It is your side which has run Britain down SH. because you have tried to picture Britain as totally incapable of infuencing the EU. from within - like a 6 stone weekling always having sand kicked in his face by our 'european masters'. If Britain was as big as you suggest we would be able to contribute and debate, within the EU, on equal terms with anyone, including the Germans.
The UK may be unilaterally paying people on arrival - I do not know what the other 27 states do. However we were forbidden from applying different rules to immigrants. It may be that the UK was very happy paying people who have lived here for years and whose family have contributed to the system - but not peole who have not. As there is no consistency on the treatment of these payments across the EU it is again stupid to have forced the UK to treat newcomers as if they hadlived here for years. It is not discrimination but is based on residency and raltives contributions. The EU simply does not understand how it created animosity by forcing its views on a member state. If ALL EU countires were obliged to pay migants on the same basis that would at least have a little logic. I voted Remain for economic reasons mostly and it is this sort of bureaucratic interference that shows the negative side.
It's not nickpicking, it's the reality and states that in the same Wiki pages as you quoted. Yes, many people have left Britain for a better life elsewhere - but they would have had to apply and obtain visa's to make those moves. EU citizens do not yet have to apply for visas to live and work in Britain - the difference remains
Nobody really knows how effective financially post Brexit UK will fare but there does seem to be posters on here that desperately search the media for likely UK problems ahead. The decision has been made we should all now look to find the positives and make Brexit work. The leave soundbites may have become repetitive but there are important issues behind those which were important to the majority of actual voters. Sovereignty was certainly one of the main reasons I voted leave.
Sorry, OFH I was not clear. I meant Brit's moving to non-EU countries such as Australia, USA, Canada etc.
Quite honestly Leo I don't know what conditions apply in Britain for unemployment benefit so I can't comment there. Does Britain pay benefits immediately to school leavers, without any qualifying period ? If that is the case then yes - the same conditions would apply to newly arrived migrants, if applying EU. rules. But how many EU. citizens actually do this ? What percentage of the EU. population in the UK. are actually claiming benefits of any kind ? On the whole, they bring more into the economy than they take out and that is the important thing. I do not think that people come from eg. Rumania with the intention of claiming benefits. The other thing is the idea of uncontrolled immigration - there are 19.96 million people living in Rumania, all of them with the legal right to come to the UK. yet only 177,000 have actually done so, that is far less than 1 in a hundred - and the vaste majority of those appear to be employed. How many Rumanians, Bulgarians or Poles in Britain are claiming benefits of any sort, compared to either the local population or the non EU. migrant population. I read recently that one of Britain's biggest problems with immigration is the number of illegal immigrants that are there (this doesn't mean people who swam over the channel but people who have overstayed their visa) - the estimate was about a million, and. by definition, they must be non EU. At any rate this group is bigger than the Polish Rumanian and Bulgarian populations, combined, in the UK. So why are the east europeans being targeted in this way ?
http://uk.businessinsider.com/british-economy-slipping-towards-recession-2016-7 Now you cannot say that this is a report based on wanting to do the economy down, or that it is saying that all the problems are due to the vote. It is a clear look at what was happening, and what is now happening. With the news that a fund is being closed because too many people want to get their money out you have to ask why. A lot of the commercial properties in the UK are owned by pension funds, and they take a hit then private pensions will to. The interconnection of the financial markets are deep and one set back can create a chain reaction. It is a complex situation and so far easier to ignore it and make comments about immigrants.
You highlight one of the things I heard most during the campaign "we are just not being given the facts". That may have been true to some extent but things like sovereignty are hard to quantify in "facts" - it is more an emotional response. I suspect a lot of people who wanted their sovereignty back have no real day to day involvement with sovereignty - also sovereignty is not absolute unless your country is in isolation you share sovereignty with every international treaty you make - if you still have the power to exit a "club" like the EU then your sovereignty is at best "lent" to that club. The only real facts anyone could be given were those for Remain - we knew the rules of the club we were in - we knew its economics etc etc. When you looked at Leaving it was impossible to give "facts" - both sides could only estimate what would happen depending on what new deals were done. Inevitably those on the Remain side did not view the alternatives as attractive and vice versa. I do not agree with your last statement. 43 years ago we joined the EEC and it has developed since then - but during the entire history those who did not like it campaigned against it. Do you really think the 48% who voted Remain should not have their 43 year moan?
