The EU referendum - 23rd June

[piglinbland]

If that's the level of the debate:

 

1) Remain

 

2) Fundamental reverse everything every fibre of the EU stands for and is dedicated to being

 

3) Light cigar

 

4) Drink wine recently made from water

 

Not responding to the debate, just the many flippant remarks referring to German cars and things being 'alreet'.

[leeslover]

 

Not responding to the debate, just the many flippant remarks referring to German cars and things being 'alreet'.

You do acknowledge that our trading terms would at the very worst be the same as what the US, China and Argentina have now? That's my main basis for not panicking over it. We don't need any deal at all or any goodwill from the Commission to keep trading.

[piglinbland]

I accept wholly that the 3% you suggest is feasible. But even 3% (not withstanding protectionism) is a far, far higher percentage than our EU deficit is to the GNP as a whole, or for that matter, the percentage of immigrants "swamping" us from the EU against the total population of Britain - the 2 arguments I hear the most for leaving the EU.

 

I think it's dishonest to have based a referendum campaign on these popularist premises (I know they aren't the only issues but I think the bulk of the 'out' voice is very much carried by anti-Europe sentiment), especially as even the most fervent 'Brexit' supporter will acknowledge that it would indeed be a step into the unknown. As I stated previously, tiny inputs cause huge changes.

 

I disagree too with your negative portrayal of the EU which gives the impression of it being a spiraling vortex of debt in an otherwise prospering world - whereas the reality is that almost every corner of the globe is suffering the economic effects of over-population, climate change and world recession.

Edited June 21, 2016 by piglinbland

[HarryBosch]

 

Biggest oil wealth fund on the planet, as well as very high public sector employment. They also accept free movement of EU citizens in return to access for the single market (they also pay for this as well). Norway could have got a better deal out of being an EU Member, but chose not to.

 

At the end of the day, the Norwegian model (nor Swiss) cannot apply to us as Leave don't want to accept free movement of EU Citizens.

 

"Leave" are not a political party and, therefore, won't govern the UK on Friday morning.

 

Nor on the Friday morning after the next General Election....

[HarryBosch]

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/6337/the_economic_case_for_brexit_is_overwhelming

 

The economic case for Brexit is overwhelming A decision to remain in the EU would guarantee a slow, gradual decline. It really isn't smart to link Britain's future to a declining bloc of nations, and the failed, centralising tendencies of Brussels will get much worse if the UK stays. Brexit is the right way to go

 

On June 23, the people of the United Kingdom will have the opportunity to restore sovereignty and protect democracy by voting in a national referendum to leave the European Union.

They should choose “leave” over “remain.”

The European Union’s governmental manifestations (most notably, an über-powerful bureaucracy called the European Commission, a largely powerless but nonetheless expensive European Parliament, and a sovereignty-eroding European Court of Justice) are – on net – a force for statism rather than liberalization.

Combined with Europe’s grim demographic outlook, a decision to remain would guarantee a slow, gradual decline.

A vote to leave, by contrast, would create uncertainty and anxiety in some quarters, but the United Kingdom would then have the ability to make decisions that will produce a more prosperous future.

Leaving the EU would be like refinancing a mortgage when interest rates decline. In the first year or two, it might be more expensive because of one-time expenses. In the long run, though, it’s a wise decision.

From an American perspective, George Will has been especially insightful and eloquent. Here are some excerpts from a recent column in the Washington Post.

"Lord Nigel Lawson… is impatient with the proposition that it is progress to transfer to supra-national institutions decisionmaking that belongs in Britain’s Parliament. …The Remain camp correctly says that Britain is richer and more rationally governed than when European unification began.

"The Leave camp, however, correctly responds that this is largely in spite of the E.U. — it is because of decisions made by British governments, particularly Margaret Thatcher’s, in what is becoming a shrinking sphere of national autonomy. In 1988, Thatcher said: “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.”'

Here’s a good visual of what’s happening. What began as a good idea (free trade) has become a bad idea (economic union) and may become an even worse idea (common government).

