Why should we stay/leave the EU?

[OhYouLuckyDuck]

What reasons are there for staying or leaving?
I think I will vote for us to stay as I think it might be a moderating influence on any government wanting to do things to extreme plus we will lose trade with Europe if we leave. I'm undecided though.

[MrsLeighHalfpenny]

Why would we lose trade with Europe? Plenty of non EU countries trade with European ones.

[lljkk]

How does it work out for Morocco to trade with EU? Apparently they have no tarriffs for industrial products... so UK would try to negotiate no tarriffs for all products? Would that include financial services?

Does Morocco pay anything as a one-off fee for the zero-tariff on industrial goods?

[OhYouLuckyDuck]

MrsLeigh I don't know, it just seems like it'd be easier for EU countries to trade with other EU countries.

[Finola1step]

Michael Gove and Ian Duncan Smith want out. They will probably be the most senior Tories in the Out Campaign. That's all I need to know. I will be voting a big, fat IN.

[MrsLeighHalfpenny]

It's not. Don't believe everything you read in the papers.
And even if it were true, which it isn't, there are many more countries we can trade with.

[MrsLeighHalfpenny]

I'm voting out. I can't see the point in belonging to a club and not agreeing with the primary aim of the club. In this case "ever closer union".

A chap on R4 just said it's like being one of the main contributors to the finances of the golf club, but wanting them to play tennis.

[ThroughThickAndThin01]

It's cross party so there will be plenty of politicians you don't like on your side Finola. I hope people aren't as silly to vote the opposite of someone they don't like for that reason.

I think I'm a leave. I am reading all I can on it, I think I'm a natural leave, but haven't seen anytning persuading to change to stay. Yet, anyway.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

I'm glad you started this thread.

I'm not massively knowledgable on the eu. My gut instinct is stay in, I'm pretty sure dh would lose his job as his firm would quit the the uk.

[sportinguista]

I would vote stay. I'm not sure what leave would mean for us as DH is a national from another EU state, it could become more difficult for us potentially.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

Oh another reason to stay - if we stay MIL might emigrate to France.

If we leave I'm stuck with her I actually love her to bits, she's one of those nice MILs you never hear about on mn, totally barking but lovely

[claig]

I will vote out for lots of reasons, but the main one is national sovereignty and democracy, where the British people have the right to make their own laws and have the ability to kick out and change a political class who makes laws they don't agree with. It is about putting British policy in the hands of the British people and not an unelected clique of bureaucrats and appointees.

[claig]

To watch the fate of our nation and its millions of people being decided in a meeting with leaders of different countries in a humiliating horsetrade deal to determine whether we are allowed to control our own borders or anything else we may want to do and to have to get the permission of other coutries before we are allowed to do so shows how powerless we as a people are because our political class has given our power away.

I want the peopke to get the power back and to prevent our political class giving it away.

[MephistophelesApprentice]

It's politically fragmented, militarily pathetic and culturally unequipped to complete with rising power blocs in an increasingly post-legalistic geopolitical milieu.

We have a limited time to realign ourselves with other hegemonies before conflict occurs - even being unaligned will place us in a position to be courted, rather than attached to a obsolete political alliance unable to recognise that the world no longer plays by the rules.

[timetobackout]

Finola1step

So I take it you believe certain Tories, Cameron Osborne May etc, but not others.Why not do the sensible thing, listen to the arguments and make up
your own mind.

[Fontella]

OUT!

Please don't be fooled into voting us in again. The EU is only going one way and that is to ever closer political and fiscal union - a United States of Europe' and this is our chance to get out. If we do it, others will follow ... and with luck the whole stinking, undemocratic edifice will come tumbling down.

It always astounds me how Scottish nationalists argue they want to leave the UK and stay in the EU, when the institution despises nationalism in any form. The EU loathes the nation state and actively seeks its destruction. It also astounds me how various US presidents always urge the UK to stay as part of a 'strong EU' - when in fact the EU seeks to become a rival superpower to the US with greater land mass and great population, and with many of its most prominent figures openly opposed to everything the US stands for.

Please do your research into how this 'institution' operates before deciding anything, and do not fear economic repercussions because they simply will not happen. We are one of the very few net contributors to the EU pot and we have a huge trade deficit with them - we buy far more from them than they buy from us.

There is a whole wide world outside the bureaucracy of the EU and plenty of countries far smaller and less wealthy than the UK survive and thrive outside it, as will we.

We have our own, stronger currency than the hapless euro (and I say a prayer every day that we never signed up for that particular disaster) - there is little that the EU has to offer that we want or need.

It's bad enough having our own political elite - but at least they are ours. But to allow a bunch of marxist/maoist bureaucrats in Brussels to dictate how this country is run, is beyond even the most basic understanding.
To be able to control our own laws, borders and seas again without the bureaucratic diktats coming down from Brussels is what an 'out' vote means and I shall be using mine, as will my family and the majority of my friends.

Being anti-EU has nothing to do with being anti Europe so please do not be tricked by that argument. Being anti-EU has nothing to do with xenophophobia, nationalism, racism or any of the other labels put on those who disagree with us being members of an undemocratic institution with avowed political and fiscal aims that we never signed up for in the first place.

We will always be part of the continent of 'Europe' due to our geographical location. But hopefully we will be the first country to have the balls to say 'enough' to the undemocratic institution that is the EU.

[VertigoNun]

I am voting to leave.

I am not convinced either way economically. My issue is with us being able to rule ourselves better. I also want us to go back to being able to manufacture high quality goods and ex port them,to farm as we please. I am sure we are a tourist state in the EU, I want us free from that.

