Who is in and who is out?

[RogerS]

.....
So therefore with a very heavy heart I am voting to remain

=D> =D>

Well said, Droogs, as you echo my own viewpoint.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

You're viewed much differently abroad than you look at yourselves you know. Over here people think you've gotten all kinds of special "kids gloves" treatment from the EU that you shouldn't have. Britain isn't really seen as the champion for democracy or human rights either abroad, if anything it's seen as generally conservative and lagging behind.

Figured I should post an outsiders perspective, the self-aggrandizing is poured on really thick here sometimes. You do have a lot in common with the americans in this respect, I've observed.

If we get all kinds of special kid gloves treatment, it's bloody expensive kid gloves treatment at about £150million a week.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Turkey, Albania and Serbia are not going to join the EU apparently - so why is Cameron supposedly paying £2billion towards their accession? This is the same Turkey that's at the end of the road from Brussels to Ankara that Cameron wants paved?
It would be good if he were to make his mind up instead of saying what's expedient on the day.

 

[NazNomad]

DON'T FORGET FOLKS ...

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If Labour want it that's a good reason for doing the opposite.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

On a serious note - it does seem odd that Labour and the unions both want in when worker's wages are kept down by immigrant labour.

 

[iNewbie]

I'm so confused I'm emigrating to Remania for a life of EU benefits.

 

[Jake]

Too many lies on the Brexit side for me. I can't see the risk/benefit analysis being in favour of Leave, as everything I have looked or seen other people look at is either completely fabricated, massively exaggerated or just completely skewed for political effect. There is a great groundswell of anti-emotion, which is leading people to regurgitate a complete tissue of lies, you see the same stories and lines everywhere, and whenever they are examined for truth, they fail. It is a very clever, highly manipulative, deeply orchestrated propaganda campaign which has deliberately targeted the emotional shallow grip of social media as a political weapon.

I am also deeply suspicious that much of this is driven by at the core by extreme right wing desires to exit the EU in order to be able to leave the ECHR and dismantle this country's commitment to human rights.

I also do not like the element of the leave camp which is driven by racism and xenophobia (which is not all of the leave camp by any means, but enough of that I do not want to be associated with it).

This is the most dispiritingly dishonest political campaign I have ever witnessed. Neither side has completely clean hands, but the Brexit camp have taken lying in politics to a whole new level. It is ironic (but too sad to be funny) that so many of them do this whilst condemning the honesty of mainstream politicians, some of whom are venal but most of whom are on the spectrum of decent human beings (however politically misguided).

And the thought of voting in a way that someone with Nazi tendencies would be pleased with is pretty untenable.

So I'm, err, in. I think.

 

[RobinBHM]

It is a shame that the referendum campaign has been fought with the same tactics as electioneering for a general election.

The result has been massive over simplification of the issues.

For me it is a balance between staying in a system which has spent many years unifying legislation, trade agreements etc so that there is a single market, free flow of people, jobs etc. That has to be balanced against the disadvantage of getting 28 countries to agree and arrive at decisions that are fair to all members. Also the EU, like all huge organisations is naturally inefficient, expensive and slow (trade agreements with Brazil, China, US etc).

The second balance is if we stay, will our government have the power and will to force through reform and stop the drift towards a federal Europe. But if we leave, will our government have the flair, influence and drive to quickly develop trade agreements around the world. Can our civil servants act quickly to do this? -it seems unlikely.

I'm err, out......but still a bit in

 

[RogerBoyle]

And For me I'm out

The PM has for several years stated that immigration from the EU needs to be reduced . LOL it turns out there is nothing that we can do to stop it so he was lying through his teeth.

We keep getting told that only from within can we make things better. So why for the amount of time that we have been involved in the EU have things been on a steady decline for the worse.

If things were so good why would we need a referendum and why so much Vitriol from both sides

Its been alluded to that we appear to get beneficial treatment from EU if this is the case can you imagine just how much worse things will get for us if we vote to remain................ Doesn't bear thinking about.

Each side of the debate has lied through their teeth and will continue to do so Long after the result of the vote is known. Its what politicians do ,have always done and will always do

I've had enough of our own politicians lying and trying to deceive us so the last thing I want is to be controlled by the EU with our Government as nothing more than a mouth piece for them. Unfortunately if we remain then that's what I think will happen.

Time to be gone from the EU and put our own country to rights before fighting battles for other countries, Especially other countries where Corruption, greed and lack of human rights are rife

 

[Fitzroy]

It is a shame that the referendum campaign has been fought with the same tactics as electioneering for a general election.

The result has been massive over simplification of the issues.

For me it is a balance between staying in a system which has spent many years unifying legislation, trade agreements etc so that there is a single market, free flow of people, jobs etc. That has to be balanced against the disadvantage of getting 28 countries to agree and arrive at decisions that are fair to all members. Also the EU, like all huge organisations is naturally inefficient, expensive and slow (trade agreements with Brazil, China, US etc).

The second balance is if we stay, will our government have the power and will to force through reform and stop the drift towards a federal Europe. But if we leave, will our government have the flair, influence and drive to quickly develop trade agreements around the world. Can our civil servants act quickly to do this? -it seems unlikely.

