The only way to get the EU to take the UK seriously is to vote to leave

[SpringingIntoAction]

Cameron tells us repeatedly that he wants to remain in a reformed EU.

Many others across the political divides also acknowledge the need for the EU to reform itself.

Some say that's why we need to remain in the EU - to change it from within.

I think the EU's refusal to engage with Cameron's plea for his EU reforms and the failure of his 'special deal' to achieve anything like the changes he originally said he wanted, show the EU is unwilling/incapable of reform.

I think the only way to get the EU to start taking our demands for reform seriously is to vote to leave.

They need to start imagining what the EU would be like without one of its largest funders - the UK. We do that by voting to leave.

OECD, London School of Economics, IMF, IEA, PWC, CBI, Oxford University, UCL, the BBC, IFS, SSMT, HSBC blah blah blah The difficulty for many people, though, is that you don't need to Google far to see that at least some of the organisations have been very, very wrong in the past about their economic predictions. Does not confer confidence. Why should they be right this time?

Because they all come to the same verdict, not just them but far many more, I can't remember such a level of agreement on any economic predictions before.

Any economic forecast that goes out more than a year or so has a high chance of being at least somewhat wrong.

You can be wrong in both directions, of course. It's perfectly possible that the treasury forecast underestimates the impact of a Brexit.

True Misti,

What we can say for definite is that the prediction made by many of the Brexiters, that we will continue to trade with the EU in the same way, with all the benefits and none of the costs will not occur.

Yes, the one forecast I'd be prepared to make without any hedging of bets is that unrestricted access to the single market will require the UK to agree to free movement.

Making forecasts about how complex systems respond to external shocks is very hazardous, but the one thing you can say for sure is that in a cautious forecast like the Treasury ones, the risk is very lopsided. Things might be slightly better than they said (because they were hardly forecasting Armageddon) - but they could also be catastrophically worse.

What this means is that if the Treasury is badly wrong, it is more likely that the outcome will be significantly worse not significantly better.

Whereas you sneer at them not knowing enough, and want to keep them ignorant by continually feeding them lies, or are they "post-truths" now..

I don't sneer at anyone - everybody's vote counts.

But to think that your economic arguments hold sway with, I'd say more than 1 in 20, is to misjudge the folk out there.

Sky News saying that Independent /Sunday Mirror / Comres gives Boris 45% trust rating with Cameron on the high 20s.

What we can say for definite is that the prediction made by many of the Brexiters, that we will continue to trade with the EU in the same way, with all the benefits and none of the costs will not occur.

Oh. Yes. 'we' will.

Is this a pantomime now Spring?

It won't happen, the EU won't give the UK a better deal than the EU member states have themselves. The French and the Germans have said this already.

We will either have an EEA type deal where we have freedom of trade, freedom of movement etc, and contribute (Norway contributes 90% per capita of what the UK does) but have no say. Which would be a non starter.

You can say " But we will do XYZ" all you like, its fantasy.

I'm gobsmacked I have to say - do you really believe that the UK can have all of the benefits of the EU with none of the obligations? [Shock]

Simply not going to happen.

Is this a pantomime now Spring?

Yes - Cameron turned it into a pantomime when he started ranting about World War 3. He is nt taken seriously anymore. The boy cried wolf too often.

It won't happen, the EU won't give the UK a better deal than the EU member states have themselves. The French and the Germans have said this already.

The EU don't actually 'give' us anything. We will leave the EU and ill be able to trade with all the countries in the world. We've seen through this pretence. The EU exists for big businesses not for the ordinary working person.

We will either have an EEA type deal where we have freedom of trade, freedom of movement etc, and contribute (Norway contributes 90% per capita of what the UK does) but have no say. Which would be a non starter.

Yea. yea - so you've been saying for the last 2 months. You don't have a crystal ball. I know that we can trade under WTO rules.

You can say " But we will do XYZ" all you like, its fantasy

Your fantasy of an impoverished UK put of the EU has been blown wide apart. The EU cannot stand scrutiny - that's why Cameron and people like you scare and try to frighten - you have no compelling reason to stay.

