Anyone else really worried now?

[MrsBlackthorn]

My work has started quietly drawing up contingency plans for if Brexit happens. Same at DH's work. Could mean lots of jobs moving to Germany and Ireland at both our firms. We're already seeing far fewer people investing or spending money.

I'm bloody terrified. Could lose my job. House could end up in negative equity. And for what?

I don't even think it's "project fear" from the government anymore... News today showed investors are taking money out of the UK faster than anytime since the crash. People with "skin in the game" voting with their money.

I understand that for lots of people the EU referendum isn't about money. however, because of a lot of it leaving, stopping coming in, or just simply being worth less... Well that leaves us screwed for a very long time. Fewer jobs. Less tax money coming in - so less money for the NHS and so on. So even if we 'take back control', of what exactly. what will we be 'in control' of?

I'm really worried about "Leave" happening and me and my family being utterly f*ed in a few months time as a result. Has the country lost its mind?

Anyone else worried about where this leaves us?

For as long as I can remember the NHS has been in dire straits. House prices have always been too high and we've always had hatred towards a section of society. When I was a kid it was "the pakis" despite the fact many of them were actually from India! Now it's muslims who are of course terrorists and Schrodinger's Polish. You know, the immigrant who simultaneously steals your benefits and your job

You're having a debate all of your own there nice. You can keep insisting that the Out vote is a xenophobic one, or anti-immigration, and that might be true of Farage's loony wing, but it's not remotely true of most of us.

I'm not the only leftish, liberal, middle-income Londoner voting out by a very long way. People are talking about it quietly. All your out-shaming is doing is making some people unwilling to own their vote in public, lest they're lumped in with the UKIP crowd by people like you. They'll still vote, though.

So waffle and stereotype all you like. It's only posters-in-windows you're suppressing. In fact, the more you label us all bigots, the more you're helping, because people get annoyed at wrongly being labelled as bigots and it reinforces their resolve.

"You are not living their life. It is their perception of what has changed their quality of life. In the same way you can voice your concern about the impact of this vote on your life. You just happen to be elsewhere on the economic spectrum."

Very presumptuous of you. My dad's a retired builder (and an immigrant himself). He's voting out - and is very vociferous about it after a few drinks - in essence because he thinks there are too many immigrants where he lives. He refers to the local bus as the "Somali express" (never mind that therefore the arrival of those people has nowt to do with the EU...).

I can understand that he sees the arrival of lots of Poles as affecting the building trade. But when I asked him if he'd prefer my brother be in the building game instead, he says he'd hate for that to be the case (my brother is a designer).

He sees no contradiction in these things. Speaking to his mates down the pub, they're not the slightest bit interested in arguments about the economy, or suggestion immigrants have an important role to play in the economy - they just see their community has changed and they don't like it.

I understand they are angry. But I also think they are wrong.

It's funny Just5mins. I don't know where you live but round where I am, it seems the total opposite. It seems like that if you want to vote in that you're not being a patriot.

Same on FB. It seems that the out campaigner's are far more vocal despite the absence of any hard facts about the utopia that awaits us when we vote to leave.

I asked my dad to tell me how having more immigrants around affects him personally.

"Get on the 207 now and it's full of people speaking Arabic"

"And what difference does that make to your life?"

The area where my parents live has always been full of immigrants - including, it has to be said, my parents parents. Again, my dad and his friends see no comtradiction here either.

I haven't found out voters to be particularly shy about talking about that fact, in real life or online.

HeadDreamer There are some Centres or Institutes which are entirely funded via the EU, but these are exceptional. You don't get to have 37 universities in the top 800 or whatever on a relatively (relative to funding from elsewhere) budget. Academia has changed enormously in the past few years anyway. There are few (again, relatively) jobs for life, many academics have to bring in funding in order to get their salaries paid, and there is huge job uncertainty anyway.

Well all I can tell you nice is I know that I'm not the only one whose position has been strongly informed by what they've seen happen on the frontline of crisis services in the last few years.

Very recent policy has created a new Dickensian underclass in London incomparable to the already very real poverty of 10-15 years ago and the safety net has been removed. Housing prices are still increasing, wages are still stagnant at the bottom of the scale and still more people are coming to seek their future here.

Something is going to crack in a very major way. There will be deaths.

The London underclass need protecting from the straw that breaks the camels back. They're not little englanders. Most of them aren't even white.

Neither are many of the very well off out-leaning friends I know.

This is all much more complex than you're trying to portray it.

I think ultimately Martin Lewis from MSE sums it up nicely. To paraphrase, It's all about risk and how risk averse you are.

It explains why the poor & uneducated are more likely to vote out. They've little to lose if the economy gets worse.

But ultimately I think one thing is clear. Whilst the In camp haven't performed well, the out camp have not offered a clear plan at all. Their claims of savings are so far wide of the mark that they're tantamount to lies.

So they're effectively asking for us to take a giant leap from the status quo into the dark and trust that all the countries warning us that the grass isn't going to be greener are lying. The EU isn't perfect, far from it. But the overwhelming number of experts tell us it is most probable to bring us the best economic benefits.

Same on FB. It seems that the out campaigner's are far more vocal despite the absence of any hard facts about the utopia that awaits us when we vote to leave

There's a slant on which out supporters are vocal in public, you nincompoop.

