Both parties should have a responsibility to the country even if their views on what that means are very different. Cameron like most leaders got too arrogant that he'd win the vote easily and crush the far right in his party once and for all...he was thinking about his legacy...then utterly ****ed up his strategy in presenting it to the people who could have done just that for him. Now, even if he wins he's terminally weakened as well as his chosen successors. Tbf I think his rivals are in the same position. Labour specifically claim to be the voice of the ordinary working people and disadvantaged. That's what makes their lack lustre campaign unforgiveable. They also were too internally divided coming up to this referendum... We really do have a bit of a crisis in leadership politically coming up. If Brexit happens I think the lack of a strong stable party on either side will be as damaging as the direct effects of leaving...
they should shouldn't they? I agree.. nobody wins in this in tory party. Cameron is indeed terminally weak. Johnson if he loses is clearly damaged and divisive. Labour are irrelevant and the time is now for a new social democratic party IMO. break away from it being about "unions" and the "working man" and be about actual social issues and rights. We don't need an old style union based workers right s party. we need to just protect those rights. no we need a true all stratas, all odds and sods type party of common views on the world and how we want to live in it.
I don't disagree with much of that...except: Do we have pure democracy? Of course not...it's impractical. Do we have the ability to join, shape and influence our political parties? Absolutely...do we? Dwindling few. So we get the political leadership that we deserve..does that stop us as a whole from ever kicking ourselves in the ass and gaining back control no...the options are there. And that is democracy...having the ability to effect change...us settling for the status quo internally isn't anti democracy...it's just laziness. Almost any vote is primarily a short sighted selfish one. My Remain vote is a selfish one...I'm not thinking of some high minded European cooperative that has stabilised the continent or prevented war...I'm thinking I work in public govt...more cuts will come if we leave and I might lose my job..prices will go up...more people around me...friends family will be unemployed...our political agreements might destabilise and we will be back to murdering each other....that's selfish mate. I don't want to see the happen to benefit me and mine. If we wanted the utopia we would all vote for a party who taxed us 50% and paid for perfect public services..we never have but we in general like to try and balance sacrifice for the common good with what we think we can comfortably afford. But then doesn't the argument of selfish short sightedness actually go against an out vote? If people look out for themselves first why would they knowingly punish themselves as a protest? I think it's more serious than that..it's an attempt to take control however tactically unsound, because as you say lots of people feel they've lost it..and aren't they right? Isn't it the political elites that removed it from them (or they allowed to remove it from them)? So voting leave in their eyes IS self sacrificing..they know they will be hurt financially but want to take the politicians and corporations and bankers down a peg or two in one of the few ways they think they can. And look at what the debate has done to the two main political parties...will people jump at this very real opportunity to take charge of them no matter what way the vote goes? Probably not but the opportunity is there. My evidence for Farage being limited is yes a guess but an educated one. He's a one policy politician that derives support from still having to accomplish that goal. Once he does? Then what. Where are his credible policies on anything else that will get him elected? He boasted about increased support but never got elected to the institution he thinks is more important than any other so sits in the one he supposedly wants nothing to do with? Yet again there seems to be an assumption that all Brexiteers are Farage clones. What will keep him around is a close vote either way because a very close vote will mean we will not leave in my opinion. A big stay and he is gone. A big leave and he fades away. Boris like Cameron is ****ed either way...too much blood spilled in party. You allude to a Brexit vote as a protest vote in response to not being able to change something seen as not working...leaving is changing..does anyone that originally voted in think they'd see the EU as it is now? Will it hurt ...yes...does that mean the country will never ever succeed again ...no. same as staying...does staying save the EU short term yes...will it stop the very real rise in every member country of a nationalistic right..no..that problem will still have to be dealt with. It also doesn't guranteed that other countries won't try and leave themselves and it all breaks up anyway...this myth that the populations of continental Europe all love the EU is nonsense... If we were ignoring self harm and being high minded would trying to cause the break up of the current EU not be a laudable goal..remove those that refuse to change so the people of Europe can start again and build agreements that help them rather than corporations...you'll laugh at that I did too but it's as much an ideal as any socialist ideal that while improving our country in the attempt is never quite achieved fully.
Unfortunately, saint, for some inexplicable reason, many still see Thatcher as some sort of Super Statesperson who could do no wrong.
And she utterly convinced a lot of people of that. And caused untold damage to the fabric of this country in the process.
I'd normally agree, but why I think this is different is the reason that Frank thinks I'm patronising - people with grudge at 'Them' (isn't that everybody?) are under the impression that this is a damn good time to 'Rise and give the elite chaos', to quote Peter Hitches (who is one of the elite and pretends not to be - a bit like the way Lyndsay Buckingham tried to pretend he was really New Wave when punk came along). I wonder what have happened had we had a referendum in '43 to accept Hitler's peace terms? "Fed up of this and the Yanks calling all the shots in the Allies: think I'll go with Boris Quisling and stick one to the elite. They don't have to suffer rationing and Yanks, Canadians and West Indian servicemen in all the pubs'.
