her promises worth these days?

And even after I have left I will be affected. My house is in Pounds, my pension is in Pounds, and have already lost 15% in value relative to the Euro. Not seeing that get better in the future...

Wouldn't it be ironic if the Tory party saves itself by splitting off the ERG? But somehow I don't see it having the guts to do so.

This is definitely not my home anymore. EU colleagues appear to be feeling the same. I notice a definite shift in attitude when talking with them. They all feel hurt, and are more calculating in their attitude now: thinking of their stay here as temporary, not permanent; a career decision, not a commitment to this society. If things go to **** (and they are likely to), expect the exodus to accelerate.

 

If I'm brutally honest I see people coming into the UK as two types. Those who want to work, want to make their homes here and live in peace with their families. People like yourself. No problem whatsoever with that and I'm as welcoming as the next man. I guess I'm old fashioned in the sense that I take people not on their words but by their actions. As I said I don't care where anyone is from as long as they are willing to work and be productive citizens. If they wish to practice their own religions, customs and culture, I respect that. I'm not some knuckle dragging caveman who resents migrants "cos they is taking our jobs".

Having said that though, that leaves the second type, the type that come here and don't want to work and don't want to integrate into communities they enter. These types really do exist, despite Remainers claiming otherwise. We saw many coming into our own community. As a community we've been accused of being xenophobic, racist, not willing to allow others into our community and a whole load of other stuff because we dared to speak out.

That's utter bollocks. We bent over backwards, organising community meetings to try and get representatives of new and old community members to discuss issues. We tried organising free and open to all cultural events, food sharing and tasting events, gala days, sports days and a whole load of other things too. We were met with a brick wall every time. Even the council tried for 2 years with several initiatives but failed.

Men, women, teenagers and even young children, especially the men, stay up late in the streets they live in, I'm talking 5-6am late, frequently disturbing other residents in the process who do work. We see and hear drunken fights as a norm now, when this was never the case. This has been acknowledged and accepted as a real problem by our local authorities and politicians. Every summer many residents dread because the hot weather brings even more people out into the streets, drinking, playing music, arguing, fighting and littering.

These types cause problems with littering, this has been accepted by our local authorities as a problem and the answer given was that in Romania rubbish is handled differently so those causing problems needed educating. 5 years in and the problem still exists.

We are now seeing gang culture emerging within the roma teen population, bringing with it all the related gang issues. Again this has been acknowledged as a problem and accepted that it requires work.

I know you say don't blame the EU, blame our own politicians. But people who aren't prepared to work, to integrate and to generally just not become a problem should never have the opportunity to live here. The Freedom of Movement is being abused by some, albeit a minority. The thing is it's communities like mine that suffer and I'm not exaggerating when I say suffer either.

At what point do we stop offering excuses and really start tackling the issues? Part of the problem WAS and IS the Freedom of Movement. I accept our council and other authorities have failed us by not tackling the issues effectively but there were migrants coming into our community who didn't want to work, had no aspiration to improve their lot, didn't want to become members of the wider community and stuck a finger up to anyone who dared be upset or offended when they were causing problems.

Before anyone says I'm tarring all migrants with the same brush, I'm not. There are Roma here who are as fed up as we are with the problems, but they aren't coming forward to work on the solutions with everyone else. Until that happens it's never going to get any better here. I've visited and worked with community leaders in the other regional areas where they share exactly the same problems. Rightly or wrongly to you, they see the Freedom of Movement as either the problem or part of the problem. The EU have said that they won't budge on that, so is it really a shock that people in these areas voted out????

See where the remain campaign failed and failed miserably is that they didn't offer anything at all to those in communities like mine, other than to try and shift the blame onto those communities. I've been on several TV and radio debates in our region, spoke to MP's from the remain camp, not one of them really actually listened to concerns communities like mine had, not one offered any form of solution other than to tell us the Freedom of Movement actually benefited our country as a whole.

That's great if you live in some leafy suburb and aren't having to deal with the social and economic decline we have as a community. It kind of rubs after a while, being told we're wrong to be concerned, affected and worried. All the remain camp succeeded in doing was to marginalise communities that are affected and to make them feel isolated and basically not worthy. It was easier to gloss over things than to try and find solutions that could work. Maybe if they'd tried the results could have been different.

