To be annoyed that immigration is the main issue for most people in EU debate?

[susanketty]

Whether you are 'in' or 'out', I'm getting tired of immigration being the main issue for people - sure, it will have an impact, but brexit is not going to solve any problems with immigration that people perceive, and immigration fears does not seem to be to me a good enough reason to vote out. And voting in is not going to necessarily lead to a rush of immigrants.

We are not in the Schengen area, we have border control, and EU immigrants make a net contribution to our economy. Brexiteers often say they would like a Norway-esque agreement, which seems to me like all the problems (i.e., free movement of people) with none of the advantages other than being in the trade area (which we are already).

I just think there is more to the debate than immigration and it seems to me like it's been pushed to the front of the agenda to push more people to vote out due to fear.

But we can vote the Tories out! Or any other flavour of government.

We can't vote out the EU!

Weirdly when i speak to 20 somethings they are voting in

Sadly, most 20 somethings won't vote, and will then complain about the outcome. See also 2015, 2010...

Thank you Shakeeba the affordable and building more houses really irritates me as the politicians never tell us who will benefit from this. What about my doc, do they not deserve housing or is it only for people who have nothing to do with the U.K.

"But we can vote the Tories out! Or any other flavour of government."
really yet they are still here. with their disabled hating cuts. god help us if we leave the EU

Samcro the Tories have only been here since 2015.

We need sovereignty in order to shape our own future.

EU is run by bureaucrats who have power without accountability.

It is not a true democracy, and is called a ‘pooled sovereignty’ – camouflage language.

The EU Parliament is not the body in charge of the EU, and it is not a parliament as we understand such a body to be. MEPs from all countries in the EU Parliament cannot propose legislation or even repeal it. They can only vote on proposals made by unelected commissioners. EU Parliament is therefore irrelevant and MEPs pointless.

Legislative power is not with EU Parliament but with EU officials who debate laws in secret; no one is allowed to hear or read their debates, then it is presented to the MEPs. UK’s European Commissioner is Jonathan Hill – ever heard of him? He was briefly Leader of the House of Lords.

The seeds of a US of Europe were sown in the 1920s. EU was designed so that people could not control government in the future. It is a dictatorship, deliberately anti-democratic. By joining the EU a massive transfer of power occurred because now, for one, you cannot remove those who govern you. Ever.

We have been promised prosperity and safety within the EU, but there is the danger of being dragged into some future situation that we as a country do not want involvement in – simply because we have been out-voted by the other 27 member states (soon to be more).

Most of us know how elections in the UK are run. It is virtually impossible to work out how the appointment of a European Commissioner is done. Who is involved, who is answerable to whom.

There are 7 main institutions, some of which are

• The European Council
• The Council of he European Union
• Court of Justice of the European Union
• The European Commission
• European Parliament

Once a UK politician loses his seat and it looks like he will not be re-elected in 4 years time, where does he go for another job? He goes to the EU if a commercial organisation here does not offer him employment. That is why all the politicial parties are massively in favour of remaining, because they know they will get some kind of a job and they will not have to deal with constituents or face the unpredictability of elections ever again.

Pay. There are 10,000 people within the EU who are paid more than the British PM. On top of their salary of £300k, EU officials receive allowances for: relocation, household, family, entertainment, private education for their kids, healthcare. If you are an MEP you will receive £250 a day just to turn up to parliament, plus every year: £41,000 for phones, computers etc, £225,00 for staffing costs. They have set themselves a low income tax of 8% - 24%. In fact, they can live very well off their allowances without touching their salaries.

They built themselves a magnificent shopping mall just for their use containing high-end stores, gym, sauna, massage, hair salons, nail bars, etc.

Shedloads of money are given away to the middle-class intelligentsia and public-funded establishments in order to buy loyalty of powerful and articulate interests in all member states. This provides that chorus of noise in support of the EU project. EU largesse buys opinion with money that is not theirs.

If we leave. We do not need to be in the EU to trade with other countries, nor do we need special trade arrangements to trade with other countries. For example, Switzerland trades freely with all parts of the world. It is a powerhouse of multinational businesses and does huge exports without having in place any trade agreement. A Free Trade policy means no tariffs or quotas are insisted on by either side.

Though, imo, I would think that EU would place a quota on UK's exports to it. But don't forget, they also have automobiles and cheeses and allsorts to sell to us.

Switzerland is probably the richest country in the world, with a GDP per head of £60k, compared to UK’s £32k and with better income equality. Average wage in Switzerland is £67k, UK is £38k.