Here’s what Dan Hannan, a British Member of the European Parliament, wrote on the issue. He’s very pro-Europe, but understands that does not mean European-wide governance is a good idea.

"I’m emotionally drawn to Europe. I speak French and Spanish and have lived and worked all over the Continent. I’ve made many friends among…committed Euro-federalists. …they are also decent neighbours, loyal companions and generous hosts. I feel twinges of unease about disappointing them, especially the anglophiles. But, in the end, the head must rule the heart."

Dan identifies six reasons why it is sensible to leave.

Here are relevant portions of his arguments, starting with the fact that the EU is becoming a super-state..

"The EU has acquired, one by one, the attributes and trappings of nationhood: a president and a foreign minister, citizenship and a passport, treaty-making powers, a criminal justice system, a written constitution, a flag and a national anthem. It is these things that Leavers object to, not the commerce and co-operation that we would continue to enjoy, as every neighbouring country does."

Second, it is only pro-trade for members, not the wider world.

"The EU is not a free-trade area; it is a customs union. The difference may seem technical, but it goes to the heart of the decision we face. Free-trade areas remove barriers between members and, economists agree, tend to make participants wealthier. Customs unions, by contrast, erect a common tariff wall around their members, who surrender the right to strike individual trade deals.

"…Britain is one of only two of 28 member states that sell more to the rest of the world than to the EU. We have always been especially badly penalised by the EU’s Common External Tariff. Unlike Switzerland, which enjoys free trade with the EU at the same time as striking agreements with China and other growing economies… It’s a costly failure. In 2006, the EU was taking 55 per cent of our exports; last year, it was down to 45 per cent. What will it be in 2030 — or 2050?"

Third, the advocates of common government are candid about their ultimate goals.

"The Five Presidents’ Report sets out a plan for the amalgamation of fiscal and economic policies… The Belgian commissioner Marianne Thyssen has a plan for what she calls ‘social union’ — i.e. harmonisation of welfare systems. …These are not the musings of outlandish federalist think tanks: they are formal policy statements by the people who run Brussels."

Fourth, Europe is stagnant.

"…in 1973, the states that now make up the EU accounted for 36 per cent of the world economy. Last year, it was 17 per cent. Obviously, developing economies grow faster than advanced ones, but the EU has also been comprehensively outperformed by the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. …Why tie ourselves to the world’s slowest-growing continent?"

Fifth, there are examples of very successful non-EU nations in Europe.

"…we can get a better deal than…Switzerland…and Norway…; on the day we left, we’d become the EU’s single biggest export market. …They trade freely with the EU…they are self-governing democracies."

And, last but not least, a decision to remain will be interpreted as a green light for more centralization, bureaucratization, and harmonization.

"A Remain vote will be…capitulation. Look at it from the point of view of a Euro-federalist. Britain would have demanded trivial reforms, failed to secure even those, and then voted to stay in on unchanged terms. After decades of growling and snarling, the bulldog would have rolled over and whimpered. …With the possibility of Brexit off the table, there will be a renewed push to integration, on everything from migrant quotas to a higher EU budget."

Dan’s bottom line is very simple.

"We have created more jobs in the past five years than the other 27 states put together. How much bigger do we have to be, for heaven’s sake, before we can prosper under our own laws?"

Roland Smith, writing for the U.K.’s Adam Smith Institute, produced The Liberal Case for Leave. Needless to say, he’s looking at the issue from the classical liberal perspective, not the statist American version.

Anyhow, here’s some of what he wrote.

"…the 1970s turned out to be an odd period where many things that seemed like good ideas at the time turned out not to be. …While there may have been an element of truth about EEC membership in the 1970s that seduced many subsequent sceptics…our timing for joining “the club” could not have been worse.

"…globalisation was beginning to eat into the logic of a political European Union at the very point it was striding towards statehood with a single euro currency. …the European single market is being rapidly eclipsed. …The EU is therefore increasingly becoming a pointless middleman as a vast new global single market takes over."

Mr. Smith does not think it’s smart to link his country’s future to a declining bloc of nations.