For anyone who is interested, our local police and council have tried the following:

• Bringing large trade bins into the area, to try and deal with littering.
• Putting multi-lingual leaflets out outlining residents responsibilities concerning waste.
• Bringing un-monitored CCTV into hotspot areas of ASB and crime. If an incident was reported they had a timestamp with which to search footage, in the hope the incident was recorded.
• Implementing the Selective Landlords Licensing Scheme.
• Implementing the Public Spaces Protection Order.
• Organising PACT (Police and Communities Together) meetings.
• Local Council created a hotline number for reporting ASB, as S. Yorks police 101 service was proven to be not fit for purpose. (call abandonment due to excessive hold times etc.)
• Community initiatives, including working with community groups, charities and external agencies.
• Increasing street sweeping
• Increasing police patrols at specific times based on intelligence and trends.
• Organising community led actions, such as litter picks, trying to gain representatives for each street, flower bed management etc.
• Promoting community led groups and assisting with funding.
• Carried out multi agency sweeps, social services, police, immigration and benefits agencies involved. This was due to concerns over child trafficking, child neglect (school absences etc.) , benefit fraud and illegal migration. Multiple cases of all found apart from child trafficking.
• Worked with schools, churches and community groups to develop inclusion strategies.

Sadly, after all that, things didn't get any better. This is despite the local authorities claiming victories that weren't. Now the real question to be asked is how much money has been sunk into all this? Four other areas in my county share these problems and have had the same resources thrown at them with the same result. Yeah, Freedom of Movement is great...not!

 

Strong and Stable is too strong and stable for BoA, they won't be staying in the UK even if everything is called off.

#winning ....?

Edit: just to be clear, i meant the HQs won't be staying. I wonder what they'll leave in London.

Edit 2: Since they're american, anyone know if they can sue? $400M is a decent sum of money, I'd have thought they'd be looking at ways to recover it.

 

First of all: Ha.

Secondly: Is anyone really surprised? Businesses don't spend money for the sake of spending money. The time to cancel Brexit and stop the mass exodus was about the same time they announced they were looking at their options. As soon as money starts changing hands, and wheels start rolling, there's no going back.

Which, in part, is why I want Brexit to happen now. If it gets called off, sure I and a few others won't have to apply for visa's, but the country is already skipping down the barrel of the shotgun pointed at it.

If Brexit is cancelled and the country is still ****ed, as it would be, Brexiteers would forever band that about as 'Ruining Remoaners' and saying they (we) should have shut the **** up and it'd all have been fine.

IMO, the best course of action (With zero percent knowledge of any intricacies) is to leave without a deal. Suffer for 2-3 decades or more (See earlier vindictive prick comment). Let Ireland unify, because that's hilarious (In a kind of sort of way). Let the Brexiteers die out/retire (I bet there's a hefty number of them on the way already), and go crawling back to the EU, probably sacrificing the 'Great British Pound', Gibraltar, and making any concessions that the UK had previously gained the winning side in by being a reasonably strong EU member. Shut up and behave. Probably get owned by Germany in the long run.

Oh, and @stuartpb. The criminal element of any society is always going to take advantage of the law-abiding. It's kind of what they do. Always have done. Ain't no changing that, even if you do take every immigrant out of the equation. It'll just be British gangs/criminal elements instead. Not gonna change unless the UK adopts the 'social credit' system that China is currently (ab)using. Which I would strongly suggest against.

As for leaving, those people won't just disappear. You know how long it takes to get gypsies/travellers/whatever they are this week out of places? Months, years, longer. And they speak the same language. Sort of.

It tickles me, in a sadistic sort of way, that people voted leave for things like that because I'm confident they believe March 29th will see every last immigrant rounded up and black bagged. Or deported. Whichever. But they won't. And the leave voters will get a nice, long, wakeup call.

There won't be an influx of 'British jobs for British people'. There'll just be no jobs. And people will get poorer, driving more people to crime, and oh hey. That criminal element is back. But you can't deport this one.

 

Not that stuartpb will probably read this but I'm guessing the fact that members of Roma communities from the Czech Republic and Slovakia actually joined the EU in 08/09 and the Migration Impact Fund was scrapped in 10/11 has nothing to do with what he describes, in fact Migration watch Yorkshire said "The projects being supported all had to demonstrate how they brought benefits to the settled as well as the migrant community in an area." And migrationyorkshire.org.uk said in report no.5 (PDF)...