Switzerland has a ‘bottom-up’ political situation while EU is the epitome of a top-down system, the exact opposite. Switzerland is one of the most democratic countries in the world, because the people decide what they want. For example, it is not up to the PM to call a referendum; if there are 50,000 signatures from the public for a referendum to be held on something, it has to be held because politicians have to fulfil the interests of the people – not the other way around; the Swiss would not tolerate what EU countries tolerate.

Do take a look at the film, which is divided into easy chapters.

www.brexitthemovie.com/

I'm voting out partly because of immigration but my other driver is the Eu has destroyed the fishing industry in my local area, a once prosperous town is now mostly derelict and over run with drugs. All thanks to the EU giving our fishing waters away.

OP - I completely agree with you.

Lots of people have been led to believe that immigrants are to blame for the lack of employment opportunities and a drive down in wages. They think if we leave Europe immigration will stop and they'll have great jobs with a good pay packet and everything will be lovely.

It's ridiculous when you consider what will really happen if we leave Europe. Immigration will continue as it has done, it will probably increase. People will still risk their lives under lorries to get here. And a certain section of the public will carry on blaming immigrants for everything, because that's what they've been told to do. Meanwhile the Tories will sneakily rip our workers' rights, human rights, right to a fair legal system and everything will be even more shit for the poorest.

The rich meanwhile will still be able to escape it all and go and live wherever they want in the world. The rest of us will be trapped.

I don't agree that immigration is the most important issue to most people. 50% of voters are female and although men seem to be shouting the loudest in this debate it is women who tend to have to provide for children whilst men piss their income up the wall. The women may not be shouting much but most of us will vote to stay in on economic grounds. It is also the right and sensible thing to do - this is a view which unites the left who want workers' rights preserved and also the right who nkow it makes sense economically.
I don't agree 20 somethings won't vote. Mine will. I have taken them as children to the polling station and we know how women fought so hard (as did men who were not householders who did not have a vote) to gain that vote. It is a pity my 17 year olds cannot vote - they have just missed it. We are all pro staying in our house including the Thatcherites and the Corybnites which makes a nice change.

Do vote next month, whatever your view. If in doubt vote to stay in.

That's a good post, Peter. I suspect many people still do not understand the morass that is the EU. If we leave, we will need some dynamic politicians and business people at the helm.

The amount of allowances our own MPs get is generous, and some of them can live off those. But the European MEPs income is far too generous, and they have little clout anyway. I also heard that an MEP would have his kennel fees paid whenever he travelled from England to Brussels for a week!

"If in doubt vote to stay in."

I think if you're in doubt, spoil your ballot paper personally. Voting for something one way, when you're doubtful about which way to vote is nonsense.

I think of in doubt don't vote , what's the point in voting when you don't know why your voting for it.

The only fly in the ointment with the Swiss example is the bilateral agreement for free movement of people. EU insisted on a trade agreement with Switz which included free movement of people. Why would EU, ostensibly just a trading bloc, insist on politicking? Because the EU is more than a group of trading nations.

Remember - internal referenda in Switzerland are treated seriously, so the Swiss have to find a way of honouring the results of their people's referendum but still allow free trade with EU.

"Swiss lawmakers are at odds with Brussels over how to implement a binding Swiss referendum in favor of immigration quotas that would violate a bilateral pact guaranteeing freedom of movement for all EU citizens.

"Switzerland is expected to detail its own plans for limiting the flow of migrants from the EU if it cannot reach agreement with Brussels on the issue before a February 2017 deadline."

Randy and Salene.
Why are you both not researching what it means to stay and what it means to leave? You seem disinterested. Loads of politicians are relying on that sort of attitude to keep them on the gravy train.

user1463231665 The women may not be shouting much but most of us will vote to stay in on economic grounds. It is also the right and sensible thing to do - this is a view which unites the left who want workers' rights preserved and also the right who nkow it makes sense economically.

I'm a woman who is voting to leave....I consider voting to stay most definitely not 'the right and sensible thing to do'...(do you work for DC?). I consider voting to remain to be reckless and foolhardy, as we are not voting for the status quo if we vote to remain, but for an unknown future over which we have little or no control, as QMV means we will be outvoted on things we don't like, whilst still having to foot the bill for it.

Just looking at the list of countries waiting to accede to the EU is a tad alarming: Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. You can add Ukraine to that list as well. Economically, that list won't do us any favours.

MedSchoolRat
Last year the cost for interpreters was as follows.

NHS 33 million
Police 16m
Courts 15m
Councils 11m
Benefits 5m
HMRC 1m

The biggest users are outpatients from non-EU countries with chronic conditions, and of course interpreters provided to them.

Riverwalk, you say that the biggest users are outpatients from non-EU countries, so this is not going to necessarily stop following an exit from the EU.

