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

[oulton]

Genuine, really?

TTIP is one of the main reasons for voting OUT in my opinionion

 

[[TW]Fox]

BAAAAAAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We wouldn't have had all that tedious Cameron/tax rubbish a few weeks back if we didn't have a free press. Whether you like to admit it or not, we have a free press. Especially compared with most of the rest of the world! The press are free to report inline with whatever agenda they have - and some of them very much have an agenda, but reporting stuff to suit the agenda of the owners doesn't mean we don't have a free press.

 

[Caged]

If TTIP is a blueprint for what the US want trade deals to look like then why would anything negotiated between the UK and the US look radically different?

 

[Cosimo]

Yes, do we really want to relax rules within the EU just to appease America?

Why shouldn't we not relax them?

 

[Cosimo]

BAAAAAAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What makes you think it's not a free press?

 

[Insanties_birth]

Genuine, really?

TTIP is quite a big concern really, if it's going to effect all sorts of policy and interacts with business accountability, health standards, trading rules and agriculture then of course it's a genuine reason. The main problem is we can't guarantee the eu would actually sign up to that so it's not necessarily as bad as saying it's inevitable but it's pretty late into the discussions and it sounds like they're not gaining enough ground.

 

[SlyReaper]

I don't know why the Brexit side keeps inventing this concept that the 'In' side believe we couldn't negotiate trade deals. Of course we could - a UK outside of the EU can and will negotiate trade deals with our trading partners. It is nonsense to suggest anyone with half a brain would think we couldn't.

But the point is that these trade deals would be inferior to membership of the single market and would introduce additional costs - not because the EU would want to spite us, not because we are 'small fish' or whatever, but simply because thats how trade deals work. Nobody else in the world has what we have in the single market.

What would you rather have? A perfect trade deal with Europe (who are suffering serious economic trouble at the moment), or a lot of pretty-good trade deals with the whole world? I know which one I'd choose, and that's why I'm voting Out.

 

[Randomface74]

It's not a free press at all lol

 

[[TW]Fox]

What would you rather have? A perfect trade deal with Europe (who are suffering serious economic trouble at the moment), or a lot of pretty-good trade deals with the whole world? I know which one I'd choose, and that's why I'm voting Out.

I don't understand why you think we can only have either a good deal with Europe and terrible deals with the rest of the world, or good deals with the rest of the world and be outside of the EU.

What great trade deals have the EU blocked or stopped us from getting and how is this affecting us?

 

[Danthus]

It's not a free press at all lol

I think that fact that you can pretty much publish anything you want in this country is a good indicator.

 

[datalol-jack]

According to Greenpeace, the following is the latest state of play on TTIP: http://www.ttip-leaks.org/pandaros/doc16.pdf.

Yes, do we really want to relax rules within the EU just to appease America?

How can we stop them being relaxed from the outside? It's self-defeating to remove one's powers to scrutinize, contribute and veto EU trade deals, whilst getting both the deal and its effects in the EEA or under an EFTA with the bloc which will sign the deal. Indeed, quitting the EU now would weaken the EU negotiator's hand, as they would need to compensate for the projected shortfall of trade and our contribution, etc.

 

[[TW]Fox]

The TTIP things seems like too much of an unknown quantity. Most of what we know is based on 'leaks' and 'conjecture' from those with an agenda. For example a very important question would be what is our own governments view on TTIP - if it's similar to that of the rest of the EU's view on it then Brexit or no Brexit it's likely we'll progress towards something similar?

We are being dragged into TTIP against our* will? If not, then how is this a Referendum issue?

*As in our current government.

 

[datalol-jack]

I don't understand why you think we can only have either a good deal with Europe and terrible deals with the rest of the world, or good deals with the rest of the world and be outside of the EU.

What great trade deals have the EU blocked or stopped us from getting and how is this affecting us?

This makes me chuckle. Do you know the first thing Hammond got asked in Vietnam, a part of our great Asian pivot?

"How's our EU FTA progressing, and what's Britain doing to enable it?"



Details of the relevant FTA deal, and time scales people like to imagine won't apply to us, are here: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/vietnam/.

 

[Orionaut]

I have noticed in these polls that the outers take a huge early lead and the remain percentage slowly comes back. It reaffirms my belief that the majority of remainers are not passionate/or cannot be bothered, this makes me hopeful that this will play out in the actual referendum and the exit vote will win.

The "Outers" will, by and large, have made their decision emotionally (And there is nothing at all wrong with that!) They want to leave the EU because they believe that it is the right thing to do.

As a consequence, they will be already heavily committed to their cause and will likely rally to it quickly.

There will undoubtedly be "Remainers" who will be equally committed at an emotional level, but I suspect that rather more of them will be wanting to remain for personal specific reasons that are not really that strong and are possibly even a little selfish (EG I want to remain because I like working in Paris etc)

They are likley to be less committed emotionally and will be slower to rally.

Or possibly not at all if it is raining on the day!

Well, that's my theory anyway

 

[SlyReaper]

The "Outers" will, by and large, have made their decision emotionally (And there is nothing at all wrong with that!)

