Poll

[Kalahari]

The points that sway me towards out are:-

1. The basic dishonesty of the EU.
a) The accounts cannot be signed off because they are pretty much a work of fiction and have always been so.
b) Countries like Greece were never qualified to join the Euro but the rules were completely ignored to drive "the project" forward. The results are appalling.

2. The whole system is undemocratic. When countries have voted against a treaty in a referendum, they have been told to go away and do it again until they get the "right" result. Never heard of them giving any of the yes nations a chance to change their minds.

David.

 

[Blue400]

Yeah and the 55million a day goes towards making better roads in other countries, they need to start sorting our roads instead of giving our road tax to Brussels!!!.

 

[patrickt]

So what? They do their jobs, earn their pay, pay their taxes, and then they can do whatever they want with their earnings, same as everyone else, no? What's the problem?

Pine Marten, I did not refer to those who wish to work and pay their way (see my reference to FREE LOADERS!)

I believe that anyone should be able to come to our country to live, work here, and bring up a family, to follow our great tradition of fair play... what I do object to is anyone who will not work and just wants to live off the british tax payer, and I must say that includes all europeans, and of course UK nationals as well. Prior to my retirement of 50 years work, both employed and running my own business I have held this belief, and I would gladly welcome anyone into our communties who fit the aforementioned criteria

 

[old keeper]

I see 193 have taken the trouble to vote on this thread, I hope the actual event gets a higher percentage of interest!

 

[jimmy milnes]

I see 193 have taken the trouble to vote on this thread, I hope the actual event gets a higher percentage of interest!

Not really a fair statement ''taken the trouble'' as I would imagine many are like myself in that they haven't got a clue which way to jump.

 

[Bandit Country]

To a great extent, it's H.'s fault that he arrived at these conclusions. I'm pretty sure he scans the Daily Mail website for the stories about celebs in bikinis, and just gleans mixed-up headlines in his peripheral vision. I know that he considers "Google" to be a source. But that's the effect of the appalling quality of much of the public discourse.

The irony of all this is that H. and his family are Sikhs and he's throwing in his political lot with people who would quite probably not want them in their chocolate box England...

Steady on, old chap. You're in danger of becoming one of those awful, right-wing stereotyping fascists yourself - if not a little bit patronising! Just because H scans the Daily Mail website looking for celebs in bikinis doesn't make his opinions any less valid than yours. As one of those horrible 'right wingers' you mention in another post (and an 'Outer' to boot) I should make it perfectly that I welcome H and his family wholeheartedly. The Sikhs stayed true to the salt in the Indian Mutiny and served this Country faithfully in two world wars. They made a material contribution to the survival of this Country - and I'm grateful for their service.

Having fed H the eminently dodgy list of EU 'benefits' drafted by Bogtrotter, I presume in the interests of balance you also hunted out a list of negative effects for his consideration?

Please note that being anti-EU does not, de-facto, make you a right wing xenophobe who is anti Europe and/or Europeans.

 

[Feugh]

Steady on, old chap. You're in danger of becoming one of those awful, right-wing stereotyping fascists yourself - if not a little bit patronising! Just because H scans the Daily Mail website looking for celebs in bikinis doesn't make his opinions any less valid than yours. As one of those horrible 'right wingers' you mention in another post (and an 'Outer' to boot) I should make it perfectly that I welcome H and his family wholeheartedly. The Sikhs stayed true to the salt in the Indian Mutiny and served this Country faithfully in two world wars. They made a material contribution to the survival of this Country - and I'm grateful for their service.

Having fed H the eminently dodgy list of EU 'benefits' drafted by Bogtrotter, I presume in the interests of balance you also hunted out a list of negative effects for his consideration?

Please note that being anti-EU does not, de-facto, make you a right wing xenophobe who is anti Europe and/or Europeans.

Couldn't have said it any better myself. People will vote in or out for their own reasons, and those reasons don't necessarily make them a good or bad person.

 

[Alantoo]

I voted to leave the EEC in the referendum in the seventies. Based on my simplistic view that "Small is Beautiful". We were top heavy with civil servants in this country and that there was only more of the same in Brussels. Too big and unwieldy a bureaucracy.

My worst fears were not particularly realised...I am just as well misrepresented here in Gloucestershire by the decisions taken in Westminster, as I am by the decisions taken in Brussels.

We have equal say in the Brussels decisions. We have the opportunity to vote for MEPs, and arguably are better represented there than Westminster because there is some Proportional Representation in the European elections. I have never understood the complaint that all the legislation is imposed upon us by Brussels, any more than it is imposed upon us by Westminster: it is as though our MEP and Commission representatives were not involved somehow.

