Poll: The EU Referendum: What Will You Vote? (New Poll)

Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?


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Well aint that what we're paying them (politicians) for ?

To work out these issues as and when required (Zero hours contracts basically)

They might well have gotten away with sitting on their butts in their ivory towers guffawing at us plebs but now they're going to have to put some Yakka in !
 
Precisely.

The pokes in the following wall are not directed at Tunney:

Scorzas of the world regressively arguing against this form of democracy, in favour of the great representative justice of FPTP, direct democracy, some other mob rule abomination or 'enlightened' third-way dictatorship, without thought, are stuck up zugzwang creek without a paddle! I don't think there is a sane way to help them not to be terrified of their own shadow; I wish there were.

The Power Plc has been on a more accountable roll since the dawn of the modern era. But you have to use your vote, and think before you vote, for all these accountability mechanisms to mean a thing, or indeed work properly. Reform's a thing! Good leadership does exist. Big money, should they act to harm or incite harm, can be overcome by pooling democratic power together where it makes the most sense.

Not all politicians are there, taking abuse day after day, to feather their own nest and leave the world worse off than they've found it; or maybe that's what you would prefer, as long as it didn't make you think too much? Hmm? Nice and local but not bifocal? ;) Everyone's fallible but not everyone's a cretin, or a born conspirator against the common good, who has sucked in plots to crush 'the man' with his mother's milk! Christ on a bike!:mad::p

Fleeing from the world, and trudging off to a local council and then general election once in a blue moon, won't solve global problems democratically or in your interest, nor will it ensure fairness or social justice to please all and sundry! Because if you don't trust in politics to deliver practical solutions to seemingly unassailable problems, and argue for such concrete solutions, farting about with meaningless protest is not better than slowly bleeding out to sweet oblivion under a pile of Daily Mail! You may have to cast your net, experience and reason a bit wider if you wan't to drag anything back but empty promises and broken hopes.

You can't harp on about democracy when the times are hard or uncertain, and it suits your agenda. To then just lull yourself into hibernation during less turbulent economic stretches, when actually you have to step up and take responsibility for your choices and wild claims. So the 'good times' aren't wasted on hot air and populist twaddle and token, ritualistic form of participation along tribal lines!

Your grand critique by scorza's style of 'logic and argument', operating solely out of one's behind, is nothing more than a bleating, snivelling cry against 'complexity' and a terrified, weeping screed for 'certain' solutions and obvious outcomes in a world which can offer none of the sort! Which can be used to moan about anything without ever having to deliver. To wit, just because you can egg your representative closer to home, doesn't make them any more accountable or effective in a world where a gamble in one country causes a bank run in another. You have to elect people for the job at hand, and send them where they are most needed, at the level appropriate to the task.

TL;DR: Start living today, not a century in the past, damn it!
Democracy is a bunch of votes, to argue that somehow the idea that more people get there say is incredibly injust because you can randomly attribute regular citizens with there own opinions on an issue as a mob is not really a smart way to approach the argument. Is the EU just a smaller mob or a gang of EU scrubs? I can't really understand any shadow on the wall argument about giving people a vote, we can argue some are underqualified but even the qualified aren't guaranteed to have good judgement.

Pooling power together only exposes the risk of bribes and self interest, the less voices there is the more likely they are to be targeted by big corporations / political persuasion. There's not really an invicible argument for having fewer people or more people as no form of democracy is perfect.

There's a lot of self styled opinion there but not much that guarantees the EU approach would be infallible or actually better. An opinion piece on whether a 4 year national government can solve worldwide issues when we've already seen within the EU we've not solved any of the big world problems anyway (crimea, middle east, mexico, chinese islands etc.) As we've said before, illusion of power is not power and the argument of solving world problems in the EU has not proven fruitful and just pie in the sky talk.

Apparently you can harp on about multinationalism but not democracy? How is it an agenda to harp on about it when times are hard, isn't it supposed to be harping on about it when times are easy that shows you're just paying lip service and not willing to put your money where your mouth is when it gets tough? It's not harping to have a different opnion and we've explained why the EU hasn't promoted any greater control before but rather just an inverse control on the Euro zone.

