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Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the EU?


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I'm pretty sure we'll vote to stay.

When the referendum comes, we'll have all the major parties supporting 'stay'. There isn't a credible voice supporting 'leave'.
 
Vote Leave, Take Control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=0tItgGcWVHw

Another pro-sovereignty group was announced yesterday. As you can see from the video there are going to be some varying approaches taken by the Leave campaign; the message sought to emphasise the positive, no mention of immigration but plenty about Britain's future spending potential (a climate of austerity could prove to be a most fertile ground for such language).


Tear down the EU and start over, produce a plan for cooperation that serves the continent's nation states rather than the ambitions of Brussels and Berlin. Evolve at a pace which respects the voter, not the "project". I hope that the the UK's leaving can help to bring home this reality for those who are left in the club so to speak.
 
I'm pretty sure we'll vote to stay.

When the referendum comes, we'll have all the major parties supporting 'stay'. There isn't a credible voice supporting 'leave'.
I think you are underestimating the wave of anti-establishment sentiment sweeping the world at the moment. I dont think what established parties want counts for as much at the moment as it has. And there are plenty of voices within each of the established parties loudly advocating leaving. Corbyn himself will damn Europe with faint praise. And look at what is going on in Europe at the moment. It is a disaster. It has always been dysfunctional but at the moment it is beyond shambolic.

I am pro European but I find it hard to get excited about Europe at the moment. I assume I am not alone in that. On the other side, Eurosceptics are energised.

Maybe things will change as we get closer to the date but as things stand I dont see it.
 
I'm pretty sure we'll vote to stay.
When the referendum comes, we'll have all the major parties supporting 'stay'. There isn't a credible voice supporting 'leave'.

Immigration will be a huge and possibly decisive factor. People against it tend to keep quiet, like tories embarrassed to admit they are tories, but they can vote in silence.
 
Immigration will be a huge and possibly decisive factor. People against it tend to keep quiet, like tories embarrassed to admit they are tories, but they can vote in silence.

Yep. This seems to have happened at the election and could well happen here. It's what frustrates me most about the ukip and daily mail jibes you always see everywhere the moment someone voices a concern. Rather than talk and educate, it seems far easier just to mock and belittle.
 
I was a pro European liberal but not anymore. I still strongly believe in greater social justice in Britain and more state spending but the centre right appeals more to me than the hard left.
 
I think you are underestimating the wave of anti-establishment sentiment sweeping the world at the moment. I dont think what established parties want counts for as much at the moment as it has. And there are plenty of voices within each of the established parties loudly advocating leaving. Corbyn himself will damn Europe with faint praise. And look at what is going on in Europe at the moment. It is a disaster. It has always been dysfunctional but at the moment it is beyond shambolic.

I am pro European but I find it hard to get excited about Europe at the moment. I assume I am not alone in that. On the other side, Eurosceptics are energised.

Maybe things will change as we get closer to the date but as things stand I dont see it.
Always a danger to look at the activists as measures of public opinion, though. I think in this case, the UK's inherent conservatism will work for it and we'll stay. Economically the stay side will have most of the arguments, whilst leave will probably start with the kind of language Nick mentions above, but quickly realise it doesn't get through to the public and switch to their one argument that does in immigration. Then Farage will come to the fore and his divisiveness will work heavily against them. In the end, a 10-point win for stay, similar to the Scottish referendum. And also like that one, this may not be the end of the issue.
 
Always a danger to look at the activists as measures of public opinion, though. I think in this case, the UK's inherent conservatism will work for it and we'll stay. Economically the stay side will have most of the arguments, whilst leave will probably start with the kind of language Nick mentions above, but quickly realise it doesn't get through to the public and switch to their one argument that does in immigration. Then Farage will come to the fore and his divisiveness will work heavily against them. In the end, a 10-point win for stay, similar to the Scottish referendum. And also like that one, this may not be the end of the issue.
You've got a point about our inherent conservatism. Maybe itll come down to a battle between that historic reality versus this new mood of exasperation and anti establishment feeling I was speaking about before. I think that is a real phenomenon. Its easy to say only a tiny fraction of the population are voting for Corbyn etc but I think there is a risk of underestimating how pissed off people are with the status quo.
 