"We are now less dependent than ever on our closest trading partners in Europe and this trend is marching relentlessly onward. For the first 40 years of our membership, the majority — over 60% — of UK exports went to the EU.

"But in 2012, for the first time, that figure dropped below 50%. It is now at 45% and continues to sink. …The demographics of the European continent, alongside the dysfunctional euro and its insidious effects across Europe have also played a large part in this change… This situation and these trends are not going to change."

Here’s his conclusion.

"This Brexit vision is therefore a global, outward-looking and ambitiously positive one. It eschews the inward-looking outlook of…the Remain lobby… So a parochial inward-looking “little Europe” and a demographically declining one, ranged against an expansive, liberal and global outlook. …The crux of the matter is that we in Britain want trade and cooperation; our EU partners want merger and a leashed hinterland."

These are strong arguments, so why does Prime Minister David Cameron want to remain?

And why is he joined by the hard-left leader of the Labour Party (actually, that’s easy to answer given the shared leftist orientation of both Jeremy Corbyn and EU officials), along with most big companies and major unions?

Most of them, if asked, will argue that a vote to leave the EU will undermine the economy. They’ll cite estimates of lower economic output from the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the British Treasury, and other sources.

To be blunt, these numbers lack credibility. A pro-centralization, pro-EU Prime Minister asked for numbers from a bureaucracy he controls. As critics have pointed out, the goal was to produce scary numbers rather than to produce real analysis.

And the numbers from the international bureaucracies are even more laughable. The IMF is a left-wing organization with a dismal track record of sloppy and disingenuous output. And the OECD also is infamous for a statist perspective and dishonest data manipulation.

Indeed, the palpable mendacity of these numbers has probably boomeranged on supporters of the EU. Polls show that voters don’t believe these hysterical and overwrought numbers.

Instead, they laugh about “Project Fear.”

Yet, as reported by John Fund of National Review, the EU crowd is doubling down in their panic to frighten people.

"…the organizers of Project Fear have gone into overdrive. European Council President Donald Tusk said in an interview with the German newspaper Bild that radical anti-European forces will be “drinking champagne” if Brexit passes. …Tusk said. “As a historian I fear that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also of western political civilization in its entirety.”'

End of western civilization? Seriously?

Gee, why not also predict a zombie apocalypse?

These chicken little predictions are hard to take seriously when Britons can look at other nations in Europe that are prospering outside the European Union.

Consider Norway. Advocates of the EU claimed horrible results if the country didn’t join. Needless to say, those horrible results never materialized.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t honest people who sincerely think it would be a mistake to leave the European Union.

Indeed, a survey by the Centre for Macroeconomics found very negative views.

"Almost all panel members thought that a vote for Brexit would lead to a significant disruption to financial markets and asset prices for several months, which would put the Bank of England on high alert. On top of the risk of a financial crisis in the near future, an unusually strong majority agree that there would be substantial negative long-term consequences."

Other economists seem to agree.

Four of them produced an article for VoxEU, and here’s some of what they wrote.

"The possibility of the UK leaving the EU has generated an unusual degree of consensus among economists. …analysis from the Bank of England, to the OECD, to academia has all shown that Brexit would make us economically worse off. The disagreement is mainly over the degree of impoverishment… The one exception is…Professor Patrick Minford of Cardiff University, who argues that Brexit will raise the UK’s welfare by 4% as a result of increased trade…

"Minford’s policy recommendation is that following a vote for Brexit, the UK should not bother striking new trade deals but instead unilaterally abolish all its import tariffs… we know of no cases where an industrialised country has ever implemented full unilateral liberalisation – and for good reason. Persuading other countries to reduce their trade barriers is easier if you can also say you’re going to reduce your own as part of the deal. If we’re committed to going naked into the world economy, other countries are unlikely to follow suit voluntarily.

"…In reality, the UK will still continue to trade extensively with our closest geographical neighbours, it’s just that the higher trade barriers mean that we will do less of it."

Other establishment voices are convinced that the United Kingdom would be crazy to leave the EU.

