Can anyone explain why the government and others are so desperate for us to stay?

[TwentyOneGuns]

I'm the first to admit that my knowledge of politics and economics is not great but it seems to me there must be more to it than we are being told. If they are getting so scared of a Leave vote that they have to threaten us with Emergency budgets etc what are they really worrying about? I just can't believe they have only the interests of the country at heart. What do they get out of it if we vote Remain?

Maybe just maybe considering what has happened today you could stop arguing for 5 minutes.

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/a-day-of-infamy/

There is a heck of a lot of criticism (on both 'sides') of that article for jumping to conclusions and political point scoring.

Let the police do their investigations.

RIP Jo

I'm more worried about the EU's plans to collect taxes across the EU via an EU Tax Number for every citizen.

A country that does not country its finances cannot defend itself .
Take away the ability for a country to actually access the taxes that is raised from its citizens and you have a country that can no longer defend itself.

SpringingintoAction - Totally BRILLIANT posts. I am keeping the content for my grandchildren to read in 40 yrs time so that they know there were people around who understood the longterm dangers of remaining.

As my manager said he wouldn't move to Krackow for work, or his children won't study in Lithuania. So why are their young people flooding Uk

Precisely, Emma Free movement of people was always going to be one way. The number of Brits working in an EU country is tiny.

And it has also emerged that the Czech Republic has also started talks to have its army become part of the Germany’s army.

And now the dots are joining up. Remember when EU made a stab at seducing Ukraine with EU membership. and Russia pulled her closer to them?

If we leave the economy will definitely go down hill very fast and no one from the rest of the world will help us.

if we stay we will have support from other friendly nations to face future difficulties together

EU Army already here"
The EU High Readiness Battlegroup, containing troops from Sweden, Latvia, Finland, Lithuania, and Ireland were on Salisbury Plain taking part in what is thought to be the biggest EU military exercise in the UK. British troops from 2nd Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment, and 4th Infantry Brigade are in the Battlegroup.

A British Brigadier is technically in charge of the Battlegroup during the UK’s period of command; however, he takes his orders from Brussels and the Foreign Affairs and Security Council of the European Union.

claig I liked your list and its very powerful.

One can imagine the list that would be used to keep the Bourbons in Power during F Revolution.....I am sure it would have had very powerful notable institutions on its list too.

eye you sound about 10 years old. no offense.

'claig I liked your list and its very powerful. '

Yes, it cuts through the crap and gets to the heart of the matter - the people.

'If we leave the economy will definitely go down hill very fast and no one from the rest of the world will help us.'

There are some very clever people supporting Brexit e.g. former Chancellors of the Exchequer Sir Nigel Lawson and Sir Norman Lamont, as well as big political figures of the past and present such as Michael Portillo, Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Gisela Stuart, Michael Gove etc

If any of them thought the economy would go down hill very fast, they wouldn't support Brexit at this point in time.

I think what is likely to happen if we vote Brexit, is that the EU will be finished because it will start a chan reaction across Europe and the existing European political class will be unable to stop the breakup.

Then what I think will happen is that the free trade rules and regulation will have to be maintained in order to keep business flowing, but it will be the end of free movement, laws made in Brussels, regulations on vacuum cleaners, plans for EU armies, anthems and flags etc.

So countries will all be independent again but will continue to cooperate for trade making use of the close ties they have built up over decades.

The European political class will no longer be making laws for all of Europe, but business will continue as before.

And we in Britain will be far richer because we will no longer have to subsidise the poorer countries in Europe and the new countries that are soon to join with the wealth that we have accumulated over more than a century. We won't need to bail out countries in Europe that are likely to suffer under the Euro economic austerity driven by the European Central Bank and the bankers.

'if we stay we will have support from other friendly nations to face future difficulties together'

That is what the Greek political class thought. It didn't turn out that way.

eye you sound about 10 years old. no offense
how very unkind.

claig and yet varoufakis is pro remain.

diana where did you get your figures that there is a tiny amount of UK migrants in the EU? 2 MILLION UK citizens have moved to EU countries

Going back to the original OP, maybe the simple explanation is that actually government and other experts do have our interests at heart. Maybe there is no conspiracy and most of those who go into public life do so because they want to do good, and are genuinely afraid the country is about to make a colossal mistake, which will damage our prosperity and international relations?

Frankly, that seems a lot more likely than that they are all part of some weird plan, of which only Farage/Gove/Johnson are the saviours.

'claig and yet varoufakis is pro remain.'

Yes because Varoufakis is a socialist and believes that international socialism can only come about if all countries think and do the same and he thinks that he and the socialists will be able to make the EU go that way.

Of course, the evidence is in the total opposite direction, with the bankers running Europe and imposing austerity and youth unemployment of up to 50% on large parts of Southern Europe, of not allowing countries to provide state aid for failing industries due to competition policies and of open crossborder tendering for many services and free movement of labour which brings wage compression for workers.

As Tony Benn said, the EU is a capitalists' club which is why the IMF, the EU political class, Goldman Sachs, J P Morgan and Uncle Tom Cobbley are all in favour of it and people like Arthur Scargill, Tony Benn, Bob Crow etc were are are against it.

Privatisation has been forced on Greece against the will of the socialist Syriza government by an unelected Troika who effectively rule Greece and dictate conditions wanted by the bankers in order to bail out French and German banks who made dodgy loans to Greece and want to be bailed out by the Greek people who are being forced to endure the worst austerity since the 1930s to pay the bankers back.

It doesn't get more capitalist than that.

This is long, but pretty good on covering the reasons why we should stay - and why most of the reasons to leave don't stack up.

medium.com/essays-and-non-fiction/letter-to-an-old-old-friend-who-is-voting-to-leave-the-eu-b89416e858b6#.djh7pok4b

And this is worth a look too:

'I have no idea what result will be announced next Friday. But at the centre of where we find ourselves there is an undeniable irony, which may yet turn cold and cruel. If the revolt succeeds and Brexit wins, the party in power is likely to take a political turn that will lead us even further away from what the moment demands, while Labour will likely tumble further into division and introspection.'

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/17/britain-working-class-revolt-eu-referendum?CMP=share_btn_tw

Effectively the only two arguments the Remain side have come up with are the economy and trade with EU countries (which is all about business) and the fact that Hilary Benn and others claim that if we leave we will lose many of the workers' rights that the EU has kindly granted us.

The first argument is about economics and aligns with what the big corporations want (the ones who can lobby the centralised, unaccountable EU mandarins for regilations that help them over the small and medium business sector), and the second argument is an insult to our own political class because any self-respecting Labour party run by the likes of Tony Benn or Bob Crow could easily give us better workers' rights and could reinstate the union rights lost under Thatcher and Blair and would stand up for striking junior doctors and nurses and students over student loans etc rather than trying to remain neutral in order not to scare Middle England and the bankers.

It was our Labour Party that created the NHS based on policy work by Liberals etc, and I don't see Varoufakis's EU ever creating an EU NHS for everyone, because that is not what the bankers and corporations want. They prefer privatisation and TTIP which is what the unaccountable EU will deliver in spades with their secret behind closed doors negotiations over TTIP which the people are not allowed to see.

"and the second argument is an insult to our own political class because any self-respecting Labour party run by the likes of Tony Benn or Bob Crow could easily give us better workers' rights"

Because obviously if we leave the EU then we are going to have a permanent Labour Government run by the likes of Tony Benn or Bob Crow.