*scratches head* Why is the Remain campaign so rattled?

[TheABC]

I genuinely don't get it. They have already spent £9 million on leaflets, wheeled out everyone from the IMF to the American President and the telephone polls are putting them in the lead. Admittedly, the campaign feels a bit "meh" in that they are talking about potential losses instead of positive future plans, but they still seem to be doing OK.

So why does it feel like they are panicking? Could it just be the way it's reported?

If you genuinely think a democratic deficit is a worthwhile price for the EU's supposed benefits why don't you just say so? The weak democracy of the EU is acknowledged even by people who want us to stay in.

If you think that the EU is sufficiently benign that it doesn't matter if it's run by an oligarchical elite that governs less with the consent of electorates than over their heads for their own good, why not make that case? But don' just say 'oh, Juncker's comments are taken out of context, he loves parliamentary democracy really' because it's patent nonsense.

It was a joke, never mind..

Manatee,

Brexit have got to stop hiding in the democracy angle because you all have wilfully distorted the statistics for your own ends and have either ignored the way the EU works properly or are unaware of it.

Which is it?

I'd like to add that Boris, IDS and Gove all love democracy too, look at their records and some of the things they have said. We can all pull quotes out.

you all have wilfully distorted the statistics for your own ends

And George Osborne hasn't?

I'm reading this with interest because I'm edging towards out but I still haven't got a firm decision. I haven't seem to have gotten ANY solid information that leads me to a decision. Everything is conflicting, each side contradicts one another. I'm confused.

There isn't solid info. it comes down to me that having seen how things are handled in other countries, from mislabelled olive oil in Italy ( and many other misdemeanours I can't go into here) to lack of tax collection in Greece, but I used to think we'll at least we have got Germany to show us how to run a state.

Then I have become totally bemused by Angela Merkel's policy making. Social states i used to admire like Sweden actually start to appear controlling and with a press shy of reporting events. Meanwhile the EU has continued to expand like a rogue organisation in a Bond film!

The Euro is heading for another crisis. EU trade is shrinking. I think UK would be better off out before EU gets a lot worse.

It is fear I suppose but it's also confidence that UK is actually quite good!

The previous two posters are correct to say that there is no absolute piece(s) of information, which is why I am keen to read the methodologies of the studies/reports (and I haven't taken a single notice of any notable personality's pronouncement). As a very generalising overview, one of the reasons for the GE result was DC's promise of a referendum. It's unlikely that the drivers for the need for a referendum applicable then have miraculously disappeared now. I'm leaning out and that is just one reason for that decision (but happy to be persuaded differently, except that I haven't come across a single 'killer argument' that is not also applicable on the other side ).

I honesty believe if you are leaning out your are believing the facts as presented by the side which have little to no economic plan and who distrot the figures for their own needs. For starters Cameron only agreed to a referendum as part of a strategy to win an election and to sway voters back from UKIP. That is the driver of this nothing else.

Yes I agree Osborne's presentation of the treasury figures a long way off in the future were projecting predictions as fact, and using GDP per household isn't accurate as it doesn't take into account wealth inequality.

However, the treasury figures for the short term are broadly in line with every other study conducted, HSBC, PWC, Bank of England, Lloyds TSB, and are also very much in line with think tanks, the Economist, academics at LSE's view too.

It should be thought that if we Brexit an EEA type deal would not be agreed which would leave the UK and the EU in a difficult position, at least the treasury considered both the options here of both a Canadian style deal and a WTO one.
Both would leave Britain worse off.

There will be no deal which will allow the UK to have full access to the single market and all its benefits without bearing the costs and freedoms that are part of it. This is a fanciful idea put forward by people who either have a distorted idea of the UK's importance to the EU or are wilfully distorting it to mislead people.

For example Daniel Hannan uses the fact that the EU's share of world trade has got smaller since 1980 to say that it is a declining power. If he believes this he shouldn't be allowed to argue economics. The share of world trade has got larger are current and constant prices, however other economies have emerged since 1980 making the total level of world trade far larger. Put it this way, the EU's slice of the pie has got bigger, but the pie has got even bigger than that.

He also uses the £350 million a day figure which we've shown on another thread is not this figure at all, beacuse it doesn't include the rebate, the money that is ofset against our international aid or the money that comes back into the UK through EU grants and subsidies.

They distort the 55 times that the votes have gone against the UK, for a start the UK is on the winning side of the vote when it reaches that stage 90% of the time and the 55 times it has been on the losing side is only 1.9% of the votes since 1996 when they start counting.

Moreover just looking at EU votes is not accurate, studies have shown that using the negotiation process the UK gets the vast majroity of its objectives met by the EU.

In further to this, the number of times the UK has gone to a vote to decide policy, the UK has been more likely to vote against since the election of a Conservative Government, so actually thats down to it being politically expedient for the Conservatives to do so!

Their non domciled owned newspapers run scare stories about immigration which also wilfully distort the data

So the Brexit group mislead on deomcracy, immigration, blatantly mislead on the costs of the EU, and project fanciful ideas on trade.

All the while FTSE 250 executives, the CBI, the pharmacutical industry, the car industry, Barrack Obama and many others tell us that we are better off in.

