Voting to remain

[root]

uncleglen Wrote:

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> Here are the London MEPs

> http://www.europarl.org.uk/en/your-meps/uk_meps/lo

> ndon_region.html

> And what a waste of oxygen and food they all are.

> The EU has NEVER in the last 19 years passed it's

> audit

> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/1

> 1209248/EU-auditors-refuse-to-sign-off-more-than-1

> 00billion-of-its-own-spending.html- for an example

> of the abject horror of the brake-less gravy

> train

> From what I've seen it operates in much the same

> way as the old USSR- where the party faithful get

> the perks and everyone else can go and queue up

> for 2 weeks for a loaf of bread. We in London are

> well-off- there is absolute drug-fuelled misery

> elsewhere in this country- but the left do not

> care as long as they get the votes.

> As the Archbishop of Canterbury said- it is the

> poor that bears the brunt of uncontrolled

> immigration.

That's quite a collection of disjointed arguments. How did you go from London being ok and grim up north to bearing the brunt of uncontrolled immigration?

I'm one of them EU immigrants btw. Been feeling so much resentment towards us continentals of late that regardless of Brexit I am not sure I can call England home any more.

[DovertheRoad]

Odds now strongly tipped to Remain at as much as 1/6 on. It's possible there could be a big late swing as all the big, emotion driven campaigning starts in earnest 1-2 weeks before but I'd still back these odds. I did wonder what would happen(god forbid)a major terror attack in London beforehand. A major incident like that could seriously change the outcome.

[DulwichFox]

Cameron is getting Desperate.. Now going on about Holidays being ?240 more expensive..

Where does he pluck these figures from ...

He is beginning to sound extremely foolish now..

..Scare mongering . If we leave.. This will happen.. That will happen.. Households will be ?4,000 + worse off every year. Travel to Europe will be more difficult. Health care will not be available.. Trade with the rest of Europe

will cease.

It will actually be the first time in 40 years we will be able to freely trade with the rest of the world.

China.. India.. and the rest of Asia..

...and we get to save ?350M every week that we currently pay to Brussels to dictate to us what we can and cannot do.

...Boris seems to make a lot more sense.. I know where my vote is going..

DulwichFox

[Blah Blah]

A strong remain vote wouldn't suprise me and if that happens, should see the end of the matter. UKIP will still no doubt campaign for it, but never again would a Tory party feel the need to offer a referendum for fear of losing votes to them.

If you want to know what your MEP does, you simply have to subscribe to receive their monthly newsletters. MEPs are the people who propose and vote on ammendments to proposed legislation, and so operate a bit like the House of Lords. To say they do nothing is just not true. UKIP MEPs are notorious for poor attendance. So a start would be in the public following their MEPs and learning what they are supposed to be doing and making sure they actually do it.

As for the poor uncleglen, the poor of which countries would that be? The problem with that comment is that every country in the world has various percentages of poor. So you are in effect arguing for people staying put and unemployed. Everything in our culture requires people to find work if they can, and for many people, mobility is part of that search. Similarly, businesses rely on people being able to move to take their jobs.

Areas like Newcastle etc, aren't high in unemployment because they are full of EU immigrants taking all the jobs. The are high in unemployemnt because there are genuinely no jobs. Those who can move to find work do (and they usually come to the South East).

[Blah Blah]

Boris has sounded desperate too Fox.

There is no such thing as free trade. Every country will try and tip a trade a greement in their own favour. That's why they take so long to negotiate. And WTO trade tariffs will still apply. Take a deeper look into the mechanisms of trade agreements and you'll see what I mean.

We also do not pay 350 million a week - that is a deliberate lie by the leave campaign that does not take into account the rebate we get and the money that comes back to our poorer areas in grants. The actual cost to us above those things is under half that. The 350 million lie has been debunked by so many financial bodies that I don't know why you still believe that. We also for that money get access to a market of 500 million poeple which accounts for 44% of our exports (or ?200 billion to the businesses that export annully). That alone blows the cost of membership out of the water. There are just no logical economic grounds for leaving the EU, none whatsoever. This is why many voting to remain (like myself) are doing so, with the caveat that other things, like bureaucracy etc need to change.

[DulwichFox]

Haven't seen Cameron deny that ?350M goes to Brussels... Thought he might of picked up on that one..