The past is the foundation still, until we learn to make multinationalism work to actually account for the local peoples voices then it's simply going to be a deviation that isn't necessarily a better solution, more a side step than a step forward. If it were a step forward we wouldn't need the argument but it loses something in the process and exposes more issues (as seen with Austria and Hungary defying the EU policies). We rely on a system that at the crunch is meant to serve the local citizens and feels too distant in some cases (not all) to achieve that. I'm not truly convinced on the opinion piece, I view the democracy being closer to the people (while still allowing for multi nationalism in some areas but not as much as what we have now) is more appropriate. It's obvious we're a global economy so world views matter, how much world views should have a say on local issues though. Like you said yourself, it should be the most relevant people for the position and I have no issue with multi nationalism in some cases (like trade) but it's not needed in all policies or appropriate. As we can see from the many politicians voting with there careers as well, quite a few agree. I'm not even arguing with you as we both agree we're in a multi-faceted democracy but the question is just where the balance of power should be and whether it's balanced right at the moment which it isn't.
 
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What I find so undemocratic about the European elections is that there are these groups that get formed in the European Parliament, and the largest group gets to put its nominee forward for EU President.

This is how proportional representation works the world over. I don't understand how the largest group (i.e. the group with the largest number of votes) getting to nominate a president is undemocratic.
 
Now, we face not 1 month, not 1 year, but 2 whole years of parliamentary time which needs to be wasted further to:
a) review all of the EU legislation on the statute books
b) decide what to keep and what to ditch
c) replace what's ditched with at least a semblance of debate
d) ensure to get it through the Lords on time

Why would any of this be necessary? Had Scotland removed itself from the UK they wouldn't have had a comprehensive review of all those "English Laws" they were based under and whole new ones drawn up.

You keep the laws as they are and change them through a same processes over time that all laws change by.

But your argument works both ways. If we stay it means all future laws instead of being debated in parliament then the lords, have to go through the EU to make sure they are infringing on any of their laws which supersede ours. Or look at how much time was wasted in Parliament over the prisoner's votes issue?

So if you're worried about how much time parliament waste, I'd bet pandering to the EU over the years far outweigh the hours needed for a Brexit.
 
Well aint that what we're paying them (politicians) for ?

To work out these issues as and when required (Zero hours contracts basically)

They might well have gotten away with sitting on their butts in their ivory towers guffawing at us plebs but now they're going to have to put some Yakka in !

Sure, but let's put this in the context of a market panic, slipping pound and Russia in Ukraine and Syria, with dictators and IS extremists cackling gloriously at both our potential ruin and indecisiveness. The country doesn't run itself. The world will not magically wait for you to decide a course of action and let you navel-gaze for two years!

And when we are through, there are still no obvious wins. Especially, if we have to return to the bloc in a weakened state afterwards. Do you think the 'Back in if bad' camp will get anything more than our current deal? Please.

estebanrey said:
Why would any of this be necessary?

Our lawyers and courts won't take it all at face value for one. They would demand a full review, before any deals and further negotiations.

You don't simply copy blocks of law formed before independence over. You have to make sure everything is both compatible with your new state, and that nothing relying on the structures, processes and institutions of now-foreign state either remains, or is replaced as needed, mapping to your home capacities instead; concretely that is. You cannot write 'Make Britain great again!' on vellum, and hope the muck storm passes you by.
 
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Spout opinion. Get some back. First, direct democracy and citizen-legislators. These bleatings have been in America since the formation of the republic, and so let's begin with a simple enough overview from their experience:

http://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/the-dangers-of-direct-democracy/

Remind you of GD at all? Would you let THAT run the country/world/nation? No thanks. I was going to post some classical greek debates too, but, frankly, it's wasted on the peanut gallery here. TL;DR: Direct, unmodulated citizen-power has been tried, it failed in its chief goals; we have something better now, addressing problems from the past, and moving in the right direction.
 
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Such agressive posting - my god! I think people have just picked a side like they would pick a football team to support. Supporting passionately to the death!
 
Spout opinion. Get some back. First, direct democracy and citizen-legislators. These bleatings have been in America since the formation of the republic, and so let's begin with a simple enough overview from their experience:

http://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/the-dangers-of-direct-democracy/

Remind you of GD at all? Would you let THAT run the country/world/nation? No thanks. I was going to post some classical greek debates too, but, frankly, it's wasted on the peanut gallery here. TL;DR: Direct, unmodulated citizen-power has been tried, it failed in its chief goals; we have something better now, addressing problems from the past, and moving in the right direction.
It's not opinion as to whether EU lowers democracy (from the people anyway) and discussing the differences between national and multi national governments. It's opinion to state that somehow local government is not needed in favour of multi nationalism as we very well could operate either way with minor concessions to one side or the other and to state that local democracy is just mob rule. The extent to which people have the right to vote is more than likely opinion over a law or fact.

