Why should we stay/leave the EU?

[OhYouLuckyDuck]

What reasons are there for staying or leaving?
I think I will vote for us to stay as I think it might be a moderating influence on any government wanting to do things to extreme plus we will lose trade with Europe if we leave. I'm undecided though.

I'm voting out. All this scaremongering. Stay in the EU gang or else you'll sink. What kind of an argument is that. We should be proud to go on our own. We don't need the EU. We can all boycot European goods if it comes to it. All those countries are out for themselves and we're being taken for mugs.

Springing, sorry, I should have made that clear. Yes, mum was persuaded to stay in by what Cameron said. I am surprised - she was fairly clear on a "leave" vote. I think it's a pretty big leap but also I think she feels there's an inevitability around getting a crap deal even if we leave, if that makes any sense.

I do see the frustration in voting in the dark, so to speak, in that none of us knows what will happen or how politicians will screw us over next. She said she feels he has dealt with issues like the child benefit and whether or not people get jobs and can be asked to leave etc. Also she's happy about keeping the pound - tbh the idea of joining the euro horrified me so much, I didn't really believe it was going to happen!

It occurred to me later on that presumably no one will ask EU workers to pay to use the NHS or to have their children in school though? so there will still be a huge benefit in working in the UK?

Springing "There is more to life than a booming economy based on cramming as many people into a small metropolitan area as possible. There is also quality of life. "

where's the "like" button?

Genuine question, am confused by slimmings posts,

If the EU - Germany etc were NOT part of the EU, it didn't exist and Schenegan didnt exist, could Merkel have made the call to the worlds migrants to go to Germany.

And if she could would it have had - and will have such awful impacts?

Ie how did old borders exist before?

Because in so many way its seems barbaric to me, she is encouraging more people who are genuine to take the jounry from syria - risking their lives, she is encouraging them to land on Greece, which has been punitively punished and is in financial crisis, and she has been naive and mad and encouraged economic chancers from safe countries like Morocco to try their hand at entering the EU too and Germany...

Am I right in saying that migrants, once they have been in Germany for a time, can apply for citizen ship and can then go all over EU including Britain?

Slimming - I am sure however that your refugees are mixed in with thousands of migrants that are not fleeing, war torn countries which is why germany has now implemented new list of safe countries to start deporting migrants back - but obv, stable door...too bloody late.

spring agree with your posts and in particular the 20.35 on the broader aspects.

Especially this as it personally and directly relates to me and my quality of life.

There is more to life than a booming economy based on cramming as many people into a small metropolitan area as possible. There is also quality of life

Lorelei
That's a pity that your mother fell for smooth-talking Cameron's snake oil pitch, but she's in good company as the Tory party were mesmerised into electing him leader!

While half the country is applauding Cameron's amazing powers of negotiation, Hollande, French PM has stated that the UK has achieved nothing. President Schulz has said that there is no place in the union for multiple currencies, so the future of the £ will inevitably be in doubt. Dave's deal actually says we can retain the £ until a future British Government notifies them they want to adopt the Euro. So Corbyn could sign away the £ if he were ever elected.

We are supposed to have a reciprocal agreement with other EU countries for health care. We don't enforce it. Cameron's benefit deal will save us nothing as it will cost millions to implement and many migrant workers will just import their entire families, meaning we will have to provide free school places, healthcare and housing subsidies for low waged migrant families. It's poorly thought out and doesn't amount to any real savings at all.

The odds on Leave have now shortened to 2/1 since Boris declared. The BBC and Sky are trying to spin Boris as a comedy act, as an opportunist, as a lightweight - which is odd considering they've been hanging on his every word. Truth is, they expected him to back REMAIN. Boris' dad was quite revealing - he thinks Boris has blown promotion in the Government. He's probably right, under a Cameron administration. That should make Boris work harder for a Johnson administration!

AMouseLivedInaWindmill

Genuine question, am confused by slimmings posts, 

If the EU - Germany etc were NOT part of the EU, it didn't exist and Schenegan didnt exist, could Merkel have made the call to the worlds migrants to go to Germany.

Yes, but it would have been more difficult to achieve as their passports would have been checked at every European border instead of being permitted free flow throughout the EU Schengen area and they should also have claimed asylum in the first safe country, under the Dublin agreement - but Merkel unilaterally suspended that.

And if she could would it have had - and will have such awful impacts?

