MoneySaving Poll: How will you be voting in the EU referendum?

HanSpan

supermario1965 wrote: »

If we stay in the EU, we'll get 20 million Muslim migrants in the next 10 years. This alone is enough to make me vote LEAVE.

Seriously? where on earth did you get this totally untrue and impossible "fact" from?

There's only something like 20m muslims in the whole of the EU, including the ones already in the UK!

Also immigration, even if it stayed at the current high level, was 270k from the EU (and that's ignoring those who left so not net.)
Assume every single one of those was a Muslim, and no single Muslim left you'd STILL only have 2.7m more.

OK include the non EU migrants - the total in last year was 670m, so at that hight level for 10 years it would still be only 6.7m so even if all of THEM were Muslims and none left it wouldn't reach your 20m figure.

And all of those are crackers figures anyway. All immigrants aren't muslim by a very very very long shot!

Oh & leaving the EU won't affect immigration at all if we want to stay in the single market as we will ahve to retain freedom of movement rules, and it won't affect non-EU immigration at all -that (about 50% of the total) is solely down to our own government.

So - really not a good reason to choose to vote out. Actually not a good reason to choose anything as its absolute made up beyond the levels of regular made up scaremongering nonsense.

HanSpan

G6JPG wrote: »

Originally Posted by HanSpan
We'd have to renegotiate trade with every single country in the EU

This is one of the things that has puzzled me: are individual EU countries allowed to make separate agreements with an outside country? I'd have thought we'd be renegotiating trade with the EU - more or less as if it was one big country. (Whether of course that'd be any easier than negotiating with twentywhateveritis countries separately, I don't know; there'd only be one lot of negotiations, which should involve less effort, but it'd be with a very powerful entity, which is of course not good.)

Good point. I really don't know how it would work. I think I read that many of the commonwealth countries now have trade deals with the EU so you are probably right - it would be with the whole of the EU, or even the whole of the single market maybe.

G6JPG wrote: »

Originally Posted by HanSpan
If forced to make a decision at the outset I would probably have voted "IN" as I am naturally risk averse so have the "better the devil you know" attitude, but no more than that.
I would have been (even now still would be) perfectly OK with being persuaded to the "OUT" side if there were genuine concrete reasons, with at least some degree of likelihood, for that side - but I just haven't seen any.

I can't say concrete reasons. I just have a feeling that we're losing control of lots of things - and I don't mainly mean the economy; I think leaving would/will give a period of hardship. Thus, by the essence of this forum (MSE), one should choose stay.

I guess I'm talking about sovereignty, but I hate to use that word, as it has a lot of baggage with it - if nothing else, it makes people think about territory (provokes talks of "British soil", which I find irritating in the extreme), and wars. Which I'm not; the empire was gone long before I was born, and I don't think there's any desire to try to change that back.

I'm afraid that I am thoroughly grounded in facts and logic rather than feelings when making decisions - I'm a mathematician with aspergers traits so I can't help it!

Mind you I do have a feeling we are losing control, but I fear that we (the little people) are losing control to those with too much money and power, rather than it having anything to do with the EU.

(logic and maths!) I want to know how many of the laws we currently have are EU laws (I've seen figures from 12.5% to about 20%) and how many of those would we have to keep if we stay in the single market? I suspect it's never going to happen but I want to see:
Total laws = x,
EU laws = y,
EU laws we'd have to retain in the single market = z.

From the various things I've read I suspect that z would be most of y if we want to retain access to that single market, as I've seen many times written that the vast majority of laws we have that are EU laws are around trade or related to trade.
I really want numbers though!

Also I'd want to see what those laws we could get rid of actually include. Are they laws I'd want rid of? Are they laws we'd have to replicate in some way anyway? Are they laws I fear the conservatives would skip around gleefully about not having to follow? Are they laws that benefit the rich or the poor? Business or the individual?
There are just too many variables to assume that losing some (unknown number of) laws is automatically a good thing!

I also think many people feel less control over the EU because so many don't engage and don't even bother to vote for MEPs. From what I recall the turnout for that is always far worse than for general elections. Maybe if we do stay this will all have got people to pay a bit more attention and more will look at who represents us in the EU and take an interest.

G6JPG wrote: »

Originally Posted by HanSpan
OK there's the Cameron's supposed agreement that I believe as far as I could throw him - but even without it there's no need for radical change (and expenditure) and overall we've done pretty OK in the EU.

Having actually read it, I think the agreement is actually very good - more or less the best we could have got, and certainly better than I'd have expected. I don't really connect it with Cameron. As I've said in an earlier post, I don't think at least some of the other countries want it, but we could try to hold them to it. If it holds, we won't be part of the EU like any other member, we'll be a special case, sort of half in - like we are now (with our refund and other such things), but significantly more so. I'm not at all sure how that would work out.

It's that which I don't trust - I'm not sure its automatically binding is it? I read so many loopy sounding things from both sides about it that this is one of the subjects where I really have no clue what is true and what is not.

