To wish we could get some decent advice on whether to vote to Brexit or Bremain

[lougle]

I am an intelligent woman. I am well educated. I can't for the life of me work out what is truth and what is fiction. I have no idea what is right for this country.

I don't want to spoil my vote. I want to vote, and vote with conviction. But I don't have the first clue which way to vote. I'm a nurse and I love my NHS, if that makes a difference to how I should vote.

Mervyn King says we will be fine outside the EU, strange you didn't list the last Governor of the BofE.

He thought the housing situation in the UK was fine right up until the point the bubble burst.

The worst you can accuse Remain of is that they pick the worst case scenario. Nope, you can accuse them of being economical with the truth in that voting to remain is not a vote for the status quo, and that changes are coming down the track that we won't like; tax, talk of EU Armed Forces, us being on the hook for the next round of bail outs etc etc.

Remain can't tell you what the EU will look like in 5 years, and they don't want people to think about it either, or the cultures of the countries that are acceding www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/16/behind-the-murky-world-of-albanian-blood-feuds/ for example.

AIBU to secretly quite like Keith Chegwin? Still voting remain though.

And Noel Edmonds can fuck off with his positivity can beat cancer bollocks last week.

Youthecat It's about voting for what I believe in, and it isn't remaining in the EU.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows, look at the coalition.

this

I trust these people far more than I trust Boris.

It's ok Mardy. I do agree with the list but am sure the Brexit campaign could dig out a few Remainers equally lacking in credibility.

I read these 2 statements .... and THIS is exactly why I can't make up my mind. I feel your pain OP

Brexit

Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.
Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.
Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.
Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant.
British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.
Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.
Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.
M&S manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.
Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with with EU grants.
Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.
Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.
Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.
Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.
Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.
ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs
Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.
JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.
UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.
Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.
Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online.
Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada.
39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU
The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.

Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn't paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Name me one major technology company still running in the UK, I used to contract out to many, then the work just dried up as they were sold off to companies from France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc., and now we don't even teach electronic technology for technicians any more, due to EU regulations.

I haven't detailed our non-existent fishing industry the EU paid to destroy, nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing, don't even go there.
I haven't mentioned what it costs us to be asset-stripped like this, nor have I mentioned immigration, nor the risk to our security if control of our armed forces is passed to Brussels or Germany.

Find something that's gone the other way, I've looked and I just can't. If you think the EU is a good idea,
1/ You haven't read the party manifesto of The European Peoples' Party.
2/ You haven't had to deal with EU petty bureaucracy tearing your business down.
3/ You don't think it matters.

Bremain

Here are a few that strongly believe the UK should remain a member of the EU:

• Governor of the Bank of England
• International Monetary Fund
• Institute for Fiscal Studies
• Confederation of British Industry
• Leaders/heads of state of every single other member of the EU
• President of the United States of America
• Eight former US Treasury Secretaries
• President of China
• Prime Minister of India
• Prime Minister of Canada
• Prime Minister of Australia
• Prime Minister of Japan
• Prime Minister of New Zealand
• The chief executives of most of the top 100 companies in the UK including Marks and Spencer, BT, Asda, Vodafone, Virgin, IBM, BMW etc.
• Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations
• All living former Prime Ministers of the UK (from both parties)
• Virtually all reputable and recognised economists
• The Prime Minister of the UK
• The leader of the Labour Party
• The Leader of the Liberal Democrats
• The Leader of the Green Party
• The Leader of the Scottish National Party
• The leader of Plaid Cymru
• Leader of Sinn Fein
• Martin Lewis, that money saving dude off the telly
• The Secretary General of the TUC
• Unison
• National Union of Students
• National Union of Farmers
• Stephen Hawking
• Chief Executive of the NHS
• 300 of the most prominent international historians
• Director of Europol
• David Anderson QC, Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation
• Former Directors of GCHQ
• Secretary General of Nato
• Church of England
• Church in Scotland
• Church in Wales
• Friends of the Earth
• Greenpeace
• Director General of the World Trade Organisation
• WWF
• World Bank
• OECD

I don't think this is right for us.

