#2 Anyone feeling worried now?

[nearlyhellokitty]

Link to the previous thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2656228-Anyone-else-really-worried-now

Seems like it was a useful threat started by MrsBlackthorn and it hit the big 1000 so I took the liberty to restart it!

Original post:
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?

Unexposed. Plucked out of my own arse. Half is a figure of speech. Youth unemployment in Spain is only 45%.

But I will put my question another way. Serious question to those of you who think the EU is an effective and sensible organisation. Why do you think so many Southern Eurpeans are working in the UK? Is it the weather?

Under. Fair enough

Economic problems in Spain and elsewhere are more complex than "It's EU's fault". But don't let that get in the way of a broad brush approach.

I'm bloody terrified.

I can't see what we are likely to gain by leaving, and the economy of my region will be utterly destroyed.

In my more panicky moments, I worry that Brexit will lead to the break-up of the EU altogether, and that the seventy years of relative peace in Europe will get thrown away, and that my children will end up fighting in a European war, because that's what happens when people start choosing nationalism over internationalism and separation over co-operation.

Thanks Lavender. What do think are the causes of the economic woes of Southern Europe?

Lavender - please can you provide more details about the economic woes of Southern Europe not being anything to do with the Eu? Being stuck in the euro seems to be a common denominator .....

People seem to be blaming things on the EU when they should in fact be blaming the government eg. underfunding of the NHS.

Net immigration was 333,000 in 2015.

The services for these people don't just appear by magic you know.

I can't see what we are likely to gain by leaving

£161,000,000 a week.

I worry that Brexit will lead to the break-up of the EU altogether

Brexit will hasten the break-up, which is absolutely certain to happen at some point. Exactly when will depend on how badly/quickly the Euro collapses, how swiftly the far right gains more power in the rest of the EU, who will succeed Angela Merkel, etc.

That's one of the reasons I'm voting Leave, to be ahead of the game and leading the other countries out who will inevitably follow us.

I'm terrified.

Yes, I am worried. I work in academia in a field that has a lot of EU funding and collaboration. It's hard to imagine all those networks and collaborations and funding sources being eliminated.

A lot of my research has been in the areas of working conditions, gender equality, parental leave, maternity rights. Very much driven by the EU agenda on this and I really, really don't want to be in a UK that doesn't have or value all these things.

Plus I care a lot about climate change and the EU tends to drive UK policy on that too.

Also, I think people underestimate the value of the EU just in terms of peace within Europe. I'd stay for that alone.

leading the other countries out who will inevitably follow us.

Limer I know you mean well, but as a continental who cares passionately about the ideal of the EU, I find this patronising at best. If we want out, we'll get out - we don't need the UK to show us the way, or to destabilise the EU "for our own good".

Please vote for what you think is best for Britain, and don't worry about us.

"Why do you think so many Southern Eurpeans are working in the UK? Is it the weather?" Haha - might actually change my name to unexposed.

How many is it - is it more than the sum total of UK retirees, club reps from the UK in every major resort, bar and restaurant owners from the UK, diving and water sports instructors, translators and drug dealers from Stoke that exist in every holiday spot on the Mediterranean? I don't know how big the problem is. What is your estimate? 100,000 of them? 1 million of them? 100 of them?

unexpsoc. you misunderstood my point.

I know why the Brits are in the Med. The weather is better. The food is great. It's beautiful. (I can't comment on the law enforcement there.)

I am not complaining about the huge number of Southern Europeans who are here. I like them. I am asking pro-EU people to explain why so many of them are driven to seek work here?

If it isn't because the wrongheadedness of the Eurozone has trashed their economies, then why is it? Why? There has been a decent global recovery since 2008. Why haven't they been able to enjoy it? This is a serious question for pro-EU people to answer. But I won't ask it again. I promise.