I am disgusted I am on the same side as Gove, IDS and Patel as I can't stand them. Hopefully nicer figures will join.

[RortyCrankle]

A read of the 500+ page Stay/Leave thread currently below this one will give a good idea of people's reasons.

[thebiscuitindustry]

I think we should leave while we can. I'd like our country to be independent again, without control from Brussels. We can be free to trade worldwide and make our own terms. We won't have to bail out a currency we didn't choose to join.

[OTheHugeManatee]

Gove and Duncan Smith want out.

Blair and Clegg want in.

You'll be siding with some fuckers whichever way you vote, so do it on the basis of your judgement about the facts, not personality politics.

Personally I'm for leaving, because I don't want to become a region in an EU superstate and the 'opt out' from ever closer union isn't worth the paper it's written on.

[Finola1step]

I've not been called silly for a long time. I'm also perfectly able to make sensible choices. As I am able to make light of serious issues to alleviate the tediousness of the coming months.

Thank goodness the vote is only 4 months away.

As you were.

[OTheHugeManatee]

MephistophelesApprentice puts it beautifully.

The EU is a 20th century solution to problems long-since gone, and that that's showing itself increasingly ill-equipped to deal with 21st-century problems.

[SeetheseeyessogreenIcanstarefo]

MephistophelesApprentice Sat 20-Feb-16 13:49:10

yes beautifully put.

and agree with Fontella, of course we are part of Europe we could never not be due to Geography.

I want out for all the usual reasons.

[Fontella]

You'll be siding with some fuckers whichever way you vote

True is that!



On a more serious note I couldn't give a shit who was on the same side as me in this one, fuckers or not, because on this issue I am so certain of how I feel and what I want.

OUT!

[Slimmingcrackers]

Mmm, the problem with the "leave because we want more independence and to be able to rule ourselves argument" is (as demonstrated by the recent global economic crisis) that our small country is subject to global, economic and political forces very much outside of our control! We are able to combat those more effectively aligned in a group with other broadly similar-thinking nations.

To classify these as "marxist/maoist" as a poster did below is imo frankly ludicrous! The majority of Member States are run on broad Christian social democratic values.

We won't be able to make our own terms when we trade because we will still be subject to EU norms and standards, but without any power to influence policy.

Posters here say our currency is stronger than the euro but some of this strength is due to the UK being part of Europe. The UK has outwardly "recovered" (controversial given recent cuts) from the recent recession more quickly than other EU countries because we have a boom and bust economy which benefits some in society (ie those who are wealthy enough to invest and ride the waves) but is not compatible with countering social inequality (which has declined in UK recently ). Many other of the main players in Europe: have more stable core economies which although cannot described as scintillating, nonetheless provide a very stable platform for their economies.

Yes, we want to trade competitively - absolutely - but don't believe many of these right wing Tories who are very anxious to get rid of the basic protection that EU legislation affords workers. They dress their arguments up in some pseudo "proud to be British" arguments but they are looking to their own interests.

Yes competitiveness is essential -remember that the productivity of many European nations is above our own too.

To say that the fate of our nation was being decided >"in a meeting with leaders of different countries in a humiliating horsetrade deal to determine whether we are allowed to control our own borders or anything else we may want to do and to have to get the permission of other coutries before we are allowed to do so shows how powerless we as a people are because our political class has given our power away" is a mahoosive mis- representation frankly. We are already in the EU. We have as much say as an other Member State. We are (currently) part of the decision making process. But the press manipulates its language as if this is something "being done to us" instead of our own doing. Our potential leaving/opting out of this or that/cherry picking has weakened our position, not strengthened it.

Another poster says "The EU loathes the nation state and actively seeks its destruction." This is nonsense. The Member States have made sure, as the events of this week have shown" that it is the Member States who decide. The Council of Ministers (who made the decisions yesterday) is made up of the governments of the Member States. Nothing was imposed upon us. It was decided by negotiation and consensus.

Re: 20th v 21st century probs? Which problems do we have today that we did not have in 1999? Surely, global migration, global pollution, global security issues, can only be helped by cooperation and coordinated action.

The EU cannily brought in smaller, Easter european countries in to the fold for the purpose of ironing out the economic playing field and therefore enhancing economic and social stability. (Surely it is a given - or it is by anyone who has read a history book - that economic disparity ultimately leads to unrest and war.) If the smaller Easter european nations had been left to their own devices outside of the EU, what exactly do you think Russia would be doing now??

Yes, the EU is bureaucratic and huge improvements can be made but think about the actual practical difficulties of getting 28 nations together to form a consensus. If anyone has been involved in a running a parents committee or parish council, then think of the difficulties and piles of minutes that arise. Multiply this by 28 countries operating with approx 15 or so different languages; of course its going to be bureaucratic!

Lastly, having lived abroad for over 15 yrs, I believe there is a distinct cultural difference between people who live in mainland Europe and those who live in the UK. Generally, there is a huge wish in personal and professional society in mainland Europe for a solution to be found which benefits the majority. In the UK, we are more inclined for a solution which benefits the individual. Imo, in the long run, I believe that together we are stronger!

[shebird]

Leave - I really don't see what we get from this club in return for our massive membership fees.

I also don't get all the scaremongering about the damage leaving the EU will cause to trade. We are not part of the Euro so those companies currently exporting from the UK to Europe already deal with the currency issue. Other countries outside the EU continue to function and trade without being part of this club so why can't we?