The EU is a sham. Vote no to let a new Europe take root

Cameron’s battle for reform is a lost cause. Britain should walk out to secure the deal we really want

Simon Jenkins
Wednesday 14 October 2015


It is May 2017. The British voters have just done the unthinkable: they have decided, by a narrow margin, to snub David Cameron and “leave” the European Union. Trafalgar Square has gone wild with union jacks. Cameron’s ham-fisted renegotiation has won no real concessions from Britain’s EU partners. Project Fear has failed to convince a majority that Brexit would “cost every Briton £450 a year”.

The establishment assumption that Britons always vote with their wallets has proved a fallacy. The poll is a triumph for disruption.

After the panic and the howling in high places, what happens next? The in lobby’s bluff that we should stay in “a reformed EU” has been called, because it turned out there was no reform. Now parliament must be summoned to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act. The government must activate article 20 of the Lisbon treaty, legalising a member’s decision to withdraw. But it will also activate article 50 on the two-year timetable for renegotiation.

That will instigate the mother of all deals: between a traumatised EU and a shattered Cameron, cheered on (if he stays) by a gleeful Tory party. Trade between Britain and the rest of the EU is massively advantageous to both sides, marginally more so to the rest of the EU. There are fierce arguments over fish, farming, banking regulation and migration, as now, but there is no question that a new single market deal must emerge.

The options for such a deal are set out in dispassionate detail by Roger Bootle in his new edition of The Trouble with Europe. They embrace such arcane creations as a European “single-market-lite”, a Norwegian option, a Swiss option, an American option, and a free trade area with no labour mobility. Bootle’s guess is for the last, an ad hoc deal like those nowadays between the EU and the rest of the world.

Anyway, there would have to be a new treaty that meets, to some degree, Cameron’s original negotiating demands. They embraced parliamentary control over EU laws, an end to open borders, reduced regulation and safeguards for the City of London. The new treaty would be put, as is customary in the EU, to a second referendum.

Britain may still withdraw from the council of ministers, where its much-vaunted “top-table influence” has had zero effect. It could leave the commission, though for sure its lobbyists would remain in Brussels. The British economy might save £27bn in euro-regulations and/or lose 9.7% of gross domestic product, such being the spurious statistics now championed by each side. But parliament would have regained a substantial degree of autonomy.

One significant outcome of such a new deal is that the rest of non-euro Europe would be goaded into following Britain’s path. This would almost certainly be fed into the EU’s own next round of treaty amendments. Meanwhile the eurozone itself would be jolted. Germany would come to terms with its incompetent management of the zone. It might push the Mediterranean states into floating currencies and solidify a more homogeneous European core.

The essential point is that none of this would happen if in 2017 Britain votes to stay in the EU. Voting for the status quo would prop up the Lisbon treaty, that hoary monument to “ever-closer” federalism. It would exacerbate continued conflict between the need for free trade and today’s fervid Euro-nationalism. It would mean no change.

Last year’s close-run Scottish referendum was an object lesson. It panicked London into offering perhaps half of what a pro-independence vote would have won. It nudged devolution-lite towards independence-lite. A yes vote would not have secured true independence: it would have led to added layers of Scottish sovereignty in a more distant relationship with London. Cameron was shrewd last summer to make serious concessions to the Scots, and would be shrewd now to make more, including financial autonomy that might dent the nationalists’ popularity. Were the EU (which means Germany) equally wise it would treat Cameron as he treated the Scots. But there is no sign of that happening. Cameron’s demand for a “fundamental change in relations with Europe” was not some rightwing agenda. It chimed with at least half of British opinion. Europe’s trouble is that its institutions are not flexible enough to respond to such demands. It is a statist oligarchy.

Only by voting to “leave the EU” will Britain open up a real opportunity to negotiate a new deal with Europe. Such a vote would initiate not just a retreat from federalism, but an escape from the perpetual misery that is European policy at present. Rather than hacking through an ancient jungle, negotiators would seek new agreement across a meadow cleared of weeds.

Bootle rightly pleads for a distinction between Europe’s “identity, culture and civilisation” and the “particular set of political arrangements and institutions” by which Europe is governed. The EU’s fixation on ever-closer union was fit for purpose half a century ago. Today the common currency has driven a quarter of Europe’s young people into unemployment. Anyone who goes to Greece and sees the collapse into indigent dependency of a once-proud nation cannot cheer the euro or sing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy outside the European Central Bank.

Seen from Britain the EU has become a sham. It cannot handle Syrian migration. When George Osborne talks trade in China, the EU does not get a mention. When Cameron sends his drones to bomb Syria, he does not seek common ground with EU defence chiefs. The EU has long ignored, or rather harboured, personal and corporate tax evaders.

