E.U. In or out – the facts

Jen

Airwave! wrote:

Neither of the main parties has a mandate to lead the country out of the EU or has made any policy decisions or have anything in their manifestos, both have thrown their lot in with the 'stay' campaign.

Hardly a parliament that is waiting and willing to follow the will of the voters?

Quite a few politicians are voting out, perhaps you have not been following all the news.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35616946

Above link - This was back in March, of course the balance may have changed since then and besides its what the overall population vote that will decide either way not the politicians, the politicians are purely stating their own preferences.

The latest ( I posted link above also) gives details overall about The UK's EU referendum: All you need to know
"
Who wants the UK to leave the EU?
The British public are fairly evenly split, according to the latest opinion polls. The UK Independence Party, which won the last European elections, and received nearly four million votes - 13% of those cast - in May's general election, campaigns for Britain's exit from the EU. About half of Conservative MPs, including five cabinet ministers, several Labour MPs and the DUP are also in favour of leaving. "

Check more information here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32810887

stickywicket

Jen wrote:

The UK Independence Party, which won the last European elections, and received nearly four million votes - 13% of those cast - in May's general election, campaigns for Britain's exit from the EU.

UKIP infuriate me as they take the money but don't bother turning up to work.

Researchers at VoteWatch Europe say Ukip’s representatives only participated in 62.3 per cent of votes in the European Parliament, by far the worst record of any party in the EU.

Sinn Fein used to do the same at Westminster.

Airwave!

Nigel Farage says he spends most of the time talking with the people who matter, the British electorate.

stickywicket

So do I, Airwave, and so do you but they're not paying us to vote in the EU.

Airwave!

The best advice I have heard is vote with your heart because everything else can be fixed.

I feel very strongly about those who came before us and gave themselves that we should not be ruled over by others, after all it took over a thousand years to gain democracy.

I am voting out.

Numptydumpty

I can't do the blue stuff :oops: but if you google 'brexit the movie'
Long, but you might find it interesting, I did.
Numpty

stickywicket

:shock: No! I can't do a long movie of propaganda.

I'm watching the speakers and checking their 'facts' on https://fullfact.org/ as Mod Bryn wisely suggested.

Ladybrown

Like Slosh, I really fear for worker's rights without the EU and under Boris Johnson, who would probably take over from Cameron. I just don't trust this government with the rights and position of disabled people and I believe the EU protects us. I am voting in

Slosh

It was very disturbing to read that in the USA it is legal to pay workers with disabilities below the minimum wage.

stickywicket

Only another week to go – thank goodness!

I'm sick of the outright lies, the well-elasticated 'truths' and the 'My Dad can beat up your Dad' quality of the arguments.

I'm sick of finding myself in broad agreement with politicians whom I dislike intensely.

But it's nearly over – or about to start. So check out what they're all saying and have said.

https://fullfact.org/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35603388

daffy2

But it's nearly over – or about to start.

If it goes the Brexit way then definitely the latter - and it's likely to be messy...

TheLordFlasheart

This whole stay or leave is a right mess, claim and counter claim and "doom and gloom" scenarios.

Whatever the outcome, it will be a huge leap in the dark as no one really knows what will happen afterwards.

stickywicket

I think we can safely say that, whichever side wins, everything that goes wrong for the next 5-10 years at least, will be blamed by the losers on the result.

daffy2

I think we can safely say that, whichever side wins, everything that goes wrong for the next 5-10 years at least, will be blamed by the losers on the result.

Absolutely - old habits die hard.

TheLordFlasheart

I can think of one postitive if we were to leave, no more UKIP

daffy2

I can think of one postitive if we were to leave, no more UKIP

Hmm, I wouldn't count on it. If it goes that way the drawbridge and exchequer won't get closed the minute the result is declared, so there'll still be plenty for them to agitate about!

Airwave!

I stayed up last night watching the BBC Parliament channel, MP's were questioning people from the business world, there did seem a line across, above which larger sizes of business wanted us to stay and those below wanted us to leave. The largest business was Airbus which I doubt if it'll make that much difference to since it is established, the smallest was a waste recovery firm who put £2m of their own money into a plant they developed only for a dutch firm to change their EU regulations to suit a lesser standard and charge less to do the same thing, the UK plant was taken to the USA where it is successful. So the UK follows the rules and the rest of the EU doesn't and the cost of lobbying for a change by the EU commission is prohibitive (£12,000 for one meeting) and a long drawn out process and no democracy to resort to.

