Just back from a short break......yes it was very nice......but from a straw poll of 20 or so other people on the ship that we talked to over dinner etc all of them said they were going to vote to leave, mind they were the older age bracket voter (50 plus)......Cameron and co have got their work cut out to get the younger voters out to support the in campaign as that would appear to be their best hope......
Older people are disillusioned because they think the country is so much worse than it was 30/40 years ago. I don't disagree with that, because for a lot of people it has got worse - but I don't agree its the fault of the UK being in the EU.
Why didn't you push them overboard? I guess at 55 I'm an older person, but the past wasn't better, it was just different. And what the present feels and looks like is largely down to my and even more decrepit generations so they should stop whining and start apologising.
Interestingly, as someone who is 50 +, I do think generally life in the UK is better than it was in, say, the 1970's when we were a poor, failing nation largely due to industrial unrest. I also think that, until the end of the 1990's, the EU run as a common market was good for the UK. But what has happened since then, is that the federalists in Brussels have pursued aggressively their agenda of a one state Europe. Cameron may say we are outside that, but in a few years time we will be marginalised within the club, which is the worst of all worlds. The European courts which appear to be manned largely by inexperienced human rights activists from are increasingly overruling our own long, established courts - English law and the English jurisdiction are respected more than any others around the world. Uncontrolled EU immigration is not working, is taking non-skilled jobs from UK nationals that are keen to work, and undercutting prices. The national living wage is like a pot of gold to a pauper, when looked through East European eyes. It will make things much worse. The social cohesion of this country is at risk. The black political commentator Trevor Phillips speaks a lot of sense in this respect. The efficient common market of the past has gone. An EU beset with problems is nevertheless moving to become one state with Germany at its centre, with aims to expand to Turkey, Albania etc. It's time we go out, traded with Europe fairly like other non-EU countries do and controlled our own destiny. There may be short term volatility in the money markets (although much depends on how we terminate our membership - it does not have to be done immediately) . The benefit will be long term.
Would you be happy to remain in the EU if we had a clause that says we would automatically leave if Turkey or Albania join in the future Goldie?
No, it's more fundamental than that, Tooting. If the EU abandoned all the federalist stuff and political union, and went back to friendly, supportive nations trading in the most efficient way possible, I'd buy into that. Actually, I think there's an increasing movement on the Continent that wants exactly that. Jacques Delors has a lot to answer for.
http://order-order.com/2016/05/13/eu-paid-e160-million-to-pro-remain-groups/ Remainers getting increasing desperate in their economic scaremongering, what with Goldman Sachs old boy Carney & the discredited & hopefully soon to be incarcerated orange coloured old trotter Legarde predicting the UK are doomed if we Brexit. All self interest of course, only got to look at who is on the EU payroll in the attached link
Yep, and the Brexit side is cleaner than clean because exactly no, zero, none international institutions, think tanks etc etc have come out on their side. If they are so easily bribed I'm amazed that the Leave campaign haven't tried to spread the jam a little.
Apparently our newly elected PM of a minority Government that only (!) took 2 months to form has urged all Ex Pat Irish people who are eligible to vote in the referendum to vote "in" as in his view Ireland will be screwed if the UK leaves as the UK is the main trader with Ireland........as if we weren't f**ked by the EU over the banking collapse....... Maybe I will join the other 100,000 or so ex pat Brits living over here in voting after all......
So now Johnson is playing the Hitler card, failing to learn from the results for his fellow Brexiter Livingstone. And surely hypocritical, as his heroes the Romans managed to unify Europe under a single authority for centuries. This campaign is a disgrace, on both sides.
This is our biggest problem, you can't cherry-pick what you want and have a workable union, the veto vote which currently operates makes so much of the running of the EU skewered and the union never gets the full benefit of such decisions. We probably use the veto more than anyone else and it makes a mockery of a workable Federal Europe. We joined a trading union, not a political union, the two are poles apart...
I get the point, but the world has moved on since we originally joined in the Seventies. Perhaps back then it was possible to have some lines between trade and politics, but it isn't now, because it's about economies which are a part of politics. We don't just trade with other EU countries, our economies are inextricably interlinked. And we should not forget that the EU was set up pretty explicitly as a political enterprise, to lock economies together in such a way as to make war between Western European countries close to impossible. Of course Churchill was a big supporter of the idea, though he didn't expect the UK to be a member as he thought our links were with the Empire. If there was a good time to leave it was probably under Thatcher.
I see Bojo the clown is showing his true colours. He would know all about Hitler and the Nazi's with his Germanic blood.
Stan, Can I ask how old you are? The reason being that most people of my age (52) and generally over the age of 40 that I have spoken to are voting to leave (including myself), whereas those younger are voting to stay in. I hope you don't take offence to my question. Cheers