The EU Referendum - Thursday 23 June (with voting poll)

First topic message reminder :

Now it is official (and some guy with a green admin name has ruined the other thread) I shall put this here for you to discuss the referendum.

JabMachineMK2 wrote:I'm remain and I'm annoyed that the Leave campaign is basically this:

"We need to make our country great again because reasons"

"what reasons?"

"Erm....well immigrants will come if we stay and immigrants are BAD"

"So they don't contribute to the economy?"

"Nono they take benefits and r*** women"

"Ah."

I've said this so often - present me with an expert, unbiased analysis of what would happen if we leave, what trade agreements are being or would be worked on, what kind of a situation we would face in a "worst case" scenario like recession. Show me statistics you thing are realistic for immigration targets, how long reforms in laws would take etc.

But no, I was subjected to that buffoon Farrage brandishing his passports saying "this should say Britain on it not European Union"

Tool.

We do need to make our country great again. For a great many reasons. The same reasons apply whether you're Remain or Leave. We should all aspire to better.

Some immigrants don't contribute to the economy. Some UK residents don't. But seeing as this government, and its predecessors, can't control those UK residents and their constant sponging, we can at least try to curb the lack of contribution from those immigrants who do not contribute. Controlling the borders will help that. But I doubt it makes a difference.

I've not heard anyone suggest that immigrants do anything illegal to women.

And while you say "what trade agreements are being, or would be worked on" - I'd ask exactly the same of Remain. What agreements are they working on to improve our economic performance? Apart from bailing out the steel industry. I'd like Remain to say 'if we stay, here's how we're going to repay that faith', not 'we're going to sit here as we always have done, getting rich off our mates'. BoJo has stated that he would make overtures to the Chinese, and set up free trade deals with the likes of Canada, the US and Europe. Obama may not like it, but he's not going to be in charge when it comes to that deal (if it does).

Net migration should be capped at 10,000 per annum. That is achievable by either having a very limited number of visas, for expert specialists only, or by paying most of the South East to move to France.

It's clear you don't like Farage, but Cameron was so awful again last night that a lot of people look at Farage and think 'he's right'. The Tories needed a better spokesman for the Remain campaign.

Reckon our country is already pretty bloody great. Not perfect, but still pretty great.

Azzy wrote:

JabMachineMK2 wrote:I'm remain and I'm annoyed that the Leave campaign is basically this:

"We need to make our country great again because reasons"

"what reasons?"

"Erm....well immigrants will come if we stay and immigrants are BAD"

"So they don't contribute to the economy?"

"Nono they take benefits and r*** women"

"Ah."

I've said this so often - present me with an expert, unbiased analysis of what would happen if we leave, what trade agreements are being or would be worked on, what kind of a situation we would face in a "worst case" scenario like recession. Show me statistics you thing are realistic for immigration targets, how long reforms in laws would take etc.

But no, I was subjected to that buffoon Farrage brandishing his passports saying "this should say Britain on it not European Union"

Tool.

We do need to make our country great again. For a great many reasons. The same reasons apply whether you're Remain or Leave. We should all aspire to better.

Some immigrants don't contribute to the economy. Some UK residents don't. But seeing as this government, and its predecessors, can't control those UK residents and their constant sponging, we can at least try to curb the lack of contribution from those immigrants who do not contribute. Controlling the borders will help that. But I doubt it makes a difference.

I've not heard anyone suggest that immigrants do anything illegal to women.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nigel-farage-says-voting-remain-8117362

Maybe you don't read many/any of the (all) national news outlets which carried the story.

funnyExiledScot wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:Torygraph online poll had Farage trouncing it too.

Didn't get a chance to watch myself.

The Times Red Box thing had this:

Farage was notably more popular with his supporters than the PM. Overall, he had an average rating of 94 per cent among Leavers, 15 per cent among Remainers and 63 per cent among Undecideds.

Cameron managed only 86 per cent among Remainers - who are on his side - with 29 per cent among Undecideds and just 4 per cent with Leavers.

This is no surprise and won't concern Remain at all. Remain is a broad church of Lib Dems, Greens, Labour, SNP and Conservatives. The majority of Remain dislike Cameron and his party. Leave has a narrower political focus: BNP, UKIP, Monster Raving Loony Party (whose quote I still enjoy: "Let's be our own Humpty Dumpty and put ourselves back together again") and Conservatives. Farage is a poster child for Leave and catnip to its supporters. In fact I think it's pretty startling that Cameron managed 86% popularity with Remainers. The SNP supporters up here have been deeply critical of Cameron, including his Remain campaign (despite supporting Remain themselves).

The bigger story is the 63% (Farage) vs 29% (Cameron) with the undecides. This is far more concerning, albeit the point I make above can partially address some of the difference, and my long held scepticism over who actually comprise "undecideds" gives me some comfort as well (for the Scottish referendum it became SNP policy to send out loyal supporters to masquerade as "undecideds" and mark themselves down as "converting" to "Yes" having been swayed by the arguments). The TV audiences at the debates proved this to be the case, as the "undecided" section of the audience was in fact the most hostile towards the "No" campaign.

Still, no hiding that it was (as expected) a good night for Farage. Overly simplistic views play well to TV crowds and Farage is a master of it, whereas Cameron's positions are naturally harder to artculate which is not helped by the fact that he himself is not a skilled debater.

Awww, you're dripping with malice and anger. Is this the 'educated and employed' Remain voter in action?

Leave is a pretty broad church as well, with a bit of every major political party getting involved, but you can ignore the reality if you wish.

Not at all, but telling that you have quickly stooped to personal insults.

Leave is many things, but a broad political church it is not. It is a right wing coalition - BNP, UKIP and the Monster Raving Loony Party are the only UK political parties to officially endorse Leave as party policy, with a number of Conservatives (I'd estimate less than 50% of Tory MPs but probably 60% of the party) breaking ranks with Government policy.

Remain is the official position of Labour, SNP and Lib Dems and widely supported by their MPs and party members (of course that's not to say 100% - there are a small handful of Leave supporters in each of these parties I'm sure, but a small handful nonetheless). It is also official Conservative Party and Government policy.

Whether you support Leave or Remain, that is the reality in 2016.

Oh dear, that is not an insult. Insults and bigotry are what TopHat, Coxy and yourself trade in, as the evidence on this forum shows.

Right-wing and left-wing are tedious, outdated and wholly irrelevant terms, as I've outlined previously. The British Communist Party - do they fit your outdated narrative of 'right-wing' as well? Or the Respect Party? Or the Socialists Workers Party?

Mad for Chelsea wrote:So apparently last night the website to register to vote crashed, leaving "tens of thousands" of people unable to register to vote in time. Yes, it was silly of those people to wait for the last minute to register, but given how used to exploiting people's stupidity the government is, you'd have thought they would have anticipated such a scenario, and taken the necessary precautionary measures.

They're now looking into drafting emergency legislation so that those who register today are still allowed to vote in the referendum...

Most people who went along to register, it seems, were already registered to vote. I think there is some confusion where some folk thought that even if they were registered to vote for May's elections, they would need to register again for the Referendum.

‏@jomillerdonny
Reg system should  allow 4 voters to check whether already registered. Would reduce system demand  #EUref. Of 11k applications 9k duplicate

TopHat24/7 wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nigel-farage-says-voting-remain-8117362

Maybe you don't read many/any of the (all) national news outlets which carried the story.

I don't read any news outlets. Especially red tops.

Azzy wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nigel-farage-says-voting-remain-8117362

Maybe you don't read many/any of the (all) national news outlets which carried the story.

I don't read any news outlets. Especially red tops.

Radio Time
https://www.rt.com/uk/345473-nigel-farage-sex-attacks/

Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/05/nigel-farage-migrant-sex-attacks-to-be-nuclear-bomb-of-eu-referendum

Torygraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/08/nigel-farage-claims-archbishop-of-canterbury-is-turning-a-blind/

Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-has-been-accused-of-outrageous-blatant-scaremongering-after-claiming-migrant-sex-a7066451.html

BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36455766

How exactly DO you keep up with current affairs then? Twitter? Buzzfeed....??

Azzy wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nigel-farage-says-voting-remain-8117362

Maybe you don't read many/any of the (all) national news outlets which carried the story.

I don't read any news outlets. Especially red tops.

Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson said: "I can see why the Leave campaign are trying to keep Nigel Farage in a box. It's very lowest common denominator politics.

"I hope Nigel Farage can try and find it in himself to be a little bit more dignified".

Labour MP David Lammy tweeted: "Utterly repugnant and inflammatory comments from Farage. Appalling dog whistle politics."

Liberal Democrat President Sal Briton said: "Nigel Farage’s comments are disgraceful. He has sunk to new depths in his scaremongering with these remarks which are completely unacceptable.

Disgusting people. They're more angry at someone talking about the disgraceful crimes, than the actual crimes themselves.

If we do end up out then that's another massive stick to smash round the head of that smug disinterested incompetent commie pr!ck Corbyn.

Happy to rally the masses when it came to supporting his personal crusade but has been 100% woeful campaigning in respect of the EU. Totally pathetic - which is why he can never be allowed to become leader of this country, he's can't even lead his party.

Duty281 wrote:

[i]Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson said: "I can see why the Leave campaign are trying to keep Nigel Farage in a box. It's very lowest common denominator politics.

Well it's a good combination anyway. Old Tom always likes a bedroom wardrobe to peep out of.

TopHat24/7 wrote:If we do end up out then that's another massive stick to smash round the head of that smug disinterested incompetent commie pr!ck Corbyn.

Happy to rally the masses when it came to supporting his personal crusade but has been 100% woeful campaigning in respect of the EU.  Totally pathetic - which is why he can never be allowed to become leader of this country, he's can't even lead his party.

He wants to Leave, and always has. But now his precious 'principles' have deserted him just so he can remain leader for a little while longer.

TopHat24/7 wrote:If we do end up out then that's another massive stick to smash round the head of that smug disinterested incompetent commie pr!ck Corbyn.

Happy to rally the masses when it came to supporting his personal crusade but has been 100% woeful campaigning in respect of the EU.  Totally pathetic - which is why he can never be allowed to become leader of this country, he's can't even lead his party.

Maybe we could guess that he's leading them where he wants them to go? As in Leave?

And being disingenuous about it. A politician being disingenuous about his true motives - it'll never catch on.

