Poll: The EU Referendum: How Will You Vote? (April Poll)

[Roar87]

Send it back to this address

Joanna George, Freepost RSBB-XRZT-ZTXE, The Conservative Party Foundation, 30 Millbank, London SW1P 4DP

I've done it, I know lots of others have too

or

Freepost RTHS-TLXL-XKXK
The Conservative Party
4 Matthew Parker Street
LONDON
SW1H 9HQ

The thing is, most of the top Conservatives are in favour of leaving. Which makes sense considering the EU is ideologically the opposite of what a right wing party should want. Not sure how Cameron fits into that.

 

[scorza]

We have done, but you compulsively ignore posts you cant argue against. Bit like in the trump thread :

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/search.php?searchid=23623074

From what I remember the positive vision of the EU involves things that remainers assume will disappear post-Brexit e.g. being able to travel, live and work in Europe. The assumption comes because we didn't have this things prior to joining the EEC - but this was post-war Europe, the world is a very different place now.

To be fair, there's also this notion of Britain being at the heart of Europe and influencing the EU's strategy and tactics which is at least a positive vision for Britain in the EU. As I said, there's no right or wrong answers for predictions, I'll just leave it up to others to judge how realistic that vision is.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Didn't we influence the anti-dumping steel law they wanted? Whoops!

 

[scorza]

Didn't we influence the anti-dumping steel law they wanted? Whoops!

Any one of the 28 member states can veto legislation (the UK wasn't the only member state against protecting steel). IMO this is just another reason why the political system in Brussels is so unworkable and ineffective. They aren't stupid in Brussels, they know this full well and as usual their solution will be 'more integration' - make no mistake, in future they'll be making laws up without the agreement of the UK government.

 

[Tosno]

If i feel that i as a remainer and you as a brexiter are not qualified to make the decision, it stands to reason that i don't know who is best to make the decision.

Then it is all clear, God should make it via the crown

 

[kindai]

One thing for sure, Brexit has cost me money as a result of the reduced value of sterling, therefore everyone vote stay please so I can spend less money on holiday. Thanks

Nah, I bill my customers in USD, so i'm doing great

 

[bayo000]

Where did I say that the whole world will bend over? The world is a tough place and we have to be as well, I think we have plenty of tough, smart people in this country - we just have to let them go into bat for Britain, rather than letting EU officials do it for us.

My positive vision for an independent UK involves being agile, tough, competitive, adaptable to change. We've always been good as a trading nation and we need to trade more with the part of the world that isn't the EU. It is a FACT that we export more trade with Belgium (population 11m, exports £10bn) than we do with India (population 1.27bn, exports £2.3bn) - in a globalised world that just isn't acceptable. We have to start making trade agreements with the rest of the world that work for the UK, to do that we have to leave the EU.

So again you failed to point to any source that would back your opinion but you happily ignore anyone's opinions if they don't suit your point of view. I don't doubt that are many tough and smart people here but rest of the world has them too, more of them in fact.

How much does average person in India has to spend and how much does average person living in Belgium got to spend? Now add to it all the extra expense of getting goods there and the market is tiny.

I guess we can always provide their companies with call centers.

 

[Mulder]

This is embarrassing - I'm honestly struggling to see how you can't comprehend the simple point. Obviously they have the choice of not accepting any deal, so no quid pro quo... I said as much, I said they could have no deal and the default would be tariffs on trade. But to have the deal they have they must accept EU laws.

It's not about screwing us if we left. They'd offer us a reasonable deal of access like Norway or Switzerland, but that's no better than we have now... it's actually worse (not apocalyptically worse, but it is worse).

Why are you putting 'they'll totally screw us' in quotation marks? Did I say that? And I'm not saying the EU wouldn't be viable economically etc, just that if we left and got a better deal, why wouldn't the other large economies like Germany and France agitate for that? If one or both of them followed obviously it'd fail. That's the political reality they have to consider alongside the economic arguments for what deal to give us.

Don't get embarrassed, we're all grown up here (i think anyway). I understand the point you are trying to make, but you need to understand the important point here (which I still don't think you get): they are not forced to abide by EU law. They choose to partake in agreements (and have to live by certain conditions of those agreements), but they have not given their sovereignty away. The UK has given sovereignty away, and this is the key issue.

Being in the EEA but not in the EU means you retain sovereignty and have control over the following areas not specified in the EEA: agriculture, fish, foreign and security policy, justice and immigration. Norway has optionally chosen to align with EU laws on some other areas like justice but they are not being forced to do that.

This BBC article explains the sovereignty point well, and quotes:

However, those who want to leave the EU say the only sovereignty that matters is the ability to make all our laws in the UK. And if that's what sovereignty means, it's difficult to see how it can be achieved while the UK remains part of the EU.

So being in the EEA would mean we retain our sovereignty, and power over areas such as the above. We would not be forced to "abide by their laws" as so many remainers claim.

As for the "but Norway/Switzerland still have to pay" argument - this says their net contributions have been a total of €1.8bn for Norway for between 2009-2014 and €1bn from Switzerland over 10 years. Pretty modest considering our net contribution to the EU is £8.5bn a year.

 

[gary996]

Out from me. Just hope it happens

 

[dowie]

quite interesting to have these threads, looking back at the previous ones the % in favour of leaving has increased a bit over the past months, then again there more conservative supporters on here compared with the general population

anyway the Iron Lady wouldn't have got us into it in the first place... but unfortunately she wasn't PM in 93.... good to look back on her comments re: the single currency too.

