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.

Got to say though, that the stability of the economy seems to be the only angle the remain side are using and it's a bit boring tbh! I think BJ said something like 'Euro love can't be bought' and he's nailed it for me. I just don't, never have, never will, like being in the eu, and honestly, no amount of money will change that for me. I would be happier out, even if 'poorer forever' as remain claim

I agree. I don't want the whole of the Eu to pitch up here and do business in the UK because it will change the UK out of all recognition.

Not only do we not have the homes and hospitals and schools and services to accommodate several hundred thousand additional people from the EU each year but what happens when we have built all these things and the migrant caravan moves on to the next economically booming country when the economic cycle in the UK eventually takes a downturn?

That does not lead to social cohesion or a stable population that can predict the services it will need in the future and provide them BEFORE the users arrive that will need them.

Thought BBC QuestionTime was quite revealing a few weeks ago when Paddy Ashdown was extolling the economic virtues of remaining in the EU and in rising desperation asked the audience" You wouldn't want to give all that away to leave the EU would you?" And the audience shouted back at him "Yes!"

There is no point even debating your inaccurate points spring. The same rubbish you repeat over and over has been successfully refuted by lots of posters.
You cling to it all you like.

^There is no point even debating your inaccurate points spring. The same rubbish you repeat over and over has been successfully refuted by lots of posters.
You cling to it all you like^

^REMAIN's response to things they don't like ^

Got to say though, that the stability of the economy seems to be the only angle the remain side are using and it's a bit boring tbh!

I suspect most people rather enjoy knowing they'll still have jobs next year, and look for their thrills somewhere else... but, to each their own!

"Remain's response to thing they don't like"

Where as yours is to incorrectly shout vested interest, I just said I'm not debating you anymore, its rather pointless.

Personal experience is always valid in itself, but it can be deceiving because you don't see the underlying mechanisms or the bigger picture......except of course if you have worked at the EU, and thus have personal experience, have seen the underlying mechanisms, and have been involved in the bigger picture, which is why dh and I are voting to leave.

We have air pollution problems in London. It's not going too get any better with even more people here.

Popocatapetl1234 To me your argument isn't cogent, because those organisations have been proved wrong in the past, and quite frankly, the EUMF shouldn't be quoted as a reputable source of anything; it ceased to be the IMF when Lagarde proceeded to bail out the Euro.

Smaller NATO nations dependent upon us; well, that would be all those who don't meet the 2% GDP target, so everyone except the US, Poland, Greece, and perhaps France. That's 24 NATO nations then, and the PARP countries. The smaller ones are Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Belgium, the NL, Luxembourg who rely on our expertise, and defence spend, as their defence is pretty dismal. Maritime nations use us with FOST and FORACS for example. We fly reassurance patrols over the Baltic states, and I think we have naval vessels there as well. A awful lot of NATO maritime stuff is run from Northwood, which is in the UK.

I am a confirmed outer, and there is nothing that would persuade me to vote to stay in. There was life before the EU, and I can remember it, and there will be life after it. I do not feel European, I am English, and despite having lived just outside EU central for a decade now, nothing has changed my mind about voting to leave.

except of course if you have worked at the EU, and thus have personal experience

ok, that's great scaryteacher, but I was talking about personal experience as it relates to and reflects (or not) broad economic patterns... so no, your case is not an exception, because you having worked at the EU has nothing to do with the specific point I was making

"There was life before the EU, and I can remember it"

The world has changed a lot since the 1970s.

Good thing you joined a debate about the EU with the statement there is nothing that could change your mind to leave.

I know lots of people who've worked for the EU and are perfectly happy about staying in.

Chalala's point about looking at the data over personal experience still stands.

Lurked nothing will change your mind about remaining from what I've read of your responses on here, so why the comment about my choice to leave? People on the remain side seem reluctant to admit that is not the status quo we will be voting for if we remain; and if you think that any of the 'cast iron commitments' DC got are anything but tinfoil, you are a tad naive.

I know lots of people who've worked at the EU as SNEs, who can quite see why some in the UK want to leave, and indeed would vote to do so if their countries held a referendum.

The world has changed - I am not always convinced that it is for the better, and the EU has morphed from a loose federation of trading states to a political behemoth which is determined that one size will fit all. I disagree with that. If you are a member of a club, and you no longer like the direction of travel, then why shouldn't you leave?