Speak for yourself. I made my decision after looking up the facts. I was originally going to vote to Remain; THAT was based on emotion rather than fact.

Turns out reality has a Brexit bias.

 

[Mulder]

Pardon what might be questions that have already been covered in previous posts or threads but when you say 2% of EU output I assume you're talking about GDP for the whole of Europe?

However that, in itself, is also somewhat simplistic because it would discount that there may be many reasons you would want/need to invest in something which doesn't give the highest returns e.g. a need to produce food (relatively) locally, an industry where prices and profit margins are not as high as some others doesn't mean it isn't vital, an aim to keep employment up in certain areas etc etc. CAP may or may not be terrible according to objective or subjective measures but it does seem as if there's probably a bit of context missing when purely examining figures.

No worries, you're absolutely right; it is a simplistic way to look at it, but it is generally accepted (even by Datalol) that agriculture accounts for 2% of the EU's GDP but that the CAP accounts for almost 40% of total EU spending. A lot of which comes from the UK of course.

I and other leave supporters have an issue not just with the size of CAP spending though, but also how it's decided, who it benefits, whether it's a solution for the long term and what impact it has on our environment and countryside. CAP heavily favours larger farms, with most of the money going to huge farms rather than being more evenly distributed. It also promotes over production, so the EU dumps a lot of excess onto developing markets (mainly Africa), putting their farmers out of business. We're a net contributor to the CAP, so whilst it's true we get some funding back, it's a misnomer as on a net basis we're sending money to France/Germany/Spain for them to overproduce.

Most people accept CAP has got serious issues (including those above and increasing food prices for everyone in the EU), but they've struggled to change it. Why? Because the French don't want it to change, it benefits their large farms hugely.

Any post Brexit type of CAP arrangement should focus on efficiency, innovation, sustainability and animal welfare/environmental protection. Rather than just pumping vast subsidies to generally large, French farmers who just continue to overproduce knowing whatever they make will be bought (and then dumped).

I don't think that people are typically suggesting that the UK couldn't negotiate its own deals, if I'm reading it correctly it is that people aren't convinced that the UK will be able to get either deals that are at least on parity or better than what is currently available. Again I don't know whether it is or isn't plausible that in a post EU exit scenario that the UK would be able to negotiate great deals but if you'll excuse what might be a great deal of understatement it does seem to be a bit of a punt into the unknown.

The above example re France not wanting to change CAP is a good example of where the EU actually loses us influence. The EU can't complete its trade deal with Australia because some Italian tomato growers aren't happy, similarly the EU deal with Canada has stalled because of an unrelated Romanian visa dispute. These things are outside of our control, as we're not allowed to negotiate our own trade deals, so we have to just sit back and hope the EU gets them completed, and we have to hope as well that they're in the best interests of the UK. ...

Which on the whole they're not; the UK is primarily a services economy, and the EU is useless at negotiating services deals, see here. Switzerland is a financial services/insurance centre and has negotiated bileterals deals with the rest of the world that work in its best interest (for example here), rather than having to try and compromise with 500m+ people and 28+ countries.

The remain side focus on the fact that we may not get as beneficial deal with the EU if we left. This may well be true, we won't know until the negotiations are done. Tariffs are possible, but even if the EU plays hardball, which would not be in their interests given we're a net importer of EU goods, we could just trade under WTO trading rules (which supersede EU rules). Business doesn't care about the bigger EU goal of creating a superstate, if we leave we leave, they will still want to sell to us.

What's really important is the future though - the EU is and will continue to account for less and less of our trade as other parts of the world are expected to grow much more quickly. The UK will also continue to move even further toward a services based economy. Our ability to be able to negotiate bilateral trade deals (like the Swiss, Norwegians, Australians, Americans etc) will get more important over time.

 

[[TW]Fox]

I'm not so concerned about our ability to export if we were not in the EU. As you rightly point out we are a services based economy and most of our physical exports are specialist and high technology and not as price sensitive as they otherwise might - nobody is going to not buy a Range Rover in Germany because it's a bit more expensive because of tariffs. This is why I also do not believe a weak sterling helps our economy either - the damage done through increased import costs outweighs any export benefit for the above reasons.

My issue with the trade side of things comes from what we buy - not what we sell. Many of us buy goods from the EU on a regular basis and it's the impact on this that concerns many 'In' voters. Do I think I won't be able to buy any more BMW's if we leave the EU? Of course not - it's nonsense. I'll still be able to buy what I want, but the question is, at what price? A higher price, I'd imagine.

So we end up importing inflation through the increased costs involved with buying from the EU. Currently we can buy what we want from who want without any issues at all. Heck my last set of tyres were ordered from Germany and arrived here 2 days later with no hassle and no tariffs, for example. Doing business with another EU country is almost as easy as doing business with a company up the road. This is one thing I really value about the EU - as well as the free and easy travel, the excellent consumer protection legislation, harmonised standards, things like that.

