The EU Referendum is nearly upon us.........23rd June.

[Daisyonthegreen]

I have been invited by other posters to start a new EU Referendum Thread as the EU thread "In out shake it all about what to vote in the EU referendum "is now closed.
Anyhow this vote is is pretty crucial for the good of the country and your family.
I make no secret of the fact I feel to vote to Leave is the best option.
On the "In out shake it all about,what to vote in the EU Referendum " Thread I posted many links and gave views on why I feel that way.
I feel we would flourish free of the beaucratic ,undemocratic organisation it has turned into.
A Trading block initially started up with 9 countries in the 1970s has become out of control,mammoth and unwieldy and frankly rather dangerous.
We need to wrest back control of our own country,our borders and our ability to broker our own Trade deals which the EU insists on doing for us.
Plus our own Judicial decisions.
We on leaving would still Trade with the EU,they need us more than we need them actually but the beauty of it we could be free to broker our own deals with the rest of the world on our terms.
In short we would flourish.
We can love/ like Europe but not be in the EU.

Unemployment rates:

Bosnia 42.9%
Macedonia 24.6%
Montenegro 18.4%
Serbia 17.9%
Albania 17.7%
Turkey 11.1%

UK 5.1%

As the countries listed above gain their accession to the EU, where do you think they might choose to come in order to find work?

How might that impact on our children's work opportunities?

At least Hannan has a clear, consistent position: he thinks the EU is not that important to the UK economy, and even a hindrance, so he's advocating a clean break with the Single Market. No free trade with European countries.

Personally I would argue that the 3+M jobs (according to a number of different estimates) tied to trade with the EU are pretty important, but hey.

In "Why Vote Leave" Hannan says of the myth Over 3 Million UK jobs are linked to our trade with the EU

"The dishonesty of this claim is staggering. It is based on the same false idea that Britain would stop trading with the EU if it were not a member. Why? No one argues that we have to form a political union with, say, Brazil or Russia in order to do business with those countries."

"The economist from whose work the figure was taken, Dr Martin Weale, has said 'In many years of academic research, I cannot recall such a wilful distortion of the facts'.""

We do not need any more people in this country, we have to many now, hospitals, doctors, schools, public transport all full, and the EU wants To allow Turkey, where women ARE second class, to join, look what happened to many women and girls in Germany, openly abused on the streets by immigrants, and worse of all was the cover up of the issue to protect those responsible.
The EU wants to expand to Russia's border, look what happened in Ukraine, war.
If the EU was a good thing we would not be having this discussion, we can not get rid of bad EU leaders as we can get bad leaders out here, it is not democratic, and it is run by Germany.

Not a myth, Itinerary, and if Hannan does say that the figure comes from a single economist then he's being dishonest.

Two studies in the early 2000s found rought similar figures of 3M, and the figure is being confirmed if not revised up by new studies:

The Centre for Economics and Business Research has updated the South Bank Paper, using the same methods to analyse data from 2011. It found that 4.2 million jobs were associated with exports to the EU. It has since revised this down to 3.1 million.

The House of Commons Library used similar methods looking at the whole economy rather than an industry-by-industry breakdown and found that on this measure 4.5 million jobs were "dependent" on exports to EU countries.

fullfact.org/europe/uk-jobs-and-eu/

Yes, the figure has been bandied about more than once. However, that doesn't mean it is correct.

Also, just because a job is "linked to" the EU, that's not at all the same as it vanishing if we left the EU, yet that's what the "Remain" camp try to imply.

Do three million UK jobs rely directly on our place in the EU?

"Another report published in 2000 by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research concluded that "detailed estimates from input-output tables suggest that up to 3.2 million UK jobs are now associated directly with exports of goods and services to other EU countries." However this report acknowledges that:

"there is no a prior reason to suppose that many of these [jobs], if any, would be lost permanently if Britain were to leave the EU.'"

The EU Jobs Myth (Ryan Bourne, Institute of Economic Affairs)

Sections of this document include "Jobs are associated with trade, not political union" and "Counter-factual uncertainty: what would a post-EU UK look like?".

Some quotes:

"It is further suggested that the UK leaving the EU would put 3-4 million jobs ‘at risk’. Yet these jobs are associated with trade, not membership of a political union. There is no evidence to suggest that trade would substantially reduce between British businesses and European consumers, even if the UK was outside the EU."

"Even in a hypothetical world where trade completely broke down between the UK and EU, there would still not be the loss of 3-4 million jobs, as ‘import substitution’ would partially offset the fall in exports and trade would develop with other parts of the world."

"The UK labour market is incredibly dynamic, and would adapt quickly to changed relationships with the EU. Prior to the financial crisis, the UK saw on average 4 million jobs created and 3.7 million jobs lost each year"

"We can say with certainty that 3-4 million jobs are not at risk if the UK leaves the EU. There may well be net job creation or a range of other possible outcomes which should be debated rationally."

if you're basing your vote on some hypothetical issue for your hypothetical children in 30 years time then that's your prerogative. I'm basing my vote on the terrible effect of a Brexit on real children, who will have to face consequences of an appalling and probably extended and deep recession for the foreseeable future.