Remember when the country went decimal?, remember the country were told that things would be temporarily inflated but would go back to pre-decimal prices once the people got used to using the new coins? A 6/- of chips for instance became 5p(doubled in price because the lowest denomination decimal silver coin was the 5p piece)and that price and most others on everyday essentials never did revert back to their true value. I feel that a similar effect will be felt if the "No" vote wins, but my worry is for the kids and grandkids that will have to live with the legacy of whichever way the vote goes, I see your point over Farage and Johnson taking centre stage should the country vote out, but tbf Cameron and Osborne are abhorrent in their war on the poorest in our society. Its wrong to pidgeon hole all of the people with genuine fears on immigration/EU migration as racist, at the current rate now there aren't enough homes to accommodate those that have moved to the UK so what happens if as expected the EU expands?, there is an EU law that says citizens of member states can travel to and live within any member countries so this country is bound by that agreement but doesn't build enough homes to cope with the influx everybody could see was coming. But that means the greater onus within the EU to spend more on housing and infrastructure with non EU funding lies with the likes of the UK because the poorer Eastern European nations can't do just that. Must admit my head is ****ed at the moment, and seeing people I don't like on BOTH sides of the argument isn't helping.
Boon or burden: what has the EU ever done for science? Nature examines five core ways that the European Union shapes the course of research. Alison Abbott, Declan Butler, Elizabeth Gibney, Quirin Schiermeier & Richard Van Noorden 15 June 2016 Article tools PDF Rights & Permissions please log in to view this image Viktor Drachev/AFP/Getty The EU affects science from the collaborative opportunities that the bloc creates to the billions of euros that it distributes for research and innovation. More than 500 million people and 28 nations make up the European Union. It will lose one of its richest, most populous members, if the United Kingdom votes to leave on 23 June. Ahead of a possible ‘Brexit’, Nature examines five core ways that the EU shapes the course of research. The EU has created a scientist superhighway It has funded some unique science … … and lifted research in Eastern Europe It has fostered scientific excellence … … and encourages collaboration and pooled ideas. Scientist superhighwayMarie Skłodowska-Curie actions pay for 9,000 scientists each year to move to or within the EU. The actions fill a gap left by national funders, which are often reluctant to fund researchers outside their country, says Caroline Whelan, a senior scientific officer at Science Europe, the Brussels-based organization of national research councils. The EU Erasmus exchange programme has transplanted more than 3.3 million students, and 470,000 teaching and administrative staff, since 1987. [paste:font size="6"]Related stories Brexit: UK should remain Scientists say ‘no’ to UK exit from Europe in Nature poll Academics across Europe join ‘Brexit’ debate More related stories Although there is little information on how such programmes affectscientists’ overall mobility, they boost opportunities for collaboration. And because Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellows often return to their home country, they redistribute skills and knowledge. “This is fantastic for Eastern Europe and other less-well developed countries to build research capacity,” says Lidia Borrell-Damian, director for research and innovation at the European University Association in Brussels. A 2011–13 study found that 31% of EU academics had worked outside their country of residence in the previous decade. And leading scientists say that hiring from abroad helps them to respond to local skills shortages. The survey also found that 80% of those who had worked internationally saw a positive effect on their research skills, and 60% thought that mobility had strongly increased their research output (see go.nature.com/28wvqta). But the experiences were not all positive: more academics said that their job options had decreased as a result of moving than said that opportunities had increased, for example. Another downside of mobility is that much of the flow goes just one way, says Maria Helena Nazaré, a physicist and former rector of the University of Aveiro in Portugal. “I think that’s already creating problems.” Countries such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden tend to be net attractors for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions, whereas Spain, Greece and Italy lose talent. Nazaré also notes that transferring pension and benefits between countries can be tough. Still, the commission is committed to further greasing the wheels. Funding aimed at encouraging mobility has soared in the past two decades to €6.2 billion (US$6.9 billion) in 2014–20 — and the commission is tackling the pensions issue. It is also growing its EURAXESS portal, an EU-wide website that lists jobs and support for moving researchers, and has revamped its ‘scientific visa’ package for non-EU researchers. Notably, the United Kingdom has opted out of the visa, together with Denmark. Unique scienceEU spending’).Horizon 2020, the Framework programme for 2014–20 — they must meld themselves into large multinational collaborations, and adjust their research to fit EU strategic goals. But these constraints have fostered many valuable projects. “I am a big fan of these programmes,” says Nadia Rosenthal, scientific director of the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, who has collaborated with several EU consortia on mouse-genetics projects, which she says generated world-class science. “The coordination of talents they can