To ask if you think we will stay or go?

[TheoriginalLEM]

sorry its the EU.

i don't know that much but my gut feeling is we should stay.

however i think we will leave because strength of feeling seems to lay with the leavers wheras i think stayers might beless likely to vote or be in the not that fussed camp.

We have to vote out.

I think this is a great little short vid on some of the reasons we should run for the hills leave

Five min clip

Turkey joining the EU is scary.

Look at all the people who are saying Britain should stay. How many have actually worked in a normal everyday job? Christine Lararde?, Obama?, Mark Carney, Cameron or Osborne?, Donald Tusk?, Keira Knightley?
The simple fact is, if you are big business, or simply need cheap, disposable workers like cleaners or nannies, then the EU is fine. If you want to be able to toast toast, vacuum or dry hair then its not a good idea. www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4053/eu-regulations

Jobs are recruited for in E Europe - not even advertised here - with "guidance" on how to make up low wages with tax credits and housing benefit. That means our kids won't get the chance to even apply. That supply of cheap labour keeps wages down. So much for "employment rights"

Exactly and that is one of the main reasons why I think, for all our children's futures, not just the ones who are going to be doctors and lawyers but our ordinary kids who will need ordinary jobs to keep ordinary families with an ordinary roof over their heads, we NEED to take back some control and vote LEAVE. Or they will have no future, no chance, be forever swamped by cheap competition, trapped in a cycle of low wages and dependency on in work benefits. And then there's Turkey...it just doesn't bear thinking about.

The system as it currently stands enables and encourages big businesses to keep their own costs low by bypassing British employees in favour of EU migrants for whom minimum wage here seems very attractive when boosted by in work benefits and HB. And we, the net tax payers get to pick up the tab for that while our own young people are being shafted and sidelined.

I cannot go to Romania or Hungary or even Poland and get treated the same way. They won't recruit my son to work there, supply translators and free language lessons and pay him benefits to supplement his wages and treat him for free in the hospital. It is not true "free movement". It is mostly one way.

And that's exactly what I meant by my party analogy - it's a party where we do all the giving, we are the most generous and accommodating of hosts who bend over backwards for EU migrants so that everyone else does the taking. Even if, in theory, we are entitled to take from them, (ie. move there to work) there's nothing attractive for us to take.

Fluffy that's interesting and reminds me of a thread from a while back that raised many of the same points, in relation to immigration and asylum. Some of it was a bit hysterical but there was some good sense spoken as well.

here

one of the comments about critical mass was this:

if you go to Tower Hamlets or parts of Birmingham or Burnley, or wherever there are large settled communities of Muslims you will find that local government is often largely dominated by Muslims because they vote in people they perceive to have their interests at heart and who can represent their needs and wants.

We have a largely white, loosely Christian government now because we are a mostly white, loosely Christian society now. When that changes and the see-saw starts to level out and eventually tip, so will the shape of how we are governed, first at a local level and then at a national level. You don't need to have a degree in PPE to work that one out.

Not that my decision to vote out is based entirely on my fears about the slow creep of Islamic influence and what that means for our society and our freedoms and the rights of women and gay people, far from it, but I can't pretend it's not a factor.

Low paid work we don't want to do? Since when did it become a choice compared to staying on benefits? And it is keeping wages low.

Mardle you remind me somewhat of the child who has a big bag of sweets , sitting in the corner, scowling because you don't want to share.

To be honest i can't take your posts seriously because you seem very us and them. seems to be about OUR jobs OUR children. It's not the most balanced of arguments no matter how clever your analogy is. Yes the concerns are valid but they are part if a much bigger picture.

I don't want to share THE, you are damn right I don't. Why should we be the ones to made to feel bad about no longer wanting to share, when no-one else ever brings any bloody sweets at all? Would you like to keep buying rounds in the pub for half a dozen friends who are always happy to accept a drink from you but never buy you one back?

But this isn't sweets or drinks, is it? It's our country, our economy, our children's future, our laws, our currency, our right to make our own decisions about what's best for the future economic and social stability of our country.

Mother we don't currently have enough NET taxpayers to maintain the NHS and the welfare state because wages have been artificially suppressed for years and people on low incomes are kept dependent on in work benefits. Bringing in more EU (or Other) migrants to carry out low paid work that British people don't want to do and would rather stay on benefits than do, does absolutely NOTHING to change that, except to make the situation worse not better.

I know and work with plenty of forriners! Not in low paid jobs that no one wants. They are my employers (albeit not from the eu) they bring plenty to the party.

