EU Referendum – are you in or out?

chewkw
As a legal alien (Johnny foreigner to you lot me) I will vote OUT … ?

Chewkw. Ironically, the only people that think that people like you are johnny foreigner, are people like you.

ed ? € 2bn Slovakian taxpayers money, a relatively poor country, has been sent to Greece against the wishes of their government.

Only that has not happened. Not a single penny of Slovak tax payers money has been sent to Greece.

In for me. On the subject of immigration in particular I cannot see leaving will make much difference at all. Non-EU immigration will still have the same issues as it does now and EU immigration will be down to government policy which I suspect will be pretty much along the lines of what CMD has negotiated.

The Out campaign’s message that somehow if we leave our borders will close and no one will be allowed in is nonsense. I don’t think for one minute that is what the government has in mind.

Further, migrants will still make it as far as Calais and will still try and cross the Channel. There will still be a war in Syria driving people to our shores. Businesses will still need overseas workers.

If someone in the know who supports a Brexit could let me know if I’m wrong on this point I would be grateful because I’m struggling to see the connection between leaving and immigration suddenly becoming a non-issue.

Economically, why would you leave the largest trade bloc in the world? Yes we may be net contributor to the EU budget but that does not mean that we do not benefit significantly in terms of commerce and the ease of trading. The City in particular seems to enjoy the best of both worlds and look what happened when regulation was too light touch. That went well didn’t it?

Further, nothing about being in the EU prevents us from doing bilateral deals with non-EU members – another fallacy I’ve seen bandied around by the Out campaign.

All in all – I just do not see how leaving benefits us at all. If anything it is a massive unnecessary risk that won’t achieve anywhere near the changes that the Out campaign are suggesting.

as the Scottish referendum general election showed its what you get people to believe that counts, not what is actually true.

FTFY

Greece is/was essentially a failure of the € not the EU and they should not be confus

Obviously the two are related since apart from countries with a specific opt out (UK DK) the others are supposed to use or “move towards” using the Euro.

Actsully DrJ I was wrong, its not €2bn its €3.1bn. Slovakia is the most exposed to Greece after Malta as a percentage of GDP. The Greeks have the Slovakian’s money, well spent already actually and they won’t be giving it back

@tmh, who created the euro, who set and then ignored the requirements for entry, who allowed Greece to join, who ignored their spiralling debts (twas hardly a surprise when they owned up to them was it?), who fudged the bailoit and simply booted a very large can a few yards down the road. The euro is a perfect example of eu incompetance. A colossal failire. If you are dispirated, sign up and do some campaigning. I look forward to discussing it over a beverage sometime, perhaps I’ll invite you to an event 😉

Agriculture is one of my pet subjects, I’d fiercely like to see farming supoorted much better in the UK, ending ridiculously cheap imports including horse burgers from Eastern Europe via France and Ireland would be a start. Significantly tightening animal welfare legislation and banning imports from those that don’t comply (impossible under EU law). EU’s trade war with Russia didn’t include a provision for protecting Pig farmers from the excess supply of Pork. Typical EU action poorly thought through.

athgray – Member

chewkw
As a legal alien (Johnny foreigner to you lot me) I will vote OUT … ?

Chewkw. Ironically, the only people that think that people like you are johnny foreigner, are people like you. [/quote]

Nothing wrong with who I am or the like of me coz I/we don’t buy into your ideology …

Who are you kidding eh?

There are two kinds of foreign thinkings:

1. The ones that want to change your society to fit them.
2. The ones want that do not want to have more competitions in an already hard fought place to earn a living.

I am the latter.

You are the privilege one that is out of touch and very few foreigners will say what they really think to you.

It looks like there will be another wasted generation …

🙄

Hypothetical: if you’re a Tory MP with no particular convictions apart from the desire to have power, which way do you go on this? Your party is about to rip itself to bits. How do you come out smelling of roses?

Start by not forgetting the contribution of their heroine Maggie. Note how often the OUT team ignore the impact of the rebate that the iron lady negotiated on our behalf. How odd…?

Our contribution is low as a %age of GDP (a massive 1%) and as a result of this we are the lowest contributed among member states. Well done Maggie 😉 We get the benefits for a fraction of the cost, what a bummer.

Jambas, I need no convincing of the folly that is the €, but that doesn’t make me anti the EU. On the contrary, it is perfectly possible, indeed logical, to distinguish between the two.

But the issu of integration is REAL and hence my frustration on the timing and presentation of the referendum. We are not voting on a reformed EU at all. That is Dave’s spin. We are voting on being a member of something that cannot continue to exist in its current form. And that is plain stupid.

Actsully DrJ I was wrong, its not €2bn its €3.1bn. Slovakia is the most exposed to Greece after Malta as a percentage of GDP. The Greeks have the Slovakian’s money, well spent already actually and they won’t be giving it back

I’ll leave it to thm to explain to you how “exposure to Greece” is not the same as “sending money to Greece”. (In fact the choice of Slovakia as an example is particularly poor, as a little Googling would have revealed.)