The migrants were permitted free movement because Germany welcomed them and did not close her borders so the countries through which they transmitted to get to Germany had no fear that they would be stuck looking after the migrants. Now the countries on the way from Greece to Germany are closing their borders or limiting asylum request so if migrants want to get to Germany overland from Greece, they will have to place themselves at the mercy of Albanian smugglers or take the more dangerous Libya to Italy crossing. There are 200,00 migrants in Libya at present waiting to cross to Italy. There is no way of preventing this migration at present as the EU has proved itself totally ineffectual - as it always is in a crisis

Ie how did old borders exist before?

You had border posts on every country's frontiers. So you showed your passport at a checkpoint on the Pyrenees if driving down the coast from France into Spain, or at the border post at Ventimiglia if driving from France to Italy etc. In practise I have taken trains from France to other EU countries and never been checked pre-Schengen.

Because in so many way its seems barbaric to me, she is encouraging more people who are genuine to take the jounry from syria - risking their lives, she is encouraging them to land on Greece, which has been punitively punished and is in financial crisis, and she has been naive and mad and encouraged economic chancers from safe countries like Morocco to try their hand at entering the EU too and Germany...

She wants more Germans. The German birth-rate is too low to sustain the economy. She could have asked unemployed young Greeks, or Italians or Spanish to come to Germany, but she saw the opportunity to be Saint Merkel and to solve the population decrease. It coincided with a event on German TV when she was criticised for telling a migrant child that she had to return to her home country. The child started crying and Merkel received a lot of criticism. Unfortunately she didn't factor in the fact that not all the migrants were doctors and architects and that most are low-skilled economic refugees rather than migrants. She is now trying to deport 70% of the new arrivals. I hold her responsible for luring many naïve economic migrants to their deaths.

Am I right in saying that migrants, once they have been in Germany for a time, can apply for citizen ship and can then go all over EU including Britain?

Yes, if they are granted asylum and qualify under residency periods. Each country has different qualification periods. Germany is 7 years I think(could be wrong) , but there is talk of reducing that period to 2 years. Once you are an EU citizen with a German passport you are free to settle in any EU country. They are also permitted under Un convention to bring their families to the country in which they settle. So for every single migrant you could also be looking at accommodating their wife and children.

Slimming - I am sure however that your refugees are mixed in with thousands of migrants that are not fleeing, war torn countries which is why germany has now implemented new list of safe countries to start deporting migrants back - but obv, stable door...too bloody late.

Germany will be told by the UN that it is illegal to have blanket policies on asylum, such as safe countries and that under HR law, every case ,must be considered individually on its merits.

spring agree with your posts and in particular the 20.35 on the broader aspects.

Thank you

^Especially this as it personally and directly relates to me and my quality of life.

There is more to life than a booming economy based on cramming as many people into a small metropolitan area as possible. There is also quality of life^

That's how I feel .

I'm voting out. My mum all those years ago voted for a common market not the nasty, dictatorship we are aligned to now. Faceless unelected bureaucrats making our laws. It's outrageous. We are big enough and ugly enough to go it alone. It's ridiculous to keep pounding the message ' we will end up isolated " we are far to pragmatic for that. We have survived for hundreds of years without them holding our hands we will do it again.

Chipstick10

I feel exactly as you do.. Let's vote to return the freedoms to our children, that our parents voted away in 1975.

Chipstick10

I feel exactly as you do.. Let's vote to return the freedoms to our children, that our parents voted away in 1975.

Nobody voted away anything in 1975. People voted to join a Common Market with trade agreements. Nobody voted for a bunch of dictators in Brussels, or for a common currency, or for ever closer union or for open borders. Nobody in the UK voted for any of this.

I totally agree Viviennemary

Except the IN campaigners are saying that people knew exactly what they were signing up to in 1975. They were fooled then and the Government is trying to fool them again. That's why I want the implications of voting IN fully explained and hope that people will be so horrified they will vote Leave this time

I will be voting out because I have shares in companies in the USA, South America, India and China, and could do with Europe returning to tiny fragmented countries battling with each other. Also I fancy qualifying as a lawyer and civil servant, and earning billions from the legal and political extrication.

I also would like to earn much, much less as the rights of employees and agriculture are eroded to zero, and look forward to European subsidised and supported food production killing off our own. Finally we can develop that wasted farmland and sell it to international oligarchs at the expense of our lower orders

I shall be voting to come out. I wouldn't buy a used car from a company that hasn't been able to get its accounts signed off for 19 years or so.

The country is full. Wages in agriculture are kept artificially low by employing Eastern European workers. Those workers are employed by gang masters and are often not paid well and are housed in poor housing. Schools and hospitals are overwhelmed by rising numbers.

We are being told the EU won't trade with us but WTO won't allow them not too. We also buy more from them than they do from us.
As for Cameron's renegotiations was I the only one who thought of Chamberlain's "peace in our time" twaddle. The so called reforms he's achieved will almost certainly be overturned if we vote to stay in.