Azzy wrote:

Net migration should be capped at 10,000 per annum. That is achievable by either having a very limited number of visas, for expert specialists only,

You should really stop talking about immigration. It is clearly a subject you know literally nothing about.

Duty281 wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:Torygraph online poll had Farage trouncing it too.

Didn't get a chance to watch myself.

The Times Red Box thing had this:

Farage was notably more popular with his supporters than the PM. Overall, he had an average rating of 94 per cent among Leavers, 15 per cent among Remainers and 63 per cent among Undecideds.

Cameron managed only 86 per cent among Remainers - who are on his side - with 29 per cent among Undecideds and just 4 per cent with Leavers.

This is no surprise and won't concern Remain at all. Remain is a broad church of Lib Dems, Greens, Labour, SNP and Conservatives. The majority of Remain dislike Cameron and his party. Leave has a narrower political focus: BNP, UKIP, Monster Raving Loony Party (whose quote I still enjoy: "Let's be our own Humpty Dumpty and put ourselves back together again") and Conservatives. Farage is a poster child for Leave and catnip to its supporters. In fact I think it's pretty startling that Cameron managed 86% popularity with Remainers. The SNP supporters up here have been deeply critical of Cameron, including his Remain campaign (despite supporting Remain themselves).

The bigger story is the 63% (Farage) vs 29% (Cameron) with the undecides. This is far more concerning, albeit the point I make above can partially address some of the difference, and my long held scepticism over who actually comprise "undecideds" gives me some comfort as well (for the Scottish referendum it became SNP policy to send out loyal supporters to masquerade as "undecideds" and mark themselves down as "converting" to "Yes" having been swayed by the arguments). The TV audiences at the debates proved this to be the case, as the "undecided" section of the audience was in fact the most hostile towards the "No" campaign.

Still, no hiding that it was (as expected) a good night for Farage. Overly simplistic views play well to TV crowds and Farage is a master of it, whereas Cameron's positions are naturally harder to artculate which is not helped by the fact that he himself is not a skilled debater.

Awww, you're dripping with malice and anger. Is this the 'educated and employed' Remain voter in action?

Leave is a pretty broad church as well, with a bit of every major political party getting involved, but you can ignore the reality if you wish.

Not at all, but telling that you have quickly stooped to personal insults.

Leave is many things, but a broad political church it is not. It is a right wing coalition - BNP, UKIP and the Monster Raving Loony Party are the only UK political parties to officially endorse Leave as party policy, with a number of Conservatives (I'd estimate less than 50% of Tory MPs but probably 60% of the party) breaking ranks with Government policy.

Remain is the official position of Labour, SNP and Lib Dems and widely supported by their MPs and party members (of course that's not to say 100% - there are a small handful of Leave supporters in each of these parties I'm sure, but a small handful nonetheless). It is also official Conservative Party and Government policy.

Whether you support Leave or Remain, that is the reality in 2016.

Oh dear, that is not an insult. Insults and bigotry are what TopHat, Coxy and yourself trade in, as the evidence on this forum shows.

Right-wing and left-wing are tedious, outdated and wholly irrelevant terms, as I've outlined previously. The British Communist Party - do they fit your outdated narrative of 'right-wing' as well? Or the Respect Party? Or the Socialists Workers Party?

Yes it is. Telling someone that they are "dripping with malice and anger" is an insult. Plain and simple.

As to your questions, I will answer each in turn.

The British Communist Party (which I take to mean the Communist Party of Britain) is left wing, quite obviously. It had 917 members in 2014.
The Socialist Workers Party is left wing, quite obviously. I don't know how many members it has. For some reason I can't find its numbers, but I suspect similar to the BCP, if not smaller.
The Respect Party is left wing, quite obviously. It had 640 members in 2014.

So, I will concede that I was wrong not to mention these parties in passing, but it still doesn't alter the analysis. To put these groups into perspective the three parties together have roughly the same following as the BNP (between 500 - 4000 members) and Monster Raving Loony Party (1400 members).

For scale, the Lib Dems, the smallest of the "main" parties has 61,000 members.

So, in summary, the vast vast majority of support amongst political parties for Leave comes from right wing parties, as I said initially. BNP, UKIP, MRLP and Conservatives. The "Lexit" group is a small fraction of EU exit.

Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing or that there's anything wrong with being right wing. It's just an observation of a clear trend for supporters of right wing parties to lean to Leave, and centre/left parties to lean to Remain.

Again this draws a nice parallel to the Scottish Referendum. The SNP were very keen to stress that the "Yes" campaign was a broad church, a "movement" that transcended party boundaries and concepts of left/right wing. Amusingly they posted a picture of some individuals purporting to be Labour members with a banner saying "Labour for Independence" and calling themselves a group. Turned out that none of the individuals involved (and it was a very small group anyway) were members of the Labour party, and several were active members of the SNP (including an SNP councellor).

But such notions - of 'left-wing' and 'right-wing' - are clearly outdated.

How are the Conservatives 'right-wing', but Labour not, when they are pretty much identical parties (and have been since the advent of New Labour)?

Duty281 wrote:But such notions - of 'left-wing' and 'right-wing' - are clearly outdated.

How are the Conservatives 'right-wing', but Labour not, when they are pretty much identical parties (and have been since the advent of New Labour)?

Outdated? Christ alive man.

Corbyn has and always will be a socialist, one whose own personal boundaries and beliefs get nowhere near the centrist line. He is old school pure red labour who despises pink labour.

The Tories and lib dems are the two more centrist parties, both capitalist driven with the latter straying more to a soft red/pink socialist party. UKIP are right, less concerned about redistribution of wealth and pretty non plus about the economy - it's all about borderline racism with those guys.

To suggest left or right isn't really around anymore is a bit ignorant, to say the least.

Post new labour they occupied the center ground, pure and simple with forays in to both right and left of centre by a few steps are readily accepted. Any other suggestions they are now 'similar' to the Tories is a bit of a joke. One holds the center right ground and is vote grabbing with the odd left of center policy and the other is hellbent on making the case for everyone who needs wealth of others to make their lives better.

I think what Duty is implying - and many people who disagree with him on most things here actually agree with him on this one - he's implying that Corbyn is an enemy within his own crack-troops at Labour.

The question is "Why?"

The answer goes back to someone called Blair.  Blair and his version of Labour was pure old school red?

Duty is right - the colour of a mainstream (not considered OTT) party is now moreso something to help families recognise their traditions.  "Your grandfather was red and you should be red too, son."

It's a colour.  A tag, A stamp. And something easy for lazy journalists to collect a bag of questions on. "We got a Labour guy in today. Where's the socialism questions we use?"

It's a pretence.  All mainstream parties take liberally from right and left values whenever the swing suits the ballot box. Centrist is just another name for fence sitting.

Nicked the below but enjoyed it nonetheless...

Some people think it’s completely irrational to want to leave the EU. So, to avoid looking like you’re ignorant or incapable of understanding the issues, here’s a handy list of 30 excuses you can give for your position.

You don’t have to believe them all, just use whichever you feel comfortable with.

Contrary to the expert conclusions of every economic authority of note (OECD, World Bank, Bank of England, IFS, etc, etc, etc), EU exit will not be damaging to the British economy.
Experts don’t always get it right. In fact, because I can think of one example of an expert getting something wrong, I’m going to assume they’re all wrong on the economic consequences of leaving the EU.
I think English literature graduate Michael Gove has a better insight into global economics than the above experts and, in fact, EU exit will magically solve any and all problems in the British economy.
I believe that there aren’t enough jobs to go round for EU immigrants, despite the fact that more workers create a larger economy, creating more jobs as well as a higher tax take.
I believe foreign workers who fill jobs where there are skills shortages like nursing, construction and, erm, premiership football are adding nothing to society.
I believe leaving the EU will remove any moral obligation from the UK to support and welcome desperate people fleeing war and peril in the most troubled areas of the world as this country did before and during WWII.
I believe leaving the EU will make refugees who have already risked everything to get here decide not to bother after all.
I believe China (market size 1.2Bn) will offer just as good trading terms or better to the UK (market size 57Mn) as it does to the EU (market size 500Mn).
I believe the angle of curve of my bananas is something that the EU genuinely legislates on and that this is sufficiently important to me that I am willing to suffer economic hardship in order to protect the right to have access to the bent/straight bananas that I prefer.
I believe the Social Chapter is an affront to my right to oppress others and of those who would seek to oppress me.
I believe this country would wake up the day after leaving the EU and would suddenly find itself bathed in a glorious light of sovereignty, whatever that means. I don’t believe that in practice sovereignty is actually a pretty vague idea that actually can only be negotiated in relation to the wider world as part of international community and that no country gets to do exactly what it likes. Except perhaps North Korea. Yeah. I want to live in North Korea. They got sovereignty.
I believe that, contrary to intelligence experts, the UK would be safer from terrorists without pooling intelligence with other European countries, even though most of the 7/7 bombers were born and raised in, erm, the UK.
I believe we could pool intelligence with other European countries from outside the EU and they would be just as happy to share with us as they are now, but somehow, even though I believe the situation would be the same, that’s still a reason to leave the EU.
I believe I am better represented by the first-past-the-post elected parliamentarians in Westminster than the proportionally representative elected parliamentarians in Brussels and it’s got to be one or the other, rather than both.
I believe the supremacy of European Court of Human Rights (even though it isn’t actually an EU body) diminishes sovereignty in the UK and therefore somehow is less just even though, erm, I can’t think of any occasions when it has overruled British legislation except, oh yes, that thing about prisoners getting the vote, but, well, I suppose actually that might be quite just anyway, but still...
I believe the EU is all a Franco-German conspiracy and the best way of defeating it is to, erm, allow the Germans and French to get on with it.
I believe the EU is run by a bunch of faceless pen-pushing bureaucrats, completely unlike our own fine British civil service which has just exactly as much red tape as is necessary to ensure accountability and to counter corruption, and not a scrap more.
I don’t actually know whether Brussels government is any worse than UK government, but no one’s asking me about leaving the UK, but they have given me a chance to whinge that not everything is perfect in the world, so I’m taking it.
I don’t find Leave’s figure of £350Mn in payments to the EU a week remotely ridiculous, even though it takes no account of either the rebate or payments to the UK.
I believe that instead of spending £350Mn a week to the EU, if we left, we really would be able to spend it on the NHS ‘cause that’s really how economics does work. No, it is.
I believe Britain’s exit from the EU will bring the whole edifice tumbling down and I don’t like anyone else forming an international collaboration if we’re not part of it, even though, erm, I don’t want to be part of it.
I believe holidaying in Europe will be just as easy and no more expensive because they should be happy to have our fine British pounds, even though after EU exit they might be worth a lot less.
I believe that the imports from Europe that of course I will still be able to buy just as easily and just as cheaply will be just as safe and my consumer rights will be protected just as well, even though these are safeguards that are protected by EU legislation.
I’d like to be able to rip off music and videos, like they do in China and Russia, because they don’t have those pesky EU intellectual property controls which stop me stealing from artists whose work I like.
I believe people traffickers who operate outside the law anyway will be just as easy to track without transnational agreements and information sharing.
I believe an isolated UK will have more influence on a global stage because, well, we used to have an Empire you know. Just like, erm, Egypt, Mongolia and the Aztecs.
I’m a Scottish nationalist who wants to stay in Europe, but I hate those Sassenach Tories and this is probably my best way to get another chance to break up the United Kingdom.
I’m an Irish republican who wants Northern Ireland to be reunited with Eire and, erm, I’m not quite sure how that’s going to happen by leaving the EU, but if that Scottish guy thinks it’ll stuff the English, then I’m for it too.
I don’t mind my taxes supporting scroungers hundreds of miles away and with whom I have no connection so long as they’re this side of any sea, but I don’t want them supporting no foreign scroungers whose need might be even greater. After all, I do my bit by giving a fiver to Pudsy most years.
I just want to shove it to Cameron and Osborne.
Michael Gove is my anti-Establishment icon.
I don’t really want to leave the EU, but I want Boris as our next prime minister because he’s got silly hair and says wacky things - a bit like that awfully funny chap they’ve got in the US at the moment, who’s also ever-so keen on EU exit.
I liked it back in the olden days when frogs were frogs and Krauts were krauts.
I believe whatever the Daily Mail and Daily Express tell me to.
I genuinely feel no cultural connection to Abba, Archimedes, Aristotle, Bach, Beethoven, Brie, Cervantes, Chanel, Cicero, Croissant, Da Vinci, Einstein, Euclid, Goethe, the Grimms, Homer, Ibsen, Joyce, Leibniz, Michelangelo, Mozart, Pasta, Plato, Pythagoras, Rousseau, Schiller, Socrates, Tapas, Truffaut, Virgil, Zola or whatever, but on the other hand, I’ve got Morris dancing, Robert Burns, bara lafwr and the Orangemen in my veins.”
On the other hand, if every one of these reasons seems utterly, Trump-lovingly deluded, stop being a bloody idiot and vote #remain.

