Cause we have a murrica politics thread why not a brexit thread @cwarner7264 you want to leave I see tell me why?
They won't leave the EU. If the answer comes back 'wrong' they'll have a second vote until we get the the answer correct like the last big referendum they held I personally think this entire sham is a less than subtle bit of political maneuvering- stir up enough people, get a narrow 'stay in' vote (I'd put money on a 51% 'stay' vote for final result). Then pressure EU to give us something to appease the public and avoid future trouble.
Not speaking for the UK, but in Ireland their was a referendum several years ago, that got the no vote, then there was a re referendum until we got the yes vote. Not saying that this is the case but it has happened. Think it was the lisbon treaty off the top of my head but could be wrong. I'm siding with cdrkf on this one. Seems like it started as a scare tactic over the whole refugee crisis and how many thr Uk would allow in but now has gained momentum and there is proper cause for concern.
The main reason, and the one that every other argument eventually boils down to, is control and democracy. There is a massive democratic deficit in the EU. The Commission has the sole power to propose EU-wide legislation. There is no way for ordinary citizens of EU member states to influence who sits on the Commission. It is voted in by the European Parliament en-bloc, and the Parliament has never failed to accept a proposal for the make-up of the Commission. I want to leave the EU for the same reason that people started throwing the tea into the harbour in Boston in 1773 - No taxation without representation. The EU membership fee is an indirect tax and I resent having a not-insignificant portion of my income taken to be fettered away by utterly corrupt unelected bureaucrats (when was the last time the EU had its accounts signed off by its auditors? Anyone?) on ideologically-driven pet projects and the failure that is the Euro. For those who make claims about our international trade being negatively affected, please bear in mind that I work as a shipbroker, and I supervise millions of tonnes of cargo being moved in and around Europe every year. It is all done on the back of relationships between individuals, which will not be affected at all by what some political talking heads have to say about anything. The regulatory burden on international commodity movements is, however, a very real concern which I have discussions about on the phone with people daily. The EU prevents small businesses from being able to compete on an international level against large multi-nationals, for whom the costs of compliance with set regulations are easily offset by their economies of scale. The EU is good for two sets of people - career politicians, and the ultra-rich. You'll notice lots of them speaking out in favour of the UK staying in the EU. Both of these groups benefit at the expense of the ordinary working people. You'll all know that for several years I headed up the Realm, the largest PA community consisting of people from all around the world. Again, for my work I speak to people from all over Europe and all around the world. I am no little-Englander, I'm no xenophobe, many of my best friends are non-Britons. Despite many of the claims by the In campaign, this has nothing to do with nationalism, it has everything to do with belief in self-determination, in democracy and in accountability. This is an issue I've felt passionately about for many years and campaigned hard for, because is permeates through so many different facets of British life. It affects things right down to local council level and even our energy prices, which are sky high due to UK government inertia in the face of a mountain of EU regulation. This has a knock-on effect with things such as the current crisis in the Port Talbot steelworks - steel production requires a lot of electricity and our steel industry is now uncompetitive. This is not solely down to the EU, but the inertia is being strongly fuelled by the EU's regulations on the tender process for private contractors undertaking any government work. == I'll stop here - I could go on for days.
Very interesting reasoning to read wrongcat. All I've mainly read about the topic is from german press that mainly goes: "lol the UK is voting if they want to waste a few billions by leaving the EU". I wonder what's really the truth, everyone says different things. It's probably a question of perspective. Some will lose, some will win. All I know is I personally like the idea of big unions of nations, I like the idea of schengen, I like the idea of the euro. The EU is the reason why going to holidays in france is as easy as just driving there. No need to exchange money and a border marked by a simple sign "Welcome to France". (Screw you guys for still taking pounds from me when I shop on your amazon )
Ok I have to post this: @cwarner7264 I understand the arguments against the EU, my issue is that leaving isn't going to fix anything either with the EU or the UK. Also whilst you have actually thought about it, the main thrust of the anti EU feeling in the UK stems from xenophobia. The attitude towards anyone 'not from round ere' is appalling. It's easier to blame 'bloody foreigners' for our problems than accept the fact most of these issues are based here. I for one expect to be made considerably worse off if this goes through. I can't see how anyone can honestly spin it as a positive from a financial or security viewpoint, and I say this as a small business owner. The world is getting smaller, more interconnected and for things to move forward all nations need to work together more, not less.
