EU referendum ..... just why?????

Sporky

UnclePsychosis said:

I think it's more than a tad hypocritical to say to a country "you should give up a large part of your sovereignty to be part of the UK because it's of cultural and economic benefit" and then 18 months later for the same people to be saying "we can't give up this small amount of our sovereignty in this way, even if it costs us economically we need out, we need to govern ourselves as a matter of principle".

I disagree.

It seems entirely reasonable to me for a person to think that Scotland and England and Wales and Northern Ireland are best off together, but also to think that the UK and the EU are best off apart. Those are two different scenarios - I don't deny that they are both about the independence question, and I'm not saying that's my position, but the two are conceivably different enough that no hypocrisy is involved.

For instance, one might think that the economic benefit in the UK scenario is more significant than the economic benefit in the EU scenario. Or that the cultural similarities and differences have different weight.

But to say that one must be either a separatist or a unionist in all things or be a hypocrite is very no-shades-of-grey - as I said, you end up thinking that either anyone wanting out of the EU must want devolution by county, or that anyone who doesn't want out of the EU must want integration with the US and China and Peru and everyone else.

p90fool

It's all a moot point anyway, we're not governing ourselves whatever the outcome. We'll be governed by a tiny clique of fantastically wealthy utter cunts.

If you regard Cameron, Osborne or Johnson as "ourselves" then I feel sorry for you and your breathtaking naivety.

chillidoggy

chillidoggy said:

I'm very concerned about the low-powered kettle edict that the EU is waiting to foist on us as soon as we vote to stay in.

Seems to me I should have put a  in that post.

Fretwired

p90fool said:

It's all a moot point anyway, we're not governing ourselves whatever the outcome. We'll be governed by a tiny clique of fantastically wealthy utter cunts.

If you regard Cameron, Osborne or Johnson as "ourselves" then I feel sorry for you and your breathtaking naivety.

I really don't care as long as they generate an economy that grows to provide jobs and fund our public services. I wouldn't vote for any of the on the basis they were my mates or were like me. In fact someone like me wouldn't be qualified ...

Ro_S

english_bob said:

Ro_S said:

To those people who don't know how to vote on this matter or are indecisive about it, I would implore you not to employ your vote.

Or you could implore those people to find out about the issues, make a decision and vote on it. That would be more democratic and less patronising, wouldn't it?

If someone doesn't know how to vote at this point, they never will do.

Democracy may be the least worst system, but let's face it: some people are either too dumb, too ignorant, or too apathetic to be able to vote, especially on something so important.

Fretwired

From The Times

Britain will be better off out of sickly Europe

Britain wants to leave. That’s the country’s bedrock view. If people think their incomes will be unaffected by Brexit the Out campaign commands a 9 per cent lead, according to research by Professor Philip Cowley in association with YouGov. People want control of immigration, their taxes spent on the NHS rather than rich French farmers, and less meddling from Brussels. But looking at the polls, they are hesitating because they understandably worry about their jobs and pay.

Cowley’s research also found that Remain opens up a 19 per cent lead if voters believe they’ll be £500 better off staying in. This kind of research explains why David Cameron has threatened recession and higher food prices but also why the Vote Leave campaign ignores voters’ economic fears at its peril. While there are diehards on both sides, the floating voters who at their core want to leave are focused on their wallets and aren’t getting enough reassurance from the Brexit campaign. That may change after today because Vote Leave is finally set to enter the economic fray.

Up to now the Brexit battle has been David versus not just Goliath but an army of Goliaths. The PM has been using thousands of civil servants and Foreign Office diplomats, in liaison with scores of international bureaucrats, to concoct his blood-curdling warnings, but purdah has now arrived. Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, is now required by law to stop Whitehall aiding the Remain camp.

Now that the battleground should be evened up, people need to hear the economic benefits of leaving and risks of remaining. Brexiteers could repeat the three killer questions posed by Andrew Lilico of the Europe Economics consultancy: If the EU is so good for growth, why has the US grown 6 per cent faster than the EU over the past decade? If it’s so good for jobs, why is Spanish unemployment at 21 per cent? If it’s so good for trade, why are deals with Japan, the US and Canada at risk of breaking down?

If we stay we will be chaining ourselves to the world’s slowest growing continent (except Antarctica). We risk losing our rebate and paying more money into the EU budget as punishment for threatening to “desert”, to quote the childish, menacing language of Jean-Claude Juncker, one of the EU’s many unelected male chiefs. And you don’t need to believe Turkey will join the EU to think immigration might skyrocket. When the world falls into recession hundreds of thousands from poorer EU nations may seek work in Britain, just at the moment that our own workers are most at risk of losing their jobs.