Like I said, mob rule / opinion is no worse than other ways of democratising things as no way is perfect but at least it appeases the people who actually live with the situation. The idea that we will have a better democracy by having less voices assumes the voices we have left in the process would all have sound judgement and no bias / bribes etc. We can't guarantee this and so no form of democracy is automatically better than the other, at least we get general consensus from the people who will live in the situation by the mass vote policy. We can't guarantee it's better though and that is the issue, if you're happy to accept the propaganda and assume it's better (regardless of the judgement of those in power) then that's cool but I feel I'll simply disagree and there's nothing really wrong with people having differing opinions ;p If it were better I don't see why Austria, Hungary and the UK are all disobeying the policies they signed up for, we don't do that with our local laws but clearly the EU approach has a few kinks that cause us to need to go back and appease the people now and again.
 
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It's not opinion as to whether EU lowers democracy and discussing the differences between national and multi national governments. It's opinion to state that somehow local government is not needed in favour of multi nationalism as we very well could operate either way with minor concessions to one side or the other and to state that local democracy is just mob rule. The extent to which people have the right to vote is more than likely opinion over a law or fact.

Like I said, mob rule / opinion is no worse than other ways of democratising things as no way is perfect but at least it appeases the people who actually live with the situation. The idea that we will have a better democracy by having less voices assumes the voices we have left in the process would all have sound judgement and no bias / bribes etc. We can't guarantee this and so no form of democracy is automatically better than the other, at least we get general consensus from the people who will live in the situation by the mass vote policy. We can't guarantee it's better though and that is the issue, if you're happy to accept the propaganda and assume it's better (regardless of the judgement of those in power) then that's cool but I feel I'll simply disagree and there's nothing really wrong with people having differing opinions ;p

Appeasement of the mob is not democracy, nor is it sound politics. If you want entertainment as a form of government, join a vaudeville troupe!:p

Such aggressive posting - my god! I think people have just picked a side like they would pick a football team to support. Supporting passionately to the death!

Sometimes to make a point, one has to go the extra mile. ;)
 
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Appeasement of the mob is not democracy, nor is it sound politics. If you want entertainment as a form of government, join a vaudeville troupe!:p
Of course it is, we get a vote on issues that effect us and that is a democratic approach. It may not be 'sound' politics but then again relying on just a few people to butt heads with 27 other countries with there own self interest at heart isn't sound either as we've seen with hungary, austria and the UK dissenting from the supposedly infallible EU. It's quite clear there's kinks in the armour and there's discontent in the member nations but if there wasn't some money being dangled above there heads then this would look quite a different picture.

There's some things we relay to those who know better but rarely would you find many sane people who want others from the other side of the continent getting to tell them how to live. It's mismanagement as they don't know or understand the local issues and when you have more votes from the outside than the in then it's blind politics with just the bottom line to go by. It'll work financially and we're a capitalism so that helps but it's not 'sound politics' either. Like I said, if you prefer this approach it's fine but just don't expect everyone to buy into the idea that it's perfect or the way forward because our old system was so wrong, we could do with a better balance as we need multi nationalism and national government but the balance is wrong at the moment.
 
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Sure, but let's put this in the context of a market panic, slipping pound and Russia in Ukraine and Syria, with dictators and IS extremists cackling gloriously at both our potential ruin and indecisiveness. The country doesn't run itself. The world will not magically wait for you to decide a course of action and let you navel-gaze for two years!

And when we are through, there are still no obvious wins. Especially, if we have to return to the bloc in a weakened state afterwards. Do you think the 'Back in if bad' camp will get anything more than our current deal? Please.



Our lawyers and courts won't take it all at face value for one. They would demand a full review, before any deals and further negotiations.

You don't simply copy blocks of law formed before independence over. You have to make sure everything is both compatible with your new state, and that nothing relying on the structures, processes and institutions of now-foreign state either remains, or is replaced as needed, mapping to your home capacities instead; concretely that is. You cannot write 'Make Britain great again!' on vellum, and hope the muck storm passes you by.