I'm sorry if you vote out you are doing so because of an emotive reason and not have not taken a full account of the risks and benefits.

Lurked you are likely as emotive as me you just won't admit it to yourself. Or you are a psychopath according to the latest pop psychology!

If I were a rational economic being ID vote Tory.

There will be no deal which will allow the UK to have full access to the single market and all its benefits without bearing the costs and freedoms that are part of it. This is a fanciful idea put forward by people who either have a distorted idea of the UK's importance to the EU or are wilfully distorting it to mislead people.

Agree. We will also still have to support Greece and Italy and other countries that are on the front line of the refugee crisis, and France won't happily accept the situation in Calais without concessions from the UK.

I don't think leaving the EU will make that much difference, except the financial cost of recreating the same relationship outside the EU and trying to lobby and influence the EU from the outside because we no longer have a seat on the inside.

Unfortunately, however, the pragmatic argument that we are pretty much tied by geography to the EU whether we like it or not won't play well with people who want to leave.

(Why do some people think Batack Obama is godlike?

I mean I liked him but really he's hardly the oracle of Delphi.)

What I would like to hear is what is GOOD about the EU- it is an excellent organisation, so we should remain because...

Not the continual we'd be worse off if we leave. It's like everyone thinks the EU is pretty rubbish, but life will be/might be worse if we leave. Remain is being psented as the least worst option, rather than something good.

Sorry : Barack, of course.

I think on leaving the EU we could focus bilaterally on our near neighbours Ireland and france. And give aid to Greece and Italy.

The benefits are UK gets to choose and work in its own interests. Just as Obama does for the US..

Remain is being presented as the least worst option, rather than something good.

Sometimes that is reality.

Staying in the EU won't solve the problem that some countries tend towards disorganisation and corruption. However, leaving the EU won't make those countries vanish. They still have things that we want (e.g. at the very least sometimes we just want them to be friendly and stable) and we still have to negotiate with them.

The benefits are UK gets to choose and work in its own interests

Probably the UK would have as much ability to choose as it does now. The only difference is whether you believe that it is slightly more able to exercise influence from inside or outside the EU - a vote and slightly more compliance or a vote and slightly less compliance. Either way there will still be vast amounts of compliance.

Sorry "no vote and slightly less compliance.

It's interesting to me that the EU is frequently presented (more often by those who will vote to leave I think) as something that other countries have done to Britain without any action on our part (e.g. earlier in this thread - 'the 19 countries form a majority'). We are part of it. We have been part of it for forty years. What I reallly hope for is a remain vote that will allow us to psychologically rejoin the EU, commit to it and stop trying to pretend we are not in it. Looking at the Scottish independence referendum, I am not hopeful about that.

For my positive view about the EU - which European time would I rather live through, 1916-1966 or 1966-2016? I would much rather be in the later period despite all its problems, and I think the sense of partnership in the EU, even if reluctant, problematic, difficult, is hugely valuable. I don't think the emphasis on the nation state above all which I would date in the UK from the Tudor period as it was promoted for purely political reasons and which reached its apotheosis IMO in the years around 1900 has been at all positive for anyone in the world.

Hilda in no way am I emotive, I'd vote for what is best for my country, and I really can't see anything on the brexit side that will make us better off.

If there was truth in their arguments then gosh yes, I can see it, but scratch the surface a little and so much of is rubbish its unbelievable and therefore I can't vote that way.

I didn't mean it as a put down: the opposite of that.

So was the psycopathic a put down then? How did you come to that concusion?

Obama also doesn't get to do what he wants in the US. The US agrees to be bound by trade rulling of NAFTA and the WTO and congress can be made to back down on decisions.

Lurked - no, not being emotive. Just trying to find that, even one good reason that isn't just as available to the other side. Also, all the info sources are suggestive of, "Well, they would day that, wouldn't they?".

Hmmm, Tu Quoque is an argument flaw though isn't it. It doesn't really work.

All I can see is that the Brexit side desperately try to make it emotive using hyperbole and misleading evidence.

When you look at all the benefits we get from the EU:

Free trade, harminisation of trade making it cheaper to export to 27 other countries, trade agreements with countries outside Europe very much in our advantage, freedom of movement, visa free travel, consumer protections, Yes cheaper flights (made possible by the EU open skies act), employee protections, the ECHR, higher product saftey standards, cleaner beaches, and hosts of others that I won't list here.

There are so many reasons for staying in.

When the Brexit side misconstrue their evidence regarding all of their main points, democracy, immigration and have back of the fag packet economic plans then yes, I do think any decision to vote exit is based on an emotive decision.

But, but, there's just as much evidence to counter each and every point, depending on which publication one pulls out to support a perspective. Each argument can be made to be persuasive. 'Facts' are not things in and of themselves but can be spun, for want of a better word (I'm not suggesting that, for example, statistical analyses are not useful, but a perspective can be presented depending on how you define your cases ('immigrant', 'trade', 'time') and which data are selected for inclusion). I think that people are searching for that 'Yes!' moment, but given that there's so much discussion suggests that nothing is perhaps as 'clear cut' as you might imagine.