[Politics] Brexit

[Bold Seagull]

Brexit is a fake revolt

 

[kevo]

Five questions to answer before you vote:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ns-to-answer-before-you-vote?CMP=share_btn_fb

 

[beorhthelm]

That is crap. We are a great, good, strong country in or out,

we know. but it has been a core argument of remain that our economy will collapse imminently after the vote should it be to leave. all those pro-remain economic forecasts are based on this assumption, only various degrees of negative affects with no upsides accounted, overlooking that over 80% of the economy is not involved in trading with the EU, and overstating how much of the 15-20% that does would be impacted.

 

[JC Footy Genius]

Guardian readers out in force this morning ..

 

[5ways]

As you are probably the first Remain supporter on any of these numerous threads who has clearly stated we can be a great, good ,strong country outside the EU I think this rather proves my point.

Please. Of course we all think the UK can survive outside the EU but we will not be as strong. We will be weakened almost immediately when the pound gets trashed, in 5 years due to chronic uncertainty, 10 years when our new trade deal with the EU is worse than the one we had before, 15 years when international investment has been diverted from the UK to Europe and in 30 years where cumulatively a weaker economy costs each family thousands of pounds.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

No thanks
i would rather see a list of ordinary people who have:

suffered when their small business runs up unnecessary red tape costs.(who dont even trade with the EU)

Please describe some of this 'red tape' for us. Not in loose terms. Some actual examples of EU legislation, which involves hours of extra work for them. I can tell you from painful experience what really DOES take hours and hours - customs clearance and carnet documentation. Things that would be very, very obviously multiplied for thousands of small businesses, in a post-Brexit Britain.

fishermen who have had their livelihood smashed by fishing quotas.

Our government sets their individual quotas. But then you knew that already.

people who have found difficulty with school places,healthcare or housing in part due to mass immigration.

No question that this is a genuine concern, in some areas. You will have no doubt, noted Boris Johnson's admission last night that immigration may RISE post-Brexit?

low skilled workers who have struggled to find employment or found their wages depressed.

Oh dear. Post-Brexit Britain with tariffs in place to trade with Europe, competing with China on an open global market, can only mean erosion of workers pay and rights, as companies cut costs to compete. If you genuinely give two shits about those 'low skilled workers' you're on the wrong bus.

victims of crime by criminals we seem to be struggling to deport

There is much work to do, for sure. However, at least as part of the EU our border force and police have access to Europe-wide shared police records, and can at least in theory, identify and restrict access to undesirables. Of course, we'd all agree that more needs to be done. Massive austerity cuts to our border force is very unhelpful to this end.

ordinary folk who passionately believe this nation should be more accountable to the people we actually elect.

Putting aside that what you've written makes absolutely no sense (we should be accountable to the people we elect?) and answering what I presume you meant to write - we DO vote for our MEPs. Hopefully after Thursday, when the next European election come round, people will take them more seriously, and actually elect some worthwhile candidates committed to actually fighting for our interests, rather than ignoring it, or worse still casting some kind of childish 'protest' vote for the likes of UKIP, to trouser fortunes in expenses and allowances, to not attend debates, discussions or votes.

Vote leave if you must, but do it for the right reasons, not based on lies and mistruths.

 

[5ways]

Ahhh quoting CEP again I see ..... who are partly funded by the EU and by the British government !!!!!!

Although you're making a descent into conspiracy theory and ignoring UK universities commitment to peer review and academic integrity it is worth pointing out that the EU supports a great deal of social and scientific research funding. In fact we receive the second largest amount of research funding in the EU, fuelling our universities putting the UK on the cutting edge of global science. Another act of pointless Leave vandalism if this is cut off and that funding gets diverted to France.

http://imgur.com/a/0R8lt

 

[Albumen]

Vote leave if you must, but do it for the right reasons, not based on lies and mistruths.

You've met our Pastafarian, right?