That is an incredibly biased video. So it does a good job in supporting Brexit if that what you were implying. Really nice hearing your view point. I don't think the general consensus is the UK is xenophobic if thy vote to leave the EU. But wasn't the idea of Brexit used by the current government to alleviate the growing UKIP support? I don't know much about the party but from what I recall they are an extremely right winged eurosceptic party. You mentioned with your experience as being a shipping broker that trade is done on the back of relationships between individuals. This may be true. However dropping out of the free trade EU agreement will have an impact on these relationships. I'd be amazed if Europe re opened free trade as it would encourage other nations to leave. As an outsider, it's very interesting to see how this pans out. More so if you opt for Brexit. It has similar cons as the Scotland referendum couple of years ago and I believed then there was a lot of scare mongering happening.
Interesting discussion. As an outsider, I don't truely know the entire landscape of the situation. However, I do think the brexit case should be considered different. I don't think the Scottish referendum is a good comparison to the brexit. As cwarner mentions, the brexit derives a lot on self determinism from an entire union. This is in contrast to sovereignty of a country. This may seem subtle, but it makes a difference. (Think creating a club vs. leaving a club). I think the biggest fear people have refuting the brexit from other EU members is possibility of a domini effect. For instance, the EU from a US perspective consists of the big 3: Britain, France and Germany. If one falls, there is a perception that the EU may collapse. On the other hand, I don't think any country that wishes to leave the EU should be ostracized for their choice. If a country doesn't feel the benefits of the EU, why should they be required to be a member? An example would be travel. Geographically, an island doesn't directly benefit the freedom to travel as much as other countries. The exception is if you leave the island.... but is it necessary to have this membership for vacation? (American perspective. There is probably a lot more to this...) I don't think any country should be a lynch pin for the EU. If they are, there is something wrong with the entire structure.
Now that is a far more profound statement that you can imagine There are some fundamental issues with the EU- a big part of the backlash against it is there is a feeling that the 'big 3' are carrying many of the poorer countries in the EU, and I think there is at least some truth to that. Then again, the individual states in the USA are as large as most EU member countries- and I'm sure economies in some states are substantially larger than others- the difference (at least in my experience) is that most people in the USA view themselves as members of the whole foremost before members of their state (correct me if I'm wrong on that!). In contrast most people from the EU countries would count themselves as a member of their country first, then a member of the EU (this is probably most prominent in the UK, as you've said we' re an island and as such somewhat more disconnected than the rest of Europe).
I have no idea about politics. I don't really feel like I have much representation in UK, let alone the EU. So to be honest... I don't think there will be a change for either vote, not for me any any rate. All a bunch of eloquent people talking about stuff I don't understand and getting red in the face about two sides of the same coin. It's all greek to me...
I'm going to do a quick drive-by response post, I have a few minutes spare That's great for convenience. But currency conversion and exchange is a fundamentally important balancing mechanism for the global economy. In a poorer economy, the currency becomes weaker. What ought to have happened when Greece went kaput is that the Drachma should have tumbled in value, suddenly making holidays to Greece exceedingly cheap, and making Greek manufacturing and export extremely competitive. It wouldn't have solved everything - the country has massive problems with tax evasion and overspending - but it would have been an enormous help. Instead they are tied to the same currency as Germany, the industrial powerhouse of Europe. (Incidentally, the Deutsche Mark would probably be the strongest currency in the world today - just imagine how much cheaper your holidays to Franc-using France would be by comparison? And how much cheaper your purchases from Amazon UK would be in Sterling?) That's what I meant, yes. Sorry I wasn't clearer in my wording The video linked above by Tunsell is exactly the sort of thing I was looking to stave off with that comment - the reporting on the debate by the international media has been nearly entirely focused on denouncing the Brexit movement as nationalistic. You're right, though, that Cameron only agreed to hold the referendum for his own political gain. Ironically, the debate has split the Conservatives and called his leadership into question so it's really not worked out well for him. Frankly, we still do a lot of trade with countries that are outside of the EU and which don't have existing trade deals - the USA being one of them, China being another. The World Trade Organisation sets out a framework for these, under which we could happily continue trading with EU countries. Even in the absence of a specific trade deal, we would still be able to conduct the overwhelming majority of our business given the close proximity and subsequently cheap transport. Trade deals are far more beneficial for countries further away. Also worth mentioning: the UK has a massive trade deficit with the EU - we buy a lot more from them than they do from us. Politicians who block free trade deals for ideological reasons at the expense of economic gain aren't going to be particularly popular. But then the EU's executive is unelected, so perhaps they don't care? I disagree that leaving the EU won't fix anything. In particular my main point about the democratic deficit. Also, in my experience, the main cause of people being anti-immigrants the blaming of individuals for a problem that's not their fault. In particular, today figures have been released which suggest that immigration levels are significantly higher than previously estimated. No individual immigrant is to blame for that, but increasing the population of a country so rapidly places enormous strain on existing infrastructure: roads, schools, hospitals, public transport, the works. The trouble is, in order to be able to expand your infrastructure to accommodate this, you have to be able to control it. If you want to open the flood gates, that's great. I'm actually very pro-immigration - it brings significant economic benefits. But if you don't know how many people are arriving each year, how can you plan accordingly? Incidentally, I'd be interested to hear how you would expect to be worse off from Brexit - perhaps by PM. I strongly suspect that you may have been influenced by some of the wonderful figures produced by HM Treasury, which is somehow able to predict 30 years into the future with pinpoint accuracy while being unable to correctly forecast its income and spending for the next 12 months.
