Hi Stephen, good to hear from you. Well, with all due respect, it is a stated EU policy and agenda to form a Federalisation of all it's members and combining them into one State. The EU has made no bones about that policy and agenda and has made a start right now by "suggesting" the formation of a European army, i.e. to all intents and purposes a Federal Army. "the EU as far as my experience takes me, has actually attempted to achieve the opposite, in that it has funded the development, and protected minority languages such as Welsh, Breton and Basque, it has also applied Geographical inidication order to food, such as Cheddar Cheese and Cornish Brie in order to protect them from mis-production and for identity reasons.[/QUOTE]" I don't disagree, Stephen. But if you have a higher agenda of bringing countries under one political control then you nod and support all the, in reality, really minor issues to bring all the sheep through the gate and into the fold. Satisfying the integrity of Food Brands etc or the minority languages is really if you take a cold, and perhaps cynical, look/analysis look at it molding the support for the future stated desired agenda of the EU. I can assure you that the Welsh, Bretons, and Basque speaking people are more than capable of raising Holy Hell should anyone try to suppress their language. My wife was Welsh and spoke the "Welsh" and would attack any official attempt to suppress it with fire and venom. But she was the first to admit that the only threat to the language was the international recognition and use by ordinary people of the English Language and that the legislation issued by the EU was completely superfluous
With all due respect to contributors... The whole thing is being swamped by claims and counterclaims. In some respects, some things are clear. On one side, there's the interference of the EU, on the other side, there's the downturn in the economy that is undoubtedly on it's way if we leave, the evidence of which is already out there. For my part, I can see only bad things if we leave. Just look who is poised to take over if we leave, 'Hawks' to a man. I heard Boris saying that the first piece of legislation that would go is the 'human bill of rights'. So, do we really think that that would lead to more freedom? More justice? It seems to me that we would be going back to the dark ages of 'Maggie', which is kinda ironic, considering the phrase "it's the economy, stupid". If polls are to be believed, it looks like we're leaving, which to me seems like a leap in the dark. I only hope my gut feeling is wrong...
Some say that their problem with the eu is that it is run by unelected bureaucrats. Who here elected David Cameron? 30% of those that voted in the last general election voted for the Conservative party. Not David Cameron. In fact in our system of pseudo democracy we never elect out leaders. We kind of electo a party. In doing so we are saying, we trust your club to lead us. Since the 1990s there has been a party in existence whose primary purpose is to give us the choice to leave the eu. We have never elected that party. In fact there are (or at least were ) two such parties. Neither has done well. As a nation, we've always had the choice to be in or out of the eu. Whether it's the 1973 referendum, or whether we elect a political party like UKIP or the bnp. Yet we always choose to stay in. Within Europe, we have MEPs. We elect them. We choose them to represent us in Europe. We also choose the main political party we want to represent us in both the UK and Europe. It's all choice. In my research, I found that when the eu votes on anything, the UK is on the 'winning' side 86% of the time. On the remaining 14% of times, many votes were on issues that didn't affect Britain, or on issues where we've already negotiated exemptions or vetos. Being patriotic, I would love for Britain to be entirely independent. As long as we're not imperialistic with it. But it's in British blood to trade and forge alliances internationally. Such behaviour goes back way before records, as shown through archaeological evidence. Of course we could trade internationally without the eu. Exactly like at the local scale a business can insist on cash only because the proprietor doesn't want to pay transaction fees and be bound by bank rules for card payments. But why? When I go out, I take my debit card. It was issued by nationwide building society. Yet I can use it in any cash machine or any payment terminal that takes cards because they've agreed a common policy and common protocols. Every now and then I encounter a shop I'd like to buy from, but nightmare, they only take cash, and the thing I want costs more than I have cash on my person. So sadly, I have to walk away. They lose a sale. All for the sake of a 2.5% transaction fee. Will Britain be that shop that missed the sale because they didn't have a card payment terminal, because they didn't want to be bound by the banks protocols or pay the transaction fees?
Hi Clueless, I think you deserve this............. I think you've made a very thoughtful and exacting statement. It's just stating facts, an all too rare way of doing things in this referendum debate. Well done
Again, not really accurate. The past Governments in power have never ever considered giving the voting public the ability to have a referendum. Maggie never did, Major never did, Blair never did, Brown never did. I have never ever had the chance of voting for an MEP. Also we don't choose the main political party to represent us in the EU. Our present voting system doesn't take into account the overall national vote of either political parties but only within geographical areas, otherwise on the last election if you were to take into account the actual numbers voting for each party if would have meant a lot more candidtates of other parties becoming MP'S Which conflicts with this Also we have only one base for our Parliament, the EU has 3, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, and Brussels. The admin empire being in Luxembourg, and the two Parliament being in Strasbourg and Brussel............what a fantastic idea, just think of the expenses they can claim for having to buy houses and/or flats in all 3 cities, having to claim for travelling from city to city, not forgetting the expenses of travelling to the UK and being forced to claim for the upkeep of their own house in the UK.............Good for them, I'm all for it.
