In 10 years time, the Eurozone of 26 will make all the decisions. The UK and Denmark, and perhaps Turkey and Albania , will have negligible say, yet l'd bet the UK would still be the second biggest net contibutor
Far less than if we leave. Close to 100% less, in fact. Whereas you can't even say what the simplest element of trade, travel, or financial stability will be if we leave. The leave camp are choosing to ignore the huge herd of elephants in the room, and focus instead on the incorrect assumption that we will be able to 'keep more foreigners out'.
Uncertainty isn't necessarily a negative. The main argument for staying is the impact on trade. I know little about politics but an education on Economics tells me there's no reason why there should be any more barriers to trade without being part of the EU.
Well, no, but then your disagreement doesn't surprise me that much. Unless you can say now -with certainty - what the trade arrangements and impact on the economy will be if we leave. Or in fact, what anything affecting the stability and prosperity of our country and individuals will be with 100% certainty.
I can't. Just as you can't if we stay in. No one can know, but you're scaremongering simply pushes proud British people to react against the lies and exagerations. Keep it up. It's working a treat.
Rather good programme called the Agenda on ITV at the moment, which I have never seen before. Question Time without the talking over each other and idiotic audience. Farage is coming over rather well. But a woman, who's name I didn't catch and is some kind of financial journalist, made some very good points around how easy it will be to leave, the ties are very shallow especially compared to the issues in the Scottish referendum where we had full political, monetary and fiscal Union of 300 years to break up, whereas with the EU it's essentially just a trade deal and some regulations. I think I agree with her, in the fullness of time it won't make much difference either way. Sadly there is also a useless woman from the Guardian on as well, mounting a spirited defence of Corbyn in the anti semitism row, which David Baddiel (a very bright man) gently took to pieces.
Cheers for that, I'll watch it on ITV +1. I'm still sitting on the fence at the moment and change my vote on here on a daily basis. I read a good piece by Daniel Hannan on voting to leave which there hasn't been enough of. Not good one's anyway. I'll try and find it and put it on here in a bit so you and Chas et al can pull apart for me.
I can though. The 24th of June will be exactly the same as the 22nd of June. Whereas you're saying you'll vote for 'havent got a clue'...
But what will the EU be in a year or two or ten? Perhaps other countries will vote to leave, the Euro will break up, Thatcher will rise from the dead. Nobody knows what the ramifications will be.
Daniel Hannan: Here’s what happens when Britain votes to Leave By Daniel Hannan MEP Daniel Hannan is an MEP for South-East England, and a journalist, author and broadcaster. His most recent book is Why Vote Leave. We are unused to referendums in this country, so we tend to think in terms of general elections. Behind much of the coverage of the EU debate is the assumption that voting to leave somehow means putting the Leave campaigners into office. Hence the interest in what precise alternative we favour. Do we want Britain to be “like” Switzerland or “like” Norway or “like” Canada or “like” Jersey? (It’s worth noting, en passant, that the phrasing of the question demonstrates its silliness: the fact that no two non-EU states have identical deals with Brussels makes a nonsense of the idea that Britain would precisely mimic any of them. Plainly, we’d have our own deal, tailored to suit our own interests.) I have written before about the sort of arrangement that we could realistically expect. But my opinions, if you think about it, are not relevant, because I won’t be overseeing the negotiations. I can point in general terms to the status enjoyed by the other European states that are outside the EU: no tariffs; reciprocal arrangements on healthcare, university access and police co-operation; autonomy in agriculture, fisheries, defence, immigration, criminal justice, culture and regional policy. But my views on, say, how much we should subsidise our farmers matter a lot less than those of the farms minister. A referendum is best understood as voters instructing their government, rather as a client instructs his barrister. Voting to leave means giving ministers a mandate: we’d be telling them to negotiate our departure on the best possible terms. Remain campaigners don’t want us to understand this. They want to make the prospect of withdrawal seem as abrupt and as scary as possible. Hence their suggestion that a Leave vote on 23 June would somehow start a countdown, that we’d have two years to negotiate a new deal and that, if no agreement were reached within that time, we’d in some unspecified way be outside all trade arrangements. A moment’s thought reveals how absurd all this is. A vote to leave won’t start any countdowns. Ministers would simply be under instruction to find departure terms that suit Britain – and, indeed, that suit the rest of the EU. They would presumably begin by holding informal talks with the Brussels institutions and the other member states. Then, when the broad parameters were agreed, they would begin formal negotiations. These might be held under Article 50, the