Having taught Canadian politics for a long while I can tell you that a formal declaration of war in Canada is issued by the Government of Canada. We gained that authority in 1931 with the Statute of Westminster. Her/His Majesty may as Head of State speak for or against a Canadian choice but has no authority in the decision past suasion.
Possible, except that GB will decide whether it is in or out. I for one applaud the position of the German finance minister who clearly stated that for GB this is either all in or all out. If a vote for Brexit wins then GB is out of all including the common market and at a later date EU members can decide whether to let them back in. Not to mention that most analyses of a Brexit see a negative impact in terms of GDP for GB
Most definitely has to to be all out or all in. But one finance minister cannot speak for the whole EU. That is kinda what underlines the negativity towards the EU. Yeah I don't think the Leave campaign will disagree that we may dip into recession if they win, on the flip side, nobody really knows what will happen. Nobody has actually left the EU after its joined. I'm still very undecided, it might even come down to eenie, meenie, minie, mo on the day for me
Well, Osborne really has done it this time huh? This mornings news: proof George Osborne is an idiot. The German finance minister, infact all the other eu nations can say what they like now, but if brexit does happen, they may wish to spend more time trying to hold their crumbling eu together than vindictively blocking trade that would benefit everyone. I love how all these forecasts deceptively miss out that we would STILL be in growth medium-long term, and that's using the most pessimistic one, we just won't be in as much growth (if they're accurate) What is it that the EU doesn't understand? All these weeks of scaremongering without putting a positive case for membership forward. The British people do not, and never have and never will respond to bullying. Watch your parliaments Europe, you're about to have a very, very tough time. Lots of referendums all accords Europe, who knows what the eu will look like in 2030?
Rio yes long and maybe medium term growth but that's after what could be several years of recession. Don't really want to have another recession in the uk when we are still very much struggling with the effects of the last one. More austerity measures more painful job losses and for the truly unfortunate losing homes and families. All that said and all that aside I'd vote remain because simply we are better as a part of a greater whole, and sadly the loudest voices screaming leave are the very people I'd need want to have run my country.
Don't you see? The problem with the U.K. For decades has been short term thinking. There has been no real long term planning from any uk government for years.
I would rather have a little financial strain now instead of my kids having a lot of financial struggle all those years from now.
The political definition of recession and the reality are far different. We have low % of unemployment. Our housing market NEEDS to go into negative growth so that new buyers can get onto it. Our productivity needs to rise. Considering the problems on mainland Europe.. I'd say we're in a pretty good position. Everyone keeps saying that we're going to be blocked from trade.. France exports $41.5b to the uk a year. Germany exports $100b to the uk a year. Italy exports $28.1b to the uk a year And against that... 3 of the uk's top 5 export destinations are NOT in the EU (though one is Switzerland)
Rio negative growth in the housing market would be knocking houses down. Also you realise investment in the uk will probably suffer ? Ford sent a letter to it's staff letting them know if the UK leaves the EU then ford will most likely be leaving the U.K. for its production expect Honda and others to follow suit. As for short vs long term growth that's all good but short term still wrecks lives. The idea that having huge values knocked off people's houses is good is crazy negative equity forced onto thousands of homeowners the same time wages will likely see stagnation at best.
"Brexit: AA Gill argues for ‘In’ We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of that most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia It was the woman on Question Time that really did it for me. She was so familiar. There is someone like her in every queue, every coffee shop, outside every school in every parish council in the country. Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow, over-made-up, with her National Health face and weatherproof English expression of hurt righteousness, she’s Britannia’s mother-in-law. The camera closed in on her and she shouted: “All I want is my country back. Give me my country back.” It was a heartfelt cry of real distress and the rest of the audience erupted in sympathetic applause, but I thought: “Back from what? Back from where?” Wanting the country back is the constant mantra of all the outies. Farage slurs it, Gove insinuates it. Of course I know what they mean. We all know what they mean. They mean back from Johnny Foreigner, back from the brink, back from the future, back-to-back, back to bosky hedges and dry stone walls and country lanes and church bells and warm beer and skittles and football rattles and cheery banter and clogs on cobbles. Back to vicars-and-tarts parties and Carry On fart jokes, back to Elgar and fudge and proper weather and herbaceous borders and cars called Morris. Back to victoria sponge and 22 yards to a wicket and 15 hands to a horse and 3ft to a yard and four fingers in a Kit Kat, back to gooseberries not avocados, back to deference and respect, to make do and mend and smiling bravely and biting your lip and suffering in silence and patronising foreigners with pity. We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of the most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia. The