Go to any university department and see the diversity of nationalities there. All bring their very own specialist knowledge to the table. contributing to British research.

dp's ftiend is Bulgarian and a carpenter, he pays his taxes just like everyone else. Hes bloody good at his job. Why does he have less right to work here than someone lucky enough to be birn here? it makes no sense at all.

as i said upthread, my wirry is about people voting to leave purely because of immigration and misding the bigger picture.

I worry we will leave because the leavers seem to shout the loudest

Fluffy - since when is a Christian evangelical blogspot a reliable place to learn about Islam ?

Of course there are EU workers in medium and high level jobs who are net contributors - just not nearly enough of them when represented as a percentage of EU migrants overall. I think it costs us more to have the majority of them here than it earns us in taxes paid. Again, if they are doing essential jobs that we cannot recruit for from home, fair enough, but too many are not in that category at all and their presence is not only frequently unnecessary and un-required but it puts a strain on our public services. We need to be able to stem that and currently we cannot.

*dp's ftiend is Bulgarian and a carpenter, he pays his taxes just like everyone else.

Loads of people 'pay their taxes'. It doesn't mean they contribute more to the pot than they take out of it, in the great scheme of things. We already have a huge number of people who are not net contributors - why on earth would we encourage or celebrate the arrival of more? This 'But they pay their taxes' argument is too often trotted out without acknowledging that.

Hes bloody good at his job. Why does he have less right to work here than someone lucky enough to be birn here? it makes no sense at all.

Er...because he's not British? Amazingly enough, this is how most of the rest of the world works when they are not in a state of union with other countries. How about you ask that question to them? To the USA perhaps, or to Norway? People have the right to apply for working visas and if there is a genuine need for certain categories of immigrant worker then they will stand a good chance of being allowed in to work and live here, for a period if not forever.

If not, then they have to try their luck elsewhere, just like I would if I decided I wanted to go and live in the USA or a hundred other places tomorrow. We don't owe it to everyone in Europe or anywhere else to provide them with a permanent place at our table and an entitlement to a slice of our pie, when there is nothing much in it for us, and I genuinely don't understand why anyone would assume that we do.

lala I agree that website was dodgy and obviously has a fundamentalist Christian agenda to peddle, I didn't realise that when I first read the article. However, it doesn't change the fact that there is truth in the article.

Mardle - I have to disagree. The whole thesis is skewed - if you look at all the countries that the author has listed as completely terrifying, the fundamental problem with most is ethnic division, corruption, (non-religious) repression and lawlessness that have been in place for generations. I agree that thatcan lead to the rise of Islamic extremism but it's the underlying causes that are the problem not the Muslim population itself. The other problem - with the exception of UAE and Saudi - is crushing poverty for the vast majority/large swathe of citizens. I don't know a great deal about many of the countries listed but, for example, in Bosnia where "widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare" are to be expected, it was the Muslims who were, for the most part, massacred, not the ethnic Christians. It is the same sort of claptrap as the blogs that state as a fact that Muslims will outnumber non-Muslims in the UK/France/Denmark/take your pick in 30 years or whatever - just Islamophobic fear-mongering.

Anyway, I don't know why Islam is being discussed in a thread about the EU - Turkey is not an EU member, its citizens have not been given the right to work/live in Schengen countries, much less in the UK and I believe they are a long way from being given EU membership (it's been something that the various Turkish governments - most of which have been entirely secular - have lobbied for for decades without being willing to meet minimum human rights standards).

wages are low because the fat cats at the top of the pile are creaming it all off for themselves. it is a distribution of wealth issue, fair pay issue that needs addressing not immigration.

Actually my dps friend IS British he has british citizenship. You are beginning to sound like alf garnet

I think there are many issues that need addressing and immigration is one of them along with the growing gap of wealth

I think we are going to leave I am undecided which way to vote the more knowledge I gain the more I am pulled towards leaving

and wtaf does islam have to do with it?

Enthusiasm - im sort of where you are. although I'll probably vote to stay as i fear change.

To return to the original question of the OP, I am beginning to think that we might Go. Talking to people last night at a work event and I was surprised how sceptical people were about the government scaremongering.
The Norwegians were apparently bombarded by the very same scare stories before their referendum and they seem to be doing all right. This is a short interview with Norwegians:

I like change

But seriously I am not happy the way the country is going that sounds a bit too UKIP and I am not going to blame just one party they're are many issues that neither seem to tackle head on. Would this change make a differenc maybe

I think the EU is falling apart anyway, politics is changing Europe is changing and is leaving might make that happen sooner