Robert Samuelson, in his Washington Post column, views it as a form of national suicide because of existing economic ties to continental Europe.

"Countries usually don’t knowingly commit economic suicide, but in Britain, millions seem ready to give it a try. …Leaving the E.U. would be an act of national insanity. It would weaken the U.K. economy, one of Europe’s strongest. The E.U. absorbs 44 percent of Britain’s exports; these might suffer because trade barriers, now virtually nonexistent between the U.K. and other E.U. members, would probably rise.

"Meanwhile, Britain would become less attractive as a production platform for the rest of Europe, so that new foreign direct investment in the U.K. — now $1.5 trillion — would fall. Also threatened would be London’s status as Europe’s major financial center, home (for example) to 78 percent of E.U. foreign exchange trading. With the U.K. out of the E.U., some banking activities might move to Frankfurt or other cities. …Brexit is an absurdity. But it is a potentially destructive absurdity. It creates more uncertainty in a world awash in uncertainty."

Allister Heath of the Daily Telegraph disagrees with these proponents of the status quo.

"David Cameron and George Osborne have been claiming, over and again, that those of us who support Brexit have lost the economic argument. …utter nonsense. …The free-market, cosmopolitan, pro-globalisation economic case for leaving is stronger than ever… The hysterical studies claiming that Brexit would ruin us are grotesque caricatures, attempts at portraying a post-Brexit Britain as a nation that suddenly decided to turn its back on free trade and foreigners.

"…a Brexit would almost certainly mean the UK remaining in the European Economic Area (EEA), like Norway: we would be liberated from much political interference, be allowed to forge our own free-trade deals while retaining the single market’s Four Freedoms. Europe’s shell-shocked corporate interests would demand economic and trade stability of its equally traumatised political classes, and they would get it.

"…with supply-side reforms at home, the UK would become more, rather than less, attractive to global capital. The Treasury, OECD and IMF’s concocted Armageddon scenarios wouldn’t materialise. Remain has only won the economic argument in the sense that most economists and the large institutions that employ them support their side."

And Allister points out that the supposed consensus view of economists has been wildly wrong in the past.

"Time and time again, the majority of economists make spectacularly wrong calls, and it is a small, despised minority that gets it right. In 1999, The Economist wrote to the UK’s leading academic practitioners of the dismal science to find out whether it would be in our national economic interest to join the euro by 2004. Of the 165 who replied, 65 per cent said that it would.

"Even more depressingly, 73 per cent of those who actually specialised in the economics of the EU and of monetary union thought we should join – the experts among the experts were the most wrong. Britain would have gone bust had we listened… The vast majority of economists did not foresee or predict the financial crisis or the Great Recession or the eurozone crisis. Yet they now have the chutzpah to behave as if they should be treated like philosopher kings… Remember the Twenties? The economics profession overwhelmingly failed to see the great bubble and subsequent crash and depression. The Thirties? It messed up on just about everything.

"…In the Sixties and subsequently, Paul Samuelson’s best-selling, dominant economics textbook was predicting that the Soviet Union’s GDP per capita would soon catch up with America’s. The Seventies? Most economists didn’t know how stagflation could even be possible. The Eighties? The profession opposed Thatcherism and the policies that saved the UK; infamously, 364 economists attacked Thatcher’s macroeconomic policies in the 1981 Budget and then kept getting it wrong.

"…The problem this time around is that Remain economists assume that leaving the EU would mean reducing globalisation and halting most immigration. They assume that there are only costs and no benefits from leaving the EU…the EU’s anti-democratic institutions are unsustainable and thus pose a great threat to the liberal international economic order its UK supporters claim to be defending."

The debate among economists is mostly focused on trade.

nations all over the world trade very successfully without being in the European Union, so this view that somehow the United Kingdom can’t do likewise is a triumph of theory over reality.

It’s way past time to wrap this up, but there are a few additional items I can’t resist sharing.

A British parliamentarian (akin to a member of Congress in the U.S.) is understandably unhappy that some Americans, most notably President Obama, are interfering in the Brexit election.