What's a shame about this debate is that it's not really a debate. It's a big argument interspersed with utterly pointless one liners like '100% OUT!1132435425345'. I mean really?

I've never posted '100% IN!!!11111' or 'ANYONE WHO VOTES OUT IS A TRATIRO OMGZZZZ' and neither have, to my knowledge, anyone else who is on the 'In' side. I don't understand why the 'Out' side of the debate is full of random comments like that and odd appeals to emotion etc.

There are a number of posters in this thread who are against our membership of the EU and are able to explain why in a rational way without hyperbole or made up rubbish. I have nothing but respect for these views and am pleased to be part of a democratic society whereby these people can cast a vote that is contrary to my own view.

However what worries me is the sheer volume of views like '100% OUT!!!!!!!!!432435' and 'TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!' etc etc which demonstrate no real attempt to think rationally about the issue. I fear there are more of these on the 'Out' side than the 'In' side which may very well skew the vote. You read newspaper articles and see loads of comments which just say 'VOTE LEAVE' with no context, no explanation, no reason and often no real relevance to the story at hand. It's like mob-rule almost. Is that really how we want major issues to be decided?

 

[Woden]

BAAAAAAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What makes you think we don't?

 

[Insanties_birth]

However what worries me is the sheer volume of views like '100% OUT!!!!!!!!!432435' and 'TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!' etc etc which demonstrate no real attempt to think rationally about the issue. I fear there are more of these on the 'Out' side than the 'In' side which may very well skew the vote. You read newspaper articles and see loads of comments which just say 'VOTE LEAVE' with no context, no explanation, no reason and often no real relevance to the story at hand. It's like mob-rule almost. Is that really how we want major issues to be decided?

This is where I blame the government. Cameron should be lambasted for his failure to be neutral. I believe he should be allowed to still recommend his choice and highlight his arguments based on the unbiased facts he finds but let's be honest, the government failed to be neutral. After that point it was bound to devolve from what could have been debate and discussion on facts and unbiased info into the in fighting we are seeing in the tory party. Most people have to get there news from the tabloids because even the big bodies that control our finance sectors aren't necessarily impartial and so they don't trust them either.

The leaflet for example could have been fair and reasoned arguments on either side with respectable statistics and a realistic outlook but we can't get that with how biased the government is. After all we keep getting told brexit voters don't know what the tariffs would be if we voted out and complaints that they can't promise a trade deal but that is the fault of cameron as he could have negotiated this and discussed what the deal would be if we lef and he's in the position to do that. I'm sure some brexit supporters feel betrayed in that they aren't represented in that way and even hindered in getting the correct information. The bias has thrown the decision making process aloof, we aren't presented the real option for if we left and the government stance has led to misinformation and what can only be considered as information with an agenda. It's become somewhat an emotional debate because of people's frustrations with lack of information. Camerons bad negotiations and failure to give a level playing field in the debates (like trying to cut others out of using civil service and the extra spending on leaflets for just one side etc.) . Can't blame people for being passionate about not getting conned into a decision with misinformation. There's a good argument for the eu but if the people arguing for it look like they have a biased agenda, unfair approach and disregard for giving the public real information (such as how they've tried to cover up those 600k national insurance numbers given out too) then they breed passion in there opponents. They do it to themselves really.

 

[[TW]Fox]

This is where I blame the government. Cameron should be lambasted for his failure to be neutral. I believe he should be allowed to still recommend his choice and highlight his arguments based on the unbiased facts he finds but let's be honest, the government failed to be neutral. After that point it was bound to devolve from what could have been debate and discussion on facts and unbiased info into the in fighting we are seeing in the tory party. Most people have to get there news from the tabloids because even the big bodies that control our finance sectors aren't necessarily impartial and so they don't trust them either.

The leaflet for example could have been fair and reasoned arguments on either side with respectable statistics and a realistic outlook but we can't get that with how biased the government is. After all we keep getting told brexit voters don't know what the tariffs would be if we voted out and complaints that they can't promise a trade deal but that is the fault of career on as he could have negotiated this and discussed what the deal would be if we left. The bias has thrown the decision making process aloof, we aren't presented the real option for if we left and the government stance has led to misinformation and what can only be considered as information with an agenda. It's become somewhat an emotional debate because of people's frustrations with lack of information, bias, Cameron said bad negotiations and failure to give a level playing field in the debates (like trying to cut others out of using civil service and the extra spending on leaflets for just one side etc.) . Can't blame people for being passionate about not getting conned into a decision with misinformation. There's a good argument for the eu but if the people arguing for it look like they have a biased agenda, unfair approach and disregard for giving the public real information (such as how they've tried to cover up those 600k national insurance number a given out too) then they breed passion in there opponents. They do it to themselves really.

I can't disagree with anything you've said there.

It genuinely is a shame there isn't an unbiased 'Centre for Facts' or something which can dispel myths put about by both sides and provide actual information. There is utter rubbish on both sides, from the idea we wont be able to trade with Europe if we leave on the 'In' side through tot he nonsense about refugees on the 'Out' side.