Some version of a new single market must be found. But no search will even begin if Britain votes to stay in the EU. Things will dribble on as before. Only a vote to leave offers negotiators the leverage they now so clearly lack. It would be a vote not to leave absolutely, rather for a new relationship between the nations of Europe and their supranational governors.

Any agnostic observer of the “European” argument must see sense in the two-referendum solution. Pro- and anti-Europeans can surely agree. They might fall out over a second referendum, but not over a first. Cameron has lost the battle for reform. A British vote to leave has become the precondition for a new Europe.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/14/eu-europe-britain-vote-no-cameron-reform-deal
 
Just saying the British won't vote with their wallets is an admission the that author actually thinks their wallets will suffer. He then assumes Germany and France will do the opposite and think only of their wallets, rushing to do deals with Britain straight away, which doesn't really make sense.
As for 'it would be a vote not to leave absolutely' he's lost me completely. It's one of the poorest articles I've read.
 
See @Ubik, again I see your point about inherent conservatism, but I think a lot of people will instinctively see the European Question in terms quite similar to what Simon Jenkins outlined above. Not as eloquently of course, but basically the same: that a vote for staying together is a vote for sclerosis, which is how, I think, many see the status quo. And a vote for leaving would not be as catastrophic as many make out because ultimately they need us as much as we need them, and it is in nobody's interest to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It would serve nobody's interest, for example, to throw up trade barriers and tariffs between us - so the notion that we would lose the market on our doorstep becomes a red herring.

In essence, I think people feel that the implications of a vote to leave are not as dramatic as they are being told. Which I think is the main point Jenkins is making above. He is right that, in Europe, when a vote goes the way it wasnt supposed to go, it usually means another vote. But even if it didnt, we could arguably leave and retain most of the best things we get out of Europe, because those things are advantageous to Europe as well. Yes we would lose influence on the future direction of Europe but do people really care about that? Its fairly intangible, hard to measure the benefits. Most people probably think, given how much they hate Europe and its laws, the influence we have had while on the inside has not been worthwhile anyway. How much worse could it get? Meanwhile, they get something far more tangible: the ability to keep out those dirty foreigners that are at the root of all our society's problems.
 
Six Tory Cabinet ministers demand freedom to campaign for Brexit

The Conservative secretaries of state are calling on David Cameron to allow Cabinet members to publically back an “out” vote

By Ben Riley-Smith, Tim Ross and Christopher Hope
18 Oct 2015


Six Conservative Cabinet ministers have privately demanded that David Cameron allows them to campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, in the biggest split yet over the Prime Minister’s in-out referendum.

The Tory secretaries of state are calling on Mr Cameron to waive “collective responsibility” in the run-up to the referendum, allowing Cabinet members to publically back an “out” vote.

One minister told The Telegraph that it would be “insane” for Mr Cameron to expect openly europsceptic ministers to campaign for Britain to remain in the EU.

Another said it would lead to a “bitterly divided party” and described any attempt to maintain Cabinet collective responsibility ahead of the referendum as “unsustainable”.

It came amid suggestions that Mr Cameron is preparing to “purge” his Cabinet of eurosceptics including Chris Grayling, the Leader of the Commons, in a bid to ensure unity in the build-up to the referendum.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...rs-demand-freedom-to-campaign-for-Brexit.html



Unless Cameron intends to hold the referendum pretty damn soon, he'll only be only adding fuel to the fire of the Out campaign.

I joined Vote Leave earlier today as it happens. How active my participation will be i am not yet sure, but it goes without saying that this could be a defining political moment for decades to come.
 
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I joined Vote Leave earlier today as it happens. How active my participation will be i am not yet sure, but it goes without saying that this could be a defining political moment for decades to come.

I've been lifelong pro-europe, and economically it's a no-brainer, yet I'm close to switching because of immigration, however unpopular a view that may be on the caf. Can I ask why you're for leaving Nick?
 
I've been lifelong pro-europe, and economically it's a no-brainer, yet I'm close to switching because of immigration, however unpopular a view that may be on the caf. Can I ask why you're for leaving Nick?

There are a number of reasons, our lack of control over immigration is among them (government should have the ability reduce the flow of economic migrants if the projected total could be exceeds both capacity and effective integration) but i would look upon it as but one piece of supporting evidence for leaving. I think there is a fundamental conflict between what Britain is prepared to accept in the way of common EU policy and where its leading member states wish to take it, a differing mindset which will increasingly push the UK into a diminished position. Foreign relations and defence, justice, tax harmonisation, these trappings of a nation state are not what we signed up for back in 1975.