Here are parts of Chris Grayling’s column in the Washington Post.

"Imagine if you were told that the United States should join an American Union bringing together all the nations of North and South America. It would have its own parliament — maybe in Panama City, a place on the cusp of the two halves of the Americas. That American Parliament would have the power to make the majority of your laws.

"A Supreme Court of the Americas in Panama would outrank the U.S. Supreme Court and take decisions that would be mandatory in the United States. …That is, more or less, where Britain finds itself today."

Sensible Americans obviously wouldn’t like that state of affairs.

And we would be even more unhappy if that Superstate of the Americas kept grabbing more power, which is exactly what’s happening across the Atlantic.

"It decrees that any citizen of any European country can come and live and work in Britain — and that if they do, we must give them free health care and welfare support if they need it. Millions have done so. …it is moving closer and closer to becoming a single government for Europe, and indeed many of its key players — leaders such as Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s François Hollande — have that as a clear goal. Britain has a small minority of the voting rights, and loses out almost every time."

Allister Heath adds more wisdom to the discussion.

He’s especially mystified by those who think the EU is a force for liberalization.

"Bizarrely, given the EU’s appalling record, these folk see Brussels as the last guardian of enlightenment values; the only way to save the project, they believe, is rule by a transnational nomenklatura. …Remainians are petrified that the British public would…vote the wrong way: for protectionism, nationalisation, xenophobia and stupidity. We would..

"…support idiotic, growth-destroying and socially unacceptable policies. Astonishingly, given the Continent’s collectivist history, such folk equate membership of the EU with free trade and Britain’s Leave camp with protectionism. It’s a breathtaking error of judgement… They cannot grasp that there are other, better ways of opening markets than from within the EU, and that in any case it is just about as far from a libertarian project as it is possible to imagine. …pro-EU Left and Right agree that the people are dangerous, that they must be contained and that, slowly but surely, entire areas of public policy should be hived off beyond the reach of the British electorate.

"The strategy is to impose top-down restraints and to subcontract decision-making to external bodies… European institutions are actually the antithesis of true liberalism."

Let’s end with some passages from another George Will column.

"Michael Gove, secretary of justice and leader of the campaign for Brexit — Britain’s withdrawal from the E.U. — anticipates a “galvanizing, liberating, empowering moment of patriotic renewal.” …American conservatives would regard Britain’s withdrawal from the E.U. as the healthy rejection of political grandiosity...

"…If Britons vote to remain in the E.U., this might be the last important decision made at British ballot boxes because important decisions will increasingly be made in Brussels. The E.U.’s “democracy deficit” is…the point of such a state. …Under Europe’s administrative state, Gove says “interest groups are stronger than ever” and they prefer social stasis to the uncertainties of societies that welcome the creative destruction of those interests that thrive by rent-seeking. …most of binding law in Britain — estimates vary from 55 percent to 65 percent — arises not from the Parliament in Westminster but from the European Commission in Brussels.

"The E.U. has a flag no one salutes, an anthem no one sings, a president no one can name, a parliament that no one other than its members wants to have more power (which must be subtracted from national legislatures), a capital of coagulated bureaucracies that no one admires or controls, a currency that presupposes what neither does nor should exist (a European central government administering fiscal policy), and rules of fiscal behavior (limits on debt-to-gross domestic product ratios) that few if any members obey and none have been penalized for ignoring. …the 23rd of June can become Britain’s Fourth of July — a Declaration of Independence. If Britain rejects continuing complicity in the E.U. project — constructing a bland leviathan from surrendered national sovereignties — it will have…taken an off-ramp from the road to serfdom."

Well said.

If I lived in the United Kingdom, I would vote to leave the European Union.

Simply stated, the European project is controlled by statists and the one good thing it provides (free trade between members) is easily overwhelmed by the negative things it imposes (protectionism against outsiders, tax harmonization, horrible agriculture subsidies, bad fisheries policy, etc).

Moreover, the continent is demographically dying.

The bottom line is that the European Union is a sinking ship.