warm, crumbly, honey-coloured, collective “yesterday” with its fond belief that everything was better back then, that Britain (England, really) is a worse place now than it was at some foggy point in the past where we achieved peak Blighty. It’s the knowledge that the best of us have been and gone, that nothing we can build will be as lovely as a National Trust Georgian country house, no art will be as good as a Turner, no poem as wonderful as If, no writer a touch on Shakespeare or Dickens, nothing will grow as lovely as a cottage garden, no hero greater than Nelson, no politician better than Churchill, no view more throat-catching than the White Cliffs and that we will never manufacture anything as great as a Rolls-Royce or Flying Scotsman again. The dream of Brexit isn’t that we might be able to make a brighter, new, energetic tomorrow, it’s a desire to shuffle back to a regret-curdled inward-looking yesterday. In the Brexit fantasy, the best we can hope for is to kick out all the work-all-hours foreigners and become caretakers to our own past in this self-congratulatory island of moaning and pomposity. And if you think that’s an exaggeration of the Brexit position, then just listen to the language they use: “We are a nation of inventors and entrepreneurs, we want to put the great back in Britain, the great engineers, the great manufacturers.” This is all the expression of a sentimental nostalgia. In the Brexiteer’s mind’s eye is the old Pathé newsreel of Donald Campbell, of John Logie Baird with his television, Barnes Wallis and his bouncing bomb, and Robert Baden-Powell inventing boy scouts in his shed. All we need, their argument goes, is to be free of the humourless Germans and spoilsport French and all their collective liberalism and reality. There is a concomitant hope that if we manage to back out of Europe, then we’ll get back to the bowler-hatted 1950s and the Commonwealth will hold pageants, fireworks displays and beg to be back in the Queen Empress’s good books again. Then New Zealand will sacrifice a thousand lambs, Ghana will ask if it can go back to being called the Gold Coast and Britain will resume hand-making Land Rovers and top hats and Sheffield plate teapots. There is a reason that most of the people who want to leave the EU are old while those who want to remain are young: it’s because the young aren’t infected with Bisto nostalgia. They don’t recognise half the stuff I’ve mentioned here. They’ve grown up in the EU and at worst it’s been neutral for them. The under-thirties want to be part of things, not aloof from them. They’re about being joined-up and counted. I imagine a phrase most outies identify with is “women’s liberation has gone too far”. Everything has gone too far for them, from political correctness — well, that’s gone mad, hasn’t it? — to health and safety and gender-neutral lavatories. Those oldies, they don’t know if they’re coming or going, what with those newfangled mobile phones and kids on Tinder and Grindr. What happened to meeting Miss Joan Hunter Dunn at the tennis club? And don’t get them started on electric hand dryers, or something unrecognised in the bagging area, or Indian call centres , or the impertinent computer asking for a password that has both capitals and little letters and numbers and more than eight digits. Brexit is the fond belief that Britain is worse now than at some point in the foggy past where we achieved peak Blighty We listen to the Brexit lot talk about the trade deals they’re going to make with Europe after we leave, and the blithe insouciance that what they’re offering instead of EU membership is a divorce where you can still have sex with your ex. They reckon they can get out of the marriage, keep the house, not pay alimony, take the kids out of school, stop the in-laws going to the doctor, get strict with the visiting rights, but, you know, still get a shag at the weekend and, obviously, see other people on the side. Really, that’s their best offer? That’s the plan? To swagger into Brussels with Union Jack pants on and say: “ ’Ello luv, you’re looking nice today. Would you like some?” When the rest of us ask how that’s really going to work, leavers reply, with Terry-Thomas smirks, that “they’re going to still really fancy us, honest, they’re gagging for us. Possibly not Merkel, but the bosses of Mercedes and those French vintners and cheesemakers, they can’t get enough of old John Bull. Of course they’re going to want to go on making the free market with two backs after we’ve got the decree nisi. Makes sense, doesn’t it?” Have no doubt, this is a divorce. It’s not just business, it’s not going to be all reason and goodwill. Like all divorces, leaving Europe would be ugly and mean and hurtful, and it would lead to a great deal of poisonous xenophobia and racism, all the niggling personal prejudice that dumped, betrayed and thwarted people are prey to. And the racism and prejudice are, of course, weak points for us. The tortuous renegotiation with lawyers and courts will be bitter and vengeful, because divorces always are and, just in passing, this sovereignty thing we’re supposed to want back so badly, like Frodo’s ring, has nothing to do with you or me. We won’t notice it coming back, because we didn’t notice not having it in the first place. Nine out of 10 economists say ‘remain in the EU’ You won’t wake up on June 24 and think: “Oh my word, my arthritis has gone! My teeth are suddenly whiter! Magically, I seem to know how to make a soufflé and I’m buff with the power of sovereignty.” This is something only politicians care about; it makes not a jot of difference to you or me if the Supreme Court is a bunch of strangely out-of-touch old gits in wigs in Westminster or a load of strangely out-of-touch old gits without wigs in Luxembourg. What matters is that we have as many judges as possible on the side of personal freedom. Personally, I see nothing about our legislators in the UK that makes me feel I can confidently give