At some point over the years people convinced themselves that we are incapable of running a modern, internationally oriented democracy on our own, this is patent nonsense. Contrary to the scaremongering voiced by Alan Johnson and Caroline Lucas cooperation with our neighbours will still be possible, such interactions will however be free of unhealthy compromise or demands from Berlin. With the billions liberated from Brussels orbit we can invest to bring about greater prosperity, strive for advances both at home and around the globe.

We have in recent years been witness to the lamentable leadership of this European Union time and again: the instability in North Africa, the treatment of Greece, the conflict in Ukraine and the ongoing migrant crisis. Security, foreign affairs, human rights, the economy and duty of care for its own, the great projects has failed repeatedly.

Europe can lay claim to wondrous cultures and amazing advances, why then should this be the only means of expressing our camaraderie? The EU is deserving neither our loyalty nor our faith, the United Kingdom can help to pioneer something better.
 
Thanks Nick. I think suggesting people claim we "would be incapable of running a modern, internationally oriented democracy on our own", is a bit of overstatement though, the talk there is mostly about whether we would be economically better off or not. Also the UK seems to have done quite well cocking up foreign policy on it's own, without European help, but I agree it should be our sovereign right to do so, however badly.
I've thought for a few years we had quietly passed a tipping point due to the accession of new states more interested in economic union than political, but I admit that now I'm not so sure. I have an outside hope that Turkey might be the key. Populous enough to break the Franco-German voting block, different enough that current members would start to see the union as more about free trade. And scary enough to force a re-think on free movement too. Ah well, just a thought.
 
VoteLeave are expecting the Bank of England to put itself on the side of the In campaign tomorrow i think.




Thanks Nick. I think suggesting people claim we "would be incapable of running a modern, internationally oriented democracy on our own", is a bit of overstatement though,

Possibly, i was rather ticked off at the time, having just listened to some astounding condescension in the latest Politics Weekly podcat.

http://download.guardian.co.uk/audi...gnl.pol.151015.rs.politics_weekly_euyouth.mp3
 
Interesting article in The Guardian yesterday:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/datablog/2015/oct/19/simon-hix-is-the-uk-marginalised-in-the-eu

Is the UK marginalised in the EU?

One key issue in the debate about whether the UK should remain in or leave the EU is how far the UK is currently marginalised in Europe. As Nigel Lawson put it in the Timesin May 2013: “While never ‘at the heart of Europe’ … we are now becoming increasingly marginalised as we are doomed to being consistently outvoted by the eurozone bloc.”

How much evidence is there in support of this claim?

One good starting point is a dataset on the passage of 125 pieces of EU legislation between 1996 and 2008 put together by Robert Thomson, at the University of Strathclyde, and his collaborators.

Robert and his colleagues interviewed over 350 decision-makers to identify the positions of the member state governments, the EU commission, and the European parliament on each piece of law (on a 0-100 scale on each issue). For example, in a piece of legislation in 2005 on sugar subsidies the positions ranged from stopping all subsidies (supported by Denmark and Sweden) to keeping current levels (supported by Poland).

The UK’s position was closer to Denmark and Sweden, as was the outcome, which meant a substantial reduction in subsidy levels. The team also identified the location of the final policy outcome, the existing policy, and the importance (salience) each government attached to each issue.

What does “marginalised” mean in this context?

If a government is very powerful, we can assume that policy outcomes are likely to be close to the policy positions of this government. If, on the other hand, a government is marginalised, either because it is not powerful or because it is isolated from a deal between other governments, then final outcomes are likely to be further from the positions of this government. A government could be “lucky”, by simply having a policy position that is the same as that of many other governments. Nevertheless, by aggregating across a large number of issues on a large number of pieces of legislation, the effect of such luck should wash out.

Figure 1 below shows the average “distance” between a government’s policy position (on the 0-100 scale) and the final outcomes on over 300 issues involved. Out of 29 EU actors (27 governments plus the commission and parliament), the UK was on average the fourth closest actor to final policy outcomes, and performed much better than France, Germany and the EU commission. So, far from marginalised.

But perhaps the UK government was only successful on issues it did not particularly care about?

