Brexit

kabayiri

Moby wrote: »

Actually Cameron did nothing to win the Scottish referendum. He was told to stay away because his interventions were increasing the yes vote. Labour led the 'Better Together' campaign and have just suffered the backlash in the general election because they appeared on the same platform as the tories. A huge error in hindsight on their part.

Cameron supported the No team.

The No team won.

I didn't make any claim he personally made a contribution.

I am saying that voters will forgive a lot if the end result matches your expectations.

CLAPTON

Moby wrote: »

Actually Cameron did nothing to win the Scottish referendum. He was told to stay away because his interventions were increasing the yes vote. Labour led the 'Better Together' campaign and have just suffered the backlash in the general election because they appeared on the same platform as the tories. A huge error in hindsight on their part.

Not sure that is true but if it were, then it would show how stupid a lot of labour supporter are.

Sapphire

Generali wrote: »

I'm not convinced that coming out of the EU is going to resolve that.

If anywhere could stop illegal immigration, migrants being abused by employers and migrants abusing the system it's Aus but they can't. Aus has a far higher rate of immigration than the UK and similar problems of the sort I suspect you fear.

Aus is presented to the UK as if the White Australia policy was still in place. That's long gone.

Well then how do you think immigration can be controlled? I'm sure that due to things like wars and climate change, an increasing number of very impoverished people – running into millions – will try to leave their countries and come to Europe, and specifically to Britain (because they think the streets are paved with gold, which I suppose they are to them). Europe, including Britain, simply won't be able to absorb that many people without a massive impact on the indigenous populations. It won't be like, say, the Jews who came over in the 19th century and made a conscious effort to integrate with the indigenous population. (Many kept their culture, yet interact very successfully and calmly with the indigenous population.)

We – and Australia – are islands. We used to be able to control our 'borders' reasonably successfully. Why is this no longer the case?

London specifically has always had a migrant population (earlier on from the European continent, later from places like China and the Caribbean). On the whole, these people added vitality to Britain. However, the recent influx is simply too big and too uncontrolled, and – combined with the threats by certain parties, notably from the Middle East, to flood Europe with dangerous fanatics – it is scaring a lot of people, including many that are the children of migrants themselves, hence the strong support for UKIP. I'm wondering whether those who support endless immigration actually are aware there is a threat, or if, never having had the trauma of suffering invasion from a hostile power, they prefer to exist in blissful ignorance or want to ignore such things because it suits their own agenda?

IMHO.

ruggedtoast

kabayiri wrote: »

Cameron's team won the Scottish independence referendum, in case you had forgotten.

If the NO team win the EU independence referendum, nobody will remember or care how bad the campaign was.

Cameron's team? Alastair Darling ran the No campaign, at a position of greatly reduced influence without the PM, who said he didnt want to be seen meddling.

Then the closer the referendum day came the more he started meddling and grandstanding, until he ended up on TV begging them not to leave after a comfortable lead in favour of the Union had been whittled down to single points.

If anyone saved the day it was Gordon Brown.

kabayiri

I should have stated of course "the No team, of which Cameron was a member". I have no desire to overstate Cameron!

Maybe the TV begging you refer to works?

Perhaps the wider question should be do we share the collective vision of what a future Europe looks like?

CLAPTON

kabayiri wrote: »

I should have stated of course "the No team, of which Cameron was a member". I have no desire to overstate Cameron!

Maybe the TV begging you refer to works?

Perhaps the wider question should be do we share the collective vision of what a future Europe looks like?

yes that is in many ways the key question
as we really have three types of people

-those that want to leave almost irrespective of any changes (reforms)
-those that want to stay irrespective of changes (further political and economic integration)
-and those that want reforms and maybe no further political and economic integration

the problem with the third option is that it is very wide open and there is currently no consensus what is acceptable to the majority. we need a vision of the future to put specific issues in a wider context.

chewmylegoff

ruggedtoast wrote: »

As far as I see it, and not relating to any particular person on this thread. If you want to vote the UK out of Europe because you are a racist, then just be up front about that.

But don't misappropriate a lot of half truths and misconceptions about the EU to justify voting in a way that no one would choose to vote if they had spent ten minutes furnishing themselves with actual facts.

I should think the one thing that might tip the popular vote over into quit is the self appointed intelligentsia labelling anyone who opposes EU membership as a racist whilst failing to actually make the positive argument for continued membership that they insist is so overwhelming in terms that the electorate can actually understand and making vague unsupported statements that an exit will destroy us all.