 

[Albumen]

Boris Johnson says we get bossed around by Europe. It’s true that we’ve been outvoted 56 times since 1999. What Boris doesn’t say is that the we’ve been on the winning side 2,466 times.

 

[JC Footy Genius]

Please. Of course we all think the UK can survive outside the EU but we will not be as strong. We will be weakened almost immediately when the pound gets trashed, in 5 years due to chronic uncertainty, 10 years when our new trade deal with the EU is worse than the one we had before, 15 years when international investment has been diverted from the UK to Europe and in 30 years where cumulatively a weaker economy costs each family thousands of pounds.

Thanks for providing another example that proves my point .. The whole Remain argument is predicated on the idea we aren't strong or good enough to be a great, successful, independent nation that can prosper outside the EU.

I completely understand that some people need to believe the doomsday predictions/guesswork to justify their lack of belief in this country. For others it's fear of change, some want to rely on the EU to block the democratically elected UK government because it's the wrong party in charge and a probable tiny minority actually will vote Remain because they think the EU is great.

 

[beorhthelm]

Please. Of course we all think the UK can survive outside the EU but we will not be as strong. We will be weakened almost immediately when the pound gets trashed, in 5 years due to chronic uncertainty, 10 years when our new trade deal with the EU is worse than the one we had before, 15 years when international investment has been diverted from the UK to Europe and in 30 years where cumulatively a weaker economy costs each family thousands of pounds.

so yeah, fear of the unknown. there is less uncertainty than you seem to think, its makes a few business deal wait to see the outcome, if it even effects them and adjust their risk analysis accordingly. working in a large multinational company dealing with divisions across Europe and the world it has not even come up once in any discussion, numerous acquisitions are going on regardless, operations are not affected. our workforce and assets will still be worth more or less the same in 5, 10, 15 years regardless, so the investment would come either way. the £ fear is simplifying a complex set of relationships, lowering it improves our exports and relative cost of assets (so increase inward investment), and a tweek upwards in interest rates would have people pouring money back in. Gilts are yielding at a all time lows, indicating people are buying UK debt more than ever, contrary to the claim the £ is about to collapse.

the real uncertainty is around what happens to EU, how the other members populations will respond to the second largest member saying they want out. the uncertainty of the Euro and poor economic outlook in the rest of europe would continue to weigh more heavily than whether we are in or out of the club.

the funny thing about he Remain camp is that at times i have begun to waiver but the sheer blind panic they try to instill drives me away. so overplayed its become counterproductive, as the article mentioned many pages ago, people are ridiculing the remain arguments regardless of their content. if only they have played the same broad points positively, and portrayed how much remain will enhance the economy (problem with that of course is when the improvement doesn't turn up, people will call them out on false promises, and politicians hate that)

 

[East Preston Gull]

As a leaver I get frustrated with bloody Farage. The official leave campaign did not want him. He is a bloody liability. I genuinely think he wants to ruin the leave campaign so he can keep pushing on with his agenda. He knows he is finished if we vote to leave, his work is done and he will hopefully fade into obscurity. He will never get into a post Brexit government. His ideal scenario is to lose just so he can keep pedalling his crap. Just go away man and stop ruining our campaign.



Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

 

[Albumen]

Ben Goldacre. Chemist. Doctor. Realist:

RIGHT.

I tried to ignore the EU referendum but idiots blaming foreigners, for problems we created, made me too cross.

Here are my reasons for voting Remain.

I hope you find them useful.

1. A smaller democracy will not be “more representative”.
The UK government is no more under your control than the EU. Diluting your vote one in 65m or one in 500m amounts to the same thing: no control. You couldn’t get political agreement from the people in one family, one pub, or one bus. You can’t “vote them out”, you’ve never done that, stop pretending you can do it in the future. Politics is about compromise: terrible, soul-destroying, mature compromise with other people, most of whom are awful. Your local council don’t represent your views and values any better than your MEP.