 

[scorza]

So again you failed to point to any source that would back your opinion but you happily ignore anyone's opinions if they don't suit your point of view. I don't doubt that are many tough and smart people here but rest of the world has them too, more of them in fact.

How much does average person in India has to spend and how much does average person living in Belgium got to spend? Now add to it all the extra expense of getting goods there and the market is tiny.

I guess we can always provide their companies with call centers.

How can I provide you with a source that proves a prediction? Other than building a time machine of course

If the Indian market is tiny (really? with how many billionaires and a burgeoning middle-class), then how come Germay exports the equivalent of £7.2bn there? That's three times what we are able.

 

[[TW]Fox]

If the Indian market is tiny (really? with how many billionaires and a burgeoning middle-class), then how come Germay exports the equivalent of £7.2bn there? That's three times what we are able.

Have you noticed what Germany produces?

 

[Mulder]

How can I provide you with a source that proves a prediction? Other than building a time machine of course

If the Indian market is tiny (really? with how many billionaires and a burgeoning middle-class), then how come Germay exports the equivalent of £7.2bn there? That's three times what we are able.

Here's one independent source that says we do not benefit from being in the EU trade block

http://www.cityam.com/232837/eu-ref...from-being-in-the-european-union-trading-bloc

 

[scorza]

Have you noticed what Germany produces?

Lots of different things, like us.

 

[bayo000]

How can I provide you with a source that proves a prediction? Other than building a time machine of course

If the Indian market is tiny (really? with how many billionaires and a burgeoning middle-class), then how come Germay exports the equivalent of £7.2bn there? That's three times what we are able.

But surely many people share your rosy prediction and came up with many reasons to support it.

Is that really a surprise that country with huge manufacturing industry sells more than country heavily dependent on service industry to a still developing country?

 

[Insanties_birth]

I would think the obvious move for the EU would be to make leaving the EU as unappealing as possible. If they didn't and the French/German anti-eu groups used Britain as a good modern example of a strong economy benefiting from leaving the EY, then they would not be far behind following and the EU economy would take a significant hit as it all crumbles.

It seems to me that behaving like a child is in the EU bests interests.

That's just a narrow view point with out looking at the other factors. During financial and migration crises with a brexit weakening the EU as well then it'd be very poor idea to look into hammering the UK with a bad deal that makes (even with us outside the EU) a fellow european country take an economic hit that leaves the rest of the regions less stable too. In the end any damage they do to us comes back on them, the EU project is about raising cooperation and financial stability of the EU so although it's somewhat in there interest to disincentivise leaving the EU it's still a huge mis-step to go against there own aims for the union and hamper the regions they are under control of.

Not to mention this would only further damage relations and push us to simply look for trade deals from other countries instead. They can hurt us at the expense of hurting themelves too but in the end it's in no ones interest for them to do this when you analyse it properly. Sure the EU project could look to be weakened and they wouldn't want others to leave but the mood of the rest of the union is that they simply don't want to leave anyway, very little would be accomplished other than weakening themselves and harming relations with us.

 

[robfosters]

Have you noticed what Germany produces?

Bangin' sausages!

 

[bayo000]

Unfortunately, there are no public figures for the money Norway gets back from these programmes, making it impossible to be certain what its net contribution is. However, a generous assumption would be that Norway receives an amount per capita similar to what the UK receives from those parts of Europe’s arrangements in which Norway participates—mainly the EU’s science funding programme. (The UK has been notably successful in winning EU science grants.)
Britain’s receipts from EU programmes that Norway also benefits from (again, using generous assumptions) come to £23 per person**. Subtracting that amount from Norway’s gross contribution, we get an estimated net contribution of £96 per head.

What is the equivalent figure for Britain? As InFacts has previously shown, the UK sent £12.9 billion to the EU last year. After subtracting the money the EU spends in the UK and money that the UK would spend anyway because of its commitment to global development targets, the UK’s net contribution to the EU comes to £96 per capita—by coincidence, exactly the same as our estimate for Norway.

http://infacts.org/norwegians-pay-same-brits-eu-access/

That's with 'generous' assumption of what they get back, so quite likely they pay more per capita.

Edit: To show another source in case some people don't like the one I used. This one says that UK pays about 30 euro more per person http://openeurope.org.uk/today/blog/what-would-a-norway-style-relationship-with-the-eu-entail/

 

[MattTheTall77]

Probably old news for most people, but just found out that the European Parliament goes to Strasbourg in France once a month for a four day sitting. I would post the link but it keeps crashing my browser :/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/10565686/The-farce-of-the-EU-travelling-circus.html

The article was back in 2014. Seems a bit excessive to me moving all those people and documents each time.

 

[Nevakonaza]

As unfair as the mailshot was, I doubt you'd build many hospitals for £9m.

completely true,But its 9Million,They could have at least extended hospitals that were struggling for beds,Employed more staff..Or 9 million could have built quite a few 1/2 bedroom homes for young people that are struggling to get a place of their own.

Government need to start getting priorities right,they waste far too much.

And a "Reformed" EU..no thanks,a straight out is what we need,We can still do trade with the rest of the world..they make it seem like we cant if we leave.