Leaving the EU only starts to make sense if you completely support the current government - and then the part of that government that is currently seeking to overthrow its own leader. Tax going to corrupt inefficient officials? Happens anyway, will happen afterwards too. Your taxes will not decrease in any reasonable way. Much like how petrol keeps creeping back up after oil prices crashed. EU providing worker protections (minimum hours per week, working wage, etc) and discriminatory rights? All gone. Correlaries under UK law don't exist at least not in the form the working and lower middle classes currently benefit from. This country will not improve if we leave the EU, especially with xenophobic tendencies both rising and being espoused by pro-Brexit campaigners. @cwarner7264 - look at the people spearheading this move. Michael Gove. Nigel Farage (yep, him). People looking to stir up drama like Katie Hopkins. These are not people you want being the public advocates of such a campaign if you want to divorce yourself from the criticism that the movement is rooted in toxic nationalistic pride. You might have sensible reasons, you might honestly think we'd be better off outside the EU. But you are not the movement itself, and your honesty does not reflect on the greater motivations apparent across the movement. The official Leave.EU group I see on social media spends most of its time fearmongering about immigrants. It's worth noting that while leaving the EU would primarily halt our obligation to EU rulings on immigration, it wouldn't actually prevent the current Syrian crisis as by the Geneva convention and thus the UN which we're bound to as a nation (nation-state? I'm not great on geopolitics) they are classed as refugees and as such we'd still be under international pressure to (temporarily) rehome them. But, the campaign likes to conflate the two because the campaign thrives on exploiting that racist fear of outsiders a lot of the voter base has. Also, on a personal note I think that you're attributing too much blame to the EU for the situations you've outlined. While the EU might not help, the current government (and other parties, sure) are directly-responsible for a lot of the state the country is currently in. You having to pay a few quid a month in taxes to the EU is inconsequential compared to that. Let's have a couple of videos. First the humourous one: And now for the serious one, about your taxes: https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/10153692797281939/ (I can't find a YouTube upload, sorry)
Now economics is something I know virtually nothing about, but a few minutes of thinking yielded me this result. Letting the currency of a nation go super cheap to prevent it from going bankrupt and having issues like Greece is maybe nice on the surface, but doesn't that mean it'll still be in a pretty bad place compared to the rest of the world? If your currency is extremely cheap you'll be cut off from a ton of things because the average persons income will not be enough anymore to buy any imported goods at all. So many goods I use on a daily basis are imported. Bad. You just end up as the cheap work house of the planet that way. Sure your exports will go much better, but your worker class will have to pay for that by getting super low wages that cut them off from international goods. This also means that your infrastructure will have to make do with local stuff only, as your government will get taxes in a worthless currency that they can't use to go buy stuff on the international market as well. Now this my thoughts may be fundamentally flawed, but honestly I am not very impressed by whatever economy-experts are doing, as the split between poor and rich goes bigger and bigger basically everywhere and the financial systems are stumpling from one major crisis into the next. So that is apparently all they can manage. No impressive, makes me less likely to think anyone in the field knows what they're doing. Well or maybe they know what they're doing and they happen to be the rich ones. That's also very likely My own opinion on Greece is pretty simple: Their debts should be nullified. Just delete them. I realize that Germany would lose a ton of money on that as well, but I don't specifically mind about tax money that is gone already anyway. Much better than all the drama with Greece we have now.