2. Immigration is just going to happen.
In or out of the EU, there will be lots, and lots of immigration: bad luck if you don’t like that. We’re perfectly able to control non-EU immigration, right now, and yet no government ever does. They never will. This is not the fault of the EU, it’s more complicated than that. Deal with it. Immigration will never stop.

3. “Straining” schools, waiting lists, and hospitals are your fault.
This is not the fault of the EU. It’s your fault. It’s happened slowly. The UK has failed to build houses, failed to train hospital staff, failed to invest in the NHS, failed to build schools. Your country. Your UK. Your government. Your fault. Nobody else. The NHS is staffed by immigrants, they keep it running, they will save your life and build your house. Don’t try to blame them for things that are your fault.

4. The EU is a good shot at preserving peace.
Remember that news story about the British generals who think we should leave the EU because NATO preserves peace, not the EU? These are bad generals who only know about guns. Russia right now is an odd, aggressive country. But they didn’t show up at the Ukrainian border with tanks, out of the blue: they manufactured a social and economic pretext before they rolled in. A strong EU makes this kind of pretext harder to contrive. You want to be good close friends with all your neighbours, and their neighbours, as far as the eye can see. That’s how you hold a line that preserves peace: by sharing friendship, sharing trade, and sharing grumbles about crap admin in Brussels. You do not preserve peace by buying and using weapons.

5. Brexit use language that’s targeted at losers.
The Brexit campaign talk about “taking control”, about “building an optimistic future” for yourself. These are things you say to losers: to people who feel they have no control, or a gloomy future. It’s the language of crap self-help books in airport bookshops. You are better than that.

6. Countries come and go.
Right now, people talk about Eastern Europeans like they’re biologically destined to be parasites, because their countries are poorer, and some of their citizens travel for work. That could change, really fast. Polish people are not a biologically inferior race: they lived under communism for four decades, and now they’re catching up. Poland has the fastest growing economy in Europe (faster than Central Europe, faster than the EU-15). Warsaw is full of skyscrapers. Be nice. Make friends now. Cement those ties to a large, fast growing European economy with a rich cultural history.

7. Brexit will hurt the economy.
This means your children and neighbours. Stop pretending you don’t care. Just vote remain. It’s boring, there’s nothing awesome about it, but sometimes you have to take a break from useful productive work to stop idiots breaking things.

Ben Goldacre

 

[5ways]

Thanks for providing another example that proves my point .. The whole Remain argument is predicated on the idea we aren't strong or good enough to be a great, successful, independent nation that can prosper outside the EU.

I completely understand that some people need to believe the doomsday predictions/guesswork to justify their lack of belief in this country. For others it's fear of change, some want to rely on the EU to block the democratically elected UK government because it's the wrong party in charge and a probable tiny minority actually will vote Remain because they think the EU is great.

Come off it. It is not about talking down the UK. You're tacitly implying remainers are traitors at worse and unpatriotic at best. It is not a doomsday scenario. It is what has very clearly been laid out by numerous economic studies and basically the entire economics professions. It is already happening too, the pound has taken a hit, and billions of pounds of wealth has left the UK in recent weeks.

It is actually the braver and more patriotic thing to do and say, yes, on balance I will pool sovereignty with our European allies because I don't want people to lose their jobs, I don't want a weaker economy that will damage the NHS, I don't want further austerity because tax receipts dive. It's fine if you're Boris, or a millionaire, or a billionaire like James Dyson who has moved thousands of manufacturing jobs abroad. It is the poorest that will suffer the most if we leave.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Well said Ben.
Especially these bits:

3. “Straining” schools, waiting lists, and hospitals are your fault.
This is not the fault of the EU. It’s your fault. It’s happened slowly. The UK has failed to build houses, failed to train hospital staff, failed to invest in the NHS, failed to build schools. Your country. Your UK. Your government. Your fault. Nobody else. The NHS is staffed by immigrants, they keep it running, they will save your life and build your house. Don’t try to blame them for things that are your fault.