Essentially that is the no campaign from the Scottish referendum came across. An independent Scotland will be !!!!!! and if you want it that means you are a narrow minded racist. That ludicrously inept campaign almost managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of a victory that should have been overwhelming and leaves a legacy of overwhelming nationalist support in the recent general election. a similar campaign in the quit/stay referendum is ironically the best chance that the so-called "racists" have of securing an exit.

chewmylegoff

Sapphire wrote: »

Well then how do you think immigration can be controlled? I'm sure that due to things like wars and climate change, an increasing number of very impoverished people – running into millions – will try to leave their countries and come to Europe, and specifically to Britain (because they think the streets are paved with gold, which I suppose they are to them). Europe, including Britain, simply won't be able to absorb that many people without a massive impact on the indigenous populations. It won't be like, say, the Jews who came over in the 19th century and made a conscious effort to integrate with the indigenous population. (Many kept their culture, yet interact very successfully and calmly with the indigenous population.)

We – and Australia – are islands. We used to be able to control our 'borders' reasonably successfully. Why is this no longer the case?

London specifically has always had a migrant population (earlier on from the European continent, later from places like China and the Caribbean). On the whole, these people added vitality to Britain. However, the recent influx is simply too big and too uncontrolled, and – combined with the threats by certain parties, notably from the Middle East, to flood Europe with dangerous fanatics – it is scaring a lot of people, including many that are the children of migrants themselves, hence the strong support for UKIP. I'm wondering whether those who support endless immigration actually are aware there is a threat, or if, never having had the trauma of suffering invasion from a hostile power, they prefer to exist in blissful ignorance or want to ignore such things because it suits their own agenda?

IMHO.

The real problem with curbing Immigration, as far as I see it, is the only immigration that is easy to control is the immigration that everyone wants (even if they don't realise they want it). It is very easy to stop nurses from coming to the UK from non EU countries to work in the NHS for instance. Just refuse to give them a visa and they can't work and won't come. Obviously this is a bad idea but it would reduce net migration.

It is rather more difficult to prevent people from coming when they are convinced that their life will be so much better here that they are prepared to give everything they have to a people trafficker and to risk dying during the journey. Leaving the EU will not provide us with capability to stop such a person coming to the UK - in fact it is more likely to result in e.g. France refusing to cooperate with our border control and doing even less to prevent migrants entering the UK via their country.

How do you disincentivise someone who is already prepared to die? Even something ludicrous such as threatening to shoot them - which we won't even do to the worst criminals imaginable these days - wouldn't work. I doubt the threat of their wages being confiscated is going to have much of a deterrent impact.

bigheadxx

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Cameron has announced that 16 / 17 year olds will not be allowed to vote.

So we get ranting racist loonies like the guy above, who are probably retired or near it, affecting the future of teenagers that they won't be around themselves to see.

1,000,0000 British resident who hail from the EU will be similarly disenfranchised. So we get ranting racist loonies, like the guy above, who are doubtless a drain on the state, but a gainfully employed man or woman who has been here for years gets no say.

Brits in the EU also get no say, but Commonwealth citizens who have just arrived do.

It's hard to keep believing the Tories want us to stay in. Cameron is making every bit as big a mess of this at the outset as he did with Scotland.

Well obviously we will need to use the parliamentary register as this is a fundamental question for British people, the same as choosing a UK government.


I am glad the Conservatives don't want us to stay in and FYI, Scotland was not a mess, but a well orchestrated piece of political manoeuvring that guaranteed we would not get a Labour government and that there will not be a Scottish independence referendum any time soon.

Sapphire

chewmylegoff wrote: »

The real problem with curbing Immigration, as far as I see it, is the only immigration that is easy to control is the immigration that everyone wants (even if they don't realise they want it). It is very easy to stop nurses from coming to the UK from non EU countries to work in the NHS for instance. Just refuse to give them a visa and they can't work and won't come. Obviously this is a bad idea but it would reduce net migration.

It is rather more difficult to prevent people from coming when they are convinced that their life will be so much better here that they are prepared to give everything they have to a people trafficker and to risk dying during the journey. Leaving the EU will not provide us with capability to stop such a person coming to the UK - in fact it is more likely to result in e.g. France refusing to cooperate with our border control and doing even less to prevent migrants entering the UK via their country.

How do you disincentivise someone who is already prepared to die? Even something ludicrous such as threatening to shoot them - which we won't even do to the worst criminals imaginable these days - wouldn't work. I doubt the threat of their wages being confiscated is going to have much of a deterrent impact.

Unfortunately, I think you are right, but in the end I believe that people who come here illegally will be ejected from this country. We simply cannot take in the millions that wish to come here from the Middle East and North Africa – people that cannot actually contribute anything because they come from such a different environment, would be a huge drain on our resources and would ultimately cause social unrest. This is not the case with most of our fellow Europeans, who find it quite easy to adjust and fall in with our society, and contribute positively to it.

In fact, I have already noticed a change of attitude among friends who pride themselves on being 'affluent trendy Islington liberals'. Even they are alarmed about the huge numbers of non-Europeans who have appeared all over London in the last few years – which is really saying something. All it will take will be another major attack on our society (as we have been promised)…