I'm err, out......but still a bit in

I'm very aligned with your thinking. I liken it having a choice of two soups, pea and mint or carrot and coriander, I want soup but i actually want chicken broth. I want to stay in the EU but not on the deal that the current government is aligned with. I want the EU but I want reform.

JK Rowling wrote a great piece that i've only just seen (http://www.jkrowling.com/en_GB/#/timeli ... referendum), in which she writes:
"For many of our countrymen, I suspect a 'Leave' vote will be a simple howl of frustration, a giant two fingers to the spectres that haunt our imaginations, against terrorism that seems almost supernatural in its ability to hit us in our most vulnerable places, against huge corporations who refuse to meet their basic moral obligations, against bureaucracy we are afraid will strangle us, against shadowy elites we are told are working to do us down. How easy to project all of this onto the EU, how satisfying to turn this referendum into a protest against everything about modern life that scares us, whether rationally or not. "

And i admit it is very tempting. So, I'm err, in......but still a bit out.

 

[Grahamshed]

Foreign businesses have to manufacture goods to a standard acceptable to the EU. It is worth their while doing so because there is a 500m customer pool. We will not be subject to that requirement and will not be big enough to enforce our own standards so they can sell us all their junk and death traps.

 

[Inoffthered]

Turkey, Albania and Serbia are not going to join the EU apparently - so why is Cameron supposedly paying £2billion towards their accession? This is the same Turkey that's at the end of the road from Brussels to Ankara that Cameron wants paved?
It would be good if he were to make his mind up instead of saying what's expedient on the day.

Talks for the accession of Turkey start next week.

http://order-order.com/2016/06/22/eu-op ... s-june-30/

John Major says they could be members within 10 years.

 

[RobinBHM]

Turkey....not any time soon I think:

'A country has to adopt and enforce all the current EU rules before it can be admitted to the bloc. EU rules are divided into 35 policy areas and in 10 years Turkey only managed to adopt the rules on one: science and research. In most other areas it has not even made a start.'

12th of never seems a good date

 

[Inoffthered]

I have to believe that this referendum will act as a wake up call to the EU that it does not have the will of it's peoples and that it must deal with it's flaws now before it is torn apart by them. Therefore I feel this course must be given a chance to succeed. I feel this is the right course of action after all, if the EU does not reform each and every member country with the will of it's people can leave at any point in the future regardless of what the EU thinks if that country decides it wishes to do so and tell the EU to get stuffed it will not be able to stop them short of invasion and no state within the EU would aquiess to that course of action.

So therefore with a very heavy heart I am voting to remain

If you really believe that you can change the EU by voting Remain then you are in for a big disappointment.
Juncker is on record as saying"British voters have to know where there will be no kind of negotiation. We have concluded a deal with the PM - he got the maximum he could receive, and we gave the maximum we could give."

Source Laura Kuenssberg BBC.

Ironically, your best chance of any renegotiation is to vote leave. They know they are ****ed if we leave because who will they get to replace the money we pay in and who is going to fund the extra £20bn black hole they have to fill....well we all know the answer to this because ours in the only economy showing any kind of growth so we will end up paying for most of it.

 

[clk230]

Foreign businesses have to manufacture goods to a standard acceptable to the EU. It is worth their while doing so because there is a 500m customer pool. We will not be subject to that requirement and will not be big enough to enforce our own standards so they can sell us all their junk and death traps.

So we may choose to adopt certain EU standards , I don't think anyone is saying that everything the EU has done is rubbish .

 

[Inoffthered]

Turkey....not any time soon I think:

'A country has to adopt and enforce all the current EU rules before it can be admitted to the bloc. EU rules are divided into 35 policy areas and in 10 years Turkey only managed to adopt the rules on one: science and research. In most other areas it has not even made a start.'

12th of never seems a good date

So if this is such a remote possibility, why is the EU spending millions of Turkish infrastructure projects and why are talks stating next week.

I seem to remember similar comments made about Greece joining the euro but the EU is perfectly capable of bending its own rules. Please dont say that Cameron would exercise a veto because he dodged that question so many times over the last few weeks.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Foreign businesses have to manufacture goods to a standard acceptable to the EU. It is worth their while doing so because there is a 500m customer pool. We will not be subject to that requirement and will not be big enough to enforce our own standards so they can sell us all their junk and death traps.

If it suits us we'll use existing EU standards. There is no law to make us change anything.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Are they the government afraid to tell what Cameron actually negotiated? The EU parliament doesn't even discuss it until after our referendum - and apparently it requires treaty change anyway ... which they've already said won't happen. He couldn't get away with not putting VAT on sanitary towels, so I don't hold out any hope for very much.

 

[Wuffles]

Foreign businesses have to manufacture goods to a standard acceptable to the EU. It is worth their while doing so because there is a 500m customer pool. We will not be subject to that requirement and will not be big enough to enforce our own standards so they can sell us all their junk and death traps.

If it suits us we'll use existing EU standards. There is no law to make us change anything.

Aren't half the people who aren't just racist who are voting to leave relying on all these annoying standards and EU guidelines to be dropped? That'd be a little bit upsetting for them when migration doesn't stop AND they still have to follow EU guidelines.

Where will the madness end?!