Are you voting to remain or leave the EU - Poll

paddyrg

Remain. Many of the 'problems' we have now are a side-effect of not having had a massive war in Europe for the longest period in history. There's a lot of 'plucky little Britain we can go it alone' rhetoric circulating, but the world has changed hugely - we are now a small island with big ideas (but not enough money).

As for the idea that we could negotiate a deal with all the benefits but none of the costs/downsides, it's supremely naive. 'Hey, France, Germany, you need us so much that you'll give us a better deal than yourselves' - that's going to be humiliating as we knock on the door asking to be let in.

iammumtoone

cells wrote: »

But since the out voters primary aim is to try and reduce population growth to zero.

But that decision is nothing to do with this referendum.

All we can decide is in or out. If the vote is leave then what happens with the immigration after that will be down to the government at the time (which granted we will vote for) if it turn outs to be a bad decision we get the chance to vote for another government in five years.

CLAPTON

iammumtoone wrote: »

But that decision is nothing to do with this referendum.

All we can decide is in or out. If the vote is leave then what happens with the immigration after that will be down to the government at the time (which granted we will vote for) if it turn outs to be a bad decision we get the chance to vote for another government in five years.

the referendum has everything to do with our ability to determine our own immigration laws: how we would use those is, indeed, for the voters at the time to decide

cells

Conrad wrote: »

Me in red, bring on the masses - as a LL it will only make me richer...I mean as you say money is THE be all and end all


Lets cheer-on the day we have 200 million Humans here all vying for resources, yay, how enlightened am I!!!!

why must you resort to childish posts

You said Australia is good and is able to function and get rich outside the EU but you didn't realise they were importing migrants by the boat load.


The UK population growing is good for the people of the UK just as it is for Canada/Aus/NZ/USA/etc

The arguments of food security are BS. Who do you imagine is powerful enough to both want to and is capable of enforcing a continuous blockade of shipping into the UK? If such a power exists who wants to kill us why not nuke us instead? What a stupid argument

Also the green revolution means the UK can actually produce about 80% of the calories it buys (and about 1/4th of that is thrown in the bin so production might actually be closer to 120% of what we need minus waste). And this is in a period where we are not actively trying to maximise food production eg about a million acres are dedicated to ponies rather than grains. But as before no one can put a blockade on the UK I doubt anyone could put a sea blockade on any country. Even the USA could not do it to n.korea the strongest vs one of the weakest the world simply would not stand for it.


If you have any real reasons to why a shrinking UK would help the people of the UK I will listen and consider and no BS please

Jon_B_2

wotsthat wrote: »

I think there are enough polls (and threads) about the referendum.

I'd be more interested in whether anyone has actually changed their mind on how they'd vote since the start of this process.

Of the very few people I talk to about this and, judging by posts here, it looks like the answer's no.

I really don't think the process needed to be so lengthy.

Funnily enough, after much consideration I changed my mind again.

Before the referendum talk really got serious I was generally a "remain" voter. As things progressed I had started to consider the virtues of leaving, probably about 6 months ago?

But on reflection, i was brought up during a peacetime period - I haven't lived through a war, but I studied WW1 and WW2 extensively throughout my degree in history and the fact the EU, with all its fallacies, has provided a great deal of stability throughout the continent leaves me to feel that leaving would be a big step backwards.

We can sit here and say we'd never war with Europe again, but stranger things have happened. Brexit I feel would destabilise a currently fragile continent.

CLAPTON

Jon_B wrote: »

Funnily enough, after much consideration I changed my mind again.

Before the referendum talk really got serious I was generally a "remain" voter. As things progressed I had started to consider the virtues of leaving, probably about 6 months ago?

But on reflection, i was brought up during a peacetime period - I haven't lived through a war, but I studied WW1 and WW2 extensively throughout my degree in history and the fact the EU, with all its fallacies, has provided a great deal of stability throughout the continent leaves me to feel that leaving would be a big step backwards.

We can sit here and say we'd never war with Europe again, but stranger things have happened. Brexit I feel would destabilise a currently fragile continent.

presumably your degree in history included the fact that the USA had about 500,000 troops in Europe until the late 1990s: this and NATO may have had a little bearing on the lack of war in europe: except of course in yugoslavia. What lessons have you learnt about the Yugoslavia war?