But sure it's all down to FoM so leaving the EU and making us all poorer is the only solution, the withdrawal of an extra £3 and 1.5m had nothing to do with the problems.

And BTW, just in case stuartpb does read this I'm not saying it's not a problem, I'm saying that cutting £2m a year of support funding doesn't help.

 

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The migrants who came into our community are Roma from Slovakia and Romania. They are predominately from just a handful of towns in each respective country. So we are often faced with tribal fighting between these groups. I say tribal because I can't think of any other word. When I say fighting I mean full on, knives, fists, cars whatever can be used as a weapon. Guns are now on the fore with a recent incident.

One point though, it isn't just the criminal aspect, it's the social impact it's having on communities. There are economic problems too, de-valuing of houses because of increased ASB, crime and littering. Increasing of insurances etc. etc. This has a direct correlation with the influx we experienced and has been acknowledged and accepted as being real and also a problem by our absent MP and the local authorities.

I'm not naive enough to think that all our problems will go away come the 29th of March, but if it makes it that much harder for ne'er do wells to come into the UK and cause absolute mayhem then that is great! What isn't great is people like Nexxo suffering too. I wish we could find some way to change that. I wish a happy medium could have been struck. Create a points system or something that is better than the FoM, there has to be a workable and fair alternative?!?!

It's a common thread amongst ardent remainers that they refuse to acknowledge the detrimental impact it's had on parts of the UK. If they had, then maybe a compromise could have been found and people wouldn't have voted leave. Maybe even enough to tip the scales of the result.

EDIT:
Another massive problem we have is our local police, council and other agencies involved are claiming victories when they aren't really being felt by the community. I would accuse them of being overly enthusiastic at best and downright lying at worst. To be fair, there are some slight improvements to some of the more minor issues but we all still dread every summer, our wives and children don't feel safe walking at night. There are people who still feel isolated within their own communities and often feel scared too. We are still bearing the brunt of the economic issues. This really is no exaggeration.

I know the EU can't fix that and I also know leaving the EU isn't going to help either. We're in a catch 22 situation here. Either way we voted there was more hurt to come. Some people just fail to realise or acknowledge that.

 

It doesn't really matter where they come from. And, honestly, I doubt anyone knows for sure where they come from because that would mean there was active dialogue between the migrant and the native communities. Which you have said doesn't exist.

Also, I don't think you read part of my post. If you take the migrants away, it'll be replaced with British version of the same. See: Burger Bar Boys/Johnson Crew in Birmingham as a pair of names I can think of off the top of my head. A brief googling will surely find a nice, wide, array of other native gangs and criminal-grade rivalries. Hell, a few years back when I had friends in the less-than-good parts of Wolverhampton there were certain streets that were 'off limits' as such to those of us not in gangs.

Your area has been devalued, so when the poverty comes, where do you think councils are going to stick people? I'd wager a number of these houses inhabited by migrants are social housing projects, and thus, assigned by the council. Will you feel more comfortable when the street-based knife fights (Got any news links for those? I should imagine people having knife fights in the streets must make at least the local news.. They sure as **** don't seem to make national news, from what I remember of news in the UK..) are being held by native English speakers?

Frankly, if your neighbourhood is as bad as you describe (I'm picturing an English version of the intro to Demolition Man based on your descriptions) and you're gainfully employed (Drone operator was it?), I think moving might be wise, because it's not going to get any better. If anything, I'd wager it's going to get worse. Devalued property bought up by slumlords in training is my current train of thought. Which, as you might guess, will make it either worse or the same.

As for points-based immigration - The UK already has one. For the non-EU countries. It's not as aggressive as Canada or Australia, so I've read, but I wonder how many trade deals are going to hinge on <insert country> being able to side step that system? If I were a betting man, I'd be betting heavily on 'a lot'. Incidentally, there are reports of that system causing problems for NHS foreign hiring schemes, so I'm sure that'll be ironed out before the UK crashes out into WTO .. Right?

For what it's worth, I'm not saying your problem doesn't exist - In that an immigrant community is damaging a native one - because I experienced it to a much lesser extent myself. My car was damaged, post stolen, and any of those charity bags people left out were stolen. One of their back gardens looked like a scrap yard. That one, the occupants never appeared to have a consistent employment or work schedule, but there were often some cash-selling of power tools that I have a strong suspicion weren't theirs up until a few days prior..

