The Sun says Leave - Yesterday, the FT came out in Favour of Remain. I know which of the two I trust on economic matters more!
Really quite worrying the amount of people who are so vocal about leaving, but are unable to justify why they want to other than 'immigrants' and being 'in control' of our own laws. It's an easy rhetoric for the Leave campaign to sell as generally people won't actually look into these issues and take the comments at face value. Hopefully it'll be similar to the Scottish referendum, where the leave campaign will be incredibly vocal, while the sensible, educated majority will stay quiet and we'll end up remaining (please).
This is what I'm hoping for. You have to so some real research to determine why it's better for the Britain to stay in the EU and a lot of the people I've heard argue for an exit just aren't the sort to to the leg work. They would rather blame immigration for all there problems, rather than there bone idleness. The irony the majority of our incoming immigrants don't come from within the EU so leaving won't have that big an impact in that regard.
With the murder of Jo Cox, I would have thought Cameron should have postponed the EU referendum vote. And at that point continue to put it off for one reason or another. Not hard considering the projects have been put on the back burner. And in the meantime get rid of all Eurosceptic MPs and party members from the once great Tory party.
I have avoided the EU issue here because I am planning on voting leave. I have done a huge amount of research and am not at all worried about a dip into recession. Britain can cope. I am, personally, against federal democracies and the EU is, to me, another layer of government which is too inflexible to accurately micro-manage the economies and political landscapes of Europe. There is so much misinformation on this issue that I don't blame people for reducing it to a race issue - but it definitely isn't that. The truth is controlling borders is a Conservative pledge on which they won an election - and one they cannot possibly achieve within Europe. Possibly they won't outside of it either. However, controlled borders is not about race but numbers. I would prefer migration to be based on merit, not on being European. We need immigrants, but we also need control. It is also not a left / right issue. At heart Corbyn is against the EU.
I'm not sure the election was won on that one pledge! If that was the case, then the Tory party would not have won, a party with stronger immigration views would have won. You sound like a very intelligent person who has done a lot of research into what will happen on the economy, yet you then say the pledge on border control is what won the election. If anything the pledge to have a referendum played a bigger part (though more likely the lack of cohesion from the other parties let them win, rather than them winning it) and that was one of the many things I disagree with amongst their pledges. Whichever way this goes, the majority of the voting will not be be made on sound, educated decisions. Ps. I'd be very interested to hear some of that research you did and the sources used. The economy hitting a recession is one of the worries I have and it appears that under it all, both sides appear to agree there will be an economic decline should we leave. I wish the egotistical idiots on both sides had focused on giving the voters clearer, more transparent numbers on the economy rather than the smoke and mirrors they all played with. It is why I still feel we shouldn't be voting.
Yes, possibly I overstated that pledge - and I meant at the previous election anyway. One thing I would say is I have avoided televised debates and focused on reading articles. As soon as an article makes a ridiculous claim I shut it down and look at something else. I have found it most useful to look at those who were engaged in the debate before the referendum was announced. If you are against bureaucracy, against federal style lobbying, and against political decisions being made by a load of PMs haggling for what looks good in a secret room - rather than conduct these debates in the open, then you probably are against the EU. All sides say the EU needs reform - but no one says how it will happen!
You could say that about any election. Most people choose to overlook this inconvenient truth when the result goes their way. A bit like those who are incensed about Cameron's lack of a mandate, when he polled a greater vote than the last, presumably unrepresentative, Labour government. (Didn't hear the complaints then?)
"As soon as an article makes an outrageous claim I shut it down and look at something else." Sorry mate, seems to me you've just decided, like the majority of the 'out' camp, to believe what you choose to believe and disregard any evidence you find inconvenient. So presumably you don't even read the overwhelming evidence which shows a broad consensus from the CBI, the IMF, the governor of the BOE, the chair of the TUC, & pretty much every reputable economist, that our economy - & that of our current partners - will suffer severe shocks as a result of Brexit? If you really believe our sovereignty is under threat, fair enough, that's a valid argument, though one I disagree with. But to disregard all the other evidence because it conflicts with the opinion you have already formed? That's called prejudice, and that to me is what the 'leave' campaign is mostly about. Apologies if I've misinterpreted what you've said, and you genuinely have weighed both sides of the argument. But that's how I interpret your statement I quoted above.
