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 will stay.
If we vote out I'm off.

If we vote out I'm off.

Who are you, Phil Collins? Don't let the door bang you on the way out :)

Is there a way to say "I think this bad thing will happen if we vote stay/leave" without someone dismissing that assessment as a SCARE story?

Of the people I know who stated their vote, all Stays.

Couple of other things.

Future referendums will be banned.
No they won’t. We’re a democracy and that won’t change. If in 10 years we don’t like the look of the EU then we vote again.

Fake EU Turkish passports.
The latest deal will only allow Turks to access the Shengan area. We are not part of the Shengan agreement and we won’t be affected. If fake passports were that good and there are so many turks desperate to get here then why aren’t we flooded with them already?

The Economy
We make cars for lots of foreign car makers, Toyota, ford, GM etc. for export to the EU. The reason they come here is because we are part of the EU. If we aren’t part of the EU then there is nothing to stop the EU changing the rules slightly to make it slightly more attractive for foreign manufacturers to go to EU countries. Change of the rules on taxation within the EU for example? We won’t be able to veto it if we’re out.

Trade deals.

We are part of 40 plus trade deals as part of the EU. We can negotiate new trade deals. No problem there..................except of course they take time. We can shorten the process by taking any deal offered of course but that probably won’t go well for us.

The Service Sector
We currently sell £90 billion in the service sector round the world. Mostly in banking services. We are the financial heart of Europe. We are the financial gateway to Europe If we leave, how would it benefit the rest of Europe to have it’s financial gateway offshore? Frankfurt and Paris would love a great big meaty slice of that pie. Why would the rest of the world deal with London when they can go direct to the EU?

Immigration.
It’s true we will never control EU immigration. It’s the one thing that worries me slightly but given that we make a net profit from eu immigration then I can live with it. What was the express’s headline today? “EU Migrants cost us £17 billion a year.” Didn’t mention the £19.5 billion in tax revenue though.

Terrorism.
How many terrorist attacks have successfully been carried out by migrants in the UK??? The two successful ones have both been carried out by UK citizens. We have a very good record of stopping them, we’re probably the most successful at doing it. I suspect that almost every second graduate of the MI5/Special Branch school of how to stop terrorism is currently sitting in a meeting discussing how to blow up the houses of parliament while secretly recording it.

The Price of Membership (About £9 billion)

Sounds like a lot but it’s about 0.5% of our GDP. If we leave then we keep the £9 billion but then we have to pay for some of the stuff that the EU pays for. Farm subsidies, research funds, infrastructure spend etc.

The real value of our membership is peace. Countries that are deeply entwined in such a large political, financial, military pact would find it impossible to go to war. We fought two catastrophic world wars in the last century. At the end of the 20th century countries on the fringes of EU area took part in ethnic cleansing and wholesale slaughter of people who are different to them. How many EU countries of the EU have gone to war with each other since they joined? NONE. It has been the longest sustained era of peace that we have ever known.

Although I favour Brexit, I suspect LikeDylanInTheMovies is correct - in fact I think that's probably a fair summary of what'll actually happen.

I hope we leave. And I am left wing. Drives me crazy when people equate leave with the Right. Lots of left wingers support Brexit. Kate Hooey, Frank Field, Gisela S and even Scots like Tom Harris and Greens like Jenny Jones. For a good explanation of what's wrong with the Eu see this from Tony Benn - very old here but very wise -

semipartisansam.com/2016/03/03/tony-benn-and-the-left-wing-case-for-brexit/

given that we make a net profit from eu immigration

I don't believe this. I know there are studies comparing tax vs benefits, but it's a lot, lot more complex than that.

Before anyone starts trotting out the slurs about being a little englander etc, in fact I am in favour of largely unfettered movement of people, but with proper consideration given to the environmental costs of travel, and provision of proper infrastructure. The current system makes the UK crazily attractive to EU workers from poorer countries and that's neither fair nor sustainable for us or them.