What exactly are we going to be exporting to support ourselves? We have no manufacturing industry to speak of.

Do you like a glass of wine or holidaying in Europe? I wonder how much that's going to increase in price.

Can you afford to be £4k worse off a year? I can't.

And most of the immigrants that come to this country, come from Commonwealth countries anyway so leaving will have bugger all impact, except there'll be a massive influx of expats.

A hell of a lot of people with homes in Spain and France are going to lose out hugely.

You might - I don't. They might have more of an argument if they stuck to health matters. Their para on resurgent nationalism is quite frankly insulting to those who have considered the issue and decided to vote to leave.

YANBU OP, as richly demonstrated on here, any attempt at debate just degenerates into name calling.

At the risk of being accused of bias, may I suggest that no-one knows (or indeed can know) for certain what would happen in the event of either vote - so, whilst there's plenty of "advice" from each side, it isn't possible to predict about 90% of what each side says will definitely happen.

Youthecat Don't drink wine from the EU then. I don't. There is a lot of the world to holiday in apart from mainland Europe, but then, I live in mainland Europe, and would rather holiday in the UK.

Great list Mardy Bra

From the long "remain list", one name stands out -

Martin Lewis

Who said -

"At the moment I am probably 55/45 for staying in Europe."

“However, I, like everybody else, am still doing my research on this issue and what it means for me and my country.”

He complained that his pic has been used by the Remain Campaign even though he does not back the campaign and didn't give permission.

This is the best explanation of what we're voting for I've seen. It's strips away all the for and against propaganda and explains what the choice is from a constitutional perspective.

tkitching.livejournal.com/4164.html

These threads only serve to illustrate the fact that we should not be having a referendum on this. It shouldn't be up to average joe who can't get a straight answer or fair picture. Such a crucial decision and it's been used as a tool by our PM and caused nothing but ill feeling. The choice has to be made sure but if it goes wrong then you'll be blaming the man next to you, not the government we sort of elected to do this stuff. Lucky them.

As I was saying, the Leave campaign lie.

talk of EU Armed Forces, is just talk. Such a measure would require the support of all member states and the UK isn't the only one who would say no. Brexiters present this as a near done deal when it is no such thing.

us being on the hook for the next round of bail outs etc etc. is categorically not true.

As an NHS employee perhaps the most relevant issue for you is free movement. The key problem with this being....

A social democratic government cannot effectively and efficiently engage in short-run or long-run planning and funding of public services and infrastructure if it has no control over its borders and has no idea how many people will enter its country in any given year or in the long run.

This is why it is commonly accepted that open borders are incompatible with a welfare state. Anyone from the EU - 500+ million people - can come here and access our NHS and schools etc etc. On top of that all countries in the EU grant citizenship to non-EU immigrants every year - 900k last year. All of these people then become eligible to move to the UK.

Remainers continue to argue that the problem could be solved with "more investment". You have to chose whether that is a likely proposition or whether it would be much more logical to restrict demand in the form of border controls.

I'm voting out because the EU is not democratic . There is an acknowledged democratic deficit- which apparently the EU is working on. Unfortunately it has been working on it for many many years and not made much progress..
People like Corbyn have said the EU has problems but we can change it from within - Margaret Thatcher said similar in 1988... if anything things have got worse.
To quote Corbyn's speech
Over the years I have been critical of many decisions taken by the EU, and I remain critical of its shortcomings; from its lack of democratic accountability to the institutional pressure to deregulate or privatise public services.
So Europe needs to change. But that change can only come from working with our allies in the EU. It’s perfectly possible to be critical and still be convinced we need to remain a member.
Hardly a conviction argument for remain.
Tony Benn was anti-EU.
Watch Brexit the movie - which gives you an idea of the arguments so you know what to look more deeply into (I wouldn't trust it as being gospel).
This is interesting fort the left wing case for leave
www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/06/john-king-left-wing-case-leaving-eu
As to the money - hard cash we put more money in the EU than we get out - I think the most favourable version is we get 2/3 back- so for every £100 we put in we get £66 back. Bremainers would argue we get 'added value' from being in the EU - but I've not been convinced...

