Brexit: the referendum

zooterkin said:
The suggestion I heard yesterday was that if he goes for exit (as it appears he has), that's basically staking his future as the future leader of the Tories on winning the referendum. The reason he may have gone for that is that if the vote is for exit, then he's got that sewn up, whereas if he had supported staying in the EU, that wouldn't advance his personal ambitions, since Cameron would remain in place. In other words (and this is probably what you're saying) his decision is based purely on what it means for him, not what is best for the country.
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I don't agree.

Boris has written against the EU for 20 years. Any other decision from him would have been hypocritical.
 
Lothian said:
Anyone know what will happen to the 2.2 million UK citizens living and working in Europe if we leave? They will no longer have free movement. Will they all come home? Where will we put them?
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Who says? There are 2 years to negotiate exit terms (it's in a treaty somewhere), and I haven't the least doubt that their bureaucrats and our bureaucrats could work something out on this and similar matters quite easily.
 
GlennB said:
As Mike mentioned above, this child benefit thing is a storm in a very small teacup. But Cameron has made a hullabaloo about it so that he can be seen to have been batting for Britain.
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I don't see how it has financial benefits. Or curbs immigration. On the contrary, IMHO.

Suppose you're a Romanian living and working in the UK. Your wife and children still live back there. Under the new rules, you suddenly only receive 10 quid (*) per child per month to send back to Cluj.

Wouldn't the logical thing be that you let your wife and children also come over to Britain? And because you're not making that much money, also claim housing benefits?

(*) amount doubtless exaggerated.
 
MikeG said:
Who says? There are 2 years to negotiate exit terms (it's in a treaty somewhere), and I haven't the least doubt that their bureaucrats and our bureaucrats could work something out on this and similar matters quite easily.
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And if we can't negotiate that they can remain?

I'd be slightly surprised if we couldn't come to some arrangement but this to me sounds like the same mantra used by the Yes campaign in the recent Scottish independence referendum and which I mention above i.e. "everything will be the same but better because".

I really do not think things will be or even could remain the same for our many ex-pats in the EU if we exited the EU, and I have a very hard time imagining why things would be better for them if we exited the EU.

They may end up directly bearing one of the many costs we will incur if we decide to leave the EU.
 
Lothian said:
Anyone know what will happen to the 2.2 million UK citizens living and working in Europe if we leave? They will no longer have free movement. Will they all come home? Where will we put them?
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You mean if the outcome of the referendum is "Leave"?

There are still some sites in Germany and Poland where we can intern them, thank you very much. Or we could simply deport them.

On a more serious note, I guess they'd all have to apply for residence permits. I'd say, treat them as newly arrived ones. After all, after a UK exit they're new foreigners in the country.

Darat said:
We all think we are special snowflakes all the EU countries try to wrangle the best deal for themselves. The UK is no different to any other country in this respect.
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Sure they do. But the UK is really a special snowflake. It's the only EU country that has had a 40-years straight public discussion on again leaving the EC/EU, and has had 40-years straight a government with at least a vocal minority advocating leaving, whatever the stripe of the government. It's the only EU country like that.

Don't you think the rest of the EU is by now sick and tired of this continuous debate?
 
Darat said:
........They may end up directly bearing one of the many costs we will incur if we decide to leave the EU.
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Do you have a view on whether these costs would amount to more or less than the 15 billion euros we pay annually in the EU budget?
 
Darat said:
I didn't think we were giving resident aliens a vote in the referendum....
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Couldn't we somehow work the conversation around to the point where playing the clip of him trying to sing the Welsh anthem when he was Welsh secretary wouldn't be off-topic? :D
 
As a citizen of the continental EU, I have to say I don't recognise it in the views expressed in this thread. All this totalitarian policing has apparently passed me by.
Can anyone tell me succinctly what, in a general sense, the main objections to EU membership are?
 
MikeG said:
Do you have a view on whether these costs would amount to more or less than the 15 billion euros we pay annually in the EU budget?
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For me costs are not just about money, I don't believe everything has a monetary value that can be used to measure it.

In this case there could be financial costs but I would be more concerned about societal costs and the personal costs for individual ex-pats.
 
H'ethetheth said:
As a citizen of the continental EU, I have to say I don't recognise it in the views expressed in this thread. All this totalitarian policing has apparently passed me by.
Can anyone tell me succinctly what, in a general sense, the main objections to EU membership are?
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Straight bananas.
 
H'ethetheth said:
.......Can anyone tell me succinctly what, in a general sense, the main objections to EU membership are?
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Loss of sovereignty.
Deep democratic deficits.
A ridiculously expensive and intrusive bureaucracy.
The European Court of Justice.
The Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy..
The EU is an inward-looking organisation with huge trade barriers and protectionism, in long term decline, and burdened with a currency which doesn't work with the disparate economies without deeper political union, aligned taxation etc.

Others will no doubt add to this list, but those are my objections.

Don't for a second read into this that there is no positive side to our membership of the EU........I haven't listed those because you asked for the negative.
 
MikeG said:
Couldn't we somehow work the conversation around to the point where playing the clip of him trying to sing the Welsh anthem when he was Welsh secretary wouldn't be off-topic? :D
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Cue me


What a knob!
 
Lothian said:
Anyone know what will happen to the 2.2 million UK citizens living and working in Europe if we leave? They will no longer have free movement. Will they all come home? Where will we put them?
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I think it depends. My sister has residency in France and she says that her status will not be affected, but it will not be good for her business which I think employs people on UK contracts which would not be accepted in the event of a Brexit. I think Cameron's "deal" means sweet Fanny Adams to her.
 
Darat said:
And if we can't negotiate that they can remain?

I'd be slightly surprised if we couldn't come to some arrangement but this to me sounds like the same mantra used by the Yes campaign in the recent Scottish independence referendum and which I mention above i.e. "everything will be the same but better because".

I really do not think things will be or even could remain the same for our many ex-pats in the EU if we exited the EU, and I have a very hard time imagining why things would be better for them if we exited the EU.

They may end up directly bearing one of the many costs we will incur if we decide to leave the EU.
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Spot on. They are using exactly the same arguments they rubbished during the Independence referendum. Quelle surprise!
 
MikeG said:
Loss of sovereignty.
Deep democratic deficits.
A ridiculously expensive and intrusive bureaucracy.
The European Court of Justice.
The Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy..
The EU is an inward-looking organisation with huge trade barriers and protectionism, in long term decline, and burdened with a currency which doesn't work with the disparate economies without deeper political union, aligned taxation etc.

Others will no doubt add to this list, but those are my objections.

Don't for a second read into this that there is no positive side to our membership of the EU........I haven't listed those because you asked for the negative.
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Thanks. I'll have questions later, but no time now.
 
MikeG said:
Who says? There are 2 years to negotiate exit terms (it's in a treaty somewhere), and I haven't the least doubt that their bureaucrats and our bureaucrats could work something out on this and similar matters quite easily.
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I think you are missing the point that this vote is purely* about our protecting our borders.
If we deny Europeans the right to freely enter the UK, it is incredibly naive to think we can negotiate free movement of UK Citizens. Any negotiation will end with free movement for all or no-one.

*depending on whose turn it is gorgeous the soundbite.
 
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