It may be paranoia but I'm detecting a stitch up in the teams they've picked. It's like a school playground where everybody wants to be Man U but everybody has to take turns at being Millwall.

If we vote in Dave will. " forgive" Boris and Gove and it'll be champagne and peerages all round.

If we vote out, Dave will give Boris the nod on his promotion, Boris will say Dave is great for following the will of the people, Gove the pantomime villain will pretend to reeducate the cabinet and it'llbe champagne and peerages all round.



Andy

I honestly think we'll unfortunately remain 'IN' due to the electorate 'safe voting' & fear of change.

Unknown territory is what the EU are hoping the British voters will be thinking so remaining in thinking we'll be OK, nasty politics lay ahead


Sent from my MoJ mobile tagging device

You say that like it's a bad thing. Surely, playing it safe versus taking a risk is what this is all about.

I get the intellectual and philosophical arguments about why we should leave; "freedom", "freedom' and "freedom", but few of the practical ones.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

It's all a bit sad really.. I suppose the Idea of a united Europe was, when first suggested a good idea, but then the corruption, incompetence, and greed quickly took over, and like a lot of 'good ideas' soon became a massive failure.

I think the referendum will be a fix, and we'll stay in, there are too many people making a lot of money for it to fail.

Boris Johnson's decision to campaign for BREXIT might make a big difference for those who are not yet decided. Official announcement expected tonight.

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Any Authority that is unelected and unaccountable is only going to a bad place....

Well, I guess it's easy for me. My company does 75% of it's business in Euro and 25% in dollars. We leave, the pound collapses, I'm quids in. We leave, the pound strengthens, I and the company move back to France. We stay, I stay.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

The pound (Sterling) is already tanking .. substantially over the course of just this past weekend. LINK

Plenty to talk about at this year's HUBB UK Meet then .. a few days before the Big R!

Too much excitement for one week!
Will I cope with it all?

__________________
Right Way Round ...

Now the “FUD” will commence as the campaigning starts in earnest.


A while ago there was a request for 5 reasons:



Sovereignty.
Within this comes -

Control of national borders.


Responsibility for the security of the nation which has always been a primary responsibility of any government – and that goes way beyond the basic concepts of security (based on “home” and “foreign” policy) to the health of the citizens and many other aspects.


Responsibility for the economic well being of the nation – there is much more to this than a simple consideration of trade (see the economic crisis thread).
So, “Security” relates to both home policy and foreign policy – for the latter we have very much permitted the EU to take over via their efforts in the past few years to develop such a single policy with non elected bureaucrats carrying out some functions e.g. the World Trade Organisation has EU representation which acts on behalf of all the nations of the EU.


As something of a subset consideration, but totally relevant, I think it is necessary to remember that none of the modern geo-political blocs in this world developed to where they are now without spilling a considerable amount of blood.
The USA got off relatively lightly via its' mid-19th century civil war in the sense that it did not last very long.
The Peoples' Republic of China is the current result (it may well change yet) of the deaths of perhaps 70m people (estimates vary); via yet another civil war (the long march) and then the cultural revolution (wave your little red book at this point).
Russia is a classic of the genre, with years of internal conflict, revolution, and control by despotic rulers.


What I am saying is that the EU cannot achieve its' own declared aims without its' own internal conflict, far beyond anything that we have seen to date, in Greece for example.
I cannot be sure in my own mind what is the best for the UK in these circumstances; we got sucked into WW1 after staying out of European problems for all of 99 years (1815 - 1914) and we have been much more closely involved ever since then. But nowadays, NATO is the main plank of our foreign defence policy.



Sense of community.
It seems to me that there may be an optimum level of identification by those of a country with their nation – the “citizen effect” that politicians tend to pontificate about.
It is hard to pin it down, but there can be little doubt that it exists.
Nor does it seem to relate to the physical scale of the country or any other particular factor; it just “is” - it exists.
The Germans have a term “Heimat”. They had their own TV series with that title quite a few years ago.
It seems likely that the Scottish have the same sense of belonging. The Catalonians also.
The optimum size of a country is what? I don't know – there are so many factors to it, but Europe has always been so diverse that the current aims of the EU are not compatible with the populations of the 28 existing countries much less any potential new entrants (97% of the land mass of Turkey, for instance, lies within Asia – to have a trade agreement with that country would be fine but to integrate? - how can that be?).
There are currently 24 official languages in use across 28 nations – that will work OK?


The legal system.
As outlined previously, continental law is derived from Roman practice later modified by Napoleonic law.
UK law is based on case law over 1000+ years including key stages such as Magna Carta.
The two are simply not compatible – nor am I saying that our system is perfect, it has problems but trying to bring in commonality with Europe when there are so many other issues at present makes little sense to me.