The EU is a dinosaur - an expensive dinosaur that stops us trading freely with the rest of the world. It is a confidence trick and people are seeing through it.

There's no much nonsense in that post that I can't even be bothered with it, but .

an expensive dinosaur that stops up trading freely

Stops the UK trading freely with whom, exactly? UK businesses can already trade with anyone they want to, unless the country in question is affected by EU sanctions. That they choose not to is nothing to do with the EU.

I didn't say we would be impoverished, I think it will be worse off economically, thats not the same.

Cameron didn't start ranting about WW3, another of your post truths. I've actually dealt with that above.

The treasury, BOE, LSE and many others have done analysis of the British economy in WTO agreements, its not as good as being in the EU.

You have nowhere near the same amount of research and analysis, completed by experts to back your views. You just KNOW.

Stops the UK trading freely with whom, exactly? UK businesses can already trade with anyone they want to, unless the country in question is affected by EU sanctions. That they choose not to is nothing to do with the EU.

Thats where you are wrong.

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8884126/EU-sends-Britain-a-20m-garlic-bill.html

A country that is hammered with a £20M bill by the EU for contravening EU rules on importing garlic is not trading freely

I didn't say we would be impoverished, I think it will be worse off economically, thats not the same.

Think = operative word. Not will be. Just think. I think differently.

Cameron didn't start ranting about WW3, another of your post truths. I've actually dealt with that above.

Actually you haven't 'dealt' with that at all. Your reach does not extend out there to the masses who (righty or wrongly) believe that Cameron says there be will World War 3.

The treasury, BOE, LSE and many others have done analysis of the British economy in WTO agreements, its not as good as being in the EU.

Ah the BOE, - Mr Carney - exGoldmanSachs employee, appointed by Mr Osborne (wonder if he'll get a directorship in Goldman Sachs one day?) and the EU-funded LSE. Your examples are completely invalidated by the taint of EU money and Government appointees working for their knighthoods. Carney prohesied rising interests for a while - which have never materialised.

You have nowhere near the same amount of research and analysis, completed by experts to back your views. You just KNOW.

Your 'Experts' = paid lackeys.Yes, I do KNOW. I KNEW we were right to leave the EM.. I KNEW we we were right to reject Euro membership and I KNOW we will be much better off when we Leave the EU.

Ah yes the EU fund the LSE so much that their academics would taint their research to be pro EU, would that be the same as your pro EU bias in the BBC?

The same at the IFS? The IEA? UCL? Oxford Economics? All so highly funded by the EU that they would all taint it?

Laughable arguments really spring.

I did deal with the Cameron argument on this thread, I quoted the exact thing he said and pointed out that the WW3 coverage was an example of the "post truth" type of misinformation the brexit campaign are full of.

All so highly funded by the EU that they would all taint it?

It doesn't matter whether it's 1 per cent or 100 per cent. None of the institutions will bite any of the hands that feed them.

Ah yes the EU fund the LSE so much that their academics would taint their research to be pro EU, would that be the same as your pro EU bias in the BBC?

Of course the BBC is rabidly pro-EU. On R4 last year a presenter screeched at a woman 'Are you seriously saying we should be considering leaving the EU?'

The EU has done a marvellous job of using the money we pay it to fund it's own aggrandisement with grants to universities, broadcasters, charities, policy units, etc etc etc.

The EU's tentacles reach everywhere as quick perusal of its accounts shows.

The same at the IFS? The IEA? UCL? Oxford Economics? All so highly funded by the EU that they would all taint it?

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Laughable arguments really spring.

No, it's too serious to be risible. We never see any anti-EU research from these bodies do we?

I did deal with the Cameron argument on this thread, I quoted the exact thing he said and pointed out that the WW3 coverage was an example of the "post truth" type of misinformation the brexit campaign are full of.

You didn't. I keep telling you that out there on the streets they are talking about WW3. Fact. That's what has stuck. Now Cameron is talking about a recession. He makes himself look more foolish by the day.

They are talking about WW3 on the streets because of the way it was presented in the the Euro sceptic press.

I pointed out, on here that it wasn't true, and used it as an example of Post Truth being used to distort the arguments.