Yes. Because we CHOSE not to vote for the parties that pledged to give us that choice. Instead we CHOSE to elect parties that up front made it clear that they didn't think we should leave. You are of course correct that our system of democracy is not entirely fair. I've made the same point myself before. But that's been the case since long before the eu was ever envisaged. The chart you found showing voting results in eu votes is from an article in read. The chart is taken out of context. In the same report, it goes on to show that despite us being the most outvoted member, by outvoted it means also abstained, didn't affect us, or we negotiated a variation for ourselves.
I don't quite seem the logic in the analogy, clueless. The real trading that takes places between the UK and the EU countries will continue to do so despite the fact that we had left the EU. In the real trading and financial world money follows money. Do you honestly think we or the EU can or will stop trading, exporting and importing just because we have left the "Club". Even the most extreme campaigners for staying IN admit that in the real world no country will be able to stop trading with us. Also, the majority of companies are internationally owned by one corporate or interlinked in some globally financial or other commercial way so they will continue trading. Yes, the Pound will dip and the FTSE will slip under the 6000 points, but both that done that, and worse, over the last 20 years, and it will be as always temporary. I know that we've been told there will be Fire, Pestilence, Floods and WWIII if we leave and for those who believe that that's fine. Actually, I would compare that to the difference between a Brewery owned Pub and one that is a Free House. You will probably get more choice in a Free House than at the bar of fixed brewery. So financial deals will still carry on that will be beneficial to both sides. I don't understand why you believe that we will be penalised by the change in relationship. Granted the EU Politicians would love to do so but the big global businesses trading and partially based in the EU would be on them like a ton of bricks and it is they, not the Politicians who would be hit, and we all know that Politicians will wilt at that. If the pound dips that's good for exports but not for holidays and while I love holidays I'd rather make sure our independent trading was underpinned with a stable pound.
Illustration by Peter Newell from COSMOPOLITAN, August 1898 Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." - Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review
You make a compelling case Armandii. But at the same time, your latest post kind of supports my point. The world is full of intertwined associations and alliances and unions, and they make everyone stronger and better off. Borrowing from my career as a software developer, I developed software that I know will run on a wide variety of hardware, because of standards and protocols. The fact that we are conversing on here is proof of value of compromise and protocol. I'm on an android mobile. I have no idea what your hardware is. But it works because international agreements were reached regarding digital communications protocols. Microsoft went through a phase of ignoring such protocols, doing things their own way. Initially it served them well. Now they've had to back down and do u turns several times just to stay in the game. If we leave the eu, there will be no pestilence and floods and fire. We'll all get on fine. The reason being that we'll negotiate something exactly like the eu. Except we'll have no influence, and we'll be governed from 3 sides, business, European policy, and UK policy.
I'd also like to say, it's been said that this referendum is creating division among friends. I hope that's not the case here. The way I see it, we've all been lied to a lot. We all have different experiences. None of us has all the facts. I hope, and genuinely feel, that the debate happening on this very thread is more informative and closer to accurate than mainstream media has fed us so far. I hope that in some small way, this debate helps people to reach what they individually feel is the right way to vote. And I hope nobody is too worried. Each one of us represents something like 1 in 30 million when it comes to eligibility to vote, so while it all adds up, as individuals we're not going to break anything.
I wonder if an 'out' vote will impact upon our membership of the Council of Europe? Another example where we are being told what to do.
How could it not? The European council is the collective group of heads of state of the member nations. If we leave, we will not be a member state of the eu anyway more and will therefore not be on the council. It's much the same as if you resign from your job, but then ask if you can still attend the weekly team meetings to discuss the latest project plans. EDIT. I am mistaken. Confusingly, there is a European council, which is the heads of state of eu members, and the Council of Europe which is seperate to the eu. I didn't even know that the latter existed until just now.
Because it is a separate body to the EU. Around half of its members are not in the EU. It houses the European Court of Human Rights - which stopped (or more accurately 'delayed') us deporting people like Abu Hamza. Another institute which over rules our own courts. If we want full sovereignty - we need to get out of this as well.
In a local paper this morning - simplistic but .... http://www.torontosun.com/2016/06/18/moral-relativism-at-play-in-trump-brexit-orlando
Now I'm worried. Note I was wrong earlier in saying that leaving the eu means we can't be in the council of Europe. I'd confused the Council of Europe with the European Council. The latter is the group that runs the eu. The former is a separate entity and includes things like the European Court of human rights. Many of those that want out argue that Europe's ideas of human rights is out of touch with ours, citing valid examples like terrorists being prevented from being deported. Leaving the eu would change nothing in that respect. We'd have to also pull out of the European Council. So either the leave camp are lying even more than I realised about how much control we'd get back, or they are lying more than I realised about the extent of isolation they want for us. Apparently, no country has ever been accepted into the eu without first being a member of the European Council. The implication being that you can't leave the European Council and stay in the eu, so if you want to leave the European council you have to leave the eu. So what is Boris and co failing to tell us?