4. The EU is a good shot at preserving peace.
Remember that news story about the British generals who think we should leave the EU because NATO preserves peace, not the EU? These are bad generals who only know about guns. Russia right now is an odd, aggressive country. But they didn’t show up at the Ukrainian border with tanks, out of the blue: they manufactured a social and economic pretext before they rolled in. A strong EU makes this kind of pretext harder to contrive. You want to be good close friends with all your neighbours, and their neighbours, as far as the eye can see. That’s how you hold a line that preserves peace: by sharing friendship, sharing trade, and sharing grumbles about crap admin in Brussels. You do not preserve peace by buying and using weapons.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

It's fine if you're Boris, or a millionaire, or a billionaire like James Dyson who has moved thousands of manufacturing jobs abroad. It is the poorest that will suffer the most if we leave.

Yep. That

 

[5ways]

so yeah, fear of the unknown. there is less uncertainty than you seem to think, its makes a few business deal wait to see the outcome, if it even effects them and adjust their risk analysis accordingly. working in a large multinational company dealing with divisions across Europe and the world it has not even come up once in any discussion, numerous acquisitions are going on regardless, operations are not affected. our workforce and assets will still be worth more or less the same in 5, 10, 15 years regardless, so the investment would come either way. the £ fear is simplifying a complex set of relationships, lowering it improves our exports and relative cost of assets (so increase inward investment), and a tweek upwards in interest rates would have people pouring money back in. Gilts are yielding at a all time lows, indicating people are buying UK debt more than ever, contrary to the claim the £ is about to collapse.

the real uncertainty is around what happens to EU, how the other members populations will respond to the second largest member saying they want out. the uncertainty of the Euro and poor economic outlook in the rest of europe would continue to weigh more heavily than whether we are in or out of the club.

the funny thing about he Remain camp is that at times i have begun to waiver but the sheer blind panic they try to instill drives me away. so overplayed its become counterproductive, as the article mentioned many pages ago, people are ridiculing the remain arguments regardless of their content. if only they have played the same broad points positively, and portrayed how much remain will enhance the economy (problem with that of course is when the improvement doesn't turn up, people will call them out on false promises, and politicians hate that)

Campaign could be more positive sure but I really don't think it is fear of the unknown. Imagine you're hopping on the Eurostar to enjoy the free movement of people and 10 engineers come up to you. "Sir, 9 of us agree that if you get on this train there is a excellent, in fact, probable chance that it will at best be delayed by some hours and at worse it will derail."

Taking this advice on board you think, actually, I'll hop on a flight instead. The price of which has steadily reduced thanks to EU-wide standardisation. You might run a little late but from 2017 you can call your partners when on the continent without fear of any roaming charges. Wonderful.

I will listen to the advice of 9/10 experts in their field every time.

 

[Albumen]

so yeah, fear of the unknown. there is less uncertainty than you seem to think, its makes a few business deal wait to see the outcome, if it even effects them and adjust their risk analysis accordingly. working in a large multinational company dealing with divisions across Europe and the world it has not even come up once in any discussion, numerous acquisitions are going on regardless, operations are not affected. our workforce and assets will still be worth more or less the same in 5, 10, 15 years regardless, so the investment would come either way. the £ fear is simplifying a complex set of relationships, lowering it improves our exports and relative cost of assets (so increase inward investment), and a tweek upwards in interest rates would have people pouring money back in. Gilts are yielding at a all time lows, indicating people are buying UK debt more than ever, contrary to the claim the £ is about to collapse.

the real uncertainty is around what happens to EU, how the other members populations will respond to the second largest member saying they want out. the uncertainty of the Euro and poor economic outlook in the rest of europe would continue to weigh more heavily than whether we are in or out of the club.

the funny thing about he Remain camp is that at times i have begun to waiver but the sheer blind panic they try to instill drives me away. so overplayed its become counterproductive, as the article mentioned many pages ago, people are ridiculing the remain arguments regardless of their content. if only they have played the same broad points positively, and portrayed how much remain will enhance the economy (problem with that of course is when the improvement doesn't turn up, people will call them out on false promises, and politicians hate that)

There's panic because we didn't think there'd be enough people out there believing the awful rhetoric enough to get the Leave vote any where near 50%. It's frightening.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Ben Goldacre. Chemist. Doctor. Realist:

RIGHT.