Trade.
Ability to act as a single entity; where does the optimum lie for the future?
An independent Britain could take it's own seat at the WTO; we are nominally there at present, but we allow the EU to represent us, as do other EU nations.
We hold a seat on the UNSC and, no doubt, various other bodies; for instance, we recently joined the AIIB.
(We can be pretty sure that the EU would like to take on the UNSC role, from both France and the UK - the latter are 2 of the 5 permanent members).
Coming up we have TTIP (check on that).
Personally, I don't buy the ridiculous argument that the UK, with its' history of trading, cannot manage without the EU.



Financial/Economic.
This has probably been covered adequately in this thread, although there is much more to follow now that the terms of the “agreement” have been negotiated, subject to ratification by the EU parliament after the date set for the UK referendum.
If not, then there is quite a bit more at the economic crisis thread in the HUBB pub.
The UK has much more chance of dealing with the econ crisis as a standalone nation then it has as one of 28 all trying to share the responsibility for the EU decisions.
As identified earlier, the theory is that the EU makes decisions without having to be held responsible for the consequences of those decisions e.g, the current state of Greece – the undoubted issues that lie within the borders of that troubled country could have been helped by the EU/ECB, but the Eurozone was the only priority when it came down to it.
In practice, the central powers of the EU – often referenced as the “Troika” in commentary, exert undue influence to put it in diplomatic language.
Judge by what they do and not so much by what they say.


As a summary point, for any and all of this we really do need a better standard of leadership than is extant at present.
This comment applies at all levels of society frankly.
The selfishness that is evident in many many case studies will continue?

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Dave

The EU relies heavily on UK fiscal contributions, if the UK leaves then other members have to contribute more, which means our contribution can be focused on homegrown serious issues rather than cutting back or closing them.

Our MoJ, justice secretary is consistently battling with the EU due to over-ruling UK judges, once our Supreme Court has delivered that's it, no overseas interference or meddling.

Controlled immigration is poor due to insufficient resources.

Our welfare system, housing and infrastructure is struggling due to the above point.

Our trade & industry will continue despite the scaremongering & the City of London financial district will adjust and continue, a global business vision instead of a EU tunnel vision isn't that hard, just ask the Chinese investing in Africa & other non-EU countries.

Our European countries manages well enough without being a EU lapdog there's no reason why the UK can continue either.

It's political disagreements, interference and meddling which the EU has exacerbated beyond its fundamental origins.



Sent from my MoJ mobile tagging device

Why call it a monster? Why do the no crowd always use loaded and emotive language which reads like something you'd find in a Daily Mail column? Seems to me a lot of people here just regurgitate puff pieces and opinion. Let's talk facts shall we?

How does Germany run the EU Can you point to what legal structure or framework of the EU has allowed Germany to gain unfair leverage; and provide examples of how Germany used this? Shouldn't the best performing economy in the EU have more leverage than say a weak one? Any facts to back this up?

Are the two separable? By 'meddling' do you mean the legislation on air pollution, river destruction and health I pointed to earlier or did you have something else in mind? Do you think if we vote to leave the Europeans will be so accommodating to give us what we want? i.e. All the benefits and none of the costs? You can't have it both ways - either vote to stay in and pressure through reform or vote to leave and live with the consequences. Why should the UK be given special treatment?

Where do the people who want to leave the EU plan to take Britain once they leave?

Would they just tow the island to a slightly warmer climate nearby, perhaps near the Canary Islands, or do they propose to move it all the way to perhaps the Caribbean? Obviously the Med is out, 'cause Britain would not fit through the Straits of Gibraltar.

I have not been following this topic very closely, hence my unfamiliarity with what proposals are on the table.

Michael

Don;t know but we've got a seat on the UN Security Council so trade should be okay.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

The aim & overall objective of the referendum is focused on the whole EU interference, meddling and failure to address serious issues along with reform, the reform proposals had to be agreed by all 27 other EU leaders, with some countries needing the EU gravy train more than the EU needing them.

Personally, and unfortunately I'll wager we'll remain in, the U.K. Has an opportunity to leave & be 'politically independent & self governed' via the forthcoming referendum, our PM's recent attempted negotiations were for diplomatic justifications only & like previous Governments have let the electorate down.

The EU dictatorship exacerbates & avoids reform responsibility and fiscal governance.

We'll still remain EU trading partners and poor scaremongering from some businesses and industries will adjust and continue as its in their best interest.


Sent from my MoJ mobile tagging device

The in campaign have the easier task. "All you can eat until Christmas and no foxes" will sell well amongst the occupants of the chicken shed.

These top level business people are all rich enough to buy their way out of the EUs personal restrictions and are in the positions they are because they are used to bending over when their bosses tell them to. The good ones, the real entrepreneurs should be itching to get out in the rest of the world and do their stuff free of petty regulation.

Andy