In terms of a positive economic case for leaving, let’s have a five-point pledge card of the kind Tony Blair and John Prescott once brandished, but this time with substance.

Pledge One: A new Office of Free Trade at the heart of government, charged with negotiating trade arrangements with growing economies. Rather than being at the back of any queue, Britain should be able to secure trade deals more quickly because we won’t be at the mercy of a veto from France or any of the slowest members of the 28-nation EU convoy.

Pledge Two: Use £1 billion of our contribution to the EU to set up a world-beating export support service. David Davis MP has talked of “an 0800 number where a small manufacturer in Lancashire can call Shanghai, Mumbai or Sao Paulo, and find out in English how to negotiate the import regulations, find a freight forwarder or hire a warehouse”.

Pledge Three: Allow sterling to fall a bit. Britain boomed after leaving the ERM in 1992 and a more competitive pound could provide what economists call an economic stabiliser.

Pledge Four: Invite Britain’s employers (large and small) to help draw up an intelligent immigration policy with the twin aims of a substantial reduction in the number of low-skilled immigrants from Europe but with more room for economy-boosting engineers from India, doctors from Australia or postgrad students from Canada.

Pledge Five: Build alliances with Volkswagen (which sold 223,784 cars in the UK last year); Audi (166,709); Mercedes (145,254), BMW (167,391); Italian fashion giants; the French wine industry; Spanish hoteliers and so on. They can’t afford to lose British customers. Make them our allies in renegotiating our relationship with the EU.

And, finally, Vote Leave must take the gloves off. On Monday the Tory minister Chris Grayling paid tribute to George Osborne’s economic management before criticising the chancellor’s scaremongering. Observing intra-Tory party courtesies won’t win a referendum that is much more important for Britain’s future than any general election. The PM certainly thinks so. On Peston on Sunday he all but admitted that he’d rather have a Labour government inside the EU than a Conservative government outside it.

Unleash David Davis, Nigel Farage, Gisela Stuart or anyone willing to go toe-to-toe with Mr Osborne. Every voter should be reminded that this chancellor and PM have failed to get rid of the deficit, failed to cut spending fairly and, irresponsibly, have failed to prepare a contingency plan to help the economy prosper in the event of Brexit. Because it can with a plan. The EU is stagnating because it is fundamentally dysfunctional. Twenty-eight members cannot agree how to solve the Eurozone crisis or how to respond to the continent’s other challenges. Let’s unchain ourselves from the sinking EU economy because we’re better off out.

Snap

Slowest growing continent - compared to those such as Africa or India which are growing from a very low base, that's not surprising.

He also cites the unemployment levels in Spain - but there is no comparison to be made as to what they would be, without the EU. He also doens't talk about unemployment rates in other parts of the EU by comparison - our own VERY low rate for example.

Like so much of this whole thing - the points made are thin, and unbalanced.

Feckin frustrating.

ICBM

Jalapeno said:

And yes Boris is an opportunistic little shit - in January he was pouring scorn on the Brexiters - IMHO this is the start of his leadership bid post Cameron

The start?! You really haven't been paying attention for the last few years…

This is the endgame of it. If it's Leave, he'll be PM after the summer recess. He just waited before showing his hand openly until he thought he had a good enough chance.

hungrymark

Scotland didn't cede sovereignty in the independence referendum - they just voted not to gain independence. They didn't give up any powers. The EU has made its case multiple times for closer union so this is about potentially ceding sovereignty. I'm with sporky, the two are superficially similar if you don't really think about it too much but actually so different that the comparison is facile.

Evilmags

Snap, PM me your email and I'll forward commercial research from a leading hedge fund. Spain growth started in the late 50s when technocrats from opus dei started running the economy. It is worse now in real terms than in 2000, when I stated my first overseas job here.

Fretwired

Snap said:

Slowest growing continent - compared to those such as Africa or India which are growing from a very low base, that's not surprising.

He also cites the unemployment levels in Spain - but there is no comparison to be made as to what they would be, without the EU. He also doens't talk about unemployment rates in other parts of the EU by comparison - our own VERY low rate for example.

Like so much of this whole thing - the points made are thin, and unbalanced.

Feckin frustrating.

Unemployment levels in Spain are a matter of record - the EU cannot do anything about it and Spain is tied to the Euro so has very little wriggle room in terms of what economic action that can be taken. The EU cannot fix the economies of member states but expects them to stick to a central fiscal policy. The EU works fine for Germany and not so well for the likes of Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece which will need another massive bailout.