Figure 2 shows the average distances from outcomes on only those issues for which each actor felt very strongly (which they rated as “highly salient”). The results are even more positive from a UK perspective: the UK was even closer to the average policy outcome on these issues.

baa9caf4-beed-4b58-9bb7-2a408ffc309d-620x494.png


However, we should be careful not to infer too much from these results.

What could be happening on some issues is that the UK wants only a minor policy change from a current policy while some other governments want more integrationist or regulatory policies. Then a compromise deal leads to an outcome that is more integrationist or regulatory than the UK would prefer, but is nonetheless closer to the UK’s position than the positions of the other governments.

There is some evidence, nevertheless, that this is not the case.

For example, only 27% of the time the UK government’s position was closer to the existing (status quo) than the finally adopted policy, whereas 73% of the time the UK preferred the adopted policy to the status quo. In comparison, 35% of the time the German government policy preferred the status quo to the adopted policy, and 65% of the time they preferred the adopted policy to the status quo.

But what if we look “under the bonnet”, at particular policy areas?

As Figure 3 below shows, policy outcomes are close to UK positions on tax, social affairs (such as on the working time directive), justice and home affairs (such as data protection), transport, fisheries, and migration (such as rules on the free movement of people and common asylum policies), whereas the UK government was quite some distance from policy outcomes on internal market issues (including financial services regulation), agriculture, and external trade. And a more detailed analysis reveals that there are many specific issues on which the UK did relatively well in terms of being close to the outcomes, as well as many on which it did relatively poorly in these terms. The above mentioned reduction in subsidies for sugar production in 2005 is an example of a UK success, whereas the UK had opposed reducing sugar subsidies in 2000 and lost. Likewise, the UK opposed a regulation from 2000 on liberalising the market for bananas, which has had significant implications for developing countries. But, the data retention directive of 2005 was a UK success.

183b524c-d49b-4601-8979-9ab578371a66-540x476.png


Overall, using the best available data on EU decision-making, there is strong evidence that on average the UK has not been marginalised in the making of EU laws. The UK government has been closer to final policy outcomes than most other governments. This is also true for policy issues the UK government has been particularly concerned about, although there is some evidence that on certain policy issues, including internal market and trade, the UK has been less content with final EU decisions.

But there are some important caveats to these findings.

This dataset only covers policies that are subject to the main EU decision-making procedures, so not the EU budget or international treaties. The data only goes up to 2008, and obviously a lot has happened since then. Hence, to address the issue of whether the UK has become more marginalised in the EU since the eurozone crises and the EU’s response to the crisis I will be considering other types of evidence and data in future posts.
 
Could I ask, as a non-British non-European, why is immigration being considered by some as such a problem in the UK? Is it a cultural issue, about jobs, national security, or something else entirely?
 
Could I ask, as a non-British non-European, why is immigration being considered by some as such a problem in the UK? Is it a cultural issue, about jobs, national security, or something else entirely?

I think one of the primary concerns among some is that they have multi-culturalism isn't working, and they're concerning about the idea of radicalisation in some areas. There are perhaps some legitimate complaints in that even many moderate Muslims, for example, will sometimes hold some beliefs that are very outdated in Britain, but it's also very exaggerated at times as well.

I think another concern among many is that they feel Britain just has too many people coming over: net migration is incredibly high admittedly, and with the refugee crisis doesn't look like coming down at all, despite the Tories pledges that it would.

It's definitely something that varies from area to area. I've not particularly noticed it at all, but then I'm in Scotland, and immigration here is much less of an issue, hence support for the EU often being a little bit more popular, and UKIP almost being a non-entity.
 
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/28/us-britain-eu-usa-idUSKCN0SM2LS20151028

Exclusive: U.S. trade czar says Britain would lose on trade outside the EU

The United States is not keen on pursuing a separate free trade deal with Britain if it leaves the European Union, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said on Wednesday, the first public comments from a senior U.S. official on the matter.

British voters are due to decide before the end of 2017 whether their country should remain in the EU, and opinion polls show rising support for leaving the bloc.

Froman's comments undermine a key economic argument deployed by proponents of a British exit, who say the United Kingdom would prosper on its own and be able to secure bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with trading partners.

The United States is Britain's biggest export market after the EU, buying more than $54 billion in goods from the United Kingdom in 2014.

"I think it's absolutely clear that Britain has a greater voice at the trade table being part of the EU, being part of a larger economic entity," Froman told Reuters in an interview, adding that EU membership gives Britain more leverage in negotiations.