achieve would be very hard to pull off in the United States — or in the UK alone, if it were not connected to Europe.” Take research into the health effects of low-dose radiation, which people may encounter during a CT scan or if they live within a few tens of kilometres of the site of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. So small are the risks — if they exist at all — that such research is low on most funding agencies’ list of priorities. But the issue is of perennial concern to the public. And studying it requires collaboration between radiation-protection agencies and academics, as well as the use of large data sets, which can be gathered only by multiple collaborating nations. These factors make low-dose-radiation studies perfect fodder for EU funding, says Thomas Jung, head of radiation protection and health at the German Federal Office of Radiation Protection in Munich, which has participated in the series of low-dose-radiation projects that the commission has supported since 2010. Societal Challenges funding has also supported projects that others shy away from, such as transplanting cells derived from the brains of fetuses into the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease. In 2003, researchers around the world abandoned this controversial line of research — which tries to replace the neurons whose loss causes the illness’s symptoms — after many trial participants failed to benefit and no one could work out why. Then, in 2014, the commission-funded TRANSEURO trial began. TRANSEURO aims to transplant neurons into 150 people with Parkinson’s in the United Kingdom, Sweden, France and Germany using harmonized clinical protocols to help establish which conditions work best. The large collaboration, which joins 14 biomedical laboratories, clinics and companies, is essential, says TRANS-EURO’s coordinator, neurologist Roger Barker at the University of Cambridge, UK. “Without the EU, I doubt this would have happened.” Trust between companies is crucial to the Advanced Immunization Technologies (ADITEC) project, which aims to create a generic toolbox to speed up vaccine development. Under the confidentiality agreements of the consortium, which the commission has funded since 2011, companies are comfortable sharing the components of their proprietary vaccines. The project has already produced the first direct comparison of different companies’ ‘adjuvants’, substances that strengthen immune responses (N. P. H. Knudsen et al. Sci. Rep. 6, 19570; 2016). “We had always thought it would be impossible to compare them,” says ADITEC coordinator Rino Rappuoli, chief scientist of GSK Vaccines in Siena, Italy. [paste:font size="5"]Lifted the EastAttitudes have changed, partly thanks to the EU, which absorbed the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004, then Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 and Croatia in 2013. These countries have had a low rate of success in winning grants from the Framework programmes. But all of the former communist states are recipients of the commission’s ‘structural funds’ — subsidies designed to reduce social and economic disparities, a goal of the EU. How the funds are used is decided locally, but of the €170 billion available for ‘cohesion and regional development’ in 2007–13, the commission pushed for €20 billion to be spent on research. In 2014–20, almost €44 billion is meant to be used for science and innovation in poorer regions. The cash has been most effective when used to refurbish universities and provide labs with the equipment needed to train students and entice researchers to stay, says Peter Tindemans, secretary-general of science-advocacy group EuroScience in Strasbourg, France. please log in to view this image Adrian Socolov/IFIN-HH The Extreme Light Infrastructure laser facility takes shape. The funds have also financed the €850-million Extreme Light Infrastructure, a pan-European laser facility under construction at sites in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. The facility is expected to attract leading talent from around the world to the region, but Tindemans cautions that improvements to the research environment must come first. “You can’t jump-start scientific development solely with large infrastructures,” he says. [paste:font size="5"]Fostering excellenceraise the quality of research across Europe, the European Research Council (ERC) awards generous grants that are open to any discipline, come with minimum bureaucracy and are judged solely on the quality of the application. The ERC budget has grown from €7.5 billion in 2007–13 to €13.1 billion for 2014–20. At up to €2.5 million over 5 years per researcher, its grants are longer and larger than those of most national funders. The approach seems to work: 7% of ERC-generated papers come in the top 1% of the most highly cited articles by discipline, publication type and year. Not everyone is happy with the ‘excellence at all costs’ approach. Since the ERC’s inception, half of the grants it awarded under its three core schemes have gone to just three countries: the United Kingdom, Germany and France. But the ERC system lifts the quality of research beyond the projects that it funds. Either in an attempt to win more of its grants or simply inspired by the ERC, member states are redesigning national policies to make their science more competitive, says Jose Labastida, head of the ERC’s scientific department. He cites Poland’s National Science Centre, set up in 2011, as an example. And 17 countries have run schemes that fund ERC runners-up — applicants who met the quality threshold but were unsuccessful — essentially reusing the agency’s high-quality peer-review process. “The ERC has raised the scientific level all over Europe,” says Catherine Cesarsky, an astronomer at the French Atomic Energy Commission near Paris. [paste:font size="5"]Research melting potcollaboration — and the EU has partnered