Off Topic EU deabte. Which way are you voting ?

Really, so handing over £13 billion of tax payers money a year doesn't inhibit our governments ability to run this country no?
If the EU doesn't have any control over "issues that really matter" then why the **** is it so important that we stay in?

 

I've stayed out of this debate as I live in another EU country, and whatever I say will sound biased.

For personal reasons I am obviously in favour of staying. However, I would still think that it was in our best interests to stay, regardless.

 

They don't just take our money, they also say who we can let in to our country, who we can kick out of our country, who we can trade with its ****ing ridiculous.
And it really doesn't matter if we stay in or out anyway, because the EU is done! Its unfavourable rates across Europe are at an all time high, the Netherlands apparantly are polled at nearly 70% wanting out, not to mention Greece. I dont think the EU will be around in 6 years any way.
So we may aswell get a head start

 

Funny, I remember voting for my MEP but then thousands of others decided to use that vote as a 'protest vote' and voted in a MEPs from a party which has the lowest attendance rate in the whole of the EU, has only ever voted against the UK's interest while having huge expense claims. And then some people moan about not being represented! I remembered democracy working quite well to be honest, it gave the people what they wanted, it allows all the democratically elected governments/countries of the member states to get together and determine standards, workers rights, trade agreements, then each country gets another chance to exercise their democracy by either agreeing or vetoing the legislation before it is rolled out. Not our fault if you didn't vote for your MEP, you had your chance though...

As to the threat from our government to take away our rights if we exit, they have already announced plans to take away our Human Rights protection as soon as we Exit! they are fighting the minimum wage level, it is already below where it should be and below a 'living wage' yet they would like to lower it further. This government has been taken to court by the ECHR multiple times for abuses of its own citizens - such as killing tens of thousands of disabled people, eroding our Workers Rights and other cases. They have impinged on our right to protest, our ability to form unions, our privacy (in terms of who can hold information on us and the types of information they can hold, including our entire browsing history online).

And you think this government are no threat to our rights???

I can't understand that someone would even type the words
"I dont give a **** what drops in value, or other trade rammifications there will be (And they will be minimal by most accounts)"
I can't begin to respond to such a (scary and misinformed) claim so will leave it to others!

 

... wow ... no wonder he shortens it to Piskie when on here eh?

 

Then VOTE THEM OUT!! FFS

You see we have this thing every 4 years called the General election, where you can vote for a better government......

 

This government are definitely a threat to our rights....I haven't hated any government more than I do the current Tory government.
I just think the solution is to vote them out in the general election, NOT to cede control to the EU.

 

Besides, the EU do not have our best interests at heart either, here is a list I copied of just a few instances where the EU have arse ****ed the UK industry:

Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.
Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.
Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.
Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant.
British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.
Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.
Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.
M&S manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.
Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with with EU grants.
Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.
Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.
Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.
Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.
Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.
ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs
Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.
JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.
UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.
Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.
Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online.
Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada.
39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU
The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.

Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn't paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Name me one major technology company still running in the UK, I used to contract out to many, then the work just dried up as they were sold off to companies from France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc., and now we don't even teach electronic technology for technicians any more, due to EU regulations.

I haven't detailed our non-existent fishing industry the EU paid to destroy, nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing, don't even go there.
I haven't mentioned what it costs us to be asset-stripped like this, nor have I mentioned immigration, nor the risk to our security if control of our armed forces is passed to Brussels or Germany.

Find something that's gone the other way, I've looked and I just can't. If you think the EU is a good idea,
1/ You haven't read the party manifesto of The European Peoples' Party.
2/ You haven't had to deal with EU petty bureaucracy tearing your business down.
3/ You don't care.

 

We don't pay £13BN a year for a start off fella, you've swallowed the nonsense.

The net cost of us being in the EU is circa 0.4% of our GDP - after rebate and EU funded private and public sector funded projects are factored in.

If we exit the EU we lost being part of the single market and will have negotiate a trade deal with the EU for a start off. It's taken Canada 7 years to try and manage that btw, and it's still not concluded.

So our trade WILL be affected, as will our economy. The 0-4% of GDP it costs us to be a member state will be lost within months, as our economy contracts due to the inevitable market crash. What happens in the aftermath is a matter of conjecture i.e. interest rate rises, how far the pound will fall etc etc, but the initial market jolt isn't, and it'll put us into recession. How deep and how long that will be is anyone's guess, but it'll hurt.

And for what? So we can stand there and say we can now control our own policy on beach cleanliness or what constitutes a ****ing sausage?

 

Anyone using the cop out excuse that our democratically elected government cannot be trusted and thus we need the EU to babysit them is not looking at the bigger picture here.
Any government we elect can be ousted in 4 years......
If we stay in the EU, thats it, we are stuck, at least for the next 20 years (or until the EU crumbles which I personally feel it will).

If you that disillusioned that you feel none of our MP's can be trusted to run this country, then that is really sad.....really ****ing sad....
Either take up office, or find a like minded MP and join his cause. Because the EU is not the solution.

 

One word, switzerland.