It's unfathomable for me that someone would argue to stay in a Federal Europe and give up our sovereignty on the basis that there will be a lot of work and some uncertainty.
 
It's unfathomable for me that someone would argue to stay in a Federal Europe and give up our sovereignty on the basis that there will be a lot of work and some uncertainty.

It's because our island is riven by factional rivalry and class hatred, we know who we hate here after centuries of living close to each other, who tf knows what a foreigner thinks like.
 
I dont really see any good reasons to leave, so I am saying IN. However its not a well informed decision at this point so could be swayed either way.

My main decision would be on a financial basis, whichever I thought would offer a better prospect for the country. Any arguments about keeping dirty foreigners out would be lol'd at.
 
It's because our island is riven by factional rivalry and class hatred, we know who we hate here after centuries of living close to each other, who tf knows what a foreigner thinks like.

I've heard europe is run by the french and germans, and having been brought up on allo allo and auf wiedersehen pet I'm quite well adjusted to them. The sun though tells me the UK is run by eton school boys and after watching porterhouse blues I'm not too keen on them. Recently downton abbey has reinforced by view they're all a bunch of rotters!

So, given a well rounded education on all things european and political I'll vote in!
 
I dont really see any good reasons to leave, so I am saying IN. However its not a well informed decision at this point so could be swayed either way.

My main decision would be on a financial basis, whichever I thought would offer a better prospect for the country. Any arguments about keeping dirty foreigners out would be lol'd at.
I dont really see any good reasons to leave, so I am saying IN. However its not a well informed decision at this point so could be swayed either way.

My main decision would be on a financial basis, whichever I thought would offer a better prospect for the country. Any arguments about keeping dirty foreigners out would be lol'd at.
It's mainly a vote on the political environment we want going ahead, multi-national government where we have votes of 27 self interested nations vs having our own democracy and controls at a more local level but with the loss of some potential trade.

Forget the scaremongering, in a global environment we will always trade with otehr people so we'll start trading again and we have a 2 year period of separation where we can renegotiate trade with EU as we separate. The main idea is just whether we want self governance or cash but laws being pushed from other areas. Migration is not a big issue as EU migration is generally beneficial but leaving does allow a bit more control on the level of migration, it's not something we'll solve fully either way but it'll work better if we vote out still. On the EU side though we'd lose some investment and it could put a bit of turbulence for a few years on the economic side. Most other issues are small or negligible to be honest and won't get solved one way or the other, the referendum helped with some issues but overall it's not guaranteed. I like government closer to the ground, some are happy with multi-nationalism and don't mind losing a little ground control in order for the cash that comes with it. We're better off waiting for the in and out campaign to spell out the major reasons it's important to leave or stay cos at the moment it is a bit more an an emotional heckling than a number and fact piece.

In vote for stability, jobs, investment and closer ties with EU nations
Out vote for population control (not all, just some), laws being created from people within the country who listen to our issues or can make more flexible and quicker actions, accountability with our politicians and a potentially more flexible and lesser red tape based system.

The out vote stuff is harder to quantify since it would require some renegotiation but there's arguments for either side, we've been in the EU for 40 years and it's not been too bad so we can always play it safe but the 'security and voice within the world' arguments haven't really surfaced as we've had no major role in world affairs, jihadi's and flown in and out of europe from syria like it's a joke and the EU doesn't seem concerned with much before it locks down it's laws. I feel a lot of the arguments rely on misinformation and it's more to do with the political and economic relations and whether we are happy with what the EU is proposing. Migration won't end if we leave but neither will trade. We'll go on one way or another so just look at the positives.
 
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Of course it is...

It's demagoguery of the worst kind; fertile breeding ground for the very tyrants and professional lunatics you purport to wish to challenge. If that's your perfect world -- admit it, and move on.

Don't try to put the fig leaf of your nebulous sovereignty over it! It's getting beyond tiresome: the argument failed in the 70s, it'll fail on the same grounds again: We have plenty via the subsidiary principle, our special exemptions and the sheer fact of the 86%-90% (actually the estimate is between 10%-14%, so corrected) of laws that do not pertain to our relationship with Europe being forged right where they should be -- in Westminster; and we still ratify and scrutinise everything we get from the continent -- some blooming dictatorship!

We're now governed by proxies, and judging from the thread, they're far more capable, qualified and sensible, the odd shenangs in the Commons and EUP notwithstanding.
 
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