[piglinbland]

I suppose I should post some twaddle from the Guardian to counter that - but I can't be bothered. So here is another article from the very same extremely right-wing journal, this time refuting climate change on the grounds that there is no empirical proof. (Empirical proof requires scientific comparison, or a control - impossible because anthropic climate change is unique, there is no comparable event).

 

Yet again this link between quack Brexit, quack climate and the loony right.

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Despite the guff, no proof on man-made climate change 95 percent is no more a proof than 9.5 percent. It still means there isn't a proof. But there's money and ideology at stake here, as the really top scientists know

Where are all the polar bears?

the commentator

On 27 September 2013 12:41

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You may have noticed the tidal wave. This one wasn't caused by global warming, though wait for the BBC and, sad to say after recent coverage, Sky NEWS too, to make a claim that it was. It's the tidal wave of illogical, anti-scientific spittle over the release today of the latest report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

We did a, very widely read, curtain raiser on the matter at the beginning of the week ,and offered a right to reply to any serious party who could refute our points. Answer came there none!

So, now, we're just going to focus on one single issue that has formed the top line for pretty well every news report that has been running today: "UN 95% sure humans cause global warming", as the BBC's headline had it.

95 percent? Sounds pretty convincing, right? Except that scientific rigour does not allow for percentage point grades to be attached to a proof. The case either is proven or it isn't. It isn't as though 20 percent would be given a, "good try, but we need more" ranking; while 55 percent would be given a, "yum, you're on to something, and you could be right" ranking; with a 90 percent-plus given a, "well, now you're talking" ranking.

95 percent is no more a proof than 9.5 percent. It still means there isn't a proof.

So how does the IPCC get to 95 percent anyway? Obviously, it's the political and financial pressures that are driving this. The IPCC, like the wider UN, is dominated by a political-ideological consensus that needs man-made climate change to be true. In addition, there are vast sums of money for research grants that sustain the livelihoods of the scientists involved. Confirmation bias is an obvious problem. Shall we put the likelihood of that at 95 percent?

Between the IPCC's 95 percent certainty and the 100 percent necessary to offer a proof, there is also the "process-of-elimination" issue to address. Know the point? It's key.

As many top climate scientists who are excluded from the IPCC's reckoning have pointed out for years, climate scientists do not know why the climate has been warming since the early 20th century; not in the sense of being able to prove it. Most think the sun is not the issue. Most also dismiss natural variation, and many other putative causes.

Given that it is objectively correct to point out that the climate has warmed (though not for the last 15 years; against all IPCC predictions by the way) and given that man-made carbon emissions are new, then by process of elimination they have deduced that that must be the cause.

It is an elementary, though oh-so-tempting, analytical error. There could well be causal factors that we don't know about. But since we don't know about them, we'll work with what we think we have! Oh dear, go to the bottom of the class...

Trillions of dollars are being wasted on that fallacy. Are you still 95 percent certain? You'd better be because your taxes are paying for those wasted trillions.

p.s. In contrast with the alarmists, we are totally open minded. If we're wrong, we're wrong. Jut show us why. We keep offering a right to reply for serious parties. It's telling that they run a mile...

[al_bro]

 

Biggest oil wealth fund on the planet, as well as very high public sector employment. They also accept free movement of EU citizens in return to access for the single market (they also pay for this as well). Norway could have got a better deal out of being an EU Member, but chose not to.

 

At the end of the day, the Norwegian model (nor Swiss) cannot apply to us as Leave don't want to accept free movement of EU Citizens.

I wasn't saying we should follow the Norwegian, or any other model. We should have a British model. I was simply showing that all the scare stories fed to the Norwegian people have been proved to be wrong, and they are the same stories being fed to us now.

[Matt]

Despite the guff, no proof on man-made climate change 95 percent is no more a proof than 9.5 percent.

 

 

:censored:ing hell. Modern day witch trials - a panic suggesting that malevolent scientists were operating as an organized group for their own gain.

 

I can't understand why, as humans we can go from the Wright Brothers to Yuri Gagarin in fifty-odd years yet we have Texas, Boris Johnson and Daesh.