Here’s a link to the Welsh Government’s page on EU funding – is it absolutely guaranteed that that funding, £500 million per year, would still be available to us here if there was a vote to leave?

http://gov.wales/funding/eu-funds/?lang=en

None of you outists gonna answer me then?

It’s beginning to look like you lot have only got half a plan…

No, DrJ I’d like to hear it from you. A big chunk of that €3.1bn (50%?) was new money that Slovakia absolutely did send to Greece. The rest was taking over prior debts, the alternative to which was the Greeks having to pay Slovakia back. Thisi is real money the Greeks are taking and paying to citizens as wages, benefits and pensions. The Slovakian Finance Minister was one of the most vocal anti-bailout voices for good reason.

I appreciate your not in the market for advice from me but your Greek relatives should get all their money and as many assets as they can out of the country and ideally denominated in something other than euros. Greece could easily default in 2017 in the midst of French and German elections when a further bailout will be politically impossible.

@tmh I don’t see us being at the center of Europe, in fact we are far from it. Look at Junkers appointment against our wishes. Now I’m delighted he’s there as it provides hours of campaign material about institutionalised tax evasion, EU excess and general political incompetance. There was a time I thought we should join the euro in order to move to the very center of influence of the EU, but that was 10 years ago and I’m very glad Brown kept us out.

As Marr starts this morning, Gove and Boris’ actions are simple cynical positioning

The Tories and Europe…. 😳

Jambas, as an economist, I have never been in favour of the € for good reason. But….

Given you earlier comments about EU/UK trade its pretty difficult to argue that we are not in the centre of Europe. Of course we are and why do you think Merkel is so desperate to accommodate Cameron.

Thanks tmh, time to switch on the VPN. Boris position very interesting, hes naturally Leave and if he campaings that way and wins he is a shoe in for leader as Cameron will have to step down and Osbourne is firmly Remain. Flipmside is a loss meams he’s hands the advantage to Osbourne and May.

@fin – we are the 5th richest country in the world, we only get back a fraction of what we put into the EU. We can fund our own projects. Also IF (and I have to agree with kimbers earlier post it is an IF) we take tough action to address tax avoidance embedded in the EU we’d have a few billion extra per anum on top for projects. BTW trail centres are paid in part by land owners for example npower in Wales. Did Lady Canning have EU money, I thought it was crowd funded by bods like me sending a donation.

No, DrJ I’d like to hear it from you.

As you wish:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eurozone-bailouts-idUKBRE9410C920130502

“Apart from the initial bilateral loans to Greece in 2010 (*) which totalled 52.9 billion euros, no euro zone taxpayer money was sent to Greece, or any other country. All the later bailouts were financed on markets via the eurozone bailout fund.”

(*) Which Slovakia opted out of.

we only get back a fraction of what we put into the EU

😯

Oh no Sturgeon and her shaking head on Marr now.

Arrggghh tmh you b-stard first thing I see is Sturgeon

And now Farrage – why did I not go for an early ride instead. Bad choice….

Oh God more crap on migration.

Started as a Leave but now undecided, the whole Euro thing is a disaster of financial management, rule application seems to only apply to certain countries, consensus amoung the huge number of member states seems impossible, Germany has created/exasperated the migrant situation, we are tied to EU trade deals, Stupid (IMO) EU Court Rulings (prisoner right to vote etc) BUT workers rights, 35hr week etc are good, safety standards of vehicles, free trade

Call me Dave has got very little from the recent summit so if we vote to say I can see us getting very little voice at any other negotiations. However a free reign Call Me Dave if we leave could be terrifying to the working class/squeezed Middle.

Is there anywhere that lists the for and against reasons without descending into argument?

Oh Farage boils my urine…….

@fin – we are the 5th richest country in the world, we only get back a fraction of what we put into the EU. We can fund our own projects. Also IF (and I have to agree with kimbers earlier post it is an IF) we take tough action to address tax avoidance embedded in the EU we’d have a few billion extra per anum on top for projects. BTW trail centres are paid in part by land owners for example npower in Wales. Did Lady Canning have EU money, I thought it was crowd funded by bods like me sending a donation.

But they wouldn’t or couldn’t be trusted to do so – ifs buts and maybes, to me in Wales the EU is that bit more independence from the Westminster gov’t and something we benefit from as a certainty and as such I can’t see any reason why I would want to vote to leave.

Dave made a major error in pretending the he was negotiating major change. Why? Because we already have a very good deal.

We already have opt outs on the €, Shengen and on many Issues of justice and home affairs. There isn’t a lot more to call for. Hence the need to exaggerate red herrings such as child benefit.

We are in a really good position in relative and absolute terms.

We can fund our own projects.

So why don’t we?

DrJ, Slovakians are on the hook for the loans, the money the Greeks have spent as I said. They guarantee them. Its just the same as we all in the UK as taxpayers are responsible for the money the Treasury borrows and the Government spends. Its smoke and mirrors to try and claim that the cash “comes from the markets” as if thats a magic pot of goodmwith nomcost or liability. Total Greek debt has spiralled by something like €100bn since the eurozone countries became the primary lender/financer – this is fresh money being spent on wages, benefits and pensions amongst other things.