I tried to ignore the EU referendum but idiots blaming foreigners, for problems we created, made me too cross.

Here are my reasons for voting Remain.

I hope you find them useful.

1. A smaller democracy will not be “more representative”.
The UK government is no more under your control than the EU. Diluting your vote one in 65m or one in 500m amounts to the same thing: no control. You couldn’t get political agreement from the people in one family, one pub, or one bus. You can’t “vote them out”, you’ve never done that, stop pretending you can do it in the future. Politics is about compromise: terrible, soul-destroying, mature compromise with other people, most of whom are awful. Your local council don’t represent your views and values any better than your MEP.

2. Immigration is just going to happen.
In or out of the EU, there will be lots, and lots of immigration: bad luck if you don’t like that. We’re perfectly able to control non-EU immigration, right now, and yet no government ever does. They never will. This is not the fault of the EU, it’s more complicated than that. Deal with it. Immigration will never stop.

3. “Straining” schools, waiting lists, and hospitals are your fault.
This is not the fault of the EU. It’s your fault. It’s happened slowly. The UK has failed to build houses, failed to train hospital staff, failed to invest in the NHS, failed to build schools. Your country. Your UK. Your government. Your fault. Nobody else. The NHS is staffed by immigrants, they keep it running, they will save your life and build your house. Don’t try to blame them for things that are your fault.

4. The EU is a good shot at preserving peace.
Remember that news story about the British generals who think we should leave the EU because NATO preserves peace, not the EU? These are bad generals who only know about guns. Russia right now is an odd, aggressive country. But they didn’t show up at the Ukrainian border with tanks, out of the blue: they manufactured a social and economic pretext before they rolled in. A strong EU makes this kind of pretext harder to contrive. You want to be good close friends with all your neighbours, and their neighbours, as far as the eye can see. That’s how you hold a line that preserves peace: by sharing friendship, sharing trade, and sharing grumbles about crap admin in Brussels. You do not preserve peace by buying and using weapons.

5. Brexit use language that’s targeted at losers.
The Brexit campaign talk about “taking control”, about “building an optimistic future” for yourself. These are things you say to losers: to people who feel they have no control, or a gloomy future. It’s the language of crap self-help books in airport bookshops. You are better than that.

6. Countries come and go.
Right now, people talk about Eastern Europeans like they’re biologically destined to be parasites, because their countries are poorer, and some of their citizens travel for work. That could change, really fast. Polish people are not a biologically inferior race: they lived under communism for four decades, and now they’re catching up. Poland has the fastest growing economy in Europe (faster than Central Europe, faster than the EU-15). Warsaw is full of skyscrapers. Be nice. Make friends now. Cement those ties to a large, fast growing European economy with a rich cultural history.

7. Brexit will hurt the economy.
This means your children and neighbours. Stop pretending you don’t care. Just vote remain. It’s boring, there’s nothing awesome about it, but sometimes you have to take a break from useful productive work to stop idiots breaking things.

Ben Goldacre

Good points put succinctly.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

It is actually the braver and more patriotic thing to do and say, yes, on balance I will pool sovereignty with our European allies because I don't want people to lose their jobs, I don't want a weaker economy that will damage the NHS, I don't want further austerity because tax receipts dive. It's fine if you're Boris, or a millionaire, or a billionaire like James Dyson who has moved thousands of manufacturing jobs abroad. It is the poorest that will suffer the most if we leave.

Yup, agree.