Haha brilliant!

What's also amusing is a defector has switched sides, quite a senior MP at that. Fed up with BoJo and co making stuff up.

Welcome back to normality sweet cheeks.

Coxy001 wrote:Haha brilliant!

What's also amusing is a defector has switched sides, quite a senior MP at that. Fed up with BoJo and co making stuff up.

Welcome back to normality sweet cheeks.

Er tbh, if she's fed up of people making sh*t up, then politics is probably not the place for her to be.

The most staged story of the entire referendum.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/21/threadbare-deal-on-europe-refrendum

The time has come for us to frame a new independent relationship as good neighbours rather than remain a discontented junior partner picking up the bills but with no power to influence the rules of the club.

The costs go far beyond our considerable net financial contribution, annually variable but between £8.5bn and £10.5bn over the past three years.

What a liar.

Duty281 wrote:The most staged story of the entire referendum.

If it was staged I would've thought there'd have been a large group switching.

At least she's seen sense.

Bang on 2 weeks to go. In 2 weeks tomorrow morning Duty, UKIP and all the others who blame the EU for their own problems will be shedding tears in to their cornflakes with the realisation once the drum they've been banging is put away they have little else to offer society,

Not sure Nige will be clapping this time http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/05/08/10/video-undefined-28735C0B00000578-420_636x358.jpg

Duty281 wrote:The most staged story of the entire referendum.

Perhaps, but the "£350m for the NHS" is still nonsense. Reminds me of Alex Salmond's "£500 independence dividend".

funnyExiledScot wrote:

Duty281 wrote:The most staged story of the entire referendum.

Perhaps, but the "£350m for the NHS" is still nonsense. Reminds me of Alex Salmond's "£500 independence dividend".

It's as equally rubbish as the "£4,300 less for each family" which, strangely, our bastion for integrity has no problem with.

Coxy001 wrote:

Duty281 wrote:The most staged story of the entire referendum.

If it was staged I would've thought there'd have been a large group switching.

At least she's seen sense.

Bang on 2 weeks to go. In 2 weeks tomorrow morning Duty, UKIP and all the others who blame the EU for their own problems will be shedding tears in to their cornflakes with the realisation once the drum they've been banging is put away they have little else to offer society,

Not sure Nige will be clapping this time http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/05/08/10/video-undefined-28735C0B00000578-420_636x358.jpg

A large group switching would have been a) too obvious and b) too much chance of something going awry

As EU exit is currently winning, BSE are going to have to conjure something up if they want to win. I don't think banging on about holiday visas, as is their current focus, is going to do it.

Duty281 wrote:But such notions - of 'left-wing' and 'right-wing' - are clearly outdated.

How are the Conservatives 'right-wing', but Labour not, when they are pretty much identical parties (and have been since the advent of New Labour)?

Not outdated at all. I think what you are trying to say is that both the Conservatives and Labour have, in recent times, moved to the centre of the left/right spectrum. As such Labour don't stand for "common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange" (the old Clause IV which stood at the heart of their left wing socialist credentials as espoused by Keir Hardie) whilst the Tories do not wish to privatise everything, deregulate the markets completely and slash taxes to the bare minimum. Both parties have realised that elections are won from the middle ground, and thus they have both moved closer to that centre (albeit Labour under Corbyn have moved away from it to a certain extent).

Still, to say that they are "identical parties" is overly simplistic. There are quite obvious differences. Osborne's austerity agenda for example is quite clearly a right of centre policy and at odds with Labour and the SNP (and to a lesser extent the Lib Dems). Both Labour and the SNP are in favour of reversing a number of the cuts and stimulating the economy through investing further in public services. Labour and the SNP are also instinctively tax increasers (e.g. 50p rate of tax) whilst the Tories would no doubt, if economic circumstances allowed, cut taxes (see also the cut to inheritance tax - a right wing policy). The Tories are in favour of allowing private companies to interact and supplement the NHS (some say with a view to ultimately taking it over) whereas Labour and the SNP oppose this. The Tories are in favour of schools being run outside of local government control and support the charitable status of private schools, again opposed by Labour, Lib Dems and SNP.

Hope that helps.

Duty281 wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote:

Duty281 wrote:The most staged story of the entire referendum.

Perhaps, but the "£350m for the NHS" is still nonsense. Reminds me of Alex Salmond's "£500 independence dividend".

It's as equally rubbish as the "£4,300 less for each family" which, strangely, our bastion for integrity has no problem with.

Very true, although according to her press statement she believes that there will be an economic shock to the economy and therefore whilst the figure of "£4,300" is more than likely plucked from thin air (and I despise silly numbers like these being thrown about) I think she's saying that she agrees that the UK will be worse off rather than better off, and therefore whilst Remain may well be misleading voters by putting an exact figure on the deficit, there will still be a deficit rather than a surplus, as claimed by Leave.

Still, she's been a bit silly. None of this is news and she really ought to have given her position some more serious thought before picking sides. She can hardly have expected Leave to campaign on a ticket of the UK being worse off.

I've been leaning towards "Leave" the whole time and after watching George Osborn's recent performance the other day I'm even more inclined to vote that way. Came across as a thoroughly obnoxious git - all bluster and rhetoric and unable to give any factual answers.

The only "Fact" I've been able to determine is that neither side has been able to come up with a compelling argument.

The Leave campaign boils down to "we'll be overrun by illegal immigrants if we stay", while Remain say "it'll be an economic apocalypse if we leave".

I don't particularly buy into either stance. Why?

Well even if we're no longer politically joined to the continent, we still have one hell of a big physical link through the Channel Tunnel. I'm sure immigrants making their way to France will still try and get through that way...as well as the other routes they are currently using. We still need our government to come up with an effective way of dealing with them. The UK Border Force doesn't seem to be doing a great job so far.

If we leave, the rest of Europe isn't going to just stop trading with us. Sure British businesses may have to pay higher / additional trade tariffs, which may cause some short term pain, but I believe the country as a whole will benefit in the long run - especially if we can negotiate our own trade agreements with the rest of the world.

I couldn't care less what the banks do...they nearly crippled this country 8 years ago. I would be quite happy to see them go. The UK is a world leader in biotechnology, electronics and the space industry (we build a lot of satellites and are a major partner in the ESA). We need to strengthen our manufacturing base and become less dependent on service industries.

What I do know is that given the current state of the continent, I'm quite happy for the UK to sever its political union and no longer be bound the EU's rules and regulations, beyond whatever trade agreement we can negotiate. A partner of Europe, but not chained to it.


Yes, what I've said is just supposition and speculation...but I believe its at least based on a fair amount of common sense.

You want guarantees and hard promises? The only things in life that are guaranteed are death and taxes. Other than that, life is generally one big gamble...and I feel ready to take a punt.


Here's some music to help folks mull things over...

Duty281 wrote:

Coxy001 wrote:

Duty281 wrote:The most staged story of the entire referendum.

If it was staged I would've thought there'd have been a large group switching.

At least she's seen sense.

Bang on 2 weeks to go. In 2 weeks tomorrow morning Duty, UKIP and all the others who blame the EU for their own problems will be shedding tears in to their cornflakes with the realisation once the drum they've been banging is put away they have little else to offer society,

Not sure Nige will be clapping this time http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/05/08/10/video-undefined-28735C0B00000578-420_636x358.jpg

A large group switching would have been a) too obvious and b) too much chance of something going awry

As EU exit is currently winning, BSE are going to have to conjure something up if they want to win. I don't think banging on about holiday visas, as is their current focus, is going to do it.