My mind would be changed if the fact that all of the information by the exit side wasn't was misused all the time.

The campaign is currently touring the country with incorrect information blazoned on its side for example. The constant harping about immigrants stealing jobs and costing billions in benefits has been disproved again and again, but it still gets used.

My opinions can be changed which is why I like the debate/

@scary: all serious economic organisations see BREXIT as an economic disaster. And there are 189 member countries of the IMF including the non EU G7/G8 countries (US, Canada, Japan) and even allowing for weighted voting regimes, to state it is controlled by the EU is just silly.

Your reference to smaller NATO nations "dependent upon us" for defence is also inaccurate. The US provides the lion's share of NATO funding - and we are all effectively dependent on the US. Germany and France both contribute more to NATO than UK (civil, military and NSIP). The 2% of GDP is a farce. The only reason the UK has reached the 2% target in recent years is creative accounting by the Treasury who have added in pension payments to the figure.

My mind would be changed if the fact that all of the information by the exit side wasn't was misused all the time.

The Remain side have distorted a good deal of information for their own gain, so why isn't that equally offputting to you?

If Brexit is a good idea, it will still be so regardless of a figure on the side of a bus, and if Remain is a good idea, it will be so despite the government sending propaganda to every home. And so on.

The US provides three quarters of all NATO spending you are right popocat.

The argument regarding the IMF being EU controlled is just incorrect and a great example of the half truths given by the Brexit side in this argument.

For example they say that the EU is all about multinational corpoartions and small businesses would benefit being out of the EU. Yet the BCC and CBI support a remain vote.

They say immigrants are a weight on the British tax payer and cause pressure on services yet repeated studies (OMOU, Nuffield College Oxford, UCL and LSE)and data from HMRC proves this incorrect. To which they then respond "vested interest" or "people can see for themselves".

The £350 million a week being toured round the country by the Leave campagin has been proved again and again to be incorrect yet they still use it. The 55 times the UK has lost votes at the EU has been proved time and time again to be an over simplification and a true indicator of UK influence and policy success, but they still use it.

Misinformation is the name of the game for the Brexit side.

The remain side information people regularly refer to be misused is the data from the Treasury, now I happen to realise what the flaw in it is, making a forecast till 2030 and putting it in terms of GDP per capita and then saying that this would be households being worse off. Its not a misrepresentation but a prediction. Also one that if you really want to use economics is an over simplification because it doesn't take into account the gini coefficient and the fact that the fall in income will be felt by some households far more than others.

The fact is thought that the Treasury figures have mostly been matched, especially in the short term, by several different organisations, when it is replicated and agreed by an overwhelming majority that the

Problems arise when the economic predictions from the BREXIT side are repeatedly made based on certis paribus, which we know will not be the case! Or on models like the Norway one which would not be satisfactory to a leave vote.

Chalala's point about looking at the data over personal experience still stands.

I believe that in philosophy they say the only thing that you really know is 'sense data' i.e. what you have experienced yourself. Anything that comes second hand is just that - second hand, and you have to question its veracity.
Why should people accept studies which may be biased, consciously or unconsciously, but deny the evidence of their own eyes - that they can't afford housing, they can't get their DC in schools, can't get doctors appointments, their DC can't get jobs.

If there was a debate about whether wages should be higher or lower then all the bosses would say lower and all the unions would say higher. I don't see that all the vested interests clubbing together to tell us that we should Bremain is convincing; it's merely telling us what suits their purpose. The question is, does it suit the purpose of the wo/man in the street?

"but deny the evidence of their own eyes - that they can't afford housing, they can't get their DC in schools, can't get doctors appointments, their DC can't get jobs."

Because your own experience are tainted by your own preconcieved ideas, for example if you go to the doctor and there are two people in their who are immigrants then you might, if you had this idea in the first place, get annoyed that immigrants are taking up places in doctors surgeries and causing the NHS to be under too much strain.
The data from several different sources shows the opposite and in a far wider context.

Immigration doesn't cause unemployment, there aren't a set level of jobs, it doesn't lower wages (otherwise why when immigration was growing fast between 2004-2008 did wages rise?), and it doesn't have a significant effect on house prices.