with other agencies (see ‘European, but not EU’) and creates myriad opportunities for researchers to pool ideas and cooperate. [paste:font size="5"]European, but not EU Although separate, CERN and ESA receive EU funds Before the EU began to have a major role in coordinating Europe-wide research in the 1990s, the task fell mainly to pan-European research organizations such as the CERN particle-physics laboratory. Established by treaty in 1952 by 11 countries, CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland, was born in the same post-war spirit of peace as led to the formation of the EU. But the lab pre-dates the EU’s main forerunner, the European Economic Community, which had no remit for research, by about five years. CERN now has 21 member states and is a major recipient of EU funds, including for a 2020 upgrade of its Large Hadron Collider, which scientists used to discover the Higgs boson. Another organization that grew up alongside the EU is the European Space Agency (ESA). It arose from a 1975 merger between the European Space Research Organisation and the European Launch Development Organisation. Both were created in the 1960s to guarantee Europe independent access to space. ESA has racked up a string of successes, including the Rosetta mission that put a lander on a comet in 2014. The EU is now the biggest single contributor to the 22-nation-strong agency, accounting for some 20% of its budget. ESA and the EU are partners in the multibillion-dollarCopernicus Earth observation system and in the Galileo global satellite navigation system. COP21 climate accord in December 2015 to its environmental-protection policies and regulatory bodies such as the London-based European Medicines Agency. Contact between science ministers from different member states and researchers has become the norm, says Frank Gannon, former head of the intergovernmental European Molecular Biology Organization. By contrast, he recalls how fragmented European research was a few decades ago when he was a researcher in Ireland. “The sense of isolation of a researcher was massive.”
Sorry disagree with this comment. As one of the 10% undecided's, I can assure you that immigration will have NO influence on my decision.
Nope..I agree with you it's not in my opinion the right reason to vote leave. I just disagree that any that state **** you elites or immigration for that matter are automatically mindless racist morons..I just think they are incorrect. What is it with comparisons with ww2 Europe this referendum? Fairly sure no scenario regarding the EU is comparable to dealing with Nazi Germany... But for fun...there was no referendum regarding a response to Hitler entering the Rhineland either...imagine if a vote yes...smash him had come through...?
Just got back from town and the Leave camp were lobbying which was interesting. There were 3 of them and the youngest looked at least 60 and almost everyone they spoke to was also at least 60 most seemed to be 70+ which i thought gave a snapshop of the expectation the leave will do very well with older voters. As i'm only in my mid 50's i was quite insulted when they stopped me . They asked me if i would be voting leave so i asked them for 3 valid reasons i should 1. Keep our £350m - pointed out that wasn't true and explained the real breakdown. 2. control our own borders - pointed out that over 50% immigration is non EU plus even with the EU migrants some are bound to have skills we require and will continue to do so after brexit. 3. Take back control so our politicians take the decisions not the EU commision. at which point our burst out laughing pointing out as a disabled public sector worker i have been painted by the tories as causing the financial crisis all on my own as i'm a benefit scrounger who also has too much pay and a gold plated pension' My last aside was that considering i had been listening to half truths at best to downright lies for months from the said politicians who will be in control i'm glad they haven't got full control. I do think that the "control" argument has been a bigger factor in peoples decision making than has been generally acknowledged.
So much about Vote Leave not having any links with the far right. One of the biggest donors to their campaign (at £3.6 m larger than remain's £2.6m) is an ex member of the BNP and contributed at least 20% of the whole campaign funds. https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/vote-leave-donor?bftwnews&utm_term=.xlMJjR7Z3#.beNkM8DG5
I really do think that there is something iniquitous about old people (some very old) making decisions which could override the wishes of the rest who will have a whole lifetime to suffer the consequences. (I am not that much of a youngster BTW)
Does she not say she didn't sign up to the bnp? Could be lying I suppose but why? Don't know many bnp people that aren't raving loud about their membership? But then again she may well be a bigot and obviously her husband is...not sure anyone has claimed extreme right isn't part of the Leave campaign though...others within it might have been at pains to distance themselves ... Wouldn't want to start looking at campaign donors and their pasts on either side though lol..
Like I said earlier, the "control" argument is bollocks. All we'd be deciding is which set of lying, self-serving bastards to give control to. It won't be any more in the hands of you or me whichever way we vote. I'm of the older persuasion too (as several people on here never tire of reminding me) and I know plenty others of my generation who want to stay in. I think the demographic split is a little more complicated than is being made out. I've just been speaking to a couple who own a small plant nursery specialising in rare species (proper toff, me) and they're really concerned about it. Over half of their trade comes from the EU and they know - not guess- that an exit will cause huge problems for them.