Although, having said that, a second Tory MP is rumoured to be switching to Remain from Leave today.

Fingers crossed it's Boris, but as he's on an ITV debate this evening, I imagine it's unlikely.

The only party backing leave in NI is the DUP.

A party who oppose gay blood donation, gay marriage, stood up form a business refusing to serve gay customers - and have tried to legislate to allow for this. A party whos core members believe in creationism and that the world is a few thousand years old.

Says it all.

Ent wrote:The only party backing leave in NI is the DUP.

A party who oppose gay blood donation, gay marriage, stood up form a business refusing to serve gay customers - and have tried to legislate to allow for this. A party whos core members believe in creationism and that the world is a few thousand years old.

Says it all.

If you're referring to the wedding cake-thing, that's somewhat incorrect.

Ent wrote:The only party backing leave in NI is the DUP.

A party who oppose gay blood donation, gay marriage, stood up form a business refusing to serve gay customers - and have tried to legislate to allow for this. A party whos core members believe in creationism and that the world is a few thousand years old.

Says it all.

How exactly?

You don't have to be a Creationist or a bigot to think there might be some benefits to leaving the EU.

Uh dyre you will have an unpolicable land border with the Republic of Ireland and you can get a ferry to England or Scotland with no Id. Hell of a lot harder to police than a tunnel.

Illegal immigration will continue as it is illegal. Will just stop free movement (unless that is a requirement for a trade agreement like Norway), which in general is of benefit to the UK.

Financial sector contributes significantly to gdp, it dwarfs the biotech and aerospace industry. Those industries contain foreign company's to that may leave.

I don't think there is all that much common sense being applied in truth.

Duty281 wrote:

Ent wrote:The only party backing leave in NI is the DUP.

A party who oppose gay blood donation, gay marriage, stood up form a business refusing to serve gay customers - and have tried to legislate to allow for this. A party whos core members believe in creationism and that the world is a few thousand years old.

Says it all.

If you're referring to the wedding cake-thing, that's somewhat incorrect.

No it isn't.

They oppose gay marriage, blood donation and adoption. They are a homophobic party.

dyrewolfe wrote:

Ent wrote:The only party backing leave in NI is the DUP.

A party who oppose gay blood donation, gay marriage, stood up form a business refusing to serve gay customers - and have tried to legislate to allow for this. A party whos core members believe in creationism and that the world is a few thousand years old.

Says it all.

How exactly?  

You don't have to be a Creationist or a bigot to think there might be some benefits to leaving the EU.

It certainly helps. No serious political party back leave, even some big eurosceptics within the Conservative party don't back it.

Ent wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

Ent wrote:The only party backing leave in NI is the DUP.

A party who oppose gay blood donation, gay marriage, stood up form a business refusing to serve gay customers - and have tried to legislate to allow for this. A party whos core members believe in creationism and that the world is a few thousand years old.

Says it all.

If you're referring to the wedding cake-thing, that's somewhat incorrect.

No it isn't.

They oppose gay marriage, blood donation and adoption. They are a homophobic party.

The bakery in question didn't refuse to serve gay customers, they refused to print a pro-gay marriage slogan.

And there isn't a party around that supports blood donation from gays (at least not in the realistic sense).

Duty281 wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

Coxy001 wrote:

Duty281 wrote:The most staged story of the entire referendum.

If it was staged I would've thought there'd have been a large group switching.

At least she's seen sense.

Bang on 2 weeks to go. In 2 weeks tomorrow morning Duty, UKIP and all the others who blame the EU for their own problems will be shedding tears in to their cornflakes with the realisation once the drum they've been banging is put away they have little else to offer society,

Not sure Nige will be clapping this time http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/05/08/10/video-undefined-28735C0B00000578-420_636x358.jpg

A large group switching would have been a) too obvious and b) too much chance of something going awry

As EU exit is currently winning, BSE are going to have to conjure something up if they want to win. I don't think banging on about holiday visas, as is their current focus, is going to do it.

Although, having said that, a second Tory MP is rumoured to be switching to Remain from Leave today.

Fingers crossed it's Boris, but as he's on an ITV debate this evening, I imagine it's unlikely.

Boris is too busy pursuing his own career goals, no chance.

dyrewolfe wrote:I've been leaning towards "Leave" the whole time and after watching George Osborn's recent performance the other day I'm even more inclined to vote that way. Came across as a thoroughly obnoxious git - all bluster and rhetoric and unable to give any factual answers.

The only "Fact" I've been able to determine is that neither side has been able to come up with a compelling argument.

The Leave campaign boils down to "we'll be overrun by illegal immigrants if we stay", while Remain say "it'll be an economic apocalypse if we leave".

I don't particularly buy into either stance. Why?

Well even if we're no longer politically joined to the continent, we still have one hell of a big physical link through the Channel Tunnel. I'm sure immigrants making their way to France will still try and get through that way...as well as the other routes they are currently using. We still need our government to come up with an effective way of dealing with them. The UK Border Force doesn't seem to be doing a great job so far.

If we leave, the rest of Europe isn't going to just stop trading with us. Sure British businesses may have to pay higher / additional trade tariffs, which may cause some short term pain, but I believe the country as a whole will benefit in the long run - especially if we can negotiate our own trade agreements with the rest of the world.

I couldn't care less what the banks do...they nearly crippled this country 8 years ago. I would be quite happy to see them go. The UK is a world leader in biotechnology, electronics and the space industry (we build a lot of satellites and are a major partner in the ESA). We need to strengthen our manufacturing base and become less dependent on service industries.

I liked your post, and some well reasoned arguments and positions in there (plus I liked the music).

Just a couple of responses to this:

1. George Osborne is an obnoxious git, but please don't add that to the list of reasons to vote Leave. As I've been trying to explain to Duty, Remain is an extremely brought church across all the major political parties and whilst the mere sight of Osborne's smugness makes my spine chill, I'm happy to tick the same box as him on this particular issue.

2. The trade point is a biggie. Firstly I believe it is inevitable that the EU will impose some form of financial penalty in the form of tariffs on the UK for leaving. It would be political suicide for the EU to allow the UK the leave and cease paying into the EU budget, cease having to comply with free movement of workers, cease having to comply with EU laws around workers' rights and product compliance, and yet allow tariff-free trade. Your point around trade agreements with the rest of the world is a fair one, but I do wonder why we think we'd get a better deal than the EU in negotiating these. From a practical perspective we will also need to spend a fair bit on additional civil servants with experience in negotiating these. Gus O'Donnell has made the point that all the skilled negotiators for international trade deals currently reside in Brussels as employees of the EU (those "bloated Brussels bureaucrats" Farage keeps referring to). We will need to employ some of these people (which of course erodes the pot of money Leave seem to think we'll get by leaving but anyway, these aren't details we've heard much about).

3. Your comments about an over-reliance of services (particularly financial services) is spot-on, but careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. FS employs huge numbers of people across the UK and contributes vast sums to the Treasury in tax. I live in Edinburgh and one of the compelling arguments for staying part of the UK was to maintain Edinburgh as a hub for financial services. It is a crucial part of the UK economy and whilst it requires firm and robust regulation to ensure lessons from Lehmans etc are well learned, we should also recognise the huge contribution it makes to employing highly skilled people in the UK and contributing huge amounts to be spent on important public services. I should also note, having worked in several services businesses in this industry, that the charitable contributions ("guilt money" as my wife calls it) these institutions make in their local areas is pretty significant as well. Foundations at these places give very generously to worthy local causes. We do need a more balanced economy, but losing large chunks of the FS industry to Paris or Frankfurt (there's an article in the FT about this today) would be bad news for the UK economy (and again make it less likely that Johnson and Gove will be spending that additional £350m on the NHS).

4. I know very little of the European Space Agency, but I do wonder whether our full membership status would survive. I wonder whether we'd be asked to accept Associate Member status (like Canada). Yes, Norway and Switzerland are "non-EU" full members of the ESA, but course they pay into the EU budget in exchange for free trade, and they also accept free movement of persons from the EU (Schengen). More a query than an assertion. Until you mentioned it I hadn't given it any thought at all.

dyrewolfe wrote:I've been leaning towards "Leave" the whole time and after watching George Osborn's recent performance the other day I'm even more inclined to vote that way. Came across as a thoroughly obnoxious git - all bluster and rhetoric and unable to give any factual answers.

The only "Fact" I've been able to determine is that neither side has been able to come up with a compelling argument.

The Leave campaign boils down to "we'll be overrun by illegal immigrants if we stay", while Remain say "it'll be an economic apocalypse if we leave".

I don't particularly buy into either stance. Why?

Well even if we're no longer politically joined to the continent, we still have one hell of a big physical link through the Channel Tunnel. I'm sure immigrants making their way to France will still try and get through that way...as well as the other routes they are currently using. We still need our government to come up with an effective way of dealing with them. The UK Border Force doesn't seem to be doing a great job so far.

If we leave, the rest of Europe isn't going to just stop trading with us. Sure British businesses may have to pay higher / additional trade tariffs, which may cause some short term pain, but I believe the country as a whole will benefit in the long run - especially if we can negotiate our own trade agreements with the rest of the world.

I couldn't care less what the banks do...they nearly crippled this country 8 years ago. I would be quite happy to see them go. The UK is a world leader in biotechnology, electronics and the space industry (we build a lot of satellites and are a major partner in the ESA). We need to strengthen our manufacturing base and become less dependent on service industries.

What I do know is that given the current state of the continent, I'm quite happy for the UK to sever its political union and no longer be bound the EU's rules and regulations, beyond whatever trade agreement we can negotiate. A partner of Europe, but not chained to it.


Yes, what I've said is just supposition and speculation...but I believe its at least based on a fair amount of common sense.

You want guarantees and hard promises? The only things in life that are guaranteed are death and taxes. Other than that, life is generally one big gamble...and I feel ready to take a punt.


Here's some music to help folks mull things over...

Ent wrote:Uh dyre you will have an unpolicable land border with the Republic of Ireland and you can get a ferry to England or Scotland with no Id. Hell of a lot harder to police than a tunnel.

Like I said - I DON'T buy that argument from the Leave campaign. I doubt we will ever be able to completely stop illegal immigration, but I believe we can do a hell of a lot better than we are currently doing...with a properly manned and equipped border agency, with the legal powers to take the necessary action. Which we can't do at the moment as we have to comply with EU regs on that issue (and many others).