There are far too many sources from different organisations with different objectives backing remaining.

If it doesn't suit big business (the FTSE 250 directors) it doesn't suit small business ( CBI, BCC), it doesn't suit the farmers union, it doesn't suit the car manufacturers (SSMT), it doesn't suit the pharma industry or the medical research one. If the vast array of think tanks and economic organisations are saying that it will be detrimental to the UK, if the Universities and HMRC are coming out with independent data backed research which says the costs of immigration raised by the exit side are either over hyped or simply untrue. Then in whose interest is an exit?

Why are the billinaire owners of the Times and Sun, Telegraph, Mail and Express so keen for it?

Why after 3 years of knowing this would take place is the exit campaing travelling the country with incorrect facts blazoned on the side of its bus?

Its because the paucity of the arguments is startling.

The EU will utterly shaft us when we leave. Fact.

And they won't "take us more seriously" when we go. They will say "Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out."

Who is for Brexit? Trump, Boris, Gove, Faragend a load of other swivel eyed loons. Nuff said.

They can't shaft us, its in the Lisbon treaty however there will certainly not be the fanciful all of the benefits and none of the costs EU trade deal, a WTO stagreement will be in place. Which would cost more for both us and them yes, but be far more detrimental to the UK economy.

It is overcrowded in the SE as it is and if we stay it's not going to get any better.

Lurked - I've just read the Nuffield Oxford study, which you state that it has been said that " immigrants are a weight on the British tax payer and cause pressure on services yet repeated studies (OMOU, Nuffield College Oxford, UCL and LSE)and data from HMRC proves this incorrect". The conclusions drawn by the authors are as follows:

The model presented above suggests that immigration may reduce waiting times by two main channels. Immigration may be increase native internal mobility. Because of immigration natives may move (or seek care) in a different local authority or seek care in the private sector decreasing the pressure on local authorities where immigration is surging. If immigration leads natives to move towards different local authorities, the size of the population in the local authority may not change. At the same time the fact that recent cohorts of immigrants (Wadsworth, 2013; Steventon and Bardsley, 2011) are relatively young and healthy upon arrival
(“healthy immigrant effect”), suggests that they may demand less care than what predicted by the NHS. In this case, a reduction in the average waiting time could be explained by a decrease
in the demand for health care services which may be explained by the different composition of the population. If immigrants are healthier or, regardless of their health status, less likely to seek
care, then waiting times may decrease even if the supply did not adjust. A second reason why immigration may reduce waiting times is related to the NHS funding system. As the allocation of funds across England regions depends on the size of the population, a predicted increase in the local authority population would lead to more resources and increase the capacity of the system. Even if the size of the population increased, the higher capacity may lead to a reduction in waiting times if the demand of care would not increase as predicted. This may occur both because of lower morbidity in the immigrant population or because of the effects of immigration on native mobility which may leave the local authority population size unchanged.

So, it's important to contextualise the findings given that a) immigration causes natives to move to a different area (thus increasing demand for NHS care in the new area) b) healthy immigrants demand less care than unhealthy natives, which may reduce waiting times given the NHS funding allocation system. NHS funds are allocated according to the size of the population so funds are diverted (from elsewhere) to the area where immigration is surging

It is overcrowded in the SE as it is and if we stay it's not going to get any better.

Not just SE. Am watching local news saying housing shortage means one hour commute each way for many people.

REMAIN side will say that just shows Govt failure to build sufficient houses.

LEAVE side will say why bring in more EU migrants when we can't house the people we already have here.

Society is changing radically for many of our young, saddled with student debt and unable to afford a decent rental property let alone an affordable mortgage. You cannot bring up a family in a one bedroom of a shared house when you are in your 30's.

True, but the second study that the University committed found that immigration between 2004 and 2014 that immigration across the country only caused increased wiating times etc in deprived areas outside of London and then only between 2004 and 2008 when it was corrected.

Also your point about size of funds, immigrants will be working and paying tax, the UCL study found that a reduction in immigration wouldn't benefit the NHS as the reduction in demand would be far outwieghed by the reduction in funding from tax take.

Research says this..... This report says that..... This EU-funded research bigs up the EU.......

One word - Gullible.