I regard your reasoning for opposition of mass immigration as simplistic as you implied the electorate were swayed by reading newspapers. There are many other mediums used by folk nowadays and many other experiences which may well influence their attitudes. Maybe many have personal experiences that you have not had. I was not commenting on your debating style just the inaccurate and condescending content.
I think that the EU truly has a problem of communication Leo, it has never really managed to sell itself to the citizens of Europe (of whatever country) - partly because it has no real medium for this, lacking national newspapers etc. Governments all over Europe are able to explain bad things to their people by saying 'ìt comes from Brussels' and the people are no wiser and 'Europe' cannot publicly contradict this misinformation. All over Europe people think that the European elections are of perhaps less importance to them than even the local ones, which leads to low turnouts and bizarre results. For the UK 34.19% of the electorate voted - 4.37 million of them for Ukip. So with only a few more voters than in the general election they got 27.49% of the vote and 24 MEPS who somehow can justify their time sitting in Brussels. Hardly any wonder that, with Ukip being the biggest group of British MEPS, we have lost in influence there. The citizens of all European countries need to wake up and realize that European elections are important, or Brussels and Strasbourg will become even more remote than they are already.
Sorry but I do think newspapers have a massive influence on the electorate. I never implied that it was the only influence which you appear to have inferred. I stand by my comment and if you can show it is inaccurate - i.e. that newspapers do not have a massive influence then be my guest and enlighten me. Think you might like to look up what condescending actually means before you try to use it in a sentence again - now THAT was condescending
It might be interesting for you to know that the actual percentage of the UK population born in other EU countries is 3.6%, and this includes those born in the Republic of Ireland - hardly an invasion. The much talked about Polish and Rumanian populations ? Poland 521,000 - around 1% of the UK population speaks Polish. Rumania - 101,000 ! Just to give you something to compare that with Germany has just over 2 Million from Poland.
It is the concentration into relatively small areas that appears to cause problems not the overall numbers.
And why are those populations concentrated into small areas ? Maybe something to do with lack of integration possibilities ? Interesting food for thought is that the 2 million living in Germany but born in Poland include Lucas Podolski and Miroslav Klose. Actually a glance at the origins of the German national squad makes very interesting reading.
Alright you win. Let Klose and Podolski come and live near Watford as long as they promise to play for the hornets!!
I am no self appointed polling or psephological expert but was thinking. If you take the numbers who voted in the general election and tried to guess where they might stand on the EU and made a few guesses how they might vote (excluding parties polling less than 1m). Let's say the Tories are split 50-50 - even with Cameron campaigning for a Yes. Labour generally pro Europe but a proportion who might fear immigration and the effect on their jobs - let's guess they come down 2 to 1 in favour of a Yes. SNP - mostly pro; LibDems - totally pro; UKIP - totally anti; Greens - mostly pro. That makes 30million voters and would give 17 million Yes and 13 million No. Unscientific of course; subjective - yes but that scenario which to me seems if anything to favour the No camp still means that the Yes vote will be 56% + of the referendum. Hope I am right
After the last domestic election one has to take the pollsters with a pinch of salt, but the latest result shows a strong lead for the stay in voters. https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/02/24/eu-referendum-record-lead/
I'm now thinking that the stay in contingent will win by a larger percentage than you suggest. Cameron will achieve a very little amount of concessions but will dress it up as a substantial victory. A bit like the Scottish referendum the waverers will elect to back the status quo, it is so much harder going into the unknown. Personally I predict once we have voted to stay in it will much more difficult to oppose future damaging effects to the UK caused by further convergence of the Euro countries.
There is still a lot of negotiating to come between Cameron and the EU - both sides will want to come to a satisfactory compromise, but both will also have their 'red lines'. Cameron's support for staying in is conditional upon a successfull outcome to these negotiations.
Cameron cannot afford to give anything away especially anything that damages the City of London. It is a non starter.
If, and its a massive if, Scotland somehow managed to be part of the EU without England as a new state they would be bound to implement the Schengen rules as part of EU law. In that case as England would never sign up to this agreement a proper non porous border would have to be created between England and Scotland to prevent the hordes of economic migrants from leaving Scotland to find a better life in England. Fortunately we have many polish builders on hand to rebuild Hadrian's wall, hopefully in the correct place this time.