Ent wrote:
Illegal immigration will continue as it is illegal. Will just stop free movement (unless that is a requirement for a trade agreement like Norway), which in general is of benefit to the UK.

I'm fully in favour of a points-based system for legal immigrants, to help ensure we only take in those who can make a positive contribution to the country.

Ent wrote:
Financial sector contributes significantly to gdp, it dwarfs the biotech and aerospace industry. Those industries contain foreign company's to that may leave.

Financial sector dwarfs manufacturing and other industries because it purely deals in moving vast sums of money around. However as we have seen, it can be very volatile...especially when those working in it are corrupt. The temptation for bad practices will always be there, due to the money involved. It will remain a big part of our GDP I guess, but I would love to see Britain become more of a manufacturing nation once more. Its increasing, but needs to grow more.

Again, we would survive if the banks threw their toys out their prams and relocated. Short term pain but long term gain.

Ent wrote:
I don't think there is all that much common sense being applied in truth.

Only time will tell. The truth is...nobody really knows. Thats why there is so much spin and scaremongering.

The ban has been lifted in England Scotland and Wales if you have no sexual contact for 12 months. It is under review for the whole uk to be completely lifted. Our last two DUP health ministers opposed this.

They are completely against gay marriage and adoption.

If you have a business that writes messages and you refuse to write one for a certain non inflammatory belief that is discrimination. They were found guilty of this in court.

They are against a whole lot of other things including Protestants marrying Catholics. They want to reconstitute the death penalty.

This is the only major political party backing leave.

I received this email a couple of months ago. Not sure how much of it is BS.....probably the same ratio as there is in the remain argument.



Here is a list of the most frequently asked questions about the EU Referendum, and what would happen when Britain leaves the EU. Every effort has been made to make the answers as accurate and as factually correct as possible.



During the course of the referendum campaign, further questions will no doubt arise and updated versions of this document will be published.




FAQs





1. Would leaving the European Union ('EU') endanger jobs and trade, and could the EU put up trade barriers against the UK?



When we leave the EU, it cannot put up arbitrary trade barriers against the UK, since to do so would be in breach of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules which govern world trade. All EU countries have agreed to follow them. And even if they could do so in breach of WTO rules, why would they want to? We have a massive trade deficit with the EU - they sell us far more than we sell them.



Britain currently exports goods and services to the EU to the value of £228.9 billion, whereas their exports to us amount to £290.6 billion: therefore we have a trade deficit with the EU of £61.7 billion. Germany, Spain, France, Italy, etc.will still want to sell us their cars, wine, holidays, etc. Trade will continue as normal. 1



Britain's is the fifth largest economy in the world. We are a world-class trading nation; while we have a trade deficit with the EU, we have a trade surplus with the rest of the world. Our trading success stems from hundreds of years of experience, from English being the international language of business and science and from the trust that foreign companies put in the English legal system and contract law.





2. What about the EU's Common External Tariffs?



The EU was formed as a Customs Union, not a Free Trade Area; against non-EU countries, it erected certain trade barriers known as the Common External Tariffs. However, the World Trade Organisation has been negotiating down trade barriers internationally for many years, and as a result these are now generally low. The pro-EU organisation British Influence states that "UK exporters would still have to pay 15% on average for food and 10% on cars to trade with the EU" 2,but this is mere scaremongering. Since the EU sells Britain far more than we buy from it, it would not be in its interests to impose these tariffs even if it could, since we could impose similar tariffs on the goods it sells us.



The Eurosceptic organisation Business for Britain issued a report stating that if the Common External Tariffs were levied on British exports, they would be at an average rate of only 4.3%. Business for Britain calculates that the total cost to business would be lower than the current UK net contribution to the EU budget (which contribution is, of course, ever-rising). When we are outside the EU, it would be cheaper for the British government to pay exporters' tariffs for them rather than paying into the EU budget as it does now. Even so, it would not be in the EU's interests to impose the Common External Tariffs on UK exports since, if we did the same thing, the damage to their trade would be more than to ours.





3. Would leaving the EU exclude Britain from the Single Market?



The EU and the Single Market are not the same thing. Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein are members of the Single Market but not the EU. The EU has 28 members, the Single Market has 31. We do not need to be in either the EU or the Single Market in order to trade with member states. Many countries trade with the EU without finding it necessary to join the EU or the Single Market - for example China, India, Japan, the USA, etc. World Trade Organisation rules prevent the erecting of arbitrary or unilateral trade barriers. Outside the EU, Britain could negotiate a trade deal with the EU from a position of strength.





4. What about international trade deals that the EU has negotiated with the rest of the world - would we be excluded?



Britain's is the fifth largest economy in the world. We are a major trading nation. Outside the EU, those countries who have signed trade deals with the EU would certainly want to continue mutually beneficial trading arrangements with the UK. They would have a great incentive to quickly agree to a continuation of trade on the same, or very similar, terms. When Britain regains its seat on the WTO and control of its own international trade policy, we could also no doubt negotiate better trade deals for ourselves - as we did for hundreds of years before we joined the EU.





5. Isn't about 50% of our trade with the EU?



No. This figure is highly exaggerated since it refers only to the proportion of international trade and so excludes all domestic trade, which is much higher.



But even considering only international trade, according to the Government's Pink Book (2014) 3, 44.4% of our total exports in goods and services were to EU countries. That figure is reduced when we take into account the so-called 'Rotterdam effect'. Exports first landing in Rotterdam are counted as exports to Europe, even when they are destined to pass on to other countries, such as China, which are outside the EU. Even a conservative estimate of the Rotterdam effect reduces the total figure to about 42.8%. So it is fair to say that under 43% of our international trade is with the EU.



Figures published by the Office of National Statistics show that only 15.6% of UK businesses are connected with exporting or importing. Of these, no more than 5% of companies trade with the EU 4. While approximately 20% of our economy is concerned with international trade, approximately 80% of the economy is purely domestic (i.e., within the UK itself). Of the 20%, only approximately half of the exports go to EU countries - and yet 100% of our businesses have to comply with EU laws and regulations.



Britain's trade with the EU has been declining over the last twenty-five years. In 1999, 54.7% of our international trade was with the EU. By 2014, that had reduced to about 42.8%.As already shown, while this trade is important to Britain, it would not be endangered when we leave the EU since, as already demonstrated, the EU cannot put up arbitrary trade barriers against the UK.





6. Is it true that 3 million jobs depend on trade with the EU?



This old chestnut continues to raise its head despite having been discredited long ago. The figure arose from a study by the National Institute of Economic & Social Affairs in 1999. The report calculated that 'three million jobs' are associated with trade with the EU.



This report has been repeatedly misrepresented by various people, including former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg MP, who said that three million jobs are "at risk" if we left the EU. The Institute's Director, Martin Weale, has repudiated the claim describing the misuse of the report for propaganda purposes as "pure Goebbels" 5. These jobs depend on the continuation of trade - not on continued EU membership.



Using similar assumptions that arrived at the figure of three million jobs in the UK being associated with EU trade, we can arrive at a figure of 5 to 6.5 million jobs in the EU being associated with trade with the UK 6. Millions of jobs elsewhere also depend upon trade with Europe, for example in China, India and Japan, but those countries do not find it necessary to join the EU in order to trade with Europe.





7. If the UK leaves the EU, what would happen to UK citizens living in Europe? Could they be deported?



About 1.3 million British citizens live in EU countries, while about 3 million EU nationals live in the UK 7. The top locations for Britons living on the continent are 8 :

Spain            319,144

Ireland         249,392

France         171,346

Germany       99,909

Italy               65,975

Netherlands  47,297

Cyprus          38,844

Poland           35,829

Belgium         24,915

Sweden          20,839



Most British people living in Europe are either engaged in skilled work, own property or are retirees living on their pensions. People who are established, and living legally, in a country are certainly not going to be expelled. One reason for this is that many retired British people live in European countries (for example, the 18,067 living in Greece) that are either poor or suffering from the Eurozone's austerity policies; the income they provide is highly valued. People with an established legal residency are not going to be expelled. This prospect is just another example of the scaremongering by the Remain side.





8. If I own property in an EU member state, will it be safe?



When Britain leaves the EU, the EU's member states will still have to respect the property rights of individuals living there. This is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights. The governments of countries cannot take some kind of revenge on British property owners out of pique at a British decision to exit the EU. Furthermore, there are millions of Europeans who own property in the UK.





9. If the UK leaves the EU, would I lose free access to member states' services when I travel to Europe?



Britain has reciprocal health benefits with those European countries that have comparable national health services, e.g., Germany, France, Holland, etc. There is no reason why such reciprocal arrangements could not be continued on a bilateral basis when we leave the EU. Many other European countries simply do not have a public health service comparable to ours; to use their health services, British citizens either have to pay or take out private health insurance.



The current system does not work in Britain's favour, anyway. Figures recently published by the Department of Health show that while Britain paid European countries more than £674 million for treating British citizens abroad, we received only £50 million back in payments for European citizens treated here. For example: France received £150 million but paid Britain only £6.7 million; Spain received £223 million but paid Britain only £3.4 million; Germany received £25.9 million but paid Britain only £2.2 million. Labour MP John Mann said, "Sorting this scandal out would transform the financial situation of the NHS"9.





10. Hasn't the EU helped to keep the peace in Europe?



This is pure mythology. Over 1945-1949, peace was kept in Europe by the British and US armies stationed in Germany; from 1949 onwards, by NATO and the continued presence of predominantly US and British troops to counter the threat from the Soviet bloc. France left NATO in 1959 and did not fully re-join until 2009. The disintegration of the old Soviet Union in 1991 removed the main military threat to Europe, but new risks have arisen. These can best be countered by NATO and co-operation between democratic nation states, not by European political and economic integration.



Democratic nations tend to settle their differences by diplomacy, not war. The biggest threat to peace in Europe is posed by the creation of an undemocratic, centralised 'United States of Europe' and the removal of powers of democratic accountability and control from its citizens. The EU intends to create its own armed forces by merging those of its member states, all in order to enforce its Common Foreign and Security Policy. The safest future for Europe lies in democratic nation states co-operating with each other and in an alliance, such as NATO, of independent states set up to counter external threats. Abdicating control of our foreign, security and defence policy to the EU will, as a minimum, have unpredictable results, and potentially will be a recipe for disaster.





