Brexit

Brexit, Stay or Leave.

  • Stay

    Votes: 28 59.6%

  • Leave

    Votes: 19 40.4%
  • Total voters
    47
But let us rise above the obvious, and consider the mindset. Friends who are pro-Remain sometimes say to me that the Leavers are stuck in an imperial mentality, nostalgic for the days when Britain ruled the world. The truth seems to me the opposite. The EU has huge appeal for those who conceive of empires as the most orderly way of running things. Empires are too large for democracy, but very fulfilling for bureaucrats. Their peoples are too disunited to rule themselves, so they need a special class of people to rule them.
The question for the rest of us on June 23 is: “Do we want to be ruled by this class any more, or could we, the people have a go?” The more the Carneys, Obamas, Junckers, Clintons, Lagardes, Camerons, Osbornes and Merkels tell me what to do, the more I turn to Shakespeare: “Come the three corners of the world in arms / And we shall shock them.”
 
Does leaving Europe mean we won't have any more Eurovision?

On the same subject....why is Australia in it???
 
Yeh, it does seem done 'n dusted now, doesn't it.
The poll day before yesterday showed a hugely significant swing to Remain, and noticeably amongst the over-65's etc, who would have been the most ardent Brexiteers. If they've shifted their opinion, then, a Remain victory appears a foregone conclusion.
 
Although I'm far from convinced that 'stay' has made their case, the simple fact is, when the gun is placed against their heads, 80% of the undecideds will break for the devil they know (same as the general election when the undecideds looked at Ed Miliband and said urm .... don't fancy him, and broke on the day). 'Leave' needs to be at least 5% ahead at this stage

FWIW I got contacted by Mori very recently for an opinion poll and having indicated undecided eventually felt compelled to express a preference for 'leave' as they pushed a little bit for a definitive answer
 
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The same scenario played-out in the Indyref.

Both sides stretch their arguments to the edge of credibility, leaving the voter to guess that the truth is somewhere around the middle. This leaves them essentially neutral about the technical arguments, and usually means they cast their votes based on gut-feel. And the simple fact is that things are insufficiently-bad for a slight majority of voters, that the status-quo will almost be always be favoured amongst swing-voters.

People are generally very risk (and therefore change) averse.

Whatever the outcome, lets hope that the losing-side affords the outcome a little more respect, than the SNP have afforded the Indyref result.
 
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One thing I found interesting was the extent to which Ipos/ Mori pushed me for an answer once they were satisfied I intended voting. I'm sure if this were a normal 'student' survey they'd have accepted 'don't know', and I'm equally sure that had I stood my ground they'd have accepted that. But I said that if I had to vote tomorrow (the proposition that was put to me) then clearly don't know isn't an option, so basically I agreed that at the moment I'd take the risk and vote for 'leave'. In truth, they probably have elicited my intention. I mention this because I looked at their most recent poll and it was 57-33-8 (I assume there's rounding errors in the BBC's reporting as it adds up to 98) but leaving that aside their reporting of 8% undecided is lower than other pollsters. I suspect Ipos/ Mori might be closer to the true picture though by the pushing for the preference. Most undecideds when they're forced into a decision will break for the business as usual option (I'm probably going against the grain)

The smart play I reckon is to try and work out what the polling is and then apply an 80/20 split (it could even be closer to 90/10). I think we'll see something like 58/42. I wouldn't be shocked to see stay nudge a fraction of 60 though, and 4/1 is probably value (just). I'd be curious to know if there's any spread. The rogue element however has to come from a terror attack or a major immigration story though, that could throw a spanner into the whole thing big time as it's clearly the most inflamatory sub-issue and the one most likely to provoke a short term emotional sentiment

The other possibility at 18/1 is that the 'leave' campaign realising that the game is up, becomes a bit fractious in the final week of campaigning and starts falling out with each other (always possible with Falange and Boris at the helm). This could lead to them shading 65% yet, and pretty well replicating the result of 1975. There is a generation of people aged 50 and under who've only ever known the EU and might be particularly nervous about standing on our own (something that needn't have applied in the 70's) and there's also tremendous uncertainty in America at the moment about just what's going to happen there in November. With so much 'noise' in the global system the instinct is to seek the cover of a crowd rather than stand alone
 
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I'm voting out. The end result isn't the point. It's what you believe in.

Junckers arrogant intervention helped remind me of the pure arrogance of this useless unelected body (his comments re Austria were no better). The joke is that if the eru was a country then it couldn't join the Eu

i don't but the economic scare stories at all. They are flimsy to say the least . Osbournes so called calculations are a joke
 
Regarding a terror attack: Daesh or whoever are surely aware that an attack during the run-up to the referendum would promote the chance of us leaving the EU; and that being the case, given the doom-laden rhetoric spouted by EU bigwigs in the event of a Brexit, would also increase the destabilization of Europe that Daesh crave. So one assumes that the intelligence services are wise to the possibility of a 'big one' being planned before June 23rd.

As expected, the Referendum campaign has been a wholly unedifying spectacle with opinions left, right and centre being imposed on a bewildered electorate as fact. Bewilderment is a turn-off I think it's a sporting bet that this will translate to a lower turn-out on polling day than the current favourite of 60.01-65%. 55.01-60 at 5.3 and <55 at 6.6 both make some appeal

There's been bits of 6.0 (5/1) laid on Leave recently and that makes more appeal than 1/6 Remain. Four weeks is a lifetime in Politics

Me, I'm still undecided:

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went

In through the out door or out through the in door? Tiddly-widdly-widdly-pouff-pouff-puff:confused:
 
I'm guessing the increase could be down to the panic of the Europeans that it might not be as easy to get over here after June 23rd.

