EU referendum

[YPhrunts]

I'll be voting in because the EU has played a huge contribution in keeping peace in Europe.

My father lived through the 2nd World War as a young child. He went with my Grandmother, Auntie and Uncle from Gorton to live in Hadfield at the outset of the war. He remembered being back in Gorton one night when an air raid took place. He said he was carried to an air raid shelter by his uncle as the search lights went up and the guns were shooting at the German bombers. After that my gran never let him go back to Gorton while the war was still on. I tell this story because when I really think about it it wasn't that long ago.

I've studied a bit of history, in particular the two world wars. The utter carnage and devastation that took place cannot truly be comprehended.

It seems to me everyone thinks the world wars were so long ago that they bare little or no relevence to our current time but that's where I believe we are making a mistake.

Nigel Farage was asked in one of the debates about how he saw the EU in 20 years from now, and he gleefully envisaged an EU that had collapsed totally.

If we vote to leave it's not hard to envisage a domino affect.

Who are countries going to blame next when things aren't going well, and there's no EU to blame? Well we can always start blaming each other again. Anyone, as long as it's not ourselves.

For all it's faults the EU is surely better option than the sheer hell that preceeded it.

Immigration? The Economy? It's the peace stupid!

I'm interested to know what 'in' means to you. Is it 1/ a Europe that we constantly try to hinder or 2/ do you want a complete capitulation on everything from joining Schengen and the Euro , in other words complete integration?
If your answer is 1/ then I cannot really see the point of voting in because you don't really want to integrate fully.
If your answer is 2/ Then be prepared for anything the Union tells you to do in future. That might also mean your children being forced into conscription to support a European army. If you think that is far fetched just remember that Lithuania is about to introduce conscripton and another Eastern European state is discussing it. You may think this wonderful peace of which you have enjoyed under the protection of NATO will continue but Trump has put a question mark under that and Junker is prepared to tool up with a European army and give America the cold shoulder. Anything could happen after that. Your kids could be called up to go and fight a war for the benefit of bureacrats in Brussels. And you would have no reason to refuse it as you are happy to be part of it. Think carefully what you are doing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36565036

 

[Machiavelli]

Yes i think it is the key issue for many tbh

Not 'immigration' in itself of course. That's way too simplistic. We clearly need and want immigrants. But the system of immigration and our ability to control it is what is at stake. Yes I think that if we vote leave then immigration will have been a key factor.

Doh.

Yeah sorry mate, that was way too simplistic. I agree with everything you've said.

 

[bluethrunthru]

I'm interested to know what 'in' means to you. Is it 1/ a Europe that we constantly try to hinder or 2/ do you want a complete capitulation on everything from joining Schengen and the Euro , in other words complete integration?
If your answer is 1/ then I cannot really see the point of voting in because you don't really want to integrate fully.
If your answer is 2/ Then be prepared for anything the Union tells you to do in future. That might also mean your children being forced into conscription to support a European army. If you think that is far fetched just remember that Lithuania is about to introduce conscripton and another Eastern European state is discussing it. You may think this wonderful peace of which you have enjoyed under the protection of NATO will continue but Trump has put a question mark under that and Junker is prepared to tool up with a European army and give America the cold shoulder. Anything could happen after that. Your kids could be called up to go and fight a war for the benefit of bureacrats in Brussels. And you would have no reason to refuse it as you are happy to be part of it. Think carefully what you are doing.

Perhaps neither? Your points 1 and 2 both take a negative view on the EU with no positive offer.

Maybe the OP has a more positive view on what the EU means to him?

 

[halfcenturyup]

I never called anyone racist. I said the main issue for outers as shown by repeated polls was immigration, he and others disagreed despite evidence to the contrary.

Oh good God, the guy wasn't even replying to you. He replied to someone who said most people who think immigration is an issue hate economics and are racists (something like that, I can't even remember it was so long ago), then you chip in with your valid point about immigration being number one issue for most pepole who want out. Valid but completely irrelevant to the point being made. Why on God's green earth do people think just saying the same thing over and over makes it relevant?