Also ?110m a year of EU agricultural subsidies go to fund Spanish bullfighting.

That's the sort of the thing we are paying for...

DulwichFox

[Blah Blah]

Cameron has denied it, as has every person on the remain side in cabinet. The figures are in the public domain anyway. You can easily look up what the rebate is and what is given in grants and to where. Or would you rather believe biased soundbites on face value? I don't think you are that gullable Fox. There is no economic logic to leaving on any level.

?110m is a tiny fraction of the money the EU gives out and yes, individual grants can be questioned. But in the main, the grants given out are to areas needing redevelopment and regeneration. Cornwall, Northern Ireland, and other areas of the UK have benefitted from EU grants for just that. The EU has also just granted an 80 bn fund for social home building in the UK too, money that LAs could apply for at a time when our own government is strangling LAs ability to build much needed homes. It's easy to focus on a bit of bullfighting (something I hate as much as you) but that doesn't wipe out everything else. The fact is that most of the money from membership goes where it is genuinely needed, and often because sitting governments aren't interested in helping deprived areas. Again you can easily look all if this information up.

[Loz]

DulwichFox Wrote:

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> Haven't seen Cameron deny that ?350M goes to

> Brussels... Thought he might of picked up on that

> one..

>

> Also ?110m a year of EU agricultural subsidies go

> to fund Spanish bullfighting.

> That's the sort of the thing we are paying

> for...

Never take Boris's figures unchecked, Foxy. He has no valid claim for that figure.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36270209

[Loz]

DulwichFox Wrote:

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> ...and we get to save ?350M every week that we

> currently pay to Brussels to dictate to us what we

> can and cannot do.

Yeah - we could be just like Norway or Switzerland.

Oh - hang on. They still have to pay and still have to follow the EU rules, but get no say whatsoever. How is that better again?

[????]

all the grants and giveaways are moving towards irrelevant in the grand scheme of things

The key things are

Does the single market (which it isn't in reality) bring our companies much benefit - jury out

Are UK voters politically engaged with the EU - absolutely not

Is the EU in need of major reform & is that going to happen - yes but no chance

Is the disruption that would inevitably follow pulling out worth it- in the short to medium terms No

The latter is why I'm voting in

I whish we hadn't joined though

[Loz]

DulwichFox Wrote:

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> ..Scare mongering . If we leave.. This will happen.. That will happen.. Households will be

> ?4,000 + worse off every year. Travel to Europe will be more difficult. Health care will not be

> available.. Trade with the rest of Europe will cease.

The problem, Foxy, is that no one know what will happen if we leave. The Brexiters have been very quiet as to what will actually happen if they win. Lots of vague promises, but no real plan.

At the moment, the only thing the Brixit team will say is that we will 'save' ?350m every week - and even that figure is utterly wrong. It's actually ?163m a week or ?8.5bn a year. Which, given total government spending was ?772bn in 2015, mean we are about 1% better off - and that will be gobbled up almost immediately in bureaucracy.

And for all that, the best we can do, tradewise, is try and get back the the sort of agreements we have right now. Who is going to negotiate those trade deals and how many of them need to be negotiated? Who will work with Europe to keep all the trade and social and travel benefits of Europe available?

Europe are going to want to make Brexit as hard as possible to prevent other countries from trying it. We will almost certainly be made an example of. If Europe slams the door on services (and that is quite possible) then we will be hit hard.

And it's almost certain all these trade deals will take at best a couple of years and at worst a decade. What will happen to our export market (and therefore our GDP) in the meantime?

No one in the Brexit team can answer that question. Or any question on post-Brexit Britain, for that matter. And THAT is the scary thing. They just don't know. No one does.

[TheArtfulDogger]

Loz

If Europe slams the door after Britexit they will also stop exporting to Britain and as we take more of their goods then they take from us they will end up with a bloody nose too.

Despite the posturing, I am sure the German car market (for example) will want an amicable deal if we do come out of Europe as they wont want to lose access to the uk market if they put punitive restrictions in place.

[DulwichFox]

Not much mention of the Frexit by the French (some have considered it) and who knows what other xxexits there may be..

We may end up footing the bill if we stay in and other EU Countries bale out.