I take a favourable view on most if not all of Bogtrotter's list. I do not see any as disadvantageous to our country and culture.

I have really enjoyed having journeymen from mainland Europe working in the forge with me over the years, and many of my assistants have been able to travel and gain experience in my colleagues' forges over there. I love that freedom of movement and the insight into other cultures it affords.

I am troubled by the apparent xenophobia underlying many of the arguments regarding sovereignty...and by the muddying of issues regarding refugees and immigrants by lumping them together.

This time around, I think both this country and the other EU countries will better off with us being being part of Europe than drawing up the drawbridge and being insular.

This time I will vote for staying in.

Alan

 

[Bandit Country]

... than drawing up the drawbridge and being insular.

Wanting out of the EU is nothing to do with "drawing up the drawbridge and being insular". That's simply being disingenuous. For me it's about being out of a political entity that I believe (know?) to be corrupt, unwieldy and entirely unrepresentative - pretty much doomed to failure as it's currently constructed.

Don't forget Bosia-H, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania and Turkey are all lining up for the next accession round in 2019. What precisely are the additional benefits they will be bringing to the party? I suspect that amongst the gun-toting, right-wing neo-nazis membership here on SD there are a few folk with recent practical experience of those bastions of freedom loving, liberal, peaceful democracy. Perhaps they'd care to share their views?

 

[Alantoo]

Wanting out of the EU is nothing to do with "drawing up the drawbridge and being insular". That's simply being disingenuous. For me it's about being out of a political entity that I believe (know?) to be corrupt, unwieldy and entirely unrepresentative - pretty much doomed to failure as it's currently constructed.

Don't forget Bosia-H, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania and Turkey are all lining up for the next accession round in 2019. What precisely are the additional benefits they will be bringing to the party? I suspect that amongst the gun-toting, right-wing neo-nazis membership here on SD there are a few folk with recent practical experience of those bastions of freedom loving, liberal, peaceful democracy. Perhaps they'd care to share their views?

Naive I maybe, ill informed more than likely, simple even...but disingenuous? Because you do not agree with my views you accuse me of knowing them to be false and lying about them?

I cannot understand why you think I am deliberately trying to mislead anyone and be untruthful about how I perceive the situation, what would be the point?

The drawbridge mentality may not not be your reason for wanting out of the EU but from what I have read and heard, it is for some.

I have sympathy with your view as to negative unwieldy aspect of the bureaucracy as I mentioned earlier...but I have no way of knowing if it is any more corrupt than any other governing institution, Westminster for instance. Do you? We are represented on the commission and by our MEPs in just the same way as the other member countries, how is that "entirely unrepresentative"?

I would hope that membership of the EU for the other countries you mention would reinforce their democracies in the same way it helps the existing members.

Alan

 

[richard griffith]

Out.

 

[JTO]

I voted to leave the EEC in the referendum in the seventies. Based on my simplistic view that "Small is Beautiful". We were top heavy with civil servants in this country and that there was only more of the same in Brussels. Too big and unwieldy a bureaucracy.
This time I will vote for staying in.Alan

I voted IN, in the 70's for purely selfish reasons because of what I was involved in at the time.

This time I will be voting OUT, partly/mainly for the same reasons that you voted the way you did in the 70's

 

[deeangeo]

Brussels to ease visa restrictions on Turkey in exchange for taking back deported migrants - Telegraph

How many knew about this little tit bit to give access to around 70million Muslim Turks across mainland Europes Shengen borders?

 

[Cloudhopper]

I thought I'd relate an example from the parallel universe of the office.

On Monday my colleague H. sat down with me in the canteen towards the end of my lunch and started a rant about leaving the EU, essentially because of immigration. I was in no mood for this and just walked off, but later on, I regretted being rude and dismissive like that. I went to see H. to apologise and said I would hear him out. When he was done, I concluded that I had been right to storm off in the first place, but here are his arguments, which I have made a special effort not to jazz up, just paraphrase:
1. All these immigrants/asylum seekers from Syria are coming here just for the benefits, unlike previous ones who came here to work hard.
2. They are much more likely to be rapists and kiddy-fiddlers than other people.
3. He has a view of England as a lovely, picturesque place like on tourist brochures which he would like it to be again, although he accepts it may never have been that way in the first place.

He also accepts that his comments 1. and 2. are sweeping generalisations but stands by them nonetheless.

