captainflack

Of course there is an economic imbalance between parts of the EU but that's true of the UK too.

When I lived in London, pretty much all the wino drug addicts begging were scots or northerners. It was these northerners scumming up London and the south east rather than staying in their villages to do coal mining or operating looms or breeding whippets and so on.

I shared a house with a guy from up north, somewhere like Newcastle or Nottingham or Northhampton, or Luton maybe. He was always telling me about how rough it was up there, shootings on council estates and so on. I've not been up there but it sounded awful. He said most of his friends that could ended up in London.

Therefore as a southerner, I think a better suggestion for social cohesion would be to ban northerners, scots, welsh etc. from London unless they're rich and speak english well enough, and also let in EU citizens from Romania, Poland etc. as long as they're rich enough (I'm taking it for granted they speak decent English). We can build a wall around the M25, and make the northerns pay for it Trump style, if they refuse, we won't let the richer ones we've let into the south east remit money back home. There will no longer be unfettered immigration from the grim wastelands up in the north or from eastern Europe, we won't have to struggle to make ourselves understood to people who can't say 'bath' properly, and the economic draw will be limited if only people rich enough are let in.

I really think I am on to something here.

EDIT: I should add that I am not from London, but I am from close enough that I think I should have automatic right to freely move to London unlike anyone from north of watford, unless they're rich.

iggle

I refuse to go north of Nuneaton, they all have web feet and have sisters that are their mothers

Inselaffen

I refuse to go north of Business Bay. My webbed feet get tired if i go that far.

Eeyore

Of course the UK will survive, that's not the issue at all. The issue is how *well* it survives.

Define "quickly". It's completely standard for these things to take many years to negotiate, they absolutely do not happen in months. A good topical example would be the treaty being negotiated between Canada and the EU. That's been in process for about 7 years so far, and that's with goodwill on both sides - goodwill that will *not* exist between the UK and the EU in the event of a Brexit.

And if the key to the UK's future is to ignore our largest trading partner and concentrate on other parts of the world, why aren't we already doing that? There is no reason why the UK can't do its own deals with non-EU countries *now* - our membership of the EU doesn't prevent that.

But of course, the countries that are big enough to warrant dealing with are generally much bigger than the UK, and so they would have the upper hand in any negotiations. Whereas when the EU negotiates, it does so from a position of much greater strength - it's negotiating on behalf of 508 million people rather than 64 million.

That's why Obama quite correctly pointed out that the USA would see no need to prioritise a new trade deal with the UK after a Brexit - a market of 64 million is peanuts compared to a market of (post-Brexit) 444 million. That's the most painfully basic economics imaginable, and yet the Leave campaign still seem to be labouring under the delusion that the UK is a more important market than the EU as a whole.

How many people even understand the current situation? Did you know that 50% of immigration into the UK is non-EU and thus completely within the UK's control? My gut feeling, based on what you've written in the past, is that you probably didn't.

Give some examples of this happening, please. Remember, anything to do with the European Court of Human Rights doesn't count, as that's nothing to do with the EU.

I'm both.

That's impossible to answer in any kind of intellectually valid way, that's just an appeal to emotion rather than logic. Although that's arguably the case for most of the Leave campaign's positions.

Whereas I'm far more scared of what will happen in a post-Brexit scenario where the right-wing ultra-free-marketeers have unfettered reign over the UK to use as an economic and social test-bed.

iggle

Actually I like freedom of movement, and even the EE's coming to UK to work. I have zero problems with that. As noted many times before my partner is Lithuianian. I do have a problem with Turkey joining the EU, I do have a problem with Romanians squating in London as tramps.



So your s aying you are like an Estonian, or Lativan? If Turkey joins EU, you'll be like a Turk? I am English, then British. One thing I a not is European.

Actually its an incredibly clever question, which CAN be answered in intellectually. You refuse to, it's a simple yes or no. Would you join the EU in its current state.

Inselaffen

but that is 50pct based on the official figures on EU migration which have been shown to be very far off the mark. Official statistics show 800,000 immigrants from EU countries during the last 4 years. However, around 2 million national insurance numbers were issued to EU immigrants during that time.

iggle

Also take into consideration thats NEW national insurance numbers. An EU immigrant could of worked 10 years ago, and popped over last week and used their old NI number...

Long story short, we don't have a clue on who is coming.

Millhouse

To be fair, that position is probably not going to change very much.

Bahtatboy

It's too complicated.

Just tell me which result is going to make my $ salary generate more £, and I'll vote that way.

Meow

I see various claims that immigrant just take from the UK, but where's the evidence for that. Some take, as do many UK nationals.

This was tweet from Robert Peston about a week ago.

Bahtatboy

That's disingenous. You refer to "immigrants", the quote refers to "newly-arrived EU immigrants", which is a sub-set of a sub-set of "immigrants".

Meow

Yes, it is a sub-set but if the debate is about staying in or out of the EU then surely the relevance is that it refers to EU immigrants?

Millhouse

anyway...lots of opinions here... who has actually bothered to register to vote?

Meow

I have.

Inselaffen

been outside the UK for too long