UnclePsychosis

Sporky;1086704" said:

UnclePsychosis said:

the hypocrisy from the likes of Boris Johnson with regards their differing attitudes to Scottish Independence and the EU is quite simply staggering. Is it not possible, then, to believe that the UK is best off united but out of the EU? I don't see how that's hypocrisy.

Otherwise you might say that the "leave" campaign must either be in favour of independence for every county - nay, every city, town, household, or be hypocrites.

I think it's more than a tad hypocritical to say to a country "you should give up a large part of your sovereignty to be part of the UK because it's of cultural and economic benefit" and then 18 months later for the same people to be saying "we can't give up this small amount of our sovereignty in this way, even if it costs us economically we need out, we need to govern ourselves as a matter of principle".

The amount of control that the UK and UK voters has over its own affairs as part of the EU is huge in comparison to the amount of control that Scottish voters have over their own affairs as part of the UK.

Yet apparently Scotland voting for self determination was a dreadful idea whereas the UK giving up a really tiny set of powers in comparison is completely unconscionable. It's bizarre.

hungrymark;1086911" said:

Scotland didn't cede sovereignty in the independence referendum - they just voted not to gain independence.

In other words, Scotland voted to *continue* to cede sovereignty.....

Honestly, I have no concept of how people can think that telling Scotland that ceding sovereignty was OK because "blah" but that the UK should have it at all costs isn't hypocrisy.

Sporky

UnclePsychosis said:

Honestly, I have no concept of how people can think that telling Scotland that ceding sovereignty was OK because "blah" but that the UK should have it at all costs isn't hypocrisy.

So you're in favour of devolution for every county? Every town?

ICBM

They all have it to some extent, that's the whole point of councils.

The point about the referenda is that Scotland gives up far more control to the UK than the UK does to the EU, so it's hypocritical to insist that Scotland is better off in the UK but the UK would be better off out of the EU.

This is also why the opposite is not as true and why Scots will almost certainly want to leave the UK and rejoin the EU in the event of a Leave vote.

Chalky

I always wanted Scotland to go. As long as the divorce is binding and final, and not the 'we take everything we want' nonsense of Wee Alec.

chillidoggy

I see the Scots are banging on about yet another referendum this morning. I suppose this will go on and on until the SNP finally get what they want.

hywelg

If the Scots understood the breadth of feeling in the rest of the UK they might feel.differently about leaving. Give the whole UK a vote and I think Scotland would be politely asked to leave.

Phil_aka_Pip

Sporky said:

So you're in favour of devolution for every county? Every town?

I say Suffolk should declare independence.

We can generate our own lekky, brew our own beer, grow our own food. We control one major port and several lesser ones. Our borders are mainly marked by rivers so by control of the bridges we can control access.

Sporky

I'd certainly be in favour of Cornish independence.

The border control would be a timely reminder of the wisdom of stopping once one was in Devon.

UnclePsychosis

Sporky;1086704" said:

UnclePsychosis said:
u
the hypocrisy from the likes of Boris Johnson with regards their differing attitudes to Scottish Independence and the EU is quite simply staggering. Is it not possible, then, to believe that the UK is best off united but out of the EU? I don't see how that's hypocrisy.

Otherwise you might say that the "leave" campaign must either be in favour of independence for every county - nay, every city, town, household, or be hypocrites.

I think it's more than a tad hypocritical to say to a country "you should give up a large part of your sovereignty to be part of the UK because it's of cultural and economic benefit" and then 18 months later for the same people to be saying "we can't give up this small amount of our sovereignty in this way, even if it costs us economically we need out, we need to govern ourselves as a matter of principle".

The amount of control that the UK and UK voters has over its own affairs as part of the EU is huge in comparison to the amount of control that Scottish voters have over their own affairs as part of the UK.

Yet apparently Scotland voting for self determination was a dreadful idea whereas the UK giving up a really tiny set of powers in comparison is completely unconscionable. It's bizarre.

Sporky;1087368" said:

UnclePsychosis said:



Honestly, I have no concept of how people can think that telling Scotland that ceding sovereignty was OK because "blah" but that the UK should have it at all costs isn't hypocrisy.










So you're in favour of devolution for every county? Every town?

Well, firstly towns and countys aren't countries, but more importantly I'm not a believer in sovereignty at all costs.

I want Scotland in the UK and the UK in the EU. I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of those who used one argument 18 months ago and are now arguing from the other side of a weaker version of that argument.