The next day, I sent him a slightly edited and contextualised version of Bogtrotter's list of things the EU had done or at least attempted to, specifying that not all of them were done well or indeed successfully, but that was the intention. A few hours later, H. came to see me to say that although he couldn't be bothered to read the whole list, it had, together with our discussions, prompted him to review his position, and I quote: "I realised I don't really have a problem with the EU. It's IS I don't like".
Now the easy response, and indeed my preferred one, would have been to sarcastically say that I also often had trouble telling the difference between Belgian bureaucrats and bearded murderous Fascists, but I didn't. What the discussion highlights is that the entire conversation is mired in a morass of poisonous, undifferentiated, unsourced disinformation. To a great extent, it's H.'s fault that he arrived at these conclusions. I'm pretty sure he scans the Daily Mail website for the stories about celebs in bikinis, and just gleans mixed-up headlines in his peripheral vision. I know that he considers "Google" to be a source. But that's the effect of the appalling quality of much of the public discourse.

The irony of all this is that H. and his family are Sikhs and he's throwing in his political lot with people who would quite probably not want them in their chocolate box England...

Who's to say Bogtrotters list wouldn't have been longer or more effectively implemented if we'd have steered clear of the EU over the last 40 years or so?
CH

 

[Pine Marten]

Who's to say Bogtrotters list wouldn't have been longer or more effectively implemented if we'd have steered clear of the EU over the last 40 years or so?
CH

No one, you can't tell. And neither can you tell with any sort of reliability what the UK would be like out of the EU. It's all just total speculation. So in the end, that's not a good way of deciding. The choice must be made based on what sort of world and Europe you want in the future and what the UK's place in it should be. Then you take your chances and try to make the best of it.

 

[JabaliHunter]

Unfortunately there is no good way to decide at all as far as I can see.

 

[EccentricJackal]

Unfortunately there is no good way to decide at all as far as I can see.

I was once told that the basic requirement for democracy was a well informed voter - by that basis what we have is a long way from a fair democratic referendum.

What we have been given is a choice between status quo and a complete leap of faith, it will come down to whether the majority of people are disenchanted enough with the idea of the EU to take that leap of faith.

Ryan

 

[Pine Marten]

I was once told that the basic requirement for democracy was a well informed voter - by that basis what we have is a long way from a fair democratic referendum.

I'm actually reasonably hopeful that people are coming to the conclusion that on the currently widely shared evidence, no clear conclusion can be reached, so they have to start grappling with some of the more fundamental questions than this "special status" nonsense. There are four months during which a sizeable chunk of the electorate may actually bring themselves up to speed on this instead of relying on the usual crop of partisan rubbish, glib simplifications, sweeping generalisation speculation or straightforward lies that have been the mainstay of discussions around Europe.

There was a poll in the Evening Standard yesterday showing that neither the "stayers" or the "leavers" trusted Cameron and our politicians, or other EU politicians. That could be worrying because trust is really what democracy is based on. Or alternately, as Brian said to the crowd, "You don't need to follow anybody, you've got to think for yourselves!".

 

[Cloudhopper]

No one, you can't tell. And neither can you tell with any sort of reliability what the UK would be like out of the EU. It's all just total speculation. So in the end, that's not a good way of deciding. The choice must be made based on what sort of world and Europe you want in the future and what the UK's place in it should be. Then you take your chances and try to make the best of it.

Well I believe the main objective of the EU is to make one large (and expansive) homogenous state from the many, very different nations that currently exist. To me this utopian, socialist ideology is unlikely and potentially very dangerous. It certainly isn't in our best interests.
CH

 

[Pine Marten]

Well I believe the main objective of the EU is to make one large (and expansive) homogenous state from the many, very different nations that currently exist. To me this utopian, socialist ideology is unlikely and potentially very dangerous. It certainly isn't in our best interests.
CH

The other day, someone asked over lunch (not H!) "what is the European Dream? I mean the Americans were quite good at selling the American Dream back before they lost the plot, but no-one seems to be able to explain the European version". I thought about this, and it seems to me that in a way, we're living the European Dream now. We live in a continent which for the first time ever has been at peace for a generation, and can reasonably have every expectation that this will continue. It's not ideal, but the standard of life is pretty high throughout, and unlike in the US, there are safeguards in place to catch you if you fall which mostly work quite well. For all its' weaknesses, this continent is under the rule of law. And you can go across it unmolested, anywhere you like. We take all of that for granted. It's really boring, and no less remarkable for all that. That has to be worth preserving, no?