Autonomy

Autonomy

Have you turned into some "comedy" social media alter ego?

Autonomy

Just out of interest - can the Leave supporters list top 5 bullet points of the most important aspects to them that a Brexit would achieve?

Lightandbitter

1. Autonomy

DXBtoDOH

I'll play although I suspect you're just another example of the Remain side talking past the Leave side without really understanding their concerns.

1. Immigration. There has been enormous and frankly unsustainable immigration to the UK in the last 15 years. Giving the EU free right of movement has only burdened the UK with a sharply rising population that it cannot support without an overall decline in the quality of life for many British citizens. Contrary to what CaptainJack said, there has actually been a sharp reduction in non-EU migration under the Tories. Most of the non-EU migration numbers you see in recent years are of students coming to the UK, not economic migrants. But we have no control over EU migration and this has exacerbated a severe housing market in the south of England, overburdened schools, the NHS and social programmes. If the UK needs immigration in the future (something I don't particularly agree with but still) immigration should be on the UK's terms and something the UK has full control over via a points system that brings qualified people and not more EU Costa baristas serving coffee to primarily other EU migrants.

2. Sovereignty. Either you get it or not. I do not support a EU parliament and a EU commission and a EU court being able to overrule the UK parliament and UK courts. We have to draw the line of sovereignty somewhere and I draw the line at the UK.

3. Democracy. This is tied to #2 above. The claim that the EU is democratic is a tortuous one. Westminster is directly accountable to the British voter. The EU parliament is not. The EU commission is not. The structure of the EU is one where the EU Parliament, Commission and Brussels bureaucracy take advantage (indirectly, if not directly) of the ability to grow by stealth to gain the power they currently have. Certain figures in the EU are able to position themselves to wield tremendous influence and power, name Angela Merkel. She's not the EU president. She's not on the commission. She's not a MEP. But she alone made the decision to welcome the migrant hordes of 2015 in flagrant disregard of existing EU regulations for how migrants should be handled (oh, the irony) and her action has saddled Europe with a major problem. Think about this: one person unelected by the vast majority of Europe made a single policy decision that has potentially radically restructured Europe. How is that democratic?

The British public did not vote for the EU in its current condition. The British public would never vote to join the EU as it currently stands. Why should we be shackled to this institution?

4. EU interference, regulation and statism. Anyone who runs a business in the UK knows the EU is infamous for red tape and excessive regulation. This is a common complaint among small business owners. Anyone who's worked in the City knows that the EU is always making threats to try to 'reform' the City through increased financial regulations. EU courts have hampered the UK's own government to remove dangerous Islamic ideologues from our own shores. The EU's statism has led to a dysfunctional system where individual countries are hampered in their actions to respond to a crisis and end up 'passing the buck' and nowhere is this most evident as in last year's migrant crisis. The EU and membership of the Euro has also sharply restricted individual countries' abilities to address their economic crises and nowhere is this most clear than in the southern economies of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. Joining the Euro has been disastrous for these southern economies for in good years it bribed these countries with low interest rates, artificially stimulating their economies through excessive borrowing while making their exports too expensive. So the dynamics caught up with them and they're now in perpetual fiscal and employment crises, especially among the young, leading to a lost generation. It's a good thing for Spain and Greece there's always the UK, eh? I can also bore you with details on how the EU has strengthened the German economic position by literally beggaring the weaker states and making it difficult for them to compete with the German industrial might despite lower labour costs. Germany has become the defacto ruler of Europe (still benevolent so far ) which is why it is always Frau Merkel whose name comes up when it comes to the EU.

5. The future of the EU is not the future I see for the UK. The EU has made clear its future is towards greater integration. A new EU army. A EU diplomatic corp. Greater sharing and centralisation of powers in Brussels. The UK does not want to participate in any of these. The EU claims the UK can opt out of future integration but how is this possible? There's already enough tension between the UK and EU as it currently stands and the EU resents the current opt outs the UK enjoys. I accept that the majority of European voters see the EU as their future and have become ideologically committed to it. That is not the case for Britain. Even many of the Remain voters are voting out of economic fears rather than support for the EU. I think the EU is much happier without the UK (even though they won't admit it) and the UK is much happier without the EU. I don't see why we can't be complimentary partners as separate entities.

Eeyore

You then go on to list all the usual boilerplate, talking in the most general broad-brush terms and reiterating pretty much all the standard Euromyths. We've been over that ground before, so I'll just concentrate on one particular myth that more people need to be aware of:

"EU courts have hampered the UK's own government to remove dangerous Islamic ideologues from our own shores"

I presume there you're referring to the European Court of Human Rights? That's nothing whatsoever to do with the European Union. It's an entirely separate entity that predates the EU by decades. It was set up in the early 1950s, with Britain as one of the major driving forces. Much of the ECoHR's constitution was written by British lawyers.

A British withdrawal from the EU wouldn't affect our membership of the ECoHR at all. There would have to be a separate referendum on that.

NorthernLad

Rightly or wrongly, I suspect a lot of the voters will be swayed by immigration.

With the influx of immigrants to Europe and recent events in Paris/Brussels, this is what will be on a lot of voters minds and they could be more inclined to vote out.