Now that really would be a disaster.

Foxy

[Jah Lush]

http://www.newscross.co.uk/eu-referendum-called-off-after-both-sides-run-out-of-bullshit

[Loz]

TheArtfulDogger Wrote:

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> Loz

>

> If Europe slams the door after Britexit they will also stop exporting to Britain and as we take more

> of their goods then they take from us they will end up with a bloody nose too.

The point is that a good part of our exports are services, which are generally not part of trade deals.

And reducing export of services can be done by stopping movement of people. And we will lose free movement of people - after all, that's actually one of the things Brexiters want most.

[root]

Loz Wrote:

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> And reducing export of services can be done by

> stopping movement of people. And we will lose

> free movement of people - after all, that's

> actually one of the things Brexiters want most.

This is, above all, about the free movement of people. What do the Brexiters want? For EU nationals resident in the UK to move back to the continent? What about the British working on the continent?

[Loz]

It's the half a million retired white van men in the south of Spain we might get back that concerns me...

[Blah Blah]

It almost feels to me that a straight in or out question is a problem too. I think a lot of people are for in but only on trade and economic grounds, in other words, the original common market that the UK joined.

As for what Brexiters want, it depends on whether we are talking about MPs or the public. I think the agenda for both is different. The likes of Gove, Patel and Johnson want no barriers to how employers can treat Labour for example. But I don't think that's what the public supporters want at all.

As for trade agreements. Britain only has a market of 65 million. We are never going to get a free trade deal with countries like the USA, China etc with markets five times or more bigger than ourselves. This is why trade agreements are so difficult to negotiate. The EU as a trading bloc has far more power in negotiating trade agreements with those countries than we would ever have negotiating on our own outside of it.

[Seabag]

So if we do exit does that mean we'll more than likely have a General Election soon after

If we're out, who do we end up with as PM

Boris?

Farage?

Oh heaven help. And just on that note, how is it the Brexitiers seem to be the odd-bods fallen from the ugly tree, both in looks and personality. On that superficial note alone, I'm voting 'IN'

And wot ????'s said

[root]

Seabag Wrote:

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...

>

> Oh heaven help. And just on that note, how is it

> the Brexitiers seem to be the odd-bods fallen from

> the ugly tree, both in looks and personality. On

...

Hmmmm, hadn't thought about it that in the event of a brexit, Gove could be the new face of a sovereign England.

[Loz]

Good lord - an election fight out between Boris and Corbyn? The political equivalent of a nil-all draw.

[maxxi]

Watched Corbyn on the steel-workers march - far from being a firebrand leading the workers in their fight against the Government he looked like he'd been taken hostage.

[LadyNorwood]

Seabag Wrote:

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> So if we do exit does that mean we'll more than

> likely have a General Election soon after

>

> If we're out, who do we end up with as PM

>

> Boris?

>

> Farage?

>

> Oh heaven help. And just on that note, how is it

> the Brexitiers seem to be the odd-bods fallen from

> the ugly tree, both in looks and personality. On

> that superficial note alone, I'm voting 'IN'

>

> And wot ????'s said

Happy to be ugly....

I've been mulling over the Bremain/Brexit issue for ages - here's my (admittedly) over-simplistic view on it and why I'm voting Brexit...

We're like the unpopular kid who always gets invited to parties - he thinks he's popular and really wants to be liked, but deep down he knows the only reason he's invited is because he brings loads of really good booze to parties and never complains when the others get pissed on it and puke on his shoes....

[TheArtfulDogger]

Love the analogy ladyNorwood and possibly too accurate to be wrong...

Is it just me or does the ONS figure of 330.000 increase in net immigration seem a bit unreal and low or am I just a synical old dog and not trusting a word the government and their mouthpieces say at the moment?

[Loz]

*Net* migration, AD. The number of people coming minus the number of people going.

Interestingly, more than half of immigrants are non-EU. The raw figures from the Beeb...

They show that 270,000 EU citizens moved to the UK for at least a year in 2015, up from 264,000 in 2014. The number of non-EU citizens moving to the UK was 277,000, down from 287,000 in 2014.

The root cause of net migration rising was a lower number of Brits leaving the country, rather than a jump in the number of people coming. The total number of immigrants actually fell a little.