None of the organisations above recieve enough funding to taint their presentation or their research. Rather farcical to suggest it really.

They're talking about it on the streets because Cameron knew full well that's what people would perceive from all the stealthy implications in his speech. Of course it was deliberate.

No there was plenty more to that speech, it was the easy story to pull out of it to try to discredit the argument.

Have to say I'm rather confused by the idea that leaving the EU with help protect the NHS from being privatised. Was it the EU that forced Thatcher to privatise our public utilities? That's not quite how remember it happening. I suppose the EU must be behind the English acadamy (i.e. privatisation) plan for education too.

As for TTIP, the country currently blocking TTIP is... France. Not the UK. The Tories are actually pro TTIP and so can be expected to agree a TTIP type agreement between the UK and US when we leave the EU, though in terms less favourable to the UK 'cause we'll no longer have the French on our side. Truth is, the UK has to take a large share of the responsibility for TTIP. TTIP may not have the support of the public, but it does have the support of our government. This is not a case of the Tories being forced to accept TTIP by the EU, the Tories are one of the main driving forces behind TTIP. You could actually argue that if we leave the EU, the TTIP agreement is significantly less likely to happen at all. A Brexit may help EU citizens by removing our pernicious influence.

Boris Johnson on TTIP:

-- "There is absolutely nothing not to like about the TTIP. As Churchill might have said, it is altogether un-sordid."

"This new free-trade pact with America is not a threat: it is a sensational opportunity"

"This pact is a massive potential win for humanity"

And my personal favourite:

"If the EU can’t pull [TTIP] off, we in Britain should offer to go first and do it ourselves."

You get what you vote for.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11173369/This-trade-deal-with-America-would-have-Churchill-beaming.html

I haven't caught up with all the posts but one theme caught my eye and that is the ongoing debate about partiality of research. We are talking at cross purposes here. Bias in research is not necessarily purposeful/done on purpose with some malicious intent; rather, it's inevitable, as follows: researchers now have to declare conflict of interest and funding sources (this was not the case even ten years ago) so that the results can be interpreted in their correct context, which suggests an increasing awareness of non-neutral features shaping research processes; funding sources/funding streams already specify the topic and directionality of focus by their very wording. There aren't many 'lone wolf', independent researchers out there who are 'doing their own thing', so if you don't want to research 'Factors to help the integration of immigrants into local communities' , which was a very recent EU funding stream in their FP7 framework, then you won't have much chance being funded. Organisations also collect researchers of similar orientations. For example, if you look carefully at the topic areas, research questions and research interests of academics in any department at the LSE (to take one example), you'll get a fairly good idea of their politics. These factors are inevitable, and work both ways, of course. I do think, though, that people have become more alert to these processes in recent years, which is why, rightly, they are questioning the findings produced by organisations and academic institutions in terms of their partisanship and objectivity. This is also the reason why people are looking at factors beyond just the academic research and predictive modelling in order to influence their decision making in this campaign.

I think that's a very optimistic interpretation of what's going on here, fourmummy. All the factors you mention are at play, absolutely. But the problem is that people don't use them as reasonable contextualisation for interpreting results, they use them as a blanket excuse to dismiss any result they don't like.

I think it's a worrying phenomenon, people not really understanding the research (and I'm not saying I always do), but still feeling entitled to dismiss it for a number of non-scientific reasons. That's how you get conspiracy theories about climate change and vaccination.

There's also a distinction to be made between predictive modelling (as in the Tresury analysis), which is always based on questionable assumptions, and statistical studies analysing existing data to explain what has been going on in the past few years (as in the case of the LSE study about immigration). The latter is by no means perfect, but it is more robust.

they use them as a blanket excuse to dismiss any result they don't like I'll take issue with this one point although there's a lot of interesting material in your post (family is getting in the way!). I spent last night reading about the now famous/infamous multitude of incorrect predictions and advice of the CBI - about everything. Given this, I really don't blame people for sticking two fingers up at 'research' and who, apart from an academic, is going to bother delving into the intricacies of a particular study and contextualise the findings? Back later!