I'm sure nobody expected Brexit to happen without much uncertainty and there will ultimately be winners and losers. There was an immediate reaction to the stock market which was soon corrected when the hysteria died down. Our chancellor has already promised to reduce corporation tax to make the UK the best place in Europe to do business. I have already pointed out previously why the positive business culture in the UK makes it a far better option for inward investment than say France where executives are physically assaulted. Due to supply and demand the UK housing market will remain an excellent longterm investment, although London may have overheated and requires a natural correction. Planning laws are slowly being relaxed, I have personally recently benefited by gaining planning permission for a dwelling in the greenbelt that was previously unable to obtain. What gives me justified optimism for the future of the UK is a strong business friendly environment coupled with flexibility in the labour market, conditions the French could only dream about.
Worth nothing that as a lot of us voted Remain... for good reasons... so yes we still have a right to our 'moans'. The reality is I would probably do anything to stay in.... Yes the figures for Remain were all there.. so those who voted to stay in had more to work with The figures for Leave were and still are all conjecture. Freedom of movement issue is likely to affect many of us who live work or travel in Europe.... so we have a right to be concerned. It would be so much better to move away from the I am right you are wrong , I won you lost debating on this thread..............( I have enough of that with Mme Yorkie)
The alternative to leave was not the status quo, the EU is heading in a direction towards a single state so there were many unknowns.
The UK had negotiated a special status that meant that as long as we wanted to be we were out of the Euro and the "ever closer union" These were not reasons to leave the EU in my view
http://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/foreign-affairs/scotland-brexit-anti-immigrant/ An interesting take on Scotland's attitude to Brexit from a Kiwi.
What is sovereignty SH. Read Rousseau's Social Contact when you have time. If I stand in my bearskin in a forest and I have an argument with you and I decide to bump you over the head with an axe then that is a sovereign act (at least on my part) - don't worry I'm not going to do that. But I also know that someone else could do that to me, and so I give up some of my sovereignty in order to have other rights better secured - within the commune, town or whatever. In a sense I 'pool' my sovereignty with others. The town or region then does this further (unless it is completely self sufficient and heavily defended) and so we arrive at the nation state - but why should it end there ? The nation state does not have the same level of sovereignty as it did 50 years ago - world trade (measured in ships tonnage) has increased 400 times over since then. World corporations now have more turnover than individual nations, and can hold them over the barrel as a result. Privatizations have meant that the state no longer has the same resources as 50 years ago. In short we have given up a level of our national sovereignty by pooling it with others in order to have more leverage, in a globalized World, as a result. The units of sovereignty have become larger, through trading blocks, international treaties etc. but it is still there. The nation state itself has not always been there - in the past we had Holy Roman Empires, Christentom, Hanseatic Leagues etc. and the Euro was not the first European currency - the Byzant was, around a thousand years ago. True sovereignty arises from self sufficiency - and Britain is further away from that than any other country. You need someone else to feed you, someone else to clothe you, someone else to protect you, someone else to build your car, and so on.
Yes, but there were still unknown consequences. The EU is still in financial mess, Schengen agreement collapsed, unable to agree on a migrant policy, massive increase in far right support in many countries. Not a club anyone would want to join so why not leave?
They are all looking to be subsidised by North European countries, much harder when the UK's cash dries up.
There are times when you talk the most absolute bollocks SH. ! Do you ever check up on facts before you write, or do you just presume that Turkey must be struggling because they are not white anglo saxon protestants ! Turkey is classified by the WTO as an emerging market economy, had a GDP of 813.62 Billion dollars last year - has a growth rate of 4%, is the 18th largest GDP. in the World, has more raw materials than the UK. and is ranked higher than Germany in terms of its military capacity. If ever admitted to the EU. it would be a net payer in. However there are no plans for this in the near future.
