Lightandbitter

I think lists and posts like that are doing more to help the leave campaign than anything else

captainflack

The closest analogy I've seen to this whole debacle is the Suez crisis. Brexit would be Britain's economic Suez crisis.

Suez was the point at which a post war UK discovered it no longer had the military clout to go on ill-advised adventures. What power Britain did have was largely derived from its membership of a military alliance, basically being part of a bigger group of similar countries.

The UK is still rated as the 5th military power in the world, but most people would accept we can no longer go it alone on this basis.

Unfortunately, some seem to think that being the 5th biggest economy in the world means we can go it alone economically. That we can force trade deals in the same way we subjugated countries into an empire before WW2. The world has changed, it's forming large economic groupings and what economic power you have comes through that.

But perhaps Britain needs this. There is a lot of flag waving jingoism, and maybe Britain needs a self-inflicted humiliation economically to finally understand its more modest place in the world.

I can't think of many other issues where the PM, leader of the opposition, SNP, TUC, CBI, institute of directors and 90% of economists and even the Archbiship of Canterbury all agree. Three months ago most people really didn't think much about the EU, now it seems half the population is convinced that the UK government is powerless and the EU is some kind of fascist superstate with Merkel calling the shots.

I think the scariest part is really the anti-immigration rhetoric. People complaining that they cannot get doctors appointments or houses or jobs because of immigrants, as if this is nothing to do with British government policies (and unemployment is at an 8 year low, so doesn't seem to be doing much harm to job prospects). If these people take a step back, can they honestly say that this rhetoric about the country overflowing with immigrants is really the reality if you go about your day to day business? There is no more reason to believe that everybody in the EU is going to beat a path to the UK than there is to believe that everyone in Scotland and the north is going to move to Esher or Surbiton.

And what if as most economists predict, the country does indeed tank? I very much doubt the Sun and Farage and Gove et al will hold their hands up and say they got it wrong. If 800,000 jobs are lost, I would expect the rhetoric to be ramped up further, and then we get arguments about expelling immigrants already in the UK to give those jobs back to British people. It could get very toxic, very quickly.

iggle

• National Union of Students

From memory, And I CBA to google this. Isn't the leader of the NUS a massive racist?

captainflack

There was some great audio I heard the other day, think it was on the news Quiz on radio 4. The interviewer asked the VL spokesman that 'Remain' has all these important organizations and people, including the leader of the free world, who do you have?

The response started, "Well, we have the CEO of Next".

Bahtatboy

Why?

Pulaski

It includes a bunch of foreign politicians and countries who have no business meddling in the internal politics of the UK, various politicians and political parties who have their own career and/or agenda as a priority above that of the UK as a sovereign country, organizations such as the NFU which is entirely out of touch with its own members (a majority of whom want out of the EU) and a bunch of economists and bankers who are more interested in their own bonuses and/or screwing every last penny out of the UK rather than the interests of the man on the street.

So yes, that list provides more good reasons to vote "out" than to remain in.

IKnowNothing

The people you quote, are the problem, not the solution.

Vote out.

Pulaski

I can only wonder when the other half will wake up to the reality of what the EU has done, and will continue to do to the UK if the UK doesn't get the hë11 out.

Of course many of the Remainers actually want the UK to be absorbed into a left-leaning European super-state.

That said, it is increasingly obvious that the EU will collapse fairly rapidly if Britain votes to leave, so what "the EU plans for the future of Europe" is entirely irrelevant.

IKnowNothing

Indeed, and not just the Labour lot, I'm amazed and disgusted that so many tories do too.

Whatever happens next week, it'll make the future interesting.

I wonder whether the tories will commit electoral fraud again - like they allegedly did with the last election?

Bahtatboy

If you think they're the problem, then you're the problem. Along with Trump, Le Pen, Boris, Farage, Daily Mail, Express, Sun et al.

IKnowNothing

And again we disagree Mr. Yorkshireman.

Wouldn't life be boring if we all followed and believed the same thing.

Bahtatboy

Fair enough Manuel. Perhaps I should be concentrating on how to make money out of it...

IKnowNothing

Exactly.

Pulaski

He's a blöödy faux Yorkshireman! .... Or should that be "foe Yorkshireman"?

Autonomy

I agree with the first part and I really believe that a very small amount of people are actually ever swayed of their initial opinion and if they are it's by reasoning it out for themselves - as I think you have - so at this stage the debate is getting dulled.

The 2nd part though - I do think it's important and I do care on the outcome, but apart from voting what ya' gonna do...