them more power. The more checks and balances politicians have, the better for the rest of us. You can’t have too many wise heads and different opinions. If you’re really worried about red tape, by the way, it’s not just a European problem. We’re perfectly capable of coming up with our own rules and regulations and we have no shortage of jobsworths. Red tape may be annoying, but it is also there to protect your and my family from being lied to, poisoned and cheated. The first “X” I ever put on a voting slip was to say yes to the EU. The first referendum was when I was 20 years old. This one will be in the week of my 62nd birthday. For nearly all my adult life, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t been pleased and proud to be part of this great collective. If you ask me for my nationality, the truth is I feel more European than anything else. I am part of this culture, this European civilisation. I can walk into any gallery on our continent and completely understand the images and the stories on the walls. These people are my people and they have been for thousands of years. I can read books on subjects from Ancient Greece to Dark Ages Scandinavia, from Renaissance Italy to 19th-century France, and I don’t need the context or the landscape explained to me. The music of Europe, from its scales and its instruments to its rhythms and religion, is my music. The Renaissance, the rococo, the Romantics, the impressionists, gothic, baroque, neoclassicism, realism, expressionism, futurism, fauvism, cubism, dada, surrealism, postmodernism and kitsch were all European movements and none of them belongs to a single nation. There is a reason why the Chinese are making fake Italian handbags and the Italians aren’t making fake Chinese ones. This European culture, without question or argument, is the greatest, most inventive, subtle, profound, beautiful and powerful genius that was ever contrived anywhere by anyone and it belongs to us. Just look at my day job — food. The change in food culture and pleasure has been enormous since we joined the EU, and that’s no coincidence. What we eat, the ingredients, the recipes, may come from around the world, but it is the collective to and fro of European interests, expertise and imagination that has made it all so very appetising and exciting. The restaurant was a European invention, naturally. The first one in Paris was called The London Bridge. Culture works and grows through the constant warp and weft of creators, producers, consumers, intellectuals and instinctive lovers. You can’t dictate or legislate for it, you can just make a place that encourages it and you can truncate it. You can make it harder and more grudging, you can put up barriers and you can build walls, but why on earth would you? This collective culture, this golden civilisation grown on this continent over thousands of years, has made everything we have and everything we are, why would you not want to be part of it? I understand that if we leave we don’t have to hand back our library ticket for European civilisation, but why would we even think about it? In fact, the only ones who would are those old, philistine scared gits. Look at them, too frightened to join in."
I'm going to vote out.. I'm 29. 9/10 economists thought we should join the euro too.. 9/10 economists said austerity wouldn't help the uk (the other 1/10 backing George Osborne) Coincidentally, that 1/10 were the same ones saying we shouldn't join the euro. The same ones that said austerity would work. Now.. Some of those same economists are part of the group economists for brexit. Pattern? You say it's about stepping backwards, I say sits about stepping forwards, I believe the EU is going to fail, before 2050. I would rather not be a part of that thanks.
If Britain votes to stay then there should be new terms agreed. Britain will only stay if the rest of Europe starts putting steering wheels on the right side of all vehicles.
McDonnell: "European countries, individual governments, are rejecting austerity and the European Union is leading on that." Yes? The EU is leading the way in anti austerity! I'm sure the Greeks will agree with that huh?
I own my own house. Built it myself. I grow vegetables in the garden. A few years ago i got into an agreement with my neighbors to share these vegetables but I always get less then what I give. All of a sudden they tell me I need to leave my doors open and let any stranger in. My house in now packed I can't move. My toilet overflowing! They taking a in my house!! but it's all good they wipe their own ass. If I threaten to shut the door they threaten to bring my house to down to the foundations. My son is a hippy and tells me to leave the door open. He likes the smell of there ..the other day I came home to 3 guys plowing my wife without permission but hey it's all good they only had tiny peckers so I can't make them leave.
An EU commissioner said it would be good for the EU if Brexit happened because it would give Brussels "more strength and power".
R.I.P Jo Cox, the first British politician to be murdered since a 1990 IRA car bombing. A low point for British politics.
I want to put an end to this whole no trade deal with America thing and being at the "back of the queue" as Obama said. 11 US congressmen have written a letter to Obama to criticise him for trying to "pressure" the people of the UK to remain in the EU and said that Obama backing the remain campaign was "misguided". These congressmen haven't taken any stance on the EU referendum but in the letter it says the following. "Regardless of the outcome of the referendum, citizens of the United Kingdom should know that we will continue to regard our relationship with the United Kingdom as a central factor in the foreign, security, and trading policies of the United States." Signatories of the letter include Mac Thornberry, the chairman of the armed services committee and Devin Nunes, leader of the intelligence committee.