They (The occupants of the social housing row that weren't English .. Even the ones that were, actually), weren't pleasant and didn't greet anyone. The police were often around, to the point where a number of us started exchanging pleasantries with them, and there were a good deal of screaming matches. Although there were no knife fights in the street. Nor anyone driving their car into other people/property. The police even knocked one of their doors in - But no one knew why, exactly. Because of the aforementioned lack of dialogue. I believe, based on my non-linguist analysis, that at least one of the homes housed Polish people. When they shouted at each other it sounded a lot like an angry version of the Polish a few of the people I was at Uni with spoke when they called each other/home.

But to think any of that would change by leaving is farcical - And I must say fairly bluntly that I'm not accusing you of thinking that - And I think it would be foolish to even try and deny that that mindset (Leaving will solve our shitty neighbourhood because of them thur 'mmigrants causin' problems) isn't a popular one amongst leave voters. At least, it certainly has been with a number of leave voters I know. And even with people who didn't vote (for a number of reasons) but would have voted Leave.

 

It was the council who informed us, the community group and representatives, of where the migrants came from. They have been trying to establish working relationships with them as we did.

The problem with that is that a lot of recorded to the police incidents aren't making the local news anymore, I think we reached a saturation point with the media where all attention was on us pre referendum and then it fizzled out, that isn't to say they don't happen though because they do. The police are naturally reluctant to talk to the local press on issues relating to my area.

As an example, a couple of months ago, a car rammed another on one of the two main roads we have in the afternoon, the occupants of both cars got out and started fighting with bats. One group ran off and the other set about smashing up the abandoned car. All it got in the local press was a paragraph. It was members of the Roma community, apparently two families who don't get on.

Then a nasty incident happened where a group of Polish men were set upon by a Roma group, one received stab wounds but they were superficial. This happened at the same time children were on the way home from the local primary school. Again, the police played it down to being an isolated incident, the local press again only offered one paragraph.

I could go on with numerous incidents that aren't being reported or get a token line if the local press feels like it. I know this may be hard to swallow in a serious debate section but it is true. There are just as many incidents that occur but are over before the police respond, if they respond that is. These aren't getting recorded either so the stats are off.

Every single weekend, and during the summer plenty of week days too, we see or hear drunken Roma men on one of the main streets here, they inevitably end up at best arguing, at worst having a good old tear up. My kids hear it, I hear it and so does everyone else in earshot. I'm lucky that my kids don't get to see it though. We have a PSPO that prohibits drinking on the streets, it was put in place to deal with that amongst other issues. However, there isn't the will or resources to effectively police these issues when it comes to SYP. So these types of lesser issues have become the norm, people have given up reporting because no action is taken. It's a nasty cycle and descent. Those within the Roma community who are causing problems blame the wider community for not understanding their culture. That rankles.....a lot!!

BBC Radio Sheffield did cover a lot of the incidents though and were very active in discussing the issues here. Their interest seems to have waned though over the last couple of years, I think maybe their listeners got fed up of our depressing news?

I think it's also relevant to consider the fact that our village is a small one. Pre-influx the polulation stood at around 2000. Official council estimates post influx were 800 Roma migrants coming into our village in the space of months. We all know authorities are usually optimistic with the stats in cases like this. This was some years ago now. I can't give current statistic but I'd say there are more now as those long term residents who could leave did.

I can't because I have an elderly mother who lives in one of the few streets that has escaped the problems so far, she won't move with us or anywhere else. I won't abandon her and I can't force her to move. I don't want to be pushed out of the community that I grew up in since the age of 12. I moan yes, I think I'm entitled to as I do try to work on making things better. It's got to the point where we will move when my mum passes, that kills me even thinking like that but it's the truth. The real killer though is the fact that if we sold our house, with the de-valuation we've experienced, we'd not be able to afford a house in a more affluent area. So we'd be out of the frying pan and into the fire, moving from one shitty area to another. That is the real kick in the teeth for my wife and I, we both work, we pay tax, and we're as stuck here as everyone else in the same boat.

One thing you mentioned that I agree with and have seen already. The whole village was leafleted by some London based property company offering a quick sale for cash. They must have picked up that there was some sort of crisis here and wanted to cash in on that. We invited them to a community meeting, where the council and police were in attendance too, they didn't even respond to that invite. I guess they knew they were going to get a rough ride. The issue of slum landlords is a pressing one and although we have the Selective Landlords Licensing Scheme here it isn't really proving a deterrent. A slum landlord the other month was given a £5,000 fine for breaches, with the amount of properties he owns he'll make that back in a week or two. I bet he'd consider it an occupational hazard.