 

[YPhrunts]

Perhaps neither? Your points 1 and 2 both take a negative view on the EU with no positive offer.

Maybe the OP has a more positive view on what the EU means to him?

There are no other assumptions to make other than points 1 or 2. Point 3 would be leaving and that would be the 'positive' alternative but he's not interested in that is he.
There is no abstention.
He has already stated his 'positive' reason for staying and he misunderstands the situation as two posters had already pointed out to him before me.

 

[TRUE BLUE NO1]

Whatever happens next week this referendum has showed the ugly side to the human race....whether its the horrible, terrible actions of one man this week or the sad words spoken by that Spanish lady in question time the other night who said...."I feel so offended....we're not the enemy Mr Gove"....or the lies/scare tactics of "both the "in" and "out" campaigns....whether we like it or not this has split the country and will continue to do so, long after this vote has happened and I could even see it isolate communities.(just like that Spanish person I mentioned above, who has been working here 14 years) This post isnt about supporting stay or leave.....I just look around at the debates, watch the news and listen to people at work talking about immigration etc, etc..... and just think........what a mess.....

 

[YPhrunts]

Whatever happens next week this referendum has showed the ugly side to the human race....whether its the horrible, terrible actions of one man this week or the sad words spoken by that Spanish lady in question time the other night who said...."I feel so offended....we're not the enemy Mr Gove"....or the lies/scare tactics of "both the "in" and "out" campaigns....whether we like it or not this has split the country and will continue to do so, long after this vote has happened and I could even see it isolate communities.(just like that Spanish person I mentioned above, who has been working here 14 years) This post isnt about supporting stay or leave.....I just look around at the debates, watch the news and listen to people at work talking about immigration etc, etc..... and just think........what a mess.....

I think exactly the same when I'm stuck in traffic jams every day somewhere in Kent, in fact ANYWHERE in Kent and I can see an endless line of cars in front of me while I waste my life watching the vehicle in front of me for ever and I think....who is it that wants to import more people into this country and ruin the quality of my life even more than it is already by encouraging yet more and more cars and less and less car parking spaces and I think .....what a mess.

 

[Leech]

I think exactly the same when I'm stuck in traffic jams every day somewhere in Kent, in fact ANYWHERE in Kent and I can see an endless line of cars in front of me while I waste my life watching the vehicle in front of me for ever and I think....who is it that wants to import more people into this country and ruin the quality of my life even more than it is already by encouraging yet more and more cars and less and less car parking spaces and I think .....what a mess.

Maybe those new people will pay for and build new roads.

 

[YPhrunts]

Maybe those new people will pay for and build new roads.

Right that will be even more agricultural land lost to concrete and tarmac and you would be happy that we will have to import even more food than we do already?
Our population to land mass ratio is already the highest in Europe apart from Cyprus and Gibraltar.

Where are you going to build more car parks in our villages and towns? There just is no more room to expand. I've had to return from shopping trips because I couldn't find a parking space.

Canterbury is a nightmare to navigate around and even further north in places like Brigg which used to be a pleasant Lincolnshire market town it has now become as congested as hell. The council are desperate to find more parking areas but there is just no space available.
It is estimated that we will have to build a city the size of Coventry every year just to stand still. And you want that?

 

[Manchester_lalala]

Right that will be even more agricultural land lost to concrete and tarmac and you would be happy that we will have to import even more food than we do already?
Our population to land mass ratio is already the highest in Europe apart from Cyprus and Gibraltar.

Where are you going to build more car parks in our villages and towns? There just is no more room to expand. I've had to return from shopping trips because I couldn't find a parking space.

Canterbury is a nightmare to navigate around and even further north in places like Brigg which used to be a pleasant Lincolnshire market town it has now become as congested as hell. The council are desperate to find more parking areas but there is just no space available.
It is estimated that we will have to build a city the size of Coventry every year just to stand still. And you want that?

I work in brigg sometimes and it is a bugger for parking.