Gisela Stuart talks an enormous amount of sense on the EU and Brexit.

wasonthelist

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Tommy Robinson(barely literate EDL leader)
Michael Gove(odd looking )
Vicky Pattison (Geordie Shore intellectual giant)
Boris Johnson(A man slightly to the right of Ghengis Khan disguised as a cuddly wuddly bear)
Paul Cunningham(Britain first Leader who has made a career out of fleecing the thickest in our society)

There is loads of turks here. Obviously none of you been to north london.

Are

Y Y to Gisela S talking sense about the EU.

12 in, 26 out, 2 undecided.

12 in, 26 out, 2 undecided.

This is probably evidence of my theory in action, it doesn't reflect anything that the polls are saying. Those who want change will have been far more likely to respond than those who don't.

Born free i totally agree with your 20.04 post about this being put to the public vote.

Im an educated person and if I'm really honest i haven't got a clue

TravellingLighter
www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/opinion/why-we-should-ban-referenda-on-eu-policies/

Have a look at the last line of the article written by an former EU official.

What you don't seem to grasp is that with the Acquis Communautaire, EU law takes precedence over national law (except if you are Belgium), thus if the EU bans referenda, then we can't have another one, because we will be breaking EU law.

QMV also comes in from 2017. We will not have a veto any longer.

The EU has already paid Ford to move production of Transits from Southampton to Turkey...and they are not an EU member state and we are. Go figure.

NATO is responsible for peace in Europe, not the EU. It's Article V of the Washington treaty that guarantees peace...the EU has the square root of sweet FA to do with it. The EU does not have a military, so there is no EU military pact. There may be bi-lateral treaties, but make no mistake about it - it is NATO and the US who mainly fund it that keeps the peace in Europe, no-one else.

If fake passports were that good and there are so many turks desperate to get here then why aren’t we flooded with them already?

Fake passports ARE that good and it isn't the Turks themselves that worry me. How many thousands of people across the EU are already living under assumed names and nationalities? We push the Schengen area any closer to Syria etc and we will have an ENORMOUS issue on our hands.

Yes Turkey will have limits placed on the freedom of movement for their citizens initially. But those restrictions will only be for a few years of transition and then what?

We don't need to be IN Schengen area to feel the effects anyway; We adjoin it.

So most people think the opposite of what they want will happen - such pessimism!

I genuinely don't know which way to vote yet. Everything I read on both sides seems convincing. I'm totally stuck.

But I think we will stay.

I'm really very cynical about how honestly the referendum votes will be counted. If the result is Stay, I'll be very suspicious that the figures were massaged. I just can't believe that the government would genuinely give the decision over to us. I just can't.

I'm all for leaving. I want us to leave. I fear we'll stay.

I am in favour of Brexit. I very much hope we leave the EU, but wouldn't claim to have a crystal ball to say either way. The polls look really close at the moment. What I'm hoping is that people will become disillusioned at, and reject, the establishment self-interest, the democratic deficit in the EU, the EU favouring large companies who constantly lobby them, etc.

We don't need Nanny EU to take charge of our money, give only some of it back and tell us how to spend it, and to override our laws. It's as if the Remainers are telling us that Britain isn't good enough to run itself, which is rather insulting to the British. If we leave the EU, I think this country will find a new confidence and forge ahead to a positive future.

Here's the EU Referendum 2016 section of MN if anyone hasn't found it yet. Lots of interesting discussions going on there

I'm really very cynical about how honestly the referendum votes will be counted.

And how would that happen? The sheer number of people needed to fix the vote would be mind boggling.

There are some Scottish nationalists who think the Independence ref was rigged by Westminster. There will always be people who think that way. Just smile and nod.

I don't believe that migration generates a net gain to the economy. Dont you have to earn over £27k to be a net contributer to the economy? I thought that most immigrants were low earners?

I've recently come out of the closet on FB as a Leaver. I'm getting far less grief off the auto pilot left wing sheep than I expected, mainly because I'm continuing to use my sense of humour and maintaining my key stance - the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the EU - and refusing to get dragged down sidestreets.

I'm also gratified to find that far more of my friends are Leavers than I expected! It's as though I've encouraged them to say what they think, rather than hide from the shouters with their Stay scaremongering.