I'm basing my vote on the future for my three very real children . Lol, scraping the barrel now.

And from the Better off Out website 10 EU Myths

1. BRITAIN WOULD LOSE THREE MILLION JOBS IF WE LEFT THE EU

– If Britain withdrew from the EU it would preserve the benefits of trade with the EU by imposing a UK/EU Free Trade Agreement.

– The EU sells a lot more to us than we sell to them. In 2014 there was a trade deficit of over £50bn, with a current account deficit of nearly £100 billion. It seems unlikely that the EU would seek to disrupt a trade which is so beneficial to itself.

– Moreover, the Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the EU must make a trade agreement with a country which leaves the EU.

– World Trade Organization (WTO) rules lay down basic rules for international trade by which both the EU and UK are obliged to abide. These alone would guarantee the trade upon which most of those 3 million jobs rely.

Vicky, Turkey's accession concerns me greatly being the mother of two girls. Women's freedom and safety will be under real threat. Sweden is now the rape capital of the West since they adopted an open door policy to migrants.

The report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention revealed that from 1997 to 2001 foreign born individuals were 5.5 times more likely to be charged of rape than individuals born in Sweden to two Swedish parents and that foreign born individuals from all regions, apart from East Asia, committed sexual assaults at rates up to 5.3 times greater than that of individuals born in Sweden to two Swedish parents.

Not that it would bother MyHovercraftisFullofEels, he's a bloke.

Hovercraft has not yet answered this question.

"If our country is so bad why do so many people want to come and live here?"

Daisyonthegreen

I am saying if people claim to have a stake in the UK then why do they make fun of UK tests. It doesn't add up

Oh come off it - making fun of anything and everything is one of the defining characteristics of Britishness. Po-faced sanctimoniousness, on the other hand, is not. And long may it continue.

Ah but now you're putting words in my mouth. All I said was that 3+M jobs were tied to EU trade, which everybody seems to agree with. And I said this in the specific context of Hannan's preferred option of no more free trade with the EU.

In this specific scenario, it seems pretty clear to me that some jobs would suffer, yes.

But I did not try to make an argument that all or even most of these jobs would be lost in all Brexit scenarios. The most likely scenarios, in my opinion, is an EEA-type agreement (which Hannan doesn't want) that would indeed preserve most of these jobs.

The studies you post don't say which post-Brexit scenario they are working from, but given that they seem to assume trade with the EU will be unaffected, I would guess also some sort of close trade deal with the EU (again, not what Hannan wants).

If Britain withdrew from the EU it would preserve the benefits of trade with the EU by imposing a UK/EU Free Trade Agreement."

I'd missed this gem somehow... good one

Going back to yesterday's posts when WidowWadman, who is from an EU country, told us that she was not able to get a 'spousal visa' for her husband-to-be. I do not understand why this was not granted to you without problem, and why it was only successful when you moved to GB and applied from here? I thought the entry rules for spouses was the same in all EU countries. Pls advise.

Vicky The EU is definitely provoking Russia by trying to seduce Ukraine politically. Wrong move, EU. The Ukrainians are just interested in getting secure jobs and some money in their pockets for a change; there are loads of Ukrainian people already in GB working off the cards as builders.

Waffle I don't know about Widow's situation, but as an EU citizen you can only apply for an EEA2 (family permit) if you are currently working or studying in the UK.

Thanks Chalala !

No worries !

Hovercraft The Republic of Albania is an official candidate for accession to the European Union since June 2014. Officially recognised by the EU as a "potential candidate country" in 2000, Albania started negotiations on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) in 2003.

Lurked101

"TTIP could be very beneficial "

You are right, TTIP will be very beneficial to large corporates who want to take over our social services eg NHS. One reason Obama is so keen for us to be in the EU. Access to all those public services in 28 counties in one agreement.

Once TTIP is ratified, it would seem that it willl give the huge American corporations the ability to bid for our NHS and other public services (those not already sold off and in foreign counties' hands like our power companies). I also understand that being the litigious types, the Americam corporations will be able to sue our Government in certain circumstances. The NHS safer if we remain. I don't believe for one nanosecond the Eurocrats give s stuff about our NHS or the general well being of our country.

TTIP is a nicely worded "trade agreement" with some very unsavoury inclusions, just like the EU is a trading bloc with some equally unsavoury inclusion. Ie a trading bloc that is really a project for political union which is NOT how it was sold to us 40 years ago.

How to you suppose the vote to enter the Common Market would have been affected if the electorate were told that the whole idea of the Common Market was ultimately to create a Federal Union.

And in the same way, TTIP is being sold as the panacea of trading arrangements with the USA but like everything else, the devil in in the detail. Detail that won't be on the front page of the newspapers unless it is dragged out. Just like the cover up of Cologne.

And before you decry me a scare monger, I met a Cabinet Minister a few days ago and he stated to me that further dissection of TTIP shows signs that it may not be as good as it sounds. Obviously he was being very diplomatic but read into that as you will.