[joe_lead]

Given that the polls show this could go either way, I find it very strange that Cameron & Osborne are not fighting for their political careers. It's as though they know the result will go their way.

 

There were lots of 'rigging' claims in the Scottish Referendum, wouldn't put it past them.

 

Vote Remain

[joe_lead]

I wasn't saying we should follow the Norwegian, or any other model. We should have a British model. I was simply showing that all the scare stories fed to the Norwegian people have been proved to be wrong, and they are the same stories being fed to us now.

Following a model of high wages, high taxes, sharing wealth and social cohesion is not the model of the British Establishment. The British model will ensure that wealth and power remain in the hands of the few, and the rest are turned against each other so that the Establishment is never challenged

 

Fantastic debate guys, however just shut-up and do what you're told

[yarddog]

Its a no brainer for me.

 

STAY.

 

How can we support ourselves when we have no backbone industry.Foreign companies either bought out our home grown companies or own many of the factories that provide work.The main reason they are involved in our country is because they are after a foothold in the European market.If we withdraw, all the resources that get shipped in as well as exporting the finished product, will be subject to duty, and this will push up costs.If we leave, what's to stop these companies from shutting shop and shipping off to the continent to reduce costs?

 

Answer:NOTHING.

 

Today, we have the best employment figures we've ever had. We have a minimum wage which is steadily increasing, 0% inflation, in contrast to the early 70's where we had 3day weeks, power cuts and high inflation.

 

If we leave Britain will be like a high st. shop competing against giant retail stores, and end up like BHS, screwed up and shafted.

 

The leave campaigners keep quoting Dyson for British success, Dyson :censored:ed this country off so he could line his pockets in China.And what the :censored:s Boris Johnson got to do with this debate? NOTHING. He's apolitical nobody, he doesn't even hold any political position as far as I know, he's only the ex-mayor of London.

 

The leavers only seem concerned about immigration, if this is true, then all they have to say NO. Enough is enough,:censored: off, go away.

 

 

Find some other way of solving the problem.You don't chop your leg off because your toe hurts.If things go tits up after we've left,we won't be able to rejoin.Unification is the future.The problems we have now is because too many new members are joining in too short a time.

 

JUST SAY NO

 

Vote remain.Find another solution.

[HarryBosch]

I wasn't saying we should follow the Norwegian, or any other model. We should have a British model. I was simply showing that all the scare stories fed to the Norwegian people have been proved to be wrong, and they are the same stories being fed to us now.

 

Why not just follow the Norwegian model (or some other successful country) as much as we can?

 

I've never understood with politics why no government has ever sent people off to whichever countries have the best health service/transport/police/schools to quite simply just copy what they do....

[opinions4u]

 

Why not just follow the Norwegian model (or some other successful country) as much as we can?

 

I've never understood with politics why no government has ever sent people off to whichever countries have the best health service/transport/police/schools to quite simply just copy what they do....

I think the key difference is the Norway's oil income is divided between fewer people.

 

And they pay silly money for beer.

 

And gave the world Bobbisox.

[oafc0000]

 

"Leave" are not a political party and, therefore, won't govern the UK on Friday morning.

 

Nor on the Friday morning after the next General Election....

 

This seems to be lost on a lot of the country... Leaves promises have no substance of accountability... They can say what they want...

[oafc0000]

Vote remain

 

Not one of the out campaigns arguments stands up to scrutiny.

[opinions4u]

 

This seems to be lost on a lot of the country... Leaves promises have no substance of accountability... They can say what they want...

Remain isn't a political party either.

[oafc0000]

Remain isn't a political party either.

 

Weak argument...

 

Cameron - Prime Minister

Osborn - Chancellor of exchequer

Majority of the Tory Cabinate (ruling party)

Majority of the Tory Party (ruling party - I think going off the rough numbers I have seen)

Corybn - Leader of the Labour Party

Farron - Leader of the Lib Dems

Bennett - Leader of the Greens

Sturgeon - Leader of the SNP

Khan - Mayor of London

 

All for Remain

 

While its technically true remain is not a party.... the idea the remain side won't retain massive political power if they win is weak... they are accountable... Leave are not...