EDIT: For clarity and to get off my soapbox I'll close by stating that the Freedom of Movement did have a part to play in the decline of our village, as long as it continues it will have a part to play in its further decline. It was that right that gave people the opportunity to come here to the UK and live. What shouldn't be a right is to allow people to migrate to the UK to basically bring an existing community to its knees through unlawful, uncivil and downright plain old nasty behaviour. People who want to live like that should never be afforded the right of Freedom of Movement. I often wonder if the anti social behaviour is intended to drive long term residents out, so they have more houses to live in and bring relatives over. May sound irrational to some but from where I'm sitting right now it feels like we are intentionally being driven out. It's something that was echoed many times by many long term residents at many community meetings, they feel pushed out. In fact many long term residents gave up the ghost as soon as they could. Wish I was one who could have.

Some would say that the austerity cuts are the reason, they aren't the reason, rather they are exacerbating the problems. I'd love to hear how this can be fixed properly.

 

Undeniably the situation that stuartpb describes is pretty horrific and unacceptable. Every time some antisocial dick who happens to come from the EU makes trouble in the UK, I get pissed off because it reflects badly on the rest of us. However under EU rules, the UK can deport EU immigrants if they do not have independent means of support, or a job in 3 months. It can also refuse them entry or deport them on public health and security grounds.

Basically if the UK applied the rules of FoM correctly, it could have deported these people a hundred times over. France does it pretty ruthlessly. In fact, the UK could even have just refused them entry --they do that plenty with legal African and Caribbean visitors (then again, they are easier to pick out, I suppose), and the Windrush scandal has shown us just how efficiently the UK can round'em up and ship'em out if it really puts its mind to it. Why, you just have to look foreign! As it is, the UK government probably didn't even know that the Roma immigrants in your neighbourhood were there, because there is no registration system like there is in other countries --which is why the Home Office is now in a flap trying to register 3.5 million of us come Brexit day. It is a fundamental failure of the Home Office, that in true UK government style is blamed on the EU.

So I can understand why people in your neighbourhood, being pissed off and desperate, voted Leave. Still, I can't help but think that they would have had more success just voting out their local MPs. Vote in UKIP instead if you want --it would have been interesting to see if they can put their money where their mouth is. Once British politicians start losing their jobs, they start paying attention.

One of my nieces on my wife's side admitted at one family lunch in the Summer of 2017 that she had voted Leave because she "wanted a change in British politics". We all stared at her incredulously. Her brother asked in exasperation: "How on Earth do you think that was going to work?!". "Well I didn't think we would win!", she wailed.

Now she is not a dumb lass (or so I thought). My wife and I are her favourite aunt and uncle. But it is clear that she did not for a second consider the effectiveness and consequences of her actions. The fundamental problem is that people keep voting in Tories, expecting a different outcome every time. And then they vote Leave because they want things to change... somehow.

As it stands, those Roma will most likely not leave, and austerity is going to get a lot worse. The anger is legitimate; the solution severely flawed.

 

Yup. Some changes in 2016 make it even easier to remove people due to criminal behaviour or because they're a burden on the State of their host country.

No matter how much some politicians complain they've never enforced rules we already have in place

 

'we need new laws to deal with x'

=

'please overlook the fact we haven't enforced the existing laws dealing with x'

 

Also, doing what is legally allowed would imply that the EU isn't the big bad (pardon the Buffy parlance.. Partner is watching it again, and frankly, so am I) that it's painted as in.. Well, everything.

There would also be the hassle of finding people to work in the local councils that weren't jobsworth pinheads.

 

The Roma will most definitely not leave, they've made sure to marry into Irish and British gypsy families long enough ago that they've all got the right to stay regardless. Whatever other things they get accused of, I've never met a Gypsy who didn't know his rights forwards, backwards, upside down and in triplicate.

 

Exactly this, it's a case of don't blame us for not enforcing the rules and cutting investment in your area, all your problems are caused by 'the other'.

I know leave supporters say it's not all about the money but IMO it really is, it's a case of putting your money where your mouth is. When one organisation cuts 30% from your towns budget and another is investing heavily (i couldn't find exact figures) you have to ask yourself what side is your bread buttered on?