I consider voting to remain to be reckless and foolhardy, as we are not voting for the status quo if we vote to remain, but for an unknown future over which we have little or no control, as QMV means we will be outvoted on things we don't like, whilst still having to foot the bill for it

^^ This,

This is another reason why I am voting leave. Its the right and sensible thing to do and it makes sense for rights across the board, it makes sense to protect our poor people, it makes sense to give our dc a chance at a school that is not full, its the right thing to do for the NHS, its the right and sensible thing to do for the economy.

I am also voting LEAVE because we have no idea what the EU will morph into, its past history has shown great change and greater incompetence.

It does not put the people first.

For those people scared about what the tories will do!! Read about the EU on the GUNS that slaughtered those innocents at the Bataclan, read about how the powers in the EU ignored calls and warnings for tighter controls.

You think they will protect you? That they care about you!!

www.spiegel.de/international/europe/following-the-path-of-the-paris-terror-weapons-a-1083461.html

The Path to Death: How EU Failures Helped Paris Terrorists Obtain Weapons

The first day was May 21, 2008, the day the European Union announced it was planning to push through stricter rules pertaining to assault rifles. The regulations would allow weapons aficionados to decorate their living rooms with assault rifles if they so desired, but only if they had been deactivated such that they could never again be used to fire live ammunition. The EU said that the new guidelines would contain extremely strict technical standards for such deco-weapons.

But then nothing happened -- for six years and 233 days. Worse yet, blank-firing guns and other so-called alarm weapons weren't included in the proposed regulations. If one irreversibly modified an assault weapon into a rifle that could only fire blanks, the EU bureaucrats weren't interested. Brussels was only interested in weapons that could no longer be fired at all, not even blanks.

As early as 2013, though, Slovakian police had warned Europe how easy it was to reactivate such modified weapons so that they could once again exert deadly force. The EU knew about it, talked about it and recognized the danger. But did nothing. Until Jan. 9, 2015 when Coulibaly shot and killed four people with such a weapon. Officials in Brussels have since come to the realization about just how easy it is in Europe to obtain an automatic weapon capable of firing live ammunition -- and how difficult it is for the authorities to take action against the flourishing black market.

THESE PEOPLE DONT CARE ABOUT US.

If in doubt, read that article and ask yourself - you want these people to have more power over you? These people who sat on warnings over guns that went onto slaughter?

VOTE OUT.

Shakeeba I know which way I'm voting, after research and personal considerations. My post was in response to the person saying if you're doubtful, vote in, which I think is the wrong view to have, if you can't make a decision either way without doubts, you shouldn't vote for the default status quo option, and instead, you should either abstain (I don't agree with), or spoil your ballot paper (option I agree with, turn up and vote which people have fought for the right to do, but spoil your paper as neither side has made a solid case for you to vote their way).

Voting in when you don't know either way is essentially stealing a vote away from someone who has considered all options and made a decision contrary to which way you vote. The same goes for voting for out when you're not 100% sure it's the correct option for you.

2015/16 NHS England budget = £101.3 billion. £33 miln = 0.0325% of that.

NHS spending £400 million to achieve NET SAVINGS on care for people age 75+. Very relatively few UK residents age 75+ are EU immigrants arrived in last 30 yrs.

I've seen the raw usage figures for an individual trust, too. Working-age people (of any origin) use the NHS relatively little. Our own native grown elderly use the most NHS resources. Which is what NHS is there for.

Interesting on the interpreters Riverwalk. We currently live in Belgium, where if you need an interpreter, you pay for it. There are heavily subsidised language lessons to enable Flemish and French to be learned; but my tax return is in Flemish, my insurance docs are in French, and you learn to cope.

I imagine those translation costs include generic materials (leaflets in other languages and multilingual signs), translation of webpages, and services for recent asylum seekers/recipients, and commonwealth folk who came to UK in 1950s-60s-70s but never interacted much out of their community so never truly mastered English.

Riverwalk, you say that the biggest users are outpatients from non-EU countries, so this is not going to necessarily stop following an exit from the EU.

Actually, Susan, we can restrict non-EU immigration far easier than from EU if that person is applying to enter UK from his own non-EU country.

Unless of course it is people who walked into Europe last year (who are not European), and once they become EU citizens in a few years' time they will have free movement. These are "paper Europeans" who have managed to achieve free movement by changing nationality.

That is why it is imperative to make our Benefits system less generous should we Brexit. And I personally would negotiate a very limited free movement of people should we sign a trade agreement with EU, with no claim to benefits. The UK needs to attract people from all over the world whose skills our country needs. No one need familiess of 6 living on benefits moving from one EU country to another - for what purpose?

Norway now realises its error, and so does Switzerland.