EU referendum are you in or out

[gumboot]

The EU is just centralisation of what governments do normally. Money goes out of your country and comes back in in a different form in just the same way as it would in different provinces within one country if anybody bothered to count those beans.

It's kind of like how the United States works -- by uniting states.

[Dio]

The EU subsidises all farmers all over the EU, not just the UK. It subsidises all sorts of industries in all sorts of places, particularly relatively deprived areas, to encourage development. It does what governmental organisations all over the world do.

The CAP is a fucking mess of vested interests and undoubtedly one of the EU's biggest inefficiencies, summarizing some of it's worst features, a noble goal (coordinating agricultural policy) hamstrung by political pork. But as noted, financially it's relatively small beer.

[pogo]

The EU is just centralisation of what governments do normally. Money goes out of your country and comes back in in a different form in just the same way as it would in different provinces within one country if anybody bothered to count those beans.

It's kind of like how the United States works -- by uniting states.

The difference with the USA is the democratic deficit. The US has a federal government, actually three levels of government, that is elected nationally in the most important elections held in the US. People are (mostly) happy to let the federal government run things because of this.

The EU has nothing like this. Yes, there’s a parliament but it is far less important national parliaments. It has far less power and so is of little interest to ordinary people. Some EU power belongs to the executive, the European Commission. But the ultimate authority is the Council of Ministers, i.e. the heads of governments or their representatives. The governments of states have the final word in many things, including many matters where they have a veto.

It’s like this as there is little impetus now for greater integration. There might have been before the euro but the disaster of that has stalled any further progress toward a federal Europe and poisoned the politics of it.

[Baggypants]

I voted yesterday.

[rowan]

So the pro exit lot are saying "we'll be rich!", but not mentioning that a lot of the 13 billion they're counting on must be considered, effectively, already spent

Agree with this. Also I think the net financial exit argument usually ignores the material benefits received as part of that payment.
I'm reliably informed that protection of certain vital wildlife habitats around the country, some within 5 miles of me, would almost certainly not have been saved without EU policy.
To me that's something very important and one of many benefits from staying in.

[venusian]

I see Give claiming that fishing quotas destroyed his father's fishmongering business. Well, yes, that's why there are still any fish left at all. Presumably he'd like all the other environmental regs thrown away too. Idiot.

Yeah, and a Tory complaining about self-interest elites

[TFO]

I see Give claiming that fishing quotas destroyed his father's fishmongering business. Well, yes, that's why there are still any fish left at all. Presumably he'd like all the other environmental regs thrown away too. Idiot.

Yeah, and a Tory complaining about self-interest elites

If only Britain had an MEP on the fishing commission who could do something about this...
Oh that's right, we do. It's Nigel Farage. And he never attends the meetings.

[k345y]

I hope you lot down south vote to leave, giving us Scots' a new mandate for another inde ref should the majority of Scots vote to remain.


Why is this a good thing?

Because it 100% eliminates the prospect of Boris Fucking Johnston being our next PM.

Come, join us fellow Britons and make that privileged arse an non prospect....become a settler.

[pogo]

Be careful what you wish for. If the UK votes to leave then some Scots may feel they have a moral right to another referendum but the chaos of trying to leave the EU will render any such right moot. The status of the UK would need to be decided first, i.e. what deal exactly replaced membership of the EU. And that will take many years, probably best part of a decade to sort out.

Besides, if the UK has voted for the uncertainty and chaos of leaving the EU, can you really see more Scots than last time voting for the additional uncertainty and chaos of their own divorce from the UK? My guess is in such circumstances the vote might be even more decisive for preserving the union. Voters might not take kindly to being asked twice the same question within a few years, and might use it to make a protest vote against the current SNP government.

[tufty]

Yeah, but the Scots could vote for "Out of the UK, into the Euro", which is pretty much the only way I can see it playing. They'd lose the Scottish banknotes, of course, but on the other hand they wouldn't have Brenda's face on the normal ones.

[pogo]

They could vote for that. But voting for it does not make it happen. And probably there could not be a worse time to do it than now.

If the Scots had voted in 2014 to leave the UK then chances are negotiations would barely have started. Each side will have wanted time to work out what it wanted, perhaps consulting voters further. Many technical matters would need to be worked out. In particular what currency arrangement Scotland would adopt outside the UK monetary area, as they can’t just keep using the pound.

Once this was completed then they could go about applying for EU membership, a process that itself takes many years. It is not just one agreement but many detailed ones which the EU imposes, laws that need to be changed to incorporate EU rules. And only after they have joined the EU can they go about adopting the euro, which again takes normally many years as various conditions are met.

So it could be decades before Scotland is fully in the EU, in the euro. Who knows if the euro will still be around then? There could not be a worse time to do it, post Brexit. That itself would preoccupy the UK and EU who would have no time for Scotland, while the euro is in crisis, one that it will only survive radically altered.

[Space Cowboy]

“Of course the European Commission will one day become a government, the EU council a second chamber and the European Parliament will have more powers.” — German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressing MEPs, November 2012.

“I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe.” — Kenneth Clarke, Conservative Chancellor in International Currency Review Vol 23 No 4 1996

Out. Obviously.

[snaff]

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Juncker

Britain is different. Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?

Monetary policy is a serious issue. We should discuss this in secret, in the Eurogroup [...] I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious [...] I am for secret, dark debates

When it becomes serious, you have to lie.

[zip accident]

So Russia can have France and Germany and the rest, so long as they swear on the Tsar's bloodline to leave Britain alone?

[pogo]

“Of course the European Commission will one day become a government, the EU council a second chamber and the European Parliament will have more powers.” — German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressing MEPs, November 2012.

“I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe.” — Kenneth Clarke, Conservative Chancellor in International Currency Review Vol 23 No 4 1996

Out. Obviously.

Ever closer union is dead. The euro crisis played the greatest part in killing it, replacing respect and cooperation with mistrust and self interest. But it was on its last legs long before that. Not just Britain but many other countries were at the limit of what they would accept. Remember how Holland and France rejected the EU constitution, before Britain even got the chance to vote on it?

And that was in 2004. Since then the EU has had

• the euro crisis
• the migrant crisis
• the internal migration problem
• political problems with some of the newest members of the EU

These have made things far far worse for integrationists like Merkel. They may still believe that Europe needs to become more united, but they have no hope now of achieving that. No hope at all.