The problem with greece is they need to cut the Budget deficit before you can really think about wiping out the debt, or they will be in the same position again.
Yes, that is a correct. I think the exception would be Texas, but not to the extent of an actual country. Individual states however cant have participate in macroeconomic policies like individual nations can though. When it comes to currency manipulation, being a member of the EU has its advantages. Since the euro is a reserve currency, many countries can desire EU debt. Individual countries however cant directly alter their macroeconomic policy since they must adhere to the euro. This isnt to say the ESCB (European System of Central Banks) is bad. It merely means it can be difficult for individual countries to benefit from a global economy. This could be considered a good or bad thing. Eastern european countries like Croatia desire the EU since for representation in the global economy. Countries like the Big 3 should view it as bad, economically, since they can represent themselves perfectly fine and certain members can devalue their own labor, hence Greece. In Brexit case, I think it mainly comes count to Britain desiring to devaluing their currency. Devaluing currency can be a good thing if there is a projection that the government backing the bond has value. The USA is an excellent example. The clock does not lie! Scary? Only if the countries providing the debt doesn't seem to have value. This clock shows that other countries, particularly China, have given each household in the USA $91,130. I bet Russia wished somebody valued the ruble. While this may seem good, the issue comes down to how the money helps the general population that is supposed to benefit from it. From a microeconomics standpoint, inflation is horrible because wages typically don't adjust with it (if they do, its hidden as a "raise"). In the US case, this wasn't really accounted for and the majority of the $91,130 was spent on the military. Thus, private debt is an issue in the US. The size of the private debt could be partially blamed on the corruption along with poor financial decisions from the individuals (housing bubble). So in Britain's case, being independent from the EU can have its advantages if its valued enough. The primary concern would be having the pound sterling back in circulation independent from the euro. Often, the pound is viewed as a proxy alternative currency to the euro. In other words, is the pound only valued BECAUSE its in connection with the euro? This is where the brexit stands in my opinion. I think Britain can stand on its own and provide greater economic benefits to its country as a whole compared with the EU. Although I could be wrong. Does Britain have alot of golf courses that investors can purchase? Is there a Miami equivalent in Britain?
Well there is definitely money in golf in the UK, along with football, cricket and so on. Still my issue is the UK does trade a lot within the eu. This will be more difficult if we leave for certain. Also, there are massive benefits to the huge number of 'ex pats' who live throughout the eu, the benefits that many eu migrant workers receive here also applies to British citizens living within the eu. Contrary to popular belief there are equivalent services available in most eu member counties, case in point my fiancee's grandparents live in France. They are elderly and have received first rate medical care, something which wouldn't be available to them if the UK is no longer a member (yes insurance could cover this, but is that possible long term? Also if you look at how the insurance works in the USA, depending on the policy often the money has to be paid up front and claimed back, resulting recently in a high up dev at cloud imperium games having to run a fundraiser to pay the 50,000 dollar costs when his daughter had a nasty accident and broke multiple bones). I question why ex pats with British passports are not permitted to vote? That strikes me as a form of manipulation of the results, if they are British citizens they should have a say on British issues irrespective of where they live. On a separate point, as someone who worked many low level jobs to fund my way through university, the Eu's mandatory improvements on working rights for temporary workers are a welcome change. It's all too easy to disregard the good that has been done, much of which is actually pretty anti big business and pro individuals.
General note: your entire argument shouldn't revolve around the economic strength of the country because by and large most of the populace don't really benefit from that in any real terms. Certainly, my taxes don't seem to go down, nor does my cost of living decrease. Does it stop some kind of hypothetical stock market crash (bearing in mind that we've gotten through various depression-level GDP events in the past decade or so)? Sure, possibly. But what does that actually mean, given how capitalism is basically the lich king of undeath we are all bound in servitude to? It's not going to go away. Short of thermonuclear war, money is always going to make the world go around. And the people in charge aren't going to be the ones losing out.
Well large scale financial problems for a nation can certainly make individuals worse off through a number of effects: - lack of growth or even reduction in savings and pensions. - significant increases in interest rates on tracking loans and especially mortgages (that one resulted in many homeless families during the major crash in the 1980s in the UK). - major cut backs in public services, resulting in public sector job losses, increases in local taxes and cut backs on support e.g. like the recent abolishment of the business link (a support service that 7 years ago helped me establish my own company).