Meanwhile, David Blunkett is using this opportunity to tell us about Labours immigration record, and how we shouldn't turn into fortress Britain. This could shave half a point off the leave odds too.:)
 
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With th sort of revelations this morning, it's pretty fair to say that both major party leaders are campaigning (in one case very reluctantly) for something they don't believe in
 
I view it slightly differently. Both sides want tighter border controls, but only one side is prepared to jettison the EU entirely, to achieve that aim.

It is a truism that many undesirables heading for the UK, are currently filtered-out the system by other EU countries, long before they can reach our shores. Will that first-line-of-defence still work so effectively, once we are out of the EU? I'm not so sure, in which case wouldn't this dilute our security - at least in the short-term?

I guess we could always use the "£350M a week we send to Brussels" to cover the cost of beefing-up our Border Agency......though I'm pretty sure that most of that is already ear-marked for improving the NHS, helping Manufacturing industry, introducing a tax-cut, improving education, creating growth and - presumably - buying a giant, fu*ck-off wand.
 
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You have to wonder if the Leave group are having second thoughts about letting Johnson use their campaign as a vehicle for his coup attempt.
 
Grasshopper said:
It is a truism that many undesirables heading for the UK, are currently filtered-out the system by other EU countries, long before they can reach our shores. Will that first-line-of-defence still work so effectively, once we are out of the EU? I'm not so sure, in which case wouldn't this dilute our security - at least in the short-term?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how true this is? So far as I can see the Greeks and Italians are saying "nothing for you here' we'll process your arrival but otherwise here's a map **** off north". 150,000 of today's figure of 333,000 were non-EU citizens. To be honest, our strongest line of defence should be the English Channel. I tend to agree however that households we'll never see a penny of the money we're supposed to be saving and the Treasury will swallow the bloody lot up.

I'm not a 'leave' voter of particularly strong convinction in truth, but the EU seems like its a rotting and decadent self-serving bureaucracy, and that the future lies in the far east and there might be a chance we can get something of a first mover advantage if we're brave enough.
 
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You quote "immigrant" figures, Warbler. I said "undesirables". They're not really the same thing, though I get your overall point.
 
Fair enough, they aren't the same thing. Having said that, a couple of the Paris attackers were processed through Greece weren't they?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...8a7231-062d-4185-bb27-cc7295d35415_story.html

I think "undesirables" has shades of desirability about them too though.

We can probably all agree that Jihadi terrorists fit the description of "undesirable", but how exactly do you screen these when they destroy all documentation and lie about their identities. The answer is to refuse transit, but that causes a log jam. So far as I can see though the points of arrival are processing them whilst encouraging them to leave the country concerned. I don't know the answer, but have we seen any terrorists arrested by Greece and Italy upon arrival yet? I seem to recall that during the debate about national ID cards the terrorist threat argument was exposed given that it was revealed that only a tiny fraction of terrorists are ever identified at border crossings, and that's when we're looking for them, as opposed to some over worked, ouzo swigging, redundant Greek fisherman manning the local police station, and just stamping papers.

"name?"
"Abu Mohammd"
"Ah yes another one. Country?"
"Syria or Iraq, which ever is easiest"
"Oh we'll go with Iraq this time. Here's your stamp, here's your map to Germany. And if someone wishes you 'good luck' don't say 'thank you' it doesn't end well"

There's also another issue of course about low skilled and poorly educated migrants. Do we say that someone becomes 'desirable' by virtue of not being able to prove that they're terrorists? I'm not so sure that we do. Naturally it leads you into points systems and key skill workers etc It's what the Americans do. They've taken just 2500 last time i checked (Nov 2015) but they're very carefully cherry picking them.

I can accept that bracketing these people as 'undesirable' looks callous, but by the same token they don't automatically become 'desirable' either. I can accept that countries like Germany who are experiencing population decline might need to look at this, but the UK doesn't. We're producing enough poorly skilled and badly educated of our own without needing to import them and then take on the costs of training them
 
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That's pretty weird economics warbler. If the treasury is not having to pay that sum over to the Eu; you see it one way or another.

i agree with your description though. I also think that the idea of us reforming from within is simply hopeful and no more. Old Europe is sclerotic.

One really outstanding aspect to the remain campaign is that it offers no hope of any future benefits. There is no development or initiative to grasp and say that will improve this or that. Nothing. That is seriously damning imo. It's as you were and lump it.
 
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clivex said:
That's pretty weird economics warbler. If the treasury is not having to pay that sum over to the Eu; you see it one way or another.
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Years of cynicism Clive

I actually remember a little sketch from Yes Minister which kind of captured it well.

Hacker is explaining to Sir Humphrey that the government works out what its spending programme is, and the Treasury then raises the taxes to finance it. A horrified Sir Humphrey explains that this isn't how it works and nor should he ever consider such a foolhardy idea. He explains that the job of the Treasury is to work out what it can get away with, and then sets about raising the tax to that level regardless of whether it covers spending or not.

In so-called political science, its a variant on something called the 'Overton Window' which is a range within which policies must fall in order for you to stay electable, aka 'what can I get away with', having established the current level of spending/ tax and conditioned us to it, I doubt the Treasury is about to start handing it back
 
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Doesn't make sense though. If they don't "hand it back" it goes somewhere doesn't it? Pay down the deficit. Spend on NHS whatever
 
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