You have touched on area which gives me a great deal of concern, the lack of mandate. Which institution most fairly represents the view of this country? House of Lords, House of Parliament or the EU parliament? Chose one. Are you a Bishop? Hereditary peer? Crony of Tony Blair? Or Margaret Thatcher? If not, well sorry you cannot ever decide the voting of a major oversight body of our main parliament. So it not the House of Lords then. 64% of people that went to the polls did not vote for the controlling interest in the Parliament. Answer this which is the bigger party: the DUP or the Liberal Democrats? Answer: Neither, they are both the same as they each have 8 representatives, even though one had 2.4m votes and other had 184,000! The combined votes of the Liberal Democrats and the SNP was 3,870,000, the votes for UKIP was 3,881,000 but the result was 64 reps to 1. So it not Parliament then either, is it? The EU parliament representatives UKIP 24 seats 32.9%,Votes 26.6% Labour 20 seats 27.4%, Votes 24.4% Conservatives 19 seats 23.1%, Votes 26% SNP 2 seats 2.7%, Votes 2.3% So irony of ironies is that of our “sovereign” bodies, only one, the EU, gives anything approximating the weight appropriate to the actual votes cast to a party that does not actually want it!
I agree! However, after every election this is conveniently ignored by the winning side because they have an unfettered majority (except for the odd occasion when there's a coalition). There is a problem with the balance between constituency representation and overall % of vote. It takes a lot fewer people to elect a Labour MP than a Conservative (due to smaller constituencies); this is something due to be addressed by a redrawing of constituency boundaries(opposed by Labour on no apparent ethical/fair play grounds). This is before we even get to the elephant in the room which is the massive under representation in Parliament of UKIP, the Greens and, historically, the Lib Dems.
The Lib Dems had a once in a generation opportunity to force Proportional Representation right up the political agenda when they held the balance of power in 2010. It's a tragedy that they blew it. Nick Clegg's disastrous legacy. The more you look around the UK's political landscape in of the last 10 years, the more you see a complete lack of leadership, vision, courage or belief from all parties. The yanks may be a bit worried now - rightly so - but how lucky they've been to have had Obama.
There is some excellent debate here and much of the justifications on both sides are made with good justification. At the end it becomes a personal view as always but i am surprised that there is not much commentary on the impact on infrastructure that we are continuing to suffer and the ability of the council framework to cope. Yes we are living in austerity and the LGA will be the first to tell you that funding pressures have significantly affected services provision. But when you consider that London is looking at extended growth equivalent to the size of Birmingham in the next 20 years you begin to understand that population growth will be the most significant issue for us in the future (i am involved in some of this analysis work before any say i'm speaking rubbish). I think there will be a significant economical affect for us on leaving over the next five years before it evens out, so it will be a rough ride. For me though, voting to leave is about how i see the UK in the next 20 years because i cant see us having another chance.
Hi I understand your concern, but look at the UK population pyramid and compare that with of say Japan or Italy. The allowance of immigration improves the balance of the population, and delays having an accelerating wave of older people floating to the top the pyramid because that means that there are fewer workers paying taxes to fund the pensions and long term health care of the ageing population. Secondly the lack of infrastructure funding for population growth is also a function of an inadequate central government allocation of resources to areas of need and a Conservative wish to reduce government spending to allow more personal decisions regarding disposable income. Consequently where areas lack central government spending, sometimes the EU steps in to redress these inequalities.
Hi SNS (being lazy) don't get me wrong i'm very much pro-immigration as we need to dilute the lowering educational standards with overseas talent. Sadly local government failings became pronounced under labour and it is fair to say that things have'nt improved with the conservatives. I've dealt with a number of EU projects and been involved in EU funding applications and they have made some minor improvement but in my mind from a vfm perspective they have'nt (ultimately) matched our ongoing contribution.
But why have we got lowering educational standards? Aren't we told that, every year, our young people are achieving higher and higher grades? Of course, this has nothing to do with grade inflation, less stringent examination processes, or the opportunity for the financial sector to milk youngsters of £30,000 worth of student debt. The overseas talent (if we're talking EU migrants) is not here largely to raise our academic profile. It's to fix our plumbing, look after our kids and wash our cars. Hardworking they may be, and some are personally quite charming, but they're not doing anything that couldn't be done by our own, given the proper incentives. I teach foreign students English; they are motivated to learn (because they need the language to progress). I also teach literacy skills to native students on vocational courses. The difference is startling; the native students have been allowed to ignore basic literacy and numeracy skills at school whilst being encouraged to believe they can progress academically beyond the bare minimum. The Polish students, in particular, have come from an old fashioned system which demanded accuracy and commitment. After a few years, starting largely from scratch, I'm usually confident that they are better able to hold a conversation, or write an essay in English, than their native counterparts. I even have to support native students in English A Level with their literacy skills ....ENGLISH A Level, of all subjects! Too many years of ignoring basic principles and work discipline, whilst encouraging youngsters to believe that the only important thing is their "creativity" (without giving them the skills to express it coherently). And that's just the literacy! Don't get me started on numeracy