 

Shame UK industry themselves don't agree with you - from the CBI;

Factsheet 2 - Benefits of EU membership outweigh costs
>> Visit our EU referendum hub

• 71% of CBI member businesses report that the UK’s membership of the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business, including 67% of SME members. Only 13% said there had been a negative impact. Overall,78% said they would vote to remain in the EU in a referendum, with 77% of SME’s taking the same position.
• A CBI literature review suggests that the net benefit of EU membership to the UK could be in the region of 4-5% of GDP or £62bn-£78bn a year – roughly the economies of the North East and Northern Ireland taken together.

Access to a $16.6 trillion a year Single Market of 500m people is the key benefit

• UK firms’ access to the Single Market goes beyond a standard free-trade agreement - the EU has eliminated tariff barriers and customs procedures within its borders, and has taken strides towards removing non-tariff barriers - such as different product regulations - by enforcing EU-wide competition law and coordinating product regulations.
• 76% of CBI members say that the ability to freely buy and sell products in the EU has had a positive impact on their business, including 74% of SMEs.
• It has been estimated that UK trade with some countries in Europe could have increased by as much as 50% as a result of EU membership.
• The Single Market also underpins access to European supply chains. In 2009 $207bn of the UK’s total of $293bn of exports to the rest of the EU27 was used as inputs to industries, rather than being consumed directly; and the UK imported $161bn of intermediates from the EU27 in 2009. Imported intermediates are important even to domestically-focused sectors: the health & social care sector used $19bn of imported intermediates (principally of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals).

The EU has helped open global markets to UK firms on strong terms

• The EU is a springboard for trade with the rest of the world through its global clout: it accounted for 23% of the global economy in 2012 in dollar terms. Through 30 trade deals negotiated by the EU, including the Single Market itself, British firms have full access to a $24 trillion market. The recent deal with Canada and on-going discussions with Japan and the US could double this to $47 trillion - the UK would struggle to achieve the same quality of trade deals independently.
• 58% of CBI members think that extra-EU trade agreements have had a positive impact on their business, including 55% of SMEs, compared to 3% who thought the impact was negative.

Membership has increased flows of investment into the UK

• Investment flows across borders inside the EU have roughly doubled following the introduction of the Single Market. As the EU’s leading investment destination, the UK was a key beneficiary: the EU accounted for 47% of the UK’s stock of inward FDI at the end of 2011, with investments worth over $1.2 trillion.
• Access to the EU Single Market has also helped attract investment into the UK from outside the EU.
• 52% of CBI members say that the ability to invest in other EU states without restriction has had a positive impact on business.

Free movement of labour has brought benefits to the UK economy

• Free movement of labour helps UK business plug skills gaps. 63% of CBI members say that the ability to recruit and transfer staff from across the EU has been positive for business, including 48% of SMEs. Overall only 1% of members said the impact had been negative – and only 2% of SMEs said it had been negative.
• UK citizens have also benefited from free movement of labour – at least three-quarters of a million live in other EU countries.
• CBI recognises that there is public debate over immigration – consideration must be given to how free movement can practically operate in an EU of 28 in a way that commands public support.

Business sees the UK’s lack of unilateral control over some regulation as a downside to membership

• There is recognition that common rules are needed to support the Single Market. 52% of CBI members think that common product standards across the EU are a positive, including 50% of SMEs. Overall, only 15% of members said that the impact of common standards had been negative.
• However, firms are concerned about labour market regulation. 49% of CBI members say that the pan-EU employment rights in areas such as working hours are a negative for business.

The UK’s net budgetary contribution is a small net cost relative to the benefits

• The UK’s net contribution to the EU budget is around €7.3bn, or 0.4% of GDP. As a comparison that’s around a quarter of what the UK spends on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and less than an eighth of the UK’s defence spend. The £116 per person net contribution is less than that from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands.

http://news.cbi.org.uk/reports/our-...t-2-benefits-of-eu-membership-outweigh-costs/

 

The EU aren't going to dick us about like they have Canada, we are too important to them.

 

Would that be the same Switzerland that has 120 bilateral agreements with the EU?

 

Everything I read in that article.....
The average household earnings COULD.....
Interest rates COULD....

All could, what ifs, maybes.
Staying in the EU is safer in terms of projected outcomes, i will agree.
Our success/failure gauge is much narrower if we stay in and things are easier to predict.

Leaving makes the chance of failure much greater, and the chance of Success much greater. Its more of a risk.
But one I feel is worth it.

If the EU survives and we stay in it, we WILL have to adopt the Euro eventually too, they will only let us have our cake and eat it for so long.

 

13% of the EU's exports come to the UK, whereas 54% of ours go to the EU.

Who needs who more again?

 

Yes, they also are not in the EU.

 

Yes it would hurt us more. But 13% of Europes trade is a large amount, they will cut their own noses off just to spite us?
You think?

 

You talk about 'ifs' and 'buts' in an article that's quoting answers given directly from British businesses and then post that bollocks in your last sentence

We'll never join the Euro, as that would offset the benefits of membership.

 

By the way.....I think you are awesome Tobes,
This is some good debating.......I havent Alt tabbed between Not606 and google this much in a long time.
And I respect your opinions, they are well thought out and honest.