Immigration - I think depends on where you live...locally we haven't had much immigration. But I know it has caused problems for people in other areas and it is a concern for them -and we should listen to their concerns, not dismiss them as stupid or racist or bigots.
I hate the we should have invested /planned for increases in population arguments - building hospitals and schools takes time and you need to know the numbers you are planning to accommodate - it was vastly underestimated by the last Labour government, we are still playing catch up and I don't think we do actually know numbers of EU migrants.
We have a free health service and one of the highest NMWs in the EU - so we are an attractive destination - people can come here and live cheaply in sub standard accommodation for a few years and go back to their country rich...
I think probably the best thing to do is to look at the issues and choose what is the most important to you and read both sides of the argument on that issue from a variety of sources and bias. Once you have made up your mind on that look at the other issues and decide if any make you less inclined to vote the way your main issue does....
I agree we don't know what Brexit will look like - but we also don't know what the EU of the future will look like...
Sadly (for me) I think Remain will win - I think this 'Brexit is in the lead' is just a way of making sure the Remainers bother to turn out to vote.

Yanbu. I can't decide either, and I'm well read and intelligent

I look at some of the rather unpleasant photos of Farage, Gove and Johnson and I forget about the arguments. If there are for leave them I'm for remain. Not very politically astute I admit but it works for me.

us being on the hook for the next round of bail outs etc etc. is categorically not true.

How can anyone possibly say that with any certainty - either way? The only truth is that we don't know what the future holds. Assuming we remain (most likely outcome) we may or may not wind up bailing out Greece or any other EU country that needs it - no-one can say that could never happen.

I look at some of the rather unpleasant photos of Farage, Gove and Johnson and I forget about the arguments. If there are for leave them I'm for remain. Not very politically astute I admit but it works for me.

That's perfectly fair enough, but I look at Cameron, Osbourne, Blair, Brown and Mandelson and I'm not seeing shining examples of humanity. These "that person thinks so" arguments aren't very convincing for me - but the great thing about this is that everyone gets to make their own mind up using their own criteria - so if a (perfectly fair) dislike of Boris and Farage is your bag - that's as good a reason as anyone else's.

talk of EU Armed Forces, is just talk. Such a measure would require the support of all member states and the UK isn't the only one who would say no. Brexiters present this as a near done deal when it is no such thing.

Please do point to the sentence where I said it was anything but talk? There have been plans going around the bazaars here in Brussels for EU Armed Forces for some 10 years at least; the chat is increasing about it again. Did you know the EU has a military staff? Why would they have a military staff if there were no plans for a military (apart from to contribute to the CSDP and rush around having lunch and meetings?). Don't even suggest that there is no such thing as the EUMS, as dh was seconded there for 3 years, and the current Black Rod was DGEUMS.

However, www.ibtimes.co.uk/germany-pushes-european-army-1557866
next.ft.com/content/e90a080e-107b-11e6-91da-096d89bd2173
might suggest that you are incorrect.

I think it would be a waste of time as NATO does the defence lifting in Europe, and it seems daft to replicate structures etc when NATO is tried and tested.

Do you like a glass of wine or holidaying in Europe? I wonder how much that's going to increase in price.

Can you afford to be £4k worse off a year? I can't.
I can choose Australian wine, Chilean wine or God forbid British wine.

I can't afford to holiday in Europe at the moment, couldn't afford to 15yrs ago and can't see it happening in the next 10yrs either way. When I can afford to travel if the countries in the EU don't want my money I will go to another part of the world.

I don't believe I will be £4000 a year worse off. I don't enough while we are part of the EU and have seen my wages devalued over the last 20years. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose.

Can you afford to be £4k worse off a year?

Not even George Osbourne says you'll be 4K worse off a year (although he probably wouldn't bother to correct you as it suits his agenda for you to interpret the report he told the Treasury to write in that way).