11. Are we not stronger on the world stage as part of the EU, and would we not lose influence outside it?



Actually, the opposite is true. The more centralised the EU becomes, the more power we surrender to it and the less influential we become in the world. Britain still has a seat on the UN Security Council and is a member of over 100international organisations. However, we lost our independent seat on the World Trade Organisation in 1973 when we surrendered it to the EU. The EU's ambition is to have a seat in its own right on the UN Security Council, taking over those of Britain and France. Being a part of the EU makes Britain less influential, not more so.





12. Would Britain be 'isolated' outside the EU?



Are countries like the USA, Canada, Australia, India, Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico- and all the other countries in the world which are not members of the EU - 'isolated'? There are almost 200 sovereign counties in the world, of which only 28 are members of the EU. Are all the others 'isolated'? No. But do they make their own laws, and trade, and prosper outside the EU? Obviously, they do.





13. Should we remain in the EU in order to influence its decisions?



If you think so, do consider these facts. In 1973, 2 of the 13 (15.4%) EU Commissioners were British; this has reduced to 1 out of 28 (merely 3.6%, a worse than four-fold reduction).



In 1979, 81 out of 410 (19.8%) Members of the European Parliament represented Britain. Now have 73 MEPs out of 751 (9.7%). Most decisions in the Parliament are made by a simple majority vote. Even if all the UK MEPs of all parties were to agree (which never happens), we can easily be outvoted: British MEPs cannot ultimately protect Britain's interests.



In 1973 we had 17% of the vote in the European Council (comprising Heads of Governments); this has now reduced to 8.2% (29 out of 352 votes). Each Member State is allocated votes according to the size of its population. Most areas of domestic policy are now under the control of the EU and are decided in the Council by a Qualified Majority Vote ('QMV'). Again, when trying to protect our national interest, we are outvoted.



The Lisbon Treaty introduced a revised system of QMV. A qualified majority is reached if at least 55% of member states vote in favour (in practice, 16 or more out of 28) and the proposal is supported by member states representing 65% of the total EU population. This so-called 'double majority' is obligatory as from 1st April 2017. A 'blocking majority' must include four Council members representing more than 35% of the EU's population. Under this system, because we are outvoted, we are repeatedly forced to accept laws we don't want.



If you still think Britain has the ability to influence decisions or to protect our own interests then consider this fact: since 1996, when records began, Britain has objected to 55 new laws in the Council of Ministers - and we have been defeated all 55 times. All the offending measures have become law 10. How can that possibly be considered 'being stronger in Europe' or 'defending our national interests'?





14. Why do more countries, for example Turkey, want to join the EU?



The six countries that set up the European Economic Community ('EEC') in 1957 were Germany, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium. These were countries that had been devastated by the Second World War. The driving force behind the creation of the EEC was the need for an economic and political pact between Germany and France, historically the main instigators of European wars.



Since then 22 more countries have joined, many for less idealistic reasons. In any given year, typically only three or four countries are net contributors to the EU budget. Germany is always the top contributor, with the UK usually in second or third place. Aside from the top three or four contributors to the EU budget, most countries take far more out than they put in.



To illustrate the point, 2004 saw the accession of ten smaller, mostly poor, Eastern European countries to the EU. They joined for the financial and other benefits they could obtain. The same is true of those countries waiting to join such as Macedonia, Turkey, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.



The countries lining up to join are certainly not doing so in the hope of making donations to the massive EU budget. They want cash handouts, and to be able to export their excess populations and unemployed to Europe. Turkey, for instance, is not even in Europe (97.0% of its land mass is in Asia). It has a population of 77 million, and if it joins it will be the second most populous, and the poorest, country in the EU. You can work the rest out for yourself.





15. If we left, would we lose millions in EU grants?



Firstly, there is no such thing as 'EU money'. There is only taxpayers' money, and the UK is always a net contributor to the EU budget - every single year (except for one), we've paid in far more than we got out. As stated before, Germany always pays the most, with Britain usually in the top three or four. The one and only year that we got more out than we paid in was 1975. 'Coincidentally', 1975 was the last time we had a Referendum on membership...



The EU's own figures 11 show that out of the 37 British regions (as classified under the EU's system for 'Regional Aid'), 35 are net contributors to the fund. Only two regions, West Wales and Cornwall, are net beneficiaries. In total, the UK gets back £1 for every £3.55 we pay in. Over the budgetary period 2007-2013, the UK paid in about £29.5 billion, but received only £8.7 billion in return. Many of Britain's poorest and most deprived regions are subsidising the regions of other EU member states.



Neither is this money well spent: between 2007 and 2013, the European Regional Development Fund'spayments to Wales totalled £2 billion, yet the effect on unemployment in Wales was insignificant. We would be better off not giving the money to the EU and instead deciding how to spend British tax-payers' money to best effect ourselves, in our own country.





16. How much does EU membership cost?



A simple question which, unfortunately, has a complex answer: even the British government doesn't quite seem to know exactly how much it hands over to the EU each year. The Government's current forecast for payments to the EU Budget for 2016-2017 is:



·  Â£19.228 billion gross contribution to the budget

·  Â£4.444 billion is held back as the British Rebate

·  Â£4.606 billion is spent in the UK by the EU

·  This gives an estimated net contribution of £10.178 billion.



However, bear in mind that our gross contribution is rising, the rebate is declining (thanks to Tony Blair's 'renegotiations' of 2006), and the EU spends £4.6 billion of our own money in our own country on projects they, rather than we, deem fit. A British government should be able to make better decisions than the EU on how to spend taxpayers' money in Britain.



The indirect costs on the economy are much higher. These include the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy and over-regulation on business, to name just three. Professor Tim Congdon has calculated that the direct and indirect costs on our economy for 2015 to be 12% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) or £190 billion per annum. 12





17. How many of our laws are made by the EU?



Most areas of domestic policy are now under the control of the EU. Its legislation takes two main forms: Directives and Regulations. Directives must be transposed into UK Acts of Parliament. The UK Parliament has no choice in the matter, even if, in some instances, it may tinker with the details. And Regulations automatically become law, even without our Parliament debating them.



The amount of law coming from the EU varies from year to year. In 2006, the German Parliament, under former President Roman Hertzog, carried out a study that put the proportion of new laws originating from the EU at 84%. Gordon Brown, in a speech to the Confederation of British Industry in 2005 while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, admitted that "European regulations - of course - account for 50% of significant new rules for business". In the European Parliament, EU Commissioner Viviane Reding admitted that "70% of British laws are made in the EU". So a reasonable estimate is that, in any given year, the proportion of our law that comes from the EU is somewhere between 50% and 80%.



The rate of legislation passing through the European Parliament has somewhat slowed down over the last eighteen months, and it is believed that a large amount of legislation is being deliberately held back by the Commission until the British Referendum is over. If we vote to remain in the EU, the legislative floodgates will once again open.





18. Other sources, like Nick Clegg MP, say that a much smaller number of our laws come from the EU. What is the truth?



You may hear quoted figures of only 9%, or perhaps only 13%, as representing the percentage of our laws coming from the EU. That is a misrepresentation of the contents of a House of Commons Briefing Paper that stated about 13.2% of our laws come from the EU. But the paper warns that the figure does not take into account the large number of EU Regulations that automatically pass into UK law. The 13.2% figure refers solely to Acts of Parliament required to transpose EU Directives into law. Taking Regulations into account, the recalculated figure is more like 65%. That is within the range described under answer 17., which was between 50% and 80% in any given year, varying with the EU's legislative output.





19. Haven't measures such as introducing the European Arrest Warrant made us safer from criminals and terrorists?



The simple answer is that they have not. The European Arrest Warrant is just one part of an EU system of criminal justice being created which supersedes the English legal system. Britain was one of the first countries (it was back in 1870) to pass an Extradition Act. That Act required prima facie evidence to be presented to the English extradition court for it to satisfy itself that there was sufficient evidence against the accused person to justify surrendering him or her to a foreign judicial system.



The 1870 Act worked well until the then Conservative Government replaced it with the Extradition Act of 1989, the small print of which allowed the European Convention on Extradition to be ratified in 1990. This removed the requirement for prima facie evidence to be presented to the English extradition court.



The Extradition Act 2003 removed further safeguards for the accused person. Under the Act, 'extradition' became 'judicial surrender'. It allowed a British citizen to be removed to any other EU member state purely on the strength of a form completed by the relevant foreign authority; this can be purely on 'suspicion'. No prima facie evidence is presented to the English court, and indeed they have no power to prevent 'judicial surrender'. This goes entirely against the centuries-old English legal protection enshrined in Habeas Corpus, which prevented imprisonment without evidence and without a charge being formally laid for a specific offence under English law.



This is because of the EU doctrine of 'mutual recognition' which says all EU legal, judicial and penal systems are of equal standing - which is palpably not so. British citizens can be sent abroad purely at the request of a foreign examining magistrate and locked up for months or even years while investigations take place. In contrast, British Police cannot request extradition of a suspect to the UK, unless and until they have fully investigated and amassed sufficient evidence for a charge to be laid.



This highlights the fundamental difference between the continental and the English legal systems: under continental ones, people may be and are imprisoned for long periods while accusations are investigated, whereas under the English system people may only be imprisoned (on remand) after a specific criminal offence has been fully investigated and charges laid. The English legal system evolved over 800 years as much to protect the innocent as to convict the guilty. Those principles are being sacrificed in favour of an EU system of criminal law.





20. I have heard that the courts can prevent extradition if the accused person's human rights are at risk. Is this true?



That may be the case in theory, but in practice it does not work. All EU member states have signed the European Convention of Human Rights. The English court will take the view that, because EU member states have signed the Convention, under the doctrine of 'mutual recognition' they cannot then be deemed to be in breach of it - even if all the known facts contradict this.



For example, it is well-known that countries such as Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and others, are frequently in breach of the Convention, because of their institutionalised corruption or because of the conditions in their prisons; nevertheless and despite this, suspects will be 'judicially surrendered' to them. The author has been present in the English Court of Appeal when such a judgement has been made.





