If you don't live in the EU or UK how are you making up your mind about voting?

[Terramirabilis]

I live in the US and as a UK citizen am still eligible to vote and will be voting in the EU referendum. I already have Irish citizenship so will still be an EU citizen whatever happens, but DS is only British and American so could lose EU status.

If you are going to be voting in the referendum but don't live in the UK or an EU country, how are you making up your mind about the vote?

For us there isn't the issue there is for expats in the EU of possibly losing residency rights, and the possible economic impact on the UK of staying or going doesn't have the same fear factor for those of us who don't live there. (I know some have plans to go home at some point, but some of us are likely long-term/permanent expats.)

I've been watching the debates on YouTube and finding it hard to decide since some of the major arguments about impact on UK residents have no relevance to me. I might by default vote remain since it holds onto EU citizenship for DS. But I am somewhat swayed by the idea that the EU will not survive because of the eurozone problems and the issues caused by freedom of movement. I was hoping some other expats might have ideas.

Am Irish, living in Canada and OH is from the UK so he got his postal vote. We both strongly believe that staying in the UK is better all around- for Europe, Britain and, I think, Ireland too (though I wonder if Britain left whether Ireland might attract more multinationals as an English speaking EU base..).

I also have a good friend from the Uk (currently in Australia!) who also posted about the ideological reasons for staying- leaving seems very insular and inward looking rather than embracing the wider world.

I also live overseas, outside the EU.

I read a lot of comments under news items about Brexit referendum since I often gain more from this section than from the actual news piece.

The real clincher for me was watching "Brexit the Movie" on youtube though. It is over an hour long but gives a good history of the formation of the EU so worth watching if you have time.

I like the idea that my kids have the option of working or studying in other EU countries.

Right now, England may be a place where people can come and make a life for themselves, but if we stop them, what happens in the future if England isn't that place any more, and we need to go elsewhere in Europe if we want to make a decent life for ourselves? - this is prob going to be more of an issue for our kids than us, but the key to it is, we cannot vote to reduce other people's freedoms without drastically reducing our own too… and just because people don't feel they need to move abroad for a decent lives for themselves or their families right now doesn't mean it'll never happen and the vote leavers need to consider that.

so basically, I think an EU passport/citizenship gives my kids a lot of options for the future. We don't know what the future'll hold, to deliberately go from that, to giving them massively reduced options of where they can live and work and build a life, seems very scary to me

But I guess maybe you have to be an ex pat to appreciate the value of freedom of movement to follow your heart/love of your life/dream job/life that makes you happy. It doesn't seem to be something my UK based voter friends on facebook things will ever be something they or their children will ever want or need to do.

I do know what you mean Screenshotting. Having Irish family it's well within living memory of people having to leave the country to get work.

I will watch that movie you suggested Maursh. Thanks for the idea.

Another concern I have is about TTIP and whether staying means signing up to that with all that implies about the power of corporations over the people and their governments.

My concern about TTIP, is that if we leave, our gov (who love selling stuff off - see the land registry which costs us squat to run but makes us lots of public money for example) will sign us up to a similar but less favourable deal anyway - and there would be nothing we could do to stop them!

At least, with TTIP, citizens of the other EU countries are opposed to it too, and we stand a chance of fighting it. We cannot stop the tory boys from selling us up shit creek - they're already doing it

The alternative to TTIP is not no trade deal
There will be a trade deal
Are you confident it'll be better than TTIP? For the ordinary people that is
(and, yes, TTIP is pretty awful)
It'll be different for sure but it'll only benefit the public school boys in government and their mates, the rest of us will be screwed