clause introduced by the Lisbon Treaty which obliges the EU to reach a trade deal with a departing state within two years; or they might be held under a different intergovernmental structure. It might be possible to reach a mutually beneficial deal very quickly. Or the other EU members might prefer, for reasons of administrative convenience, for the new arrangements to come into effect in 2019 when they choose their new Parliament and Commission, so as not to have to recalculate their voting weights twice. The point is that nothing would be agreed until both sides were content. The Prime Minister told the House of Commons a couple of weeks ago that he would remain in office to implement a Leave vote. Since he has also promised to stand down before the next general election, that is the effective deadline. It gives us plenty of time to find arrangements that suit us, the rest of the EU and, indeed, our other trading partners around the world. Whether independence comes into effect in 2017, 2018 or 2019, what will it look like? Well, the first day after Brexit will look pretty much like the previous day. All our existing arrangements will remain in place until one side or the other chooses to abandon them. We’d begin from a position of having all the same technical standards as the other EU states, all the reciprocal deals on social security, all the trade deals. What Brexit means is the freedom to start altering those deals. Now plainly there will be some alterations: otherwise there’d be no point in Brexit. There will be areas where we want to pull out of common EU policies, because the cost of compliance outweighs the benefit of having the same rules as neighbouring states. At the same time, the other member states may well want to push ahead with deeper integration without us. But that process will be gradual and cumulative. The man who put it best, oddly enough, was the leader of the Remain side, Stuart Rose: “It’s not going to be a step change, it’s going to be a gentle process.” Lord Rose went on, before his horrified spin-doctors could shut him up: “Nothing is going to happen if we come out of Europe in the first five years, probably. There will be absolutely no change. Then, if you look back ten years later, there will have been some change, and if you look back 15 years later there will have been some.” Quite. The really radical break is not voting to leave; it’s voting to stay, and thus acquiescing in the EU’s continuing economic, political, fiscal and military amalgamation, in more bailouts, in the unfolding migration disaster. Voting to leave is the way to avoid these risks. It is, for that reason, the safer option. Leaving won’t be a sudden rupture, but a gradual reorientation. The United Kingdom will begin to follow a different trajectory, away from the enervated and distempered eurozone and toward more opulent markets across the oceans. Leaving, in short, is the conservative choice. http://www.conservativehome.com/the...what-happens-when-britain-votes-to-leave.html
That's an interesting piece. He should also have pointed out that all those voting on the expectation that new immigration rules will quickly be put in place should prepare to be disappointed, but otherwise, given the bias, fair enough. It will probably be a long and incredibly boring process leaving. I see no reason not to expect the EU to involve article 50 though, it even fits with Hannan's possible timeline - two years to negotiate, another year to plan and prepare how to implement, go live in 2019. And the 'gradual reorientation' stuff is balls, there are no green new pastures for us to trade with that we can't now and the EU will remain our biggest trading partner by far, the risks are present either way, if the EU goes belly up we suffer, in or out. And it's not agreeing to more 'amalgamation' if we vote remain, it's a vote to remain on the periphery. The only people not represented in this whole debate are those who would be happy for us to have more integration with the EU.
If you're scared of what something might be like a decade or more away, then I really don't know what else to bring to the table. Especially if you won't rule out spontaneous resurrection of former political leaders...
The point is, you can't make out that voting to remain is voting for nothing to change. You're merely voting to stay part of an organisation very likely to change in some way very soon. Will we get a better or worse deal as a result of remaining? Our position surely won't be better within the EU if the people declare they want to be a part of it.
Sounds very much like your vote is driven by fear of a possible future. In that case, I don't get why a completely unknown future is being viewed in such optimistic rosy terms, when a much more certain future is being seen as the zombie apocalypse. If you're so concerned about the future, vote for the more certain one that lets you prepare for a possible downside, rather than a far more unknown future that even the experts admit takes us into an uncertain economic future where trade, immigration, personal finances and our relations with our biggest business partners are thrown into chaos and confusion.
no one knows what the future will bring in or out. One thing is certain though, our jails are filling up with Albanian criminals and they aren't even in the EU, yet
They are in our jails because they come here when they shouldn't and commit crimes. That's an irrelevant stat to link to this debate.