I stand by my feeling that I trust Cameron as far as I can throw him But to be fair that's the case for most politicians. Seems almost all of them change their minds depending on which way the wind blows - and I fear it's to whatever they think will most likely keep them in power, rather than what they think is for the good of the public

G6JPG wrote: »

Originally Posted by HanSpan
Whereas for leaving it's all far too vague with potential "plans" to spend the maybe savings umpty times over and over. There's no certainty - nothing even approaching something approaching certainty - about what would be the plan for anything at all if we vote out.
Even if Cameron were ousted for Boris what would he do? He's not said? Or if there were a snap election - what would any of the parties do if they came to power and we'd voted out? No plans - nothing. That fills me with dread.

Not just the politicians: as far as I'm aware, nobody - companies, organisations, etc. - seems to be actually planning: this seems to me to be poor; most companies should have contingency plans for all sorts of things (fire, flood, terrorism, collapse of critical suppliers, ...), so not making any plans for post-exit seems rather unwise. (Come to think of it, no plans for post-stay either, AFAIK; the new agreement comes into force the day we decide to stay, it says so in it.)

It's pretty frightening isn't it? I wonder if we are all subconsciously feeling that many politicians DO have some sort of crafty plan for after, and some of the mistrust is that they just won't come out and tell us. Its not like we could actually make them stick to what they say - the current govt haven't! So why they can't at least give us all a clue I cannot understand.

[FONT=&quot]As for companies - most probably do have plans but they aren't going to tell us! Although having worked in the public sector and seen the pain and length of time it takes to make contingency plans maybe I'm giving them more credit than they are due and the whole lot are all sticking their fingers in their ears singing "lalalalala not listening" hoping it will all just go away [/FONT]

Missmarple

I'm on the YouGov online voting panel of about 5000 people.
If I answer the questions early in the morning when say less than 1000 have voted the percentage of the answers may only change by 1% either way when all 5000 have voted into the evening.
The results here showing early votes and the percentage is not at all unusual for the end result to be the same.


On YouGov Remain is slightly ahead.
A point to note is that the people on there are politically motivated and an equal mix of Labour, Conservative and Other voters (Green, UKIP, Plaid etc placed together)


YouGov knows my gender, age, area where I live, ethnic origin and my political voting.


The results are usually a good read as at the press of a button you can see say how many Labour women voted for a particular thing etc.


It points to Conservative women being undecided which way they will vote in the EU Referendum.

G6JPG

HanSpan wrote: »

[snip]
That's before you get to the fact that we would have to replicate loads of work that is done for the single market as a whole - the one that immediately springs to my mind is the whole cosmetics register thing which would be a lot of work and cost lots to set up. I bet there are similar things we would have to replicate across swathes of other areas.
[snip]

I suspect we'd remain part of that organisation - along with lots of other similar standards bodies. (Such as the electrotechnical that are my own area of interest.) We're already involved in assorted international such efforts, both inside and outside the EU (not a few with the USA).

HanSpan

G6JPG wrote: »

I suspect we'd remain part of that organisation - along with lots of other similar standards bodies. (Such as the electrotechnical that are my own area of interest.) We're already involved in assorted international such efforts, both inside and outside the EU (not a few with the USA).

I agree - which means leaving the EU seems utterly pointless.

We'd have to keep the freedom of movement and all the laws pertaining to trade, and pay to be a member. So what are we left to vote out of? I really don't know, other than our seats at the table where decisions are made.

I've read a few things in the past few days from people in/about Norway and Switzerland saying it seems they got the worse bits without many of the benefits by being in the EEA or single market but not actually part of the EU.

So my leaning towards remain is growing stronger by the day. I just can't see any real benefits to leaving. I really am trying to stay open to changing my mind but its getting harder and harder.

bargepole

A new ORB poll for The Independent gives Leave a 10-point lead over Remain - 55% to 45%:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-poll-brexit-leave-campaign-10-point-lead-remain-boris-johnson-nigel-farage-david-a7075131.html

Looks like the Remainers are toast ...

torbrex

My parents voted to stay in the Common Market, not to become members of the European Union, I support that view and I will be voting to leave the EU.

richardw

HanSpan wrote: »

... I just can't see any real benefits to leaving. ....

There must be a list somewhere, if there isn't, perhaps there should be.

HanSpan

torbrex wrote: »

My parents voted to stay in the Common Market, not to become members of the European Union, I support that view and I will be voting to leave the EU.

That is of course your choice - but Europe, and the rest of the world, has moved on so I can't personally see any reason to vote based on what the situation was, or who made what choices, over 30 (maybe even 40?) years ago.

I am genuinely curious about the specifics though - what is it that is that being part of the EU as opposed to the common market bothers you?
I'm finding it hard to distinguish what the differences are in being member of the EU, or EEA, or EEG, or single market, or EFMA or..... (I'm not ashamed to say I'm totally confused!!)

HanSpan

richardw wrote: »

There must be a list somewhere, if there isn't, perhaps there should be.

Indeed there should be - there should be lists explaining what would happen either way - from anyone that expects us to listen to them.

Despite the fact many of our politicians can't be trusted as far as I can throw them (I am a weakling!) they do at least publish manifestos explaining the plans they have when they are asking you to vote for them.