BobQ

mayonnaise wrote: »

I was an outie at first.
When I learned I was siding with Putin, Galloway, Clapton and Marine Le Pen, I changed my mind.

You are now siding with Jeremy Clarkson, but hey nothing is perfect.

Johnsmith2016

cells wrote: »

I would vote leave if we could copy Australia migration policy which seems to be to let in over a million migrants a year (scaled up to UK proportion)

But since the out voters primary aim is to try and reduce population growth to zero. I will vote stay as copying Japan or even worse one of the population decline countries will not be pretty

Cells - i am voting out, and do not want or expect migration to go to zero. I am actually for migration as are UKIP funnily enough - the key though is that is on the terms that benefit the uk e.g us - its about quality not just simple quantity and saying we take x amount = x amount to the economy and thats it. Numbers alone cant quantify certain things, thats why it has to be done on a merit and needs basis.
And our ability to choose who comes and settles here. If we are lacking brain surgeons and indian has plenty applying we can allow them in, likewise a unskilled romanian builder with a criminal record we can refuse. Surely no one can say its wrong for a country to select the best it needs based on the pool available ? It happens this way in most other areas of life.
The problem is the EU doesnt have a clue who these people are moving around, are they legal, are they a criminal, are they isis? This upsets social cohesion for which there isnt really a monetry value comparison.
Migration does have benefits - but it must be done right, for example background checks, ensuring they speak the language so they intergrate and dont just make their own closed off communities like bolton, rochdale, bury, rotherham etc. The "type" of migration has been the problem, favouring unskilled europeans over educated commonwealth, no ensuring they learn english etc - many things done due to the pc brigade and a fear of upsetting anyone. And if at any point public services become stretched you also have the ability to freeze migration. So they key is quality, on our terms, for our needs when we need and want it and above all legally.
For me this is just common sense. At the moment we dont have that choice, we can plan or predict for public service spending because we dont have a clue how many people are going to come this year next year or 5 years time. To be able to plan you have to have control otherwise your always in a negative reactive knee jerk state spreading the pot thinner each time until like now things are at breaking point because its being used more than its currently alotted funds for , eg GPs hospitals, schools, housing.
A simplistic example lets say we allot a hospital in birmingham 1m for the year. Based on current population in the area, how many used it, how many times etc - and arrive at a figure of 1m to cover those needs.
Then we get x amount of migrants added who have not been accounted for, of course the hospital will struggle, then the same happens the year after and again. If we could say right we will take 5,000 migrants in 2017 because thats what our economy needs to grow - once that number is it, we close the doors until the year after. And work out how many we need if any, the following year.

cells

Johnsmith2016 wrote: »

Cells - i am voting out, and do not want or expect migration to go to zero. I am actually for migration as are UKIP funnily enough - the key though is that is on the terms that benefit the uk e.g us - its about quality not just simple quantity. And our ability to choose who comes and settles here. If we are lacking brain surgeons and indian has plenty applying we can allow them in, likewise a unskilled romanian builder with a criminal record we can refuse. Surely no one can say its wrong for a country to select the best it needs based on the pool available ? It happens this way in most other areas of life.
Migration does have benefits - but it must be done right, for example background checks, ensuring they speak the language so they intergrate and dont just make their own closed off communities like bolton, rochdale, bury, rotherham etc. The "type" of migration has been the problem, favouring unskilled europeans over educated commonwealth, no ensuring they learn english etc - many things done due to the pc brigade and a fear of upsetting anyone. And if at any point public services become stretched you also have the ability to freeze migration. So they key is quality, on our terms, for our needs when we need and want it and above all legally.
For me this is just common sense.

that all sounds good and reasonable but the referendum is one about population control and the method to do that is getting migration towards zero

Do you really think a UKIP voter want to see fewer white Christian migrants from France/Italy/Germany/Poland but more from India/Pakistan/Ghana? Without a doubt thats not the case they want little to no migrants of any kind

Also on a technical/admin point how do you stop criminals coming if say 1 in 10,000 are criminals and it costs £1000 to admin check everyone you are paying £10m a head to stop a thug?


Also Aus supposedly has all those checks and balances yet on a per capita basis the UK with Aus migration levels would be growing at more than 1 million persons a year. Is the Aus and 1 million a year population growth what you want and think will happen in a leave vote?

Johnsmith2016

Cells - sorry i added a bit as you was replying