 

I would suggest the hurdles to Boris, Gove, IDS and Farage gaining power if they win and being in the position to give things they have promised like no VAT on fuel is extremely difficult.

 

Do you honestly disagree ?

 

Edited June 22, 2016 by oafc0000

[leeslover]

 

Weak argument...

 

Cameron - Prime Minister

Osborn - Chancellor of exchequer

Majority of the Tory Cabinate (ruling party)

Majority of the Tory Party (ruling party - I think going off the rough numbers I have seen)

Corybn - Leader of the Labour Party

Farron - Leader of the Lib Dems

Bennett - Leader of the Greens

Sturgeon - Leader of the SNP

Khan - Mayor of London

 

All for Remain

 

While its technically true remain is not a party.... the idea the remain side won't retain massive political power if they win is weak... they are accountable... Leave are not...

 

I would suggest the hurdles to Boris, Gove, IDS and Farage gaining power if they win and being in the position to give things they have promised like no VAT on fuel is extremely difficult.

 

Do you honestly disagree ?

 

The problem you have is that Remain isn't the Commission, or the 5 Presidents or the Council of Ministers or Angela Merkel, because all of them are quite clear about where the EU is going, but we're told that if we stay in they'll all see the error of their ways

[oafc0000]

The problem you have is that Remain isn't the Commission, or the 5 Presidents or the Council of Ministers or Angela Merkel, because all of them are quite clear about where the EU is going, but we're told that if we stay in they'll all see the error of their ways

 

What are you fearing leeslover ? What do you think they are going to do to you / us ?

Edited June 22, 2016 by oafc0000

[leeslover]

 

What are you fearing leeslover ? What do you think those 5 nasty men are going to do to you / us ?

I take them at their word that they'll bring about full fiscal union, effectively setting country's budgets from an unelected centre. I think this will lock the problems of the Eurozone even deeper in and I do fear the consequences.

[oafc0000]

I take them at their word that they'll bring about full fiscal union, effectively setting country's budgets from an unelected centre. I think this will lock the problems of the Eurozone even deeper in and I do fear the consequences.

 

This would require a treaty change and we have a veto available to stop that. We also will still have article 50 still available. So it can only happen if our UK elected body allow it to happen and I don't think there is ANY appetite for this from anyone on any of the political divide. As there is big opposition to such things within the rest of Europe. ~

 

Considering local democracy and sovereignty is such a big deal to most out campaigners then this should give you some sleep ?

 

So cool... You can calm down and vote remain now right ?

Edited June 22, 2016 by oafc0000

[Fyldelatic]

Vote remain from me too.

There is no El Dorado for being outside EU. We are not Canada or Australia, but offshore islands of the European continent. The only international leader supporting Brexit is Putin, not because it's good for UK but will weaken EU.

While UK may flourish outside EU, we won't know for something like 20 years, after a recession or two, massive job losses, high inflation because of plunging pound (by 20-30% possible) and huge damage to our economy (mainly dependent on service industries and financial services).

While benefit tourism must be stopped, immigration itself is good for UK and it's always a two-way process, where British citizens can take up jobs and residence throughout EU, as over a million have already done.

The only political parties in other EU states calling for withdrawal from EU are far right fringe like Le Pen's Front National in France.

Edited June 22, 2016 by Fyldelatic

[leeslover]

Boss of German's version of the CBI there saying it would be madness not to have free trade with us. Turns out they might not want to lay off everyone working on right hand drive beemers after all

[LaticsChris]

NOTHING. He's apolitical nobody, he doesn't even hold any political position as far as I know, he's only the ex-mayor of London.

 

 

I agree with you generally, but Johnson is MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

[frizzell54]

 

The only international leader supporting Brexit is Putin, not because it's good for UK but will weaken EU.

 

 

I think Putin is happy enough with a weak or isolationist president in the White House.

 

I think you will also find that he is on record as saying the decision is for the British people.