Funnily enough those Southern Europeans still think they are better off in the EU overall. Even Varoufakis thinks we should also stay in:
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/yanis-varoufakis-why-we-must-save-the-eu

Here is why: if Britain and Greece were not already in the EU, they should most certainly stay out. But, once inside, it is crucial to consider the consequences of a decision to leave. Whether we like it or not, the European Union is our environment – and it has become a terribly unstable environment, which will disintegrate even if a small, depressed country like Greece leaves, let alone a major economy like Britain. Should the Greeks or the Brits care about the disintegration of an infuriating EU? Yes, of course we should care. And we should care very much because the disintegration of this frustrating alliance will create a vortex that will consume us all – a postmodern replay of the 1930s.

It is a major error to assume, whether you are a remain or a leave supporter, that the EU is something constant “out there” that you may or may not want to be part of. The EU’s very existence depends on Britain staying in. Greece and Britain are facing the same three options. The first two are represented aptly by the two warring factions within the Tory party: deference to Brussels and exit. They are equally calamitous options. Both lead to the same dystopian future: a Europe fit only for those who flourish in times of a great Depression – the xenophobes, the ultra-nationalists, the enemies of democratic sovereignty. The third option is the only one worth going for: staying in the EU to form a cross-border alliance of democrats, which Europeans failed to manage in the 1930s, but which our generation must now attempt to prevent history repeating itself.

This is precisely what some of us are working towards in creating DiEM25 – the Democracy in Europe Movement, with a view to conjuring up a democratic surge across Europe, a common European identity, an authentic European sovereignty, an internationalist bulwark against both submission to Brussels and hyper-nationalist reaction.

The EU’s very existence depends on Britain staying in Is this not utopian? Of course it is! But not more so than the notion that the current EU can survive its anti-democratic hubris, and the gross incompetence fuelled by its unaccountability. Or the idea that British or Greek democracy can be revived in the bosom of a nation-state whose sovereignty will never be restored within a single market controlled by Brussels.

Just like in the early 1930s, Britain and Greece cannot escape Europe by building a mental or legislative wall behind which to hide. Either we band together to democratise – or we suffer the consequences of a pan-European nightmare that no border can keep out.

Milly I certainly think that the low interest rates that came with the euro have been an issue for Spain, and the inability to devaluate currency too.

But Spanish people seem to think the EU is good for them overall, last polls I saw were around 70% in favour of staying.

Also not sure what this has to do with the Brexit case, since it's not like Britain can shield itself from Europe's economic problems by Brexiting. The economies are too intertwined.

The EU is not a spectator sport. We either make our voice heard to improve it (and tbe European market where we sell stuff) or we sit on the sidelines affected by the changes in EU and with no say in it.

A whole mass of countries have issues because of the Euro currency, NOT the EU. We wisely opted out of that and as long as we stay out (of the Euro) I think we will be fine. The Euro was a bad idea as it ties the differing economies of countries together too much in a one fails, we all suffer way. The EU does not do that.

Chalala. Thanks. I agree that the EU was a very good thing for Southern Europe initially but I think that the Eurozone has been a proper disaster for them.

Lavender. I know what you mean. But we can't seem change the EU's mind about the core things like the Euro that they are so committed to.

While we pay money into the EU, our farm industries get plenty of money. It isn't a one way flow.

Milly - why should we try to change other countries' minds on what currency they use? We aren't part of the Euro zone. Neither is Sweden. We are outside of all that drama although affected because we trade so much in the Euro zone. If they want to keep it or revert back to deutsch marks, francs, drachmas etc., that is their decision and rightly not ours.

Lavender. I agree that it is their decision - quite rightly
But if we stay in the EU I don't think we can be "outside of all that drama" we will be very much involved.

But it's not our currency and in or out a collapse in the Euro zone would affect us. Voting Leave doesn’t save us from all that.

Voting Leave doesn't save us from all that. It saves us from quite a lot of bad things that may happen. Bail outs etc. What is more it makes it easier for us to look elsewhere to growing markets (US etc) without EU barriers.

Anyway. I am off now. I am being boring and hogging the thread. Sorry.