It will give British business a shot in the arm if we leave and they have to start making their own decisions and choices rather than coping with EU regulations even for a domestic market in the UK.

The service industry is 80% of the business in the UK which we do not export to the EU and of the other businesses we export about 15% to the EU and our market share has been falling for many years. The figures for our other exports were appalling because we can't make our own agreements with the rest of the world but have to reply on the EU to do so which is not competitive.

This is the first time joe public has been asked about the EU membership and integration, I do hope we can put aside all the negatives brought upon us by politicians who are looking after their own sides and we can decide what we want for the UK.

My own wife is just about to have her business stopped because of EU regulations being imposed on her, they are making regulations about oven gloves now!

Viva la UK!!!!

daffy2

The UK has always been inclined to overapply or misapply directives etc from the EU so in all too many cases it's not so much 'we abide by the rules and they don't' (I don't deny that happens BTW)as 'this will apply to everyone regardless of whether that's what was intended'.
For instance much of what was originally imposed by UK jobsworths on the small scale food producing industry was unnecessary as it was directed at larger organisations. This affected me personally for a while and I had occasion to challenge the local council and MP on more than one occasion(more difficult pre-universal-internet days when getting info was a hard slog!)
There will always be problems meeting requirements for external trade, whether that be pricing, standards, whatever. British beef is still off limits for some countries for instance.Leaving the EU won't solve those problems if your trade is with an EU country, but does remove the opportunity to have any say in altering the requirements? It's always been the case that small businesses can find it harder to get solutions due to lack of resources to find alternative ways of doing things - but on the other hand sometimes being smaller facilitates flexibility and creative thinking which come up with a way through or round.
Whichever way the vote goes there will be those(businesses and/or individuals) who succeed and prosper, and those who fall by the wayside.

Airwave!

Most of our business is selling inside the uk, for which we will have to stop selling this item, although a small proportion of the item is sold round the world it won't be worth buying the materials in enough quantity to make it worthwhile.

The eu rules do not make sense.

Alisonx

Good information. thanks.


It was good to see that Boris got a standing ovation - last night's programme - and as he said -



"Let's make Thursday Our Independence Day!"

Not long to wait now

.

stickywicket

There is a big difference between 'It was good' and 'I liked'. The former is a statement of fact: the latter a statement of personal preference. I think 'I liked' would have been more appropriate here.

'Independence' is a word which carries a lot of emotional overtones. I think almost the entire Brexit campaign has appealed to people's emotions rather than encouraging us to look at the facts. Sifting out facts from pseudo-claims takes a lot of time and effort which is why I posted this thread - to enable people to make an informed decision based on the BBC's 'Reality Check' on the main claims of both sides. Mod Bryn also kindly provided the Full Facts site URL which did the same, both in an unbiased manner.

Tomorrow, I shall vote not for independence but for the interdependence of mutual co-operation.

Airwave!

The staying in side has made more claims than leaving, trying to appeal to us. I shall vote out tomorrow, with a clear mind.

Vote with what is in your heart, everything else can be fixed.

daffy2

Not looking forward to Friday. Whichever way the vote goes there will be a lot of disappointed and angry people. I hope that our politicians can rise to the occasion and behave in a civilised and intelligent fashion to deal with whatever needs to be done, but sadly that's more of a hope than an expectation as far as I'm concerned.

Slosh

I'm very proud of my daughter and son-in-law, they have approached this very seriously, read, watched TV and thought through their decision. Like me they are voting to remain, not their first thoughts.

Wonder what tomorrow will bring.

daffy2

I shall be interested to hear how my 'scottish' niece and nephew will vote. They have very definite, and different, views on politics, and ended up on different sides in the independence referendum.
Sadly I doubt my daughter will vote at all - she has rarely bothered to exercise her freedom to vote since she got it 16 years ago, something which I find sad since it's nothing to do with disaffection, but simple 'can't be arsed'.
My son feels very strongly about matters politic and is not afraid to stick his head above the parapet for things he considers important, so I suppose in effort terms he makes up for his sister!
The other youngsters of the family are watching from the sidelines since they are EU citizens on the continent.