21. Don't we need to be in the EU to help protect us from organised crime and terrorism?



The EU's open borders policy has put us more, not less, at risk from criminals and terrorists. The open borders policy has meant that Europe's criminals have migrated to where they think they can most lucratively operate, and that means countries like Britain. The EU's Freedom of Movement Directive (Directive 2004/38, Article 27(2)) says that 'previous criminal convictions are not enough to justify exclusion'. So even if we know someone to be a convicted criminal, we have no power to prevent his or her entry to our country. We have seen convicted murderers, rapists and paedophiles come from Europe to the UK and then commit more appalling crimes over here.



Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe revealed recently that 29% of the Met Police's 250,000 arrests in a year were of foreign nationals (admittedly, not all being EU citizens), but of these, only 13% resulted in a charge or summons 13. The excuse for not being able to bring them to justice was because it was not possible to check their DNA, fingerprints or previous convictions, and so they were released.



Open borders also aid terrorists. We have seen terrorist attacks in a number of European capitals made by terrorists who can easily cross borders under the EU's Schengen open borders system. Britain is not in Schengen, but any EU citizen has the right to come to Britain if he or she so wishes. Europe has plenty of its own home-grown terrorists who have free access to the UK, but we also saw how, in the Paris attacks of November 2015, at least one of the murderous terrorists was operating on a forged passport. Whenever these terrorist attacks occur, the EU uses the act as an excuse to call for yet more power over police and judicial matters, and to create or enlarge the EU's own security and intelligence services.



Writing in the magazine Prospect, MI6's former head (1999-2004), Sir Richard Dearlove,made it clear thatBritain wouldbe safer outside of the EU. He stated that leaving the EU would make it easier to deport terrorists and control our borders. He added that Europe would not turn its back on Britain or our intelligence services, because "Britain is Europe's leader in intelligence and security matters give much more than they get in return". 14



When the UK is out of the EU, the organised crime and terrorist threat would not go away. But then we would be free to control our own borders, and we could continue, as we have always done, to share our intelligence with our allies. But allowing our intelligence services to be merged with an EU intelligence service would be a tremendous mistake.





22. Why does President Obama want Britain to stay in the EU?



Back in the 1970s, Henry Kissinger is reported to have said, "When I want to speak to Europe, whom should I call?" The story may be apocryphal but it highlights the fact that US foreign policy wants to deal with one central authority in Europe, rather than have the inconvenience of dealing with individual, independent nation states.



After the Second World War, the USA funded, to the tune of many millions of dollars, the European Movement, which covertly worked towards creating a United States of Europe. The release of declassified documents in 2000 showed that that the American Committee for a United Europe was, in fact, a front organisation for the CIA. The USA wanted a bulwark against the Soviet threat, and as stated above, the convenience of dealing with one central political power in Europe. There is evidence that the CIA also clandestinely funded the Remain side in the 1975 British Referendum 15.



America is primarily concerned with its own perceived national interests, and not Britain's. We know that the USA has interfered in the domestic politics of many nations around the world - so why would they not interfere with ours? We should also recall that President Obama has called for Turkey to become a member of the EU, which would invite another 77 million potential migrants to come to Britain, should they so wish. That is evidently not in the British national interest.





23. Why are big businesses calling for Britain to remain in the EU?



Some big business are, some aren't. In February 2016, representatives of 36 FTSE100 companies signed a letter to The Times calling for Britain to remain in the EU. But that means the other 64 FTSE100 companies did not sign it. About 200 companies have committed to the Remain campaign - but that is a miniscule proportion of the 5.4 million companies registered in the UK.



Some big businesses like the EU because they want to deal with one central regulatory authority. They can lobby for the kind of regulation they want and which they can comply with, but which their smaller competitors cannot. They also like the endless waves of cheap migrant labour that the EU's open borders bring.



Other representatives of big businesses are equally vocal about wanting Britain to leave the EU - for example, Peter Hargreaves, co-founder of FTSE 100 company Hargreaves Lansdown. Writing in the Daily Mail on 25th February 2016 Mr. Hargreaves said, "[EU] red tape and regulations have stifled enterprise in the UK, not helped." He added that Britain should be "forging trading links with nations that have fast growth rates and dynamic economies. While we are in the EU we must wait on unmotivated, overpaid Eurocrats". He concluded by hoping that the electorate would "decide to leave this disastrous and stifling union" 16.



Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMEs) are even less enthusiastic about the EU. 200 bosses of SMEs signed a letter calling for Britain to leave the EU because of a "constant diet of unnecessary regulations" from Brussels that raise costs, cut profits and force up prices. The letter concluded that, "We believe that our economy can do better without being held back by the EU, thus we should vote to leave". The establishment is desperate to stifle any dissent - in March, the British Chamber of Commerce's Director General John Longworth was forced to resign for stating his personal opinion that we should leave. No one has so far been forced out of a job for saying we should stay in.





24. Haven't some big businesses threatened to leave the UK if we leave the EU?



As stated in answer 23., in February 2016, 36 of Britain's top companies signed a letter to The Times arguing for Britain to stay in the EU. But almost two-thirds of the 100 top companies did not sign. Those that declined to sign included Barclays, Sainsbury's and Tesco.



Other huge companies, such as Toyota, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen, Airbus, Jaguar, Land Rover, Honda and Ford have all stated their ongoing commitment to UK manufacturing, whatever the result of the Referendum. John Mills, the millionaire Labour donor and founder of John Mills Ltd (JML), supports EU exit, as do Joe Foster and John Caudwell, the founders of Reebok and Phones 4U respectively.



On 17th February 2016, 80 business leaders, including Pasha Khandaker, President of the UK Bangladesh Caterers Association, Moni Varma, owner of rice suppliers Veetee, and Tariq Usmani, CEO of Henley Homes, wrote to the Prime Minister saying that Britain "was damaging trade with the rest of the world". They continued, "As long as Britain's trade policy is controlled by the EU, we cannot sign bilateral free trade agreements with Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Australia, New Zealand, or for that matter any other non-EU state". They added, "Vested interests on the continent sustain a relatively protectionist policy. We apply the EU's common external tariff to exports to Commonwealth countries - hurting customers and consumers here".



Aircraft maker Boeing chose Britain for its new European headquarters in March 2016. Sir Michael Arthur, President of Boeing UK and Ireland, stated that "The prosperous partnership between our country and our company goes from strength to strength". Boeing employs 2,000 staff in the UK and has invested £1.8 billion here.



Interestingly, in 2013 Jim O'Neill, the former Chairman of Goldman Sachs' asset management business said, "We should not be scared of leaving it [the EU] and exploring a world without it. The opportunities that arise from a dramatically changing world are huge and I don't think that a lot people in our area, never mind in Brussels, are that interested or understand it".





25. Haven't senior members of the British armed forces said we are safer in the EU?



A letter orchestrated by 10 Downing Street in February 2016 was signed by a number of senior and former members of the armed forces: however, this manoeuvre spectacularly backfired after it turned out that one of the claimed signatories had not signed at all. General Sir Michael Rose had not only not given his permission to be included, but had instead said that "sovereignty and security are intrinsically linked and in the recent years we've seen the EU erode our sovereignty" 17. No. 10 was forced to issue a humiliating apology to Sir Michael.



Other respected military figures have come out in favour of leaving the EU, including Colonel Richard Kemp, former Army Commander in Afghanistan, who wrote an article in the Sunday Express of 28th February 2016 stating that "NATO is our main military alliance, not the EU ... By leaving the EU we will gain far greater control of our borders and better confront these challenges that have the potential to undermine the very fabric of our society."





26.Some say that if we leave the EU, we would be like Norway and Switzerland, who have to obey most EU laws, pay a contribution to the EU budget, and have open borders. Is this true?



No. When Britain leaves the EU, it will not be obliged to follow either the so-called 'Norwegian' or 'Swiss' model. The Norwegians chose to be members of the European Economic Area. Switzerland had agreed over 100 bilateral treaties with the EU, which has meant it has adopted most EU laws without being a member of the EEA or EU.



No genuine advocate of EU exit would suggest this outcome is desirable. Instead, we should adopt the 'Canadian', 'Japanese' or 'Singaporean' models: independent nation states that trade and co-operate without being members of the EU. In reality, we want a British Model which would mean we do not have to obey EU laws, pay them any money or have open borders. We would be in a very strong position to negotiate our own trade deal with the EU - and indeed trade deals with the rest of the world. We would not have to join the EEA - and nor should we.



It is noteworthy that the Swiss Parliament recently voted to withdraw its 24 year-old application to join the EU, because the costs of EU membership are too high. In 2006 the Swiss Federal Government carried out a study that calculated that full membership of the EU would cost up to six times the cost of their existing bilateral arrangements with the EU.





27. If we left, would we still have to comply with EU rules in order to trade with member states?



Any country that exports goods or services to another country has to comply with that country's related rules. For example, when we export goods or services to the USA, we have to comply with the USA's own rules, specifications and laws. That is true of any country wishing to trade with another. As has been said earlier, the rules governing trade are agreed under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation. The WTO strives to bring trade barriers down internationally.





28. Outside the EU, would we lose our Human Rights?



After the atrocities committed on the continent during the Second World War, the European Convention on Human Rights was proposed by Winston Churchill. It was modelled on the protections enshrined for centuries under English Common Law. So, you can see we had perfectly good human rights under our own laws before we joined the EU - and we will after we leave.



Under Tony Blair's Labour Government, the Convention was incorporated into UK law by means of the Human Rights Act (1998). This has subsequently led to all kinds of abuses and to it being described as a charter for criminals and terrorists. This is because of numerous decisions by the European Court of Justice. British Courts have found themselves powerless to deport foreign terrorists, murderers, rapists and paedophiles, all because the European Court of Human Rights ('ECHR') has decided that it might infringe their 'human rights' to do so.



In fact, leaving the EU would not make much practical difference to our situation regarding either the Convention or the ECHR. However, if a British Parliament decided to repeal the Human Rights Act, and remove our country from the jurisdiction of the ECHR, then we could return power to Parliament, and legal jurisdiction to our own Supreme Court - but that is a separate issue.





29. Hasn't David Cameron 'renegotiated our membership of the EU' to deal with all these problems?



Mr. Cameron's 'deal' is, in fact, 'no deal' at all. There is not sufficient space here to address each one of his 'reforms', but in summary, neither do they amount to very much, nor do they return or repatriate any significant powers to the UK Parliament (despite Mr. Cameron's many promises to do so).