Personally I think Dave’s negotiations are a bit of a side show – Immigration is a tiny part of the Eu v Uk discussions at the mo, and that is all he seems to have had a little bit of movement on

As for Farage , what a dick, I loved the fact that he is going to ask people to claim for asylum in the last safe country before they came to us. So thats ok then, no-one will travel to us anymore cos Nige said so, and it will be in France’s interest to keep them ….

Jamba, you wrote:

€ 2bn Slovakian taxpayers money, a relatively poor country, has been sent to Greece against the wishes of their government.

which was not true. This is why nobody can be bothered to debate with you. You say something, are shown to be in error, and then pretend that you said something entirely different. Boring.

fin25 – Member

None of you outists gonna answer me then?

On the funding issue you mention in your last post?
Well you get that we are a net contributor, so we could continue funding and still have more money left over.
Win-win!
Of course there is no guarantee that this would happen, same as there is no guarantee that Europe isn’t going to go further tits up if we stay in.

xxx
sbob.
Leaning to out, but being dragged back to in by fear.
🙂

That’s kind of my point sbob. The out campaign can’t offer any picture of a post exit UK, because no-one knows who will be in power. I might be tempted to vote out if there were certain guarantees regarding the replacement of EU institutions which actually benefit our citizens.

I’m with THM on this one. Using the Euro (which was always a ridiculous, unworkable concept) to then condemn the whole idea of the EU is just plain daft.

In fact it only reinforces the fact that in reality, we’ve the best of both worlds. We have the advantages of being in this huge free trading area, with all the economic and political benefits of that, but we do so without being shackled to the single currency. Sounds like a bit of a result to me, that.

And I haven’t heard a single even remotely convincing argument as to why we’d want to dump that arrangement, and how on earth we’d be better off if we did

I might be tempted to vote out if there were certain guarantees regarding the replacement of EU institutions which actually benefit our citizens.

That would be nice, but we’ll probably just get a load of wishy-washy nothingness from both sides, much like the Scottish indy campaigns.

Thread tl;dr but done this one yet?…

If we vote out, we lose the free market that the EU provides and consumer protections. This would mean if we want to buy from other parts of the EU, companies can attempt to block the attempt if that works out cheaper than buying in the UK. In the EU this is currently illegal for companies to do and we’ve enjoyed being able to buy cheaper from another EU state. On top of that of course we don’t have to faff with VAT & duty, though we do still pay VAT but it’s at the local rate of the state we buy from.

Out of the EU and it all becomes the same as trying to buy something from outside the EU. VAT & import duty will apply, corporates will enforce market protection to ensure we pay the highest prices.

I’m no fan of the EU, but these are advantages which are worth keeping in my opinion.

You say something, are shown to be in error, and then pretend that you said something entirely different. Boring.

Cough apple v FBI :lol:*

* Joke only not doing a cross thread thing nor bearing a grudge to be very very clear.

And I haven’t heard a single even remotely convincing argument as to why we’d want to dump that arrangement, and how on earth we’d be better off if we did

Have you not been watching the news? We’re on a path to that utopian pre-war society where we can call on our friends(?) in the empire to keep us in the means to which we’re accustomed, where the royal navy rules the seas, everyone was white with a parochial english accent, bankers wear bowler hats, and those jack-booted germans and arrogant french will be put back in their place. What’s not to like?

Gove want us to be more like America what with the guns, god fearing and Trump its a vision I dont have admire

If it wasn’t for EU, 1000’s of pensioners would have lost all their private pensions.

The EU overruled and found the U.K. guilty for lack of fail safes; who did nothing to help the pensioners and tried to cover it up. Pensioners got back around 90% of their savings.

They would have suffered and be broke if it wasn’t for E.U. overruling the U.K.

In.

For civil rights, trade, jobs, travel and unity.

Migration needs to be better controlled and fair.

DrJ instead of bullying others at least visit Google and see who is exposed to risk due to Greece. That is ongoing.

They need to keep meeting their debt commitments. What happens when they can’t? Keep on fudging it?

Do you want to be part of that?

To all the yes people supporting the MEP gravy train. Do you actually know how worse off we’ll be if we leave?

yes, £500 million pa in Wales.

To all the yes people supporting the MEP gravy train. Do you actually know how worse off we’ll be if we leave?

On leaving the UK will not have automatic trade agreements.
It will have to comply with all the same EU rules to trade with the EU but have no say.
The people who currently do the jobs a large amount of Brits feel too good to do will have to leave.
All those cheap bike bits from the EU will have Import Duty slapped on them.
Movement in the EU will become harder for British Nationals

Thats just for starters

which was not true. This is why nobody can be bothered to debate with you. You say something, are shown to be in error, and then pretend that you said something entirely different. Boring.

#Jambafact