Maybe I'm underestimating the average voter, but I don't think they will be looking into the economic ramifications too deeply - they will see what the various papers/news channels are reporting and what their mates in the pub say.

Tockalosh

No
That's just for people who are anal about grammar and who are below a Masters level of education

IKnowNothing

Too right, we don't want those fuzzy wuzzies (They don't like it up 'em), over there.

Millhouse

No more than usual. I sense a humour failure.

Millhouse

I would also like the remain supporters to do the same. As far as I can see, the out supporters are always being required to justify their reasons while the remain supporters do not. The stay camp are simply installing a fear campaign of what might go wrong, rather than what will continue to go right or how it will improve.

I have seen the inner depths of several multilateral institutions (UN/IMF/WorldBank/ADB/AfDB/EBRD and EIB to name a few) and what I have seen in all of them is endless bureaucracy, a constant leaning towards and conceding to protect minority interests at the expense of the majority, and a total lack of coordination. The EU is the same. The lack of coordination is simply depressing.

Rather than a system designed to promote coordination (the original and acceptable intention), what all these things have morphed into is a forum for states to protect their own interests, shaft the others and generally infight. While at the same time allowing transaction costs (time mostly but also monetary costs) to rise.

The EU is highly inefficient. This alone is an excellent reason to leave.

Millhouse

Exactly. Hence my comment about Mr Fek'em Daygo. The fact is the majority of voters are simply not well informed enough, and even if they were would not understand the information to make a rational decision.

The decision to vote out is essentially an emotive one, driven by a lot of grumpy people fed up with immigration and perceived EU interference. These people would love to do a Fek'em vote.

My issues with the EU are really around inefficiency, bureaucracy and poor enforcement. I would love to see an end of the EU procurement rules in the UK (especially as it appears we are on the only ones that follow them).

Meow

No different to any other election then.

Eeyore

And Leave are enthusiastically using scare tactics too, of course. But as well as trying to frighten people with visions of what will happen if we stay, they're insisting that there are absolutely no risks to leaving, there are only upsides, and everything will be milk and honey.

If they were being honest, they'd have to say "Well, we don't really know what will happen. It might be great, it might turn out to be a really stupid idea. This is a complete leap in the dark, because nothing like this has ever happened before. We can make no guarantees about anything. Could Brexit trigger a major financial crisis that will severely impact millions in the UK? Yes, it could, but we're hoping that it won't. We just don't know either way".

But of course, they aren't going to say that, are they? Any more than Remain will admit that there might be possible upsides to leaving, if everything goes our way. Which common sense dictates it won't.

For my part, the Remain campaign seems far more rooted in reality. They're giving proper, reasoned explanations as to why Brexit is a major risk with many negative aspects. Whereas the standard response the Leave campaign makes to anything that suggests that Brexit isn't a surefire path to sunshine and rainbows is "No, that won't happen. We can't explain exactly why it won't happen, but it just won't. Don't ask questions, just trust us. PROJECT FEAR!"

DXBtoDOH

You can certainly turn that question around and apply it to the Leave side, too, no?

The Leave side has tried to frame the referendum as one for the status quo versus a totally unknown territory. I'll agree with you that Brexit is taking us into the unknown. The Remain's explanations, as you term it, are predictions for the future that strongly implies economic disasters (leaving aside that many if not most of those making predictions have such a fantastic and accurate history of making economic predictions, such as the IMF or HM Treasury).

But the idea that voting Remain is a vote for the status quo is also highly misleading, no? The EU is not the status quo as it is a constantly evolving entity. The EU today is not the EU of 20 years ago, let alone 10 years ago. No one has any idea what form or shape it will have ten years from now. The only thing we have to guide us is that the EU's pattern is one of increasingly closer integration with all its implications. The Remain side has not been able to demonstrate how Britain will work with a future EU that's hell bent on greater integration and greater transfer of sovereignty and powers to a centralised government. The current structure of the EU has allowed political power to become increasingly concentrated in just a handful of people. Merkel's decision to accept the refugees, who will surely all be granted EU residency, absolutely impacts Britain. To summarise, how does remaining in the EU portent stability?

Last but not least, the Remain side has not been able to address the issue of immigration at all. Immigration is the motivation for many Leavers. As it currently stands, the UK cannot prevent millions of UK migrants from coming to the UK. How will the Remain leadership handle that? What's their plan for accommodating a rapid population growth on a small island? Despite that the clear majority of the British public does not want more immigration. What's the Remain's programme for the burdens it places on social programmes and the NHS and schools? Then, of course, is the always tricky subject of what it means for the national identity, but the EU is always good at pretending that it's not an issue, or if it's one, it's only for the cranks and neo-Nazis.

The irony of talking about Brexit leading the UK into the unknown is that remaining in the EU is just as much a dangerous unknown.

I'll repeat what I mentioned in an earlier post. Both sides are talking directly past each other and not addressing each other's legitimate concerns. That has been the biggest downside and disappointment of this particular referendum. All of the Leavers' cheerful attitudes are surely balanced out, if not more so, by Remain's WWIII and "ISIS will be happy with a Brexit."