EU referendum are you in or out

[VNVObit]

I'm not too surprised by thishttp://www.newstalk.com/Sinn-fein-calls ... UK-exit-EU

[KlaxonCow]

So, basically, a vote for "brexit" could also end up incidentally being a vote for the UK to break up too?

Great. Nice one, Dave.

[VNVObit]

So, basically, a vote for "brexit" could also end up incidentally being a vote for the UK to break up too?

Great. Nice one, Dave.

Nice on Boris, IDS, Grayling,Gove ...

Cameron doesnt want to leave (at least not publicly)

[KlaxonCow]

Nice on Boris, IDS, Grayling,Gove ...

Cameron doesnt want to leave (at least not publicly)

True, true.

The "nice one, Dave" is just an extension of my earlier comment that, whatever the result, we're going to get screwed over either way - "yes" sanctions the EU as it currently stands, so what's the future motivation for those necessary EU reforms? And "no" compels the EU to treat us like shit in return, because they can't allow a quitter to benefit greatly from doing so, or there's a whole line of countries that'll follow suit and bring down the EU - referring to Dave for being an idiot in calling this thing in the first place, just to try to pointlessly and fruitlessly shut up IDS, Grayling, Gove, etc. for five minutes in the last Parliament.

It's "nice one, Dave" in the sense of "why the fuck did you ever concede to allowing this nonsense to even happen in the first place?".

(Because the potential break-up of the UK only adds to the "why did he call this referendum?" argument, in that, even with a "yes" result, any great disparity in the English versus rest of the UK voting balance will only drag things back up on this score. Even if Sinn Fèin doesn't get a referendum on Irish Reunification, it'll certainly get to talk about it a lot, make the case for it, start to convince more people, emphasise the disparity between London / the South East and everywhere else. Because, hey, it has every right to do so, as leaving the EU does perfectly bring this subject up as a legitimate thing to be talking about for the Irish people. This stuff was already a major problem - how close the Scottish referendum ended up being shows you just how much - and this'll only fuel the fires further.)

[gumboot]

Thanks Obama!

[VNVObit]

Nice on Boris, IDS, Grayling,Gove ...

Cameron doesnt want to leave (at least not publicly)

True, true.

The "nice one, Dave" is just an extension of my earlier comment that, whatever the result, we're going to get screwed over either way - "yes" sanctions the EU as it currently stands, so what's the future motivation for those necessary EU reforms? And "no" compels the EU to treat us like shit in return, because they can't allow a quitter to benefit greatly from doing so, or there's a whole line of countries that'll follow suit and bring down the EU - referring to Dave for being an idiot in calling this thing in the first place, just to try to pointlessly and fruitlessly shut up IDS, Grayling, Gove, etc. for five minutes in the last Parliament.

It's "nice one, Dave" in the sense of "why the fuck did you ever concede to allowing this nonsense to even happen in the first place?".

(Because the potential break-up of the UK only adds to the "why did he call this referendum?" argument, in that, even with a "yes" result, any great disparity in the English versus rest of the UK voting balance will only drag things back up on this score. Even if Sinn Fèin doesn't get a referendum on Irish Reunification, it'll certainly get to talk about it a lot, make the case for it, start to convince more people, emphasise the disparity between London / the South East and everywhere else. Because, hey, it has every right to do so, as leaving the EU does perfectly bring this subject up as a legitimate thing to be talking about for the Irish people. This stuff was already a major problem - how close the Scottish referendum ended up being shows you just how much - and this'll only fuel the fires further.)

The referendum promise was the price of leadership for Cameron. This is a big internal issue for the Tories and has been since Thatcher.

Suspect London will be more europhile (given the population) than the remainder of the southeast and I do believe it would be good to know the split region by region at least that way we could see how united this kingdon really is

[PumaG]

So, basically, a vote for "brexit" could also end up incidentally being a vote for the UK to break up too?

Great. Nice one, Dave.

basically the result either way is an unknown

wait a minute, didn't Brits vote in dave partly based on this referendum being in the Manifesto? Great, nice one, voters

[KlaxonCow]

Well, strictly speaking, the people don't vote for Prime Minster in our Parliamentary system nor, technically, for a political party either... but, yeah, I know what you mean.

[gumboot]

I don't get it. Why is he compelled to stick with this particular election promise only?

[pogo]

I don't get it. Why is he compelled to stick with this particular election promise only?

They are not compelled. They could drop any or all of them if they wanted. But there would be a political cost. In the case of the referendum they could have lost support to UKIP and more immediately had to deal with rebellions from their own MPs.

[Absolute_Zero]

Fear not Yakers, a bout of Tory blood-letting will surely commence upon the likely defeat of the incoherent leavers.

Some on the 'leave' side are wondering if Boris is covertly working for Dave. No, simply clueless.
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=85973

[merman]

I don't get it. Why is he compelled to stick with this particular election promise only?

They are not compelled. They could drop any or all of them if they wanted. But there would be a political cost. In the case of the referendum they could have lost support to UKIP and more immediately had to deal with rebellions from their own MPs.

They are compelled.
They passed Parliamentary legislation, meaning the referendum MUST happen by the end of 2017.
It would be disastrous to try and overturn that legislation now.

And Cameron chose this summer because he felt it gave him the best chance - away from possibly divisive French & German elections, and hopefully before our close economic ties with China caused our economy to crash...

[rowan]

Just done my postal vote, guess I'll see what happens over the next month, tenner says most of the canvassing I receive will be in that period

[merman]

So the Leave campaign descends even further into fantasy, throwing out all the old EU stereotypes about straight bananas and red tape. Boris is becoming more and more Farage-like.

And Remain try to scare people into staying. Cameron will be lucky to stay in power either way.

[pogo]

I think the remain side has been much better behaved in this than the leave side. In particular they are only able to scare people into staying as leaving is scary. It’s not just one or two reports saying so, or just the Treasury and other government departments. It’s the IMF, the EU, the highly independent Bank of England and OBR. Their biggest problem is that the reports don’t say the same thing, but that’s as they all look at different aspects of it. There is no one right way to analyse the effects of leaving. But the reports are so consistent in describing the economic damage that would be done that they cannot be dismissed.

The leave campaign has nothing comparable. Their economic message, that lost EU trade can be replaced by trade with countries like the USA, Canada, Australia, is fanciful. The UK will be a far less attractive place to trade with outside the EU, and it will be much harder to negotiate deals as the UK, rather than as the whole of the EU.

Their promise to reduce immigration is also complete nonsense. Any trade deal with the EU will require free movement of people, just as it did for Norway and Switzerland. The EU has made it clear that is non-negotiable. Furthermore any move to stop EU citizens coming here would trigger reciprocal action from the EU. Over a million Brits currently living in the EU could be affected, unable to work, perhaps unable to own property or unable to stay long term. The net effect could be more immigration, as the large diaspora of mostly retired Brits in e.g. Spain replace the workers we have foolishly excluded.