The 'reforms' will require many changes to the EU Treaty (which will necessitate the unanimous consent of 27 other member states), and many amendments to existing EU Directives, which first have to be voted upon by the European Parliament and then additionally require the consent of the European Council (comprising Heads of the 27 other member states' governments) by Qualified Majority Voting.



Martin Schulz MEP, the President of the European Parliament, has made it plain that how the EU Parliament votes cannot be guaranteed in advance, and that MEPs may decide to change the substance of the reforms - or even to reject them wholesale. Likewise, the European Council might decide to reject the changes, including the proposed Treaty changes. We simply do not and cannot know what will happen, because although the Referendum will be on 23rd June 2016, the changes to the Treaty and Directives will not happen until months or years afterwards. Mr. Cameron is trying to sell the British electorate a pig in a poke.





30. Aren't both the Conservative and Labour parties in favour of EU membership?



Not quite. In fact, both the Conservative and Labour parties are riven with conflicts on this issue, as they have been ever since we joined the EEC in 1973. In the Referendum of 1975, leading politicians from each parties were to be found campaigning on both the In and Out side. The same phenomenon may be observed now.



At least 165 (about 50%) Conservative MPs have already declared themselves as Leavers in the coming Referendum, with many more expected to follow. These include many cabinet ministers like Iain Duncan Smith (since, resigned from the cabinet) as well as major figures such as Boris Johnson and Zac Goldsmith. Approximately two-thirds of Conservative Party members are believed to be in favour of EU exit.



The Labour Party is similarly conflicted, although they are not discussing it as openly. A number of Labour MPs have publicly declared in favour of EU exit: Kate Hoey MP, Graham Stringer MP and Kelvin Hopkins MP. A major Labour donor millionaire John Mills heads the Labour Leave campaign group. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn was opposed to EU membership throughout his career, but now nominally backs the Remain campaign. While a majority of Labour MPs are in favour of remaining, this does not reflect the feeling of a very large number of Party members. Even Andy Burnham MP, a Europhile and former contender for the Labour Leadership, had to admit that despite campaigning to stay in the EU, "If I was to lay money on it...I would bet that EU exit is going to win" 18.



Even the usually Europhile Scottish National Party are not united on this issue. Jim Sillars, a major figure in the SNP and a former Deputy Leader, has written an excellent pamphlet arguing why Scotland should vote to leave the EU. Mr. Sillars sums the issue up succinctly when he writes, "Should the Parliament we directly elect make our laws? If the answer is Yes, the coming-out of the EU is a must. If the answer is No, then you must accept having laws imposed on your society with which your elected government does not agree".





31. Has any other country ever left the EU?



Yes, one. Greenland left in 1985. Greenland had, along with Denmark and Britain, joined the European Economic Community on 1st January 1973. However, Greenland's politicians soon realized that the Common Fisheries Policy was destroying their country's fishing industry. In their 1985 Referendum, 53% of Greenlanders voted to leave, which they subsequently did on 1st January 1986. The Greenland Treaty formalised their exit.



Conventional wisdom might dictate that Greenland is too small to survive on its own, and that it ought to be grateful to stay and to depend on EU handouts. The reality is quite different. Greenland has a workforce of only 28,000 and fish provide 82% of its exports; but it had the courage to leave and free itself of EU red-tape and regulations - and from surrendering its fishing grounds to the Common Fisheries Policy. The average income in Greenland is higher than those of Britain, Germany and France. If may be cold in Greenland, but life is sunnier there than in the EU. 19





32. How can we leave the EU? What is Article 50?



Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty laid out, for the first time, the means whereby a Member State could leave the EU; however, were we to try and leave using Article 50, we might well find that we were never able to leave. Under Article 50, there is a two-year negotiation period which could be prolonged indefinitely by unanimous agreement of EU member states. Even if we did manage to leave using Article 50, we could find ourselves with a 'deal' that still required us to pay contributions to the EU budget, having to accept a large proportion of EU laws and with open borders to EU citizens. We simply do not know what that deal might be, in the two or more years following us giving notice.



Another great danger is that the British government could delay the whole process beyond the next General Election in 2019. Whichever party wins that election, it could then set aside the Referendum decision (which is, in any event, not legally binding) if they so wish, on the basis that a general election result trumps a referendum (formally put, that no Parliament can bind its successors), and we might never leave.



The only sure way for Britain to leave the EU is for our Parliament to repeal the European Communities Act 1972. This would immediately return supremacy of law to our own Parliament and courts, and free us from control by the EU. Chaos would not ensue because all EU Directives, which have been transposed into Acts of Parliament, would remain in place. These could then be repealed when needed, leaving what laws we might need to interact with the EU (if, indeed, the EU itself continues to exist). The difference between the Article 50 method and the straightforward repeal of the European Communities Act is that the repeal puts the British Government and Parliament, and not the EU, in control. A full and detailed explanation of how this strategy would work has been outlined in a book by Gerard Batten MEP entitled The Road to Freedom20.





33. What happens if the British people vote to remain in the EU?



Those on the vote to remain side of the argument have no positive arguments to put for continued membership, and their tactics are based on pure scaremongering. Should the British be frightened into voting to remain, they should not imagine that the status quo in the EU will continue for long. The EU has clearly stated how it will forge ahead with deeper and deeper political and economic integration.



The EU intends to implement full economic and financial governance of its member states from Brussels. It wants to create its own armed forces to implement its own Foreign and Security Policy. It wants to import millions more migrants from Africa, the Middle East and beyond. To think that Mr. Cameron's feeble and ineffectual 'reforms' will protect us from any of this is delusional. The EU has always been about creating a United States of Europe (in substance, if not yet in name) and after the British Referendum, whatever the result, that project will resume its momentum.



If the British people vote to remain in the European Union, it will be a decision they will soon come to regret. But Parliament should always retain its sovereignty, so a future British Government could make a unilateral decision to leave the EU.





34. But it's all so complicated. I cannot make up my mind. How can I decide which way to vote?



You will indeed hear many arguments, facts and figures from the Remain and Leave sides in the referendum campaign. If you feel it is all a bit too much to take in, then look at the question in another way. If we had never joined the European Economic Community ('EEC' or Common Market) in 1973, would you now choose to join the European Union ('EU') knowing what it has become?



Ask yourself this: do you want to live in a democratic, self-governing country where the electorate can sack the government and elect a new one? Or do you prefer to live in an undemocratic, and economically declining, 'United States of Europe' (in effect, if not yet in name) where the real government (the European Commission) is not elected and cannot be sacked? Looked at this way, it is a simple choice.

Reading one of the more recent lies spouted off by the scaremongering Stay brigade is that if the UK left the EU, Scotland would leave the UK to remain in the EU. Now whilst I don't necessarily see Scotland leaving the UK as a bad thing, and I'm sorry to say I know a few English that would be more than happy to see Scotland go, I would like them to stay in the UK. So do the Scots believe there's any truth in this?

funnyExiledScot wrote:2. The trade point is a biggie. Firstly I believe it is inevitable that the EU will impose some form of financial penalty in the form of tariffs on the UK for leaving. It would be political suicide for the EU to allow the UK the leave and cease paying into the EU budget, cease having to comply with free movement of workers, cease having to comply with EU laws around workers' rights and product compliance, and yet allow tariff-free trade. Your point around trade agreements with the rest of the world is a fair one, but I do wonder why we think we'd get a better deal than the EU in negotiating these. From a practical perspective we will also need to spend a fair bit on additional civil servants with experience in negotiating these. Gus O'Donnell has made the point that all the skilled negotiators for international trade deals currently reside in Brussels as employees of the EU (those "bloated Brussels bureaucrats" Farage keeps referring to). We will need to employ some of these people (which of course erodes the pot of money Leave seem to think we'll get by leaving but anyway, these aren't details we've heard much about).

If we don't negotiate a free-trade deal with the EU, then the EU is not allowed to discriminate specifically against the UK in the form of tariffs. Because we have a £60 billion trade deficit with the EU, it is highly unlikely that the EU would even want to punish us for leaving.

https://fullfact.org/europe/tariffs-and-barriers-trade-between-britain-and-eu/

Ent wrote:The ban has been lifted in England Scotland and Wales if you have no sexual contact for 12 months. It is under review for the whole uk to be completely lifted. Our last two DUP health ministers opposed this.

They are completely against gay marriage and adoption.

If you have a business that writes messages and you refuse to write one for a certain non inflammatory belief that is discrimination. They were found guilty of this in court.

They are against a whole lot of other things including Protestants marrying Catholics. They want to reconstitute the death penalty.

This is the only major political party backing leave.

Exactly, no sexual contact for 12 months is a not a realistic option for most people, and no political party that I know of wants to change it.

The decision for the bakery has, I believe, been appealed against. It should be overturned.

Is a pretty important point about trade that exiledscot makes... The EU will not in a month of Sunday's give us a) entry to the single market as we have currently with no tarriffs b) the ability to not adhere to freedom of movement.

Why?

Is very, very simple. If we set a precedent for leaving the EU and then get all the previous benefits of the single market for free then the floodgates of others leaving will open. Why on gods green earth would other countries pay to be in something/be part of joined state when one of their neighbours is having it all for free?

Our trade will be hit by tarriffs. To suggest otherwise is idiocy of the highest order. Yet the leave voters simply come back with "of course they'll want to trade with us", which is laughably ignorant. I can absolutely guarantee they will put the EU staying in one albeit reduced piece versus letting us trade tarriff/movement of people free. It doesn't set a dangerous precedent, it doesn't just open the floodgates.. it detonates said gates with a nuclear bomb.

mikey_dragon wrote:Reading one of the more recent lies spouted off by the scaremongering Stay brigade is that if the UK left the EU, Scotland would leave the UK to remain in the EU. Now whilst I don't necessarily see Scotland leaving the UK as a bad thing, and I'm sorry to say I know a few English that would be more than happy to see Scotland go, I would like them to stay in the UK. So do the Scots believe there's any truth in this?

Polling indicates this to be false. There is not a majority consensus in Scotland to hold a second referendum if the UK leaves the EU and, even if there was, I find it unlikely that the SNP would push for one knowing that they would lose.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14508986.Scots__would_oppose_independence_referendum_if_a_Brexit_goes_against_their_vote_/