I wouldn't buy a used car from a company that hasn't been able to get its accounts signed off for 19 years or so.

19 years I didn't know it was that long. There was all that talk of the Greeks fudging the books, they are all at it...

We also buy more from them than they do from us

This is actually key. It simply doesn't make sense not to sign a free trade agreement with a country where you are the net importer (e.g. Germany) because it means that your goods are more expensive to your customers.

I don't think trade should be a major consideration in this debate. At the end of the day, governments are rationale. Bilateral agreements are wholly possible.

The main sector that will probably lose out under an "out" vote is the financial sector.

Very well said, slimmingcrackers @ Sat 20-Feb-16 16:19:55. People who think the UK can trade in the same way it did in the 1950s are living a dream. You can bet that the French will do all it can to lure car manufacturing to France. Nissan (Sunderland) already sells more cars to the EU than it does in the UK and has three times more EU suppliers than it does in the UK. It spends 20% of the cost of a car on logistics. One of the reasons some MPs want to leave the EU is because it's trying to cap City bankers' bonuses. If the UK leaves, I would put money on Germany putting extra effort into turning Frankfurt into the new 'City'.

Manufacturers might stay in the UK, but only if we are a low wage, third-world-type economy.

I haven't read one good reason for leaving the EU which isn't connected to emotion and nostalgia. It's absolute nonsense to claim that the UK can't make its own laws or that we're not in control of our borders. We are! We're not part of the Schengen Agreement and we are free to do what we want with our currency. Leaving would be like having to follow the club's rules without having a say.

vertigonun, It is absolute rubbish that the EU hasn't 'had its accounts signed off'. The EU has very strict rules for declaring that ALL of its accounts have been signed off and no major manufacturer in the world could meet those conditions.

Lynnm63, Low-skilled workers would actually lose out if the UK leaves the UK.

There are more dictators in Westminster than in the EU. The UK ISN'T in the Eurozone (unless I blinked).

Springingintoaction,

In what way doesn't the UK enforce reciprocal health care agreements?

In what way is your quality of life affetced by the EU?

Actually, something was surrendered in 1975. It was Parliamentary supremacy. When the Heath government joined the EEC, it granted the European Commission the right to make directives that overrode Acts of Parliament.

And that is why I will be voting to leave. There has been a hollowing out of democracy over the last generation. Why do elections matter when so much policy is now governed by EU law and is therefore outside the Government's control?

Prior to 1972, it was easy: MPs were elected and formed governments that used their majority to pass Acts of Parliament. If the public didn't like the laws, that government could be replaced at the next election with a different one. But now, UK governments have to obey laws made by people in Brussels who can't be removed by the British people, and hence are not in any way responsible to them. How anyone can say this is a democratic or even sensible arrangement is quite beyond me.

It's absolute nonsense to claim that the UK can't make its own laws or that we're not in control of our borders. We are! We're not part of the Schengen Agreement and we are free to do what we want with our currency. Leaving would be like having to follow the club's rules without having a say.

As per my point above, this is not true. It is a fact that the EC can make laws that override laws made by the UK Parliament. It is also a fact that the final interpreter of laws is a foreign court: the ECJ.

The fact that the UK is not part of Schengen is irrelevant. For example, the UK Parliament could not pass effective legislation to limit migrants coming to the UK from another EU country. This is because there is EU law in this area that prevails. The irony is that this law is built on the principle that is wrong to "discriminate", yet the result for Commonwealth citizens is precisely that, purely because they are not EU.

Those of you who want out, where do you stand on TTIP. This is much more a threat to our sovereignty and freedom than anything the EU has ever proposed.

RE EU I am firmly in the IN camp. The city I live in would have been left to managed decline had it not been for European investment.

Could someone please explain this word 'undemocratic'?

There are several institutions in the EU, the three main ones in terms of law making, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council.

The European Commission is the Civil Service – it is unelected, just like the UK Civil Service. In fact you might even argue there is more accountability as the Commissioners have to be approved by Parliament. The European Commission cannot pass laws; it does, like the UK Civil Service, implement legislation.
The European Parliament is directly elected by universal suffrage.
The European Council is composed of the ministers of the member states – also your directly elected representatives.
In order for a bill to come into law it has to be agreed by both the Parliament and the Council, i.e. by two groups of people that you have elected directly.
One difference between the UK system and the EU system is that Commission can propose legislation; but this still has to be democratically legitimised by the two elected bodies, and in fact if you look at the history of this mostly the Commission proposes legislation when asked to by the Parliament.
Just because a system is not identical to the UK system does not make it undemocratic.

springing, thank you.