I think ultimately Martin Lewis from MSE sums it up nicely. To paraphrase, It's all about risk and how risk averse you are.

Thanks. I'll relay that to the next destitute family I encounter

We are the 5th biggest economy in the World. Remainers who spout statistics and IMF reports but don't understand the simple process which is trade drive me absolutely nuts. Didn't you ever swap stuff in the playground?

The question isn't who we'll buy from - the world knows we'll keep consuming and will keep importing. Some countries will no doubt be keen for us to remove any barriers we erect to protect and support our own industries to give them preferential access to those markets and no doubt will find governments here willing to sign on the dotted line.

The real question we should be asking is who'll buy our stuff. Some export businesses, like yours by the sound of it, will do ok and some will no doubt thrive. Some will be unaffected. But there are a large number of exporters heavily reliant on European markets whose buyers may find the increased costs too much and switch to suppliers inside the common market. Anyone who thinks this won't happen is either (a) totally signed up to an EEA model which wouldn't address people's immigration concerns or (b) lying. So there will be inevitable restructuring of the economy which is code for 'a lot of people will lose their jobs, and some of those people won't find new ones'.

The truth is, either way we'll be ok in the long term. It's a judgement call on which 'model' offers 'more than ok' - for me that's inside the EU - and, if you think that out is the better long term option, whether you think the short and medium term impact on the economy and therefore on people's lives is worth it.

Oops - I missed your last sentence about swapping stuff. Are we swapping global capitalism for a barter economy?

The value of the swaps is what matters, of course.

That is a fair point Just5 ( at nincompoop).

I'd say the most vocal are the erm...less intelligent, in all honesty. Whilst I have no intention of voting out myself, I accept there is a principled argument for doing so. To me it seems a bit like donning a hair shirt and cilice for your principles but is neither here nor there. It does exist, and possibly those of you on this thread are more in line with that argument, however I don't think the vast majority are.

I'd say the most vocal are the erm...less intelligent, in all honesty.

Also many people who see what I see are permanently employed professionals who wouldn't risk expressing any faintly political (even with a small p) opinion anywhere.

I'm an angry temp with a second strand of work, so I do comment, albeit selectively and often anonymously.

there are a large number of exporters heavily reliant on European markets

Yes Jassy and they have nothing to fear from Brexit.

Germany sells us lots of stuff. Much more stuff than we buy from them.

Germany is in charge of the Eu.

Because Germany sells us lots of stuff, they will not put up barriers to trade.

Therefore there is nothing to fear.

I agree with the independent economist Martin Lewis too. People with less to lose financially will be more likely to take the risk of leave. Mix them up with immigration issues and a dislike of/potential future leaders/politics of the EU, you end up with a large group.

I have been called worse than thick.

Leaving isn't just about immigration and economics.

Protect fear did make me consider remain. I kept reminding myself that a right wing nasty bastard may take the EU presidency with a huge right wing gang of MEP's. No way do I want that potential be a reality at any point. I hope the bankrupted Greeks and others flip a V to the EU too.

Yes quite, Just5. I mean most vocal for either leave or remain, by the way. Facebook in particular is a special place at the moment, with the incessant propaganda style posts.

I'm reading your post and think you contradict yourself all the time,

Your dad has issues with polish taking building jobs,
You think that's not correct. You think that an influx of over 200000 people every few months does not affect our living, jobs, NHS,

Of course it does.

Lucky you got your own house and a job. The lower class struggle because of immigration and the people that think that it makes no difference are clearly living in cloud cook coo land

I'm voting out.

What benefits has eu provided? Because for every for argument there seems to be just as valid out arguments.

And they don't seem to be as selfish as yours

Motheroffourdragons, if we vote to leave, it is over for the EU. They won't be dictating any terms to us, we will get whatever we want as they need us to help them save their project.

“The Front National is making hay from the Brexit debate,” said Giles Merritt, head of the Friends of Europe think tank in Brussels.

“The EU policy elites are in panic. If the British vote to leave the shock will be so ghastly that they will finally wake up and realize that they can no longer ignore demands for democratic reform,” he said.

“They may have to dissolve the EU as it is and try to reinvent it, both in order to bring the Brits back and because they fear that the whole political order will be swept away unless they do,” he said.

Mr Merritt said it is an error to suppose that the EU would carry on as a monolithic bloc able to dictate terms after a Brexit vote. “The British would have pricked the bubble. The Germans are deeply alarmed at how suddenly the mood is shifting everywhere,” he said.

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/07/france-shuns-europe-as-brexit-revolt-spreads/

The bureaucrats and civil servants will be begging us to help them save the collapsing edifice that suited the bankers and imposed austerity on the people like they did in Greece.

Just saw "Schrodinger's Polish". Love this. Stealing this.

"most highly educated people want to remain"

Younger people are more likely to want to remain in the EU; they may not have experienced any of their adult lives outside it.

Graduates are more likely to want to remain than non-graduates, but that isn't the full story...

Compared to the middle-aged and older, many more of the younger generation have been to university, at a much larger number of universities, often to acquire skills that used to be attained in work and weren't previously measured by a degree course.

For the older generation a much smaller percentage went to university, but that doesn't make them "less educated", or that there aren't just as many intelligent older people as younger people, it just means that these days more people can get onto degree courses.