Politics

Isn't that Mi5 chief accused of saying in private that leaving the EU would have no impact on security? Also I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure a former head of Scotland Yard also said leaving the EU wouldn't effect security.

 

The term "security" can have some broad meanings, such as "the well being"

If leaving the EU would result in economic decline than the well being of the country is at risk. It's not necessarily a security measure.

 

I think when spy Chiefs talk about security it isn't in an economic sense.

 

This is outrageous :shock:

 

To clarify, I was just joking, no offence meant to anyone. 

 

As I saw some spy chief or police chief say about a month ago, the UK has one of the most effective intelligence and anti terrorism services in the world and provide much more to the EU countries in terms of intelligence than we get back. So why would the EU even consider stopping intelligence sharing with the UK?

 

The queen isn't allowed to say either way as she isn't meant to interfere in politics

 

If only it were as simple as in or out.

France, Germany and most notably Poland have all said that they won't support trade with Britain without free movement within the EU being a part of any deal.

Even America has said it would have a reduced interest in the UK

We have no real national industry left.
Car manufacturers are largely foreign led and looking for an easy route to the European market.

Many including Honda have stated that a reduction would occur if we pull out of the European Union and they would move manufacturing to within the EU.

Most notably again Poland is a front runner due to low labour costs as a replacement site for manufacturing.

Simply put. Had the government made rover a state owned company instead of allowing it to collapse, we could now have a huge British car manufacturer backing British jobs and British profits.

Instead we have a government that allows train manufacturers to go under whilst awarding a state contract to a German company manufacturing trains for British rail. Which is insane when you consider that all German government contracts go to German firms. If they cannot do it. They hire expertise from abroad to teach them how to do it.

Any sector you look at, we are not self supportive.
Look in any shop, especially the cheap end of the market. And most of it's made in China.

We buy in. And rely on exports.
Largely we sell to the European Union. 800 billion in trade whilst yes we pay about 8 billion a year for the privilege, risking losing that trade is like cutting off ones own nose.

We cannot guarantee we would be able to trade without keeping our borders open.
We cannot even put a single figure on any out deal.

It's pure guess work thanks to incompetent policy makers.

Hand on heart I want out.

I want a strong independent wealthy Britain.
With a strong leader that can make all the deals we need to sustain our economy.

Unfortunately what we have is weak leadership. So weak they cannot even argue against immigration figures and benefits for migrants.

Offering the referendum now is true stupidity.
We need a ten year exit plan.

A huge push on a self sustaining economy.

Huge pushes on engineering and manufacturing.
Along with farming ( 50% of our food comes from foreign countries ). It's insanity that has led us to the point we cannot feed our own people without imports.

Again on the farming it's also largely migrant workers that work the fields, the jobs that many won't do. One positive aspect.
However that's jobs locals should be encouraged into.

However I live in a rural town.
Our population has risen massively over the last five years through migration.

Our local schools have half migrant population in most classes ( primarily polish or ex soviet block ). The strain on teachers trying to teach children that don't speak English along with trying to teach those that do a new core exam curriculum that is two years ahead of where it was last year is obviously having a huge detrimental effect.
An effect Cameron doesn't see as he has zero asylum seekers located to his constituency.

A local hospital under siege.
Just for one clinic that used to have 8 patients a week now has to run five daily clinics a week to keep up with the supply of the needs of what is largely a migrant patient influx.

A large problem with alcoholism and a violent nature even involving gun crimes, which are alarmingly on the rise.
A raid of a Russian occupied house netted 17 assault rifles.
Thankfully before they could be used.

I cannot say all migrants are bad. Some are wonderful people seeking a better way of life for them and their children.
But in a town of 100,000 people 15 years ago rising to 125,000 people over that time is understandably unsustainable.

It's that influx that is the main drive of the out campaign.

Yet it's unfortunately a total fallacy.
If we leave as stated many nations have stated they will enforce a trade agreement that ensures open borders.

So as a nation we have been presented with two options.

One to vote out and potentially lose 800 billions worth of trade, throwing us back into recession, raised taxes ( a likelihood the government has already stated ) and a poorer quality of life at street level. At best additional export costs and thousands of job losses as jobs are moved to the European Union to enable the large manufacturers to keep within the trade block and sustain their profits no matter the cost to the UK.

Two. To keep the status quo with the only slight advantage of reduced in work benefits to new migrants for the first four years of residence.

Neither solves the migration issue.
And one plays Russian roulette with our economy and children's futures.

The absurdity is. Had this been properly planned and thought out.
With government incentives for British jobs long before the referendum was offered to the people, we would be in a stronger position to freely decide.

As it is. Large global industry holds the financial sway.

And the will or best interest of the people won't be served whichever way they vote.

 

I agree with both of you optimal and rio.
The thing that gets me is, every single politician you see is a complete upper class Toff.
They have never known what it's like to be poor, rub shoulders with the poor or even how to speak the poor mans language. So how are they to know what the poor man wants?
Until we get real people in government and not just political career chasers I can't see any change in the UK political system for the better, only for worse.
So returning to the E.U.
What does it matter wether we stay or leave. We don't have anyone who can run the country either way.

 

The Queen stays out of politics for the most part because otherwise people would dislike her for political reasons and it would serve to undermine democracy (if the Queen supported the conservative party then the liberals might want to get rid of the monarchy)

 

I find it funny how the UK was the main push for accepting poor East-European countries into the EU (more countries means less bargaining power for individual nations and poorer countries means more economic strain) only to later complain that the strained EU is bad for the UK.

 

Now by contradicting myself I am going to make this point:

If the UK leaves the EU it will have much less influence over Europe and the world. France and Germany may be more reluctant to support UK interests if they are politically distanced from the UK.

 

@ Nathan.
Yes. The irony of lack of foresight by an incompetent government.
And yet they persist in demonstrating how completely ignorant they are.

Hindsight is wonderful for everyday people.

For nations leaders.
It's a luxury that is paid for on the backs of the working class.

 

The monarchy has to remain politicaly neutral they only get a slap on the wrist if they're not mind.

 

House of lords is made up of lifetime proffesionals very few have been given a seat in the house of lords by right and even then they don't contribute much. But I agree the base of control is too small giving power to too few people. Parliament in general is outdated inefficient and too subjective for the 21st century. We need objective measures that deliver the best conclusions not what people think are the best conclusions.

 

America and the EU are negotiating the trans atlantics trade and investment partnership which will do us more harm than good and only makes sense to american corporations that's one reason I would leave.

We provide more to the EU than the EU does to us and we are a major player within the european economy even if we leave it is doubtful that european countries will stop trading with us because we have always had strong individual ties with them. London is also a major buisness capital within europe, a reason I wouldn't be afraid to leave.

EU has increasingly downplayed our political role despite maintaining and even increasing there demands which incidently puts more pressure on the UK taxpayer, another reason I would leave.

We have much more voice inside the system so that we can make a change within the system and simply put pressure on the EU and brussels to listen rather than let them indirectly affect our trade with other countries a reason I would stay in the EU.

We have british nationals in other countries plus we can visit any EU country we want with the UK citizenship however this provides an open border which is debatable.

If this was a complex debate I would say we need to improve standards and we need to start pushing individuals and corporations to squeeze the dissapearing money back in to the economy, as things stand our economy is effectively a black hole of money where money is going in and out of the economy at an unsustainable rate by the most profitable corporations and richest people storing money in offshore accounts and also hiked prices due to imbalances of negotiating power with the consumer and supplier due to poor or conflicting government intraventions, some countries are exempt from this. I believe we should be much more forceful in our negotiating so they have to listen and if they don't then we have no reason to stay really.