I'm not sure Leo - certainly amongst Liberal supporters there is likely to be support for Europe, but apart from them this question cuts across party lines. maybe we tend to forget the anti European sentiment in the Labour Party during the 70s and early 80s - Labour were the more 'anti European' party at that time. In 1975 they had a special conference on membership and voted 2 to 1 against membership. This all changed during the era of Thatcher and Kinnock on the one hand, and when Jacques Delors was advocating a 'social Europe' on the other. If old Labour were more sceptical than new Labour have been then does that imply that there is also a socialist reasoning for rejecting membership. If there is a firm reservour of anti EU sentiment in the Labour party then it could partly explain their bad electoral showing. There is also the agument that traditional British opposition to the EU is based upon their mistrust of all government rather than purely on xenophobia - according to surveys 68% of British people do not tend to trust the EU, however, 76% admit to not trusting their own elite either. Could anti EU feeling be partly connected to mistrust of their own elite, and the knowledge that this elite firmly backs membership ? Truly the reasons given for wanting out are many sided - even some Greens are sceptical because of things like TTIP and the farming subsidies. Other Britons feel themselves to be culturally closer to the Americans or to the Commonwealth than they do to the Germans or the French (an emotion that I cannot begin to understand). Other little Englanders do not like to be only equal members in a club dominated by so called 'Frogs' and 'Krauts'. Some others simply do not like the idea of government from a distance. Unfortunately the 'reasons' are so variable that the anti vote can draw together a wide range of supporters who, normally, would have nothing in common.
How do you 'know' that membership of the EU automatically involves signing up for Schengen ? Denmark has also never signed this and they are full members. Also with the relocating of so many European firms north of the border the movement of people may be the other way around.
We do not like being in a club dominated by the Germans, less so the French as they are becoming less important. We do not like being governed from afar, that is why we resisted the germans in the second world war. We believe our own parliament should be paramount. many do not agree with the farming subsidies, they were designed solely to protect french farmers. These do an enormous damage to the third world as they cannot compete fairly due to subsidies of the europeans. Many are appalled at the lack of accountability amongst the Euro elite, there is so much fiddling going on the accounts have never been signed off. I'm sure there are many other valid reasons why the British public do not like the present EU set up, with future changes unlikely to benefit Britain. The effect of the British press is minimal.
The free movement of people allows EU citizens to: + Look for a job in another EU country + Work there without the need for a work permit + Reside there for that purpose + Stay there even after employment has finished + Enjoy equal treatment with nationals in access to employment, working conditions and all other social and tax policies. According to research by University College London, in the last decade, immigrants to the UK from other parts of Europe made a net fiscal contribution to the UK of £22 billion. Most immigrants from the EU are in employment, make a substantial net contribution to the economy and have deepened the pool of talent in London. But these aggregated economic figures mask more complex impacts in different parts of the labour market. Negotiating opt-outs from the free movement of people legislation is not a credible strategy to cope with the consequences of immigration. The Single Market’s fundamental principles are not ‘a la carte’; free movement is as integral to participation in the Single Market the free movement of capital, goods or services. The free movement of people legislation also applies, in general terms to EEA countries outside the EU (Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein). The Swiss recently narrowly backed a referendum to bring back strict quotas for immigration from EU countries. However, the vote invalidates the Swiss-EU agreement, which provides Switzerland with access to the EU’s Single Market. If the Swiss go ahead with restrictions on free movement, it is likely to result in restrictions to market access. As William Hague, said, “If national parliaments all around the EU were regularly and unilaterally able to choose which bits of EU law they would apply and which bits they wouldn’t, the European single market wouldn’t work…” The key issue is not whether the UK can secure an opt-out (because this is highly unlikely), but how to implement a programme to mitigate the adverse social and income distribution effects that undermine the success for the whole. This would include central government implementing a cross-departmental strategy to deal with the public services and housing effects of recent and future immigration; greater devolution to local government to manage local impacts; and a step-change in education and skills policies to give local talent the competencies and employability skills to compete on a level playing field with migrant workers.