"We're not particularly in the market for FTAs with individual countries. We're building platforms ... that other countries can join over time."

If Britain left the EU, Froman said, it would face the same tariffs and trade barriers as other countries outside the U.S. free trade network.

"We have no FTA with the U.K. so they would be subject to the same tariffs – and other trade-related measures - as China, or Brazil or India," he said.

Washington has just sealed a major trade deal with 11 other Pacific nations and wants to wrap up negotiations with the EU on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) by the end of next year.

The United States is Britain's second-largest export market for vehicles outside the EU.

If Britain is not part of the EU and therefore not part of TTIP, British cars exported to the United States, such as those made by Jaguar Land Rover, would face a 2.5 percent tariff and could be at a disadvantage to German and Italian-made competitors.

British exports of fuel and chocolate could also be at a disadvantage if TTIP abolishes tariffs on those products.
 
At no point during Obama's time in office have i heard a US official demonstrate the least understanding of Euroscepticism and why it exists, the above article only reaffirms this belief for me. Mr Froman would also appear to be under the misapprehension that TTIP goes without criticism on this side of the Atlantic, when in fact even UKIP has some qualms (the party most in favour of deregulation at present).

Considering what compromises America is prepared to make in other areas of foreign policy, i don't suppose that Washington cares over much about the failings of the European Union, so long as Brussels is conveniently at the head of a grouping of smaller states. Is this merely an empty threat borne out of displeasure, or an accurate prediction of the future? Brexit would be unknown territory for all parties involved, yet there is no need for relations to become hostile.
 
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Its very obviously siding with the stay in campaign but you have to ask yourself how likely is it that the US is going to start charging UK exporters tariffs when their exporters would then be compromised through reciprocal tariffs. They may not want to see the UK leave because its easier to deal with the EU but if it comes down to having to, for the sake of their own exporters they will.
 
Could I ask, as a non-British non-European, why is immigration being considered by some as such a problem in the UK? Is it a cultural issue, about jobs, national security, or something else entirely?
It's pretty crowded here, there is a housing shortage, there are cultural problems ... and people can be racist.
 
Could I ask, as a non-British non-European, why is immigration being considered by some as such a problem in the UK? Is it a cultural issue, about jobs, national security, or something else entirely?

It's mostly about strain on our social services, health, education etc, and not enough housing. Culturally I think it's accepted in many ways, there is a perception though of immigrants coming here from the EU and claiming benefits, regardless of the actual facts. There's also a perception that the last Labour government was lax on immigration, the reality is that unless the UK leaves the EU there isn't a whole lot to be done on that front by any UK government. The rules are tough for non EU nationals in my experience, that's if you follow them.
 
Could I ask, as a non-British non-European, why is immigration being considered by some as such a problem in the UK? Is it a cultural issue, about jobs, national security, or something else entirely?

It doesn't help that our two most circulated newspapers paint all foreigners as thieving parasites on society. The problem is that a lot of people who are going through difficulties will read these papers and see immigrants as the reason for all of their problems.

The only good arguments I have seen in favour of leaving the EU are that it unfairly discriminates against non-EU members. To be honest though, this is usually just a veil for the mostly unpersuasive arguments surrounding sovereignty, law (which a lot of euro-sceptics don't really understand), economics and immigration.

There is a debate to be had about levels of immigration, which is important to control, but it is not a significant enough factor for me to leave the EU. The whole lack of integration is really a problem for the adult generation. Children and teens from all backgrounds seem to get on fine.
 
Cameron's list of euro-demands is out at last. Nothing on the key issue of immigration, except to delay the payment of in-work benefits. I can see that reducing immigration slightly, but the principle of free migration is otherwise completely unchallenged. Will that be enough to satisfy the Tories say Out brigade? Will it be enough to swing many votes in the referendum? Will he even get an agreement on it in the first place? My initial thoughts are no, no, and no, but it's early days yet, plenty of discussion to come.
 
If immigration isn't mentioned then he's bottled it. I will be voting out when we get the chance.
 
No no and yes. If he isnt mentioning immigration it is presumably because he knows he wont get anything on immigration. I imagine his list of demands has been compiled with a view to avoiding asking for anything he doesnt think he'll be able to get.

Its four things:
  • Protect the single market.
  • "Write competitiveness into the DNA of the whole European Union”.
  • Exclude Britain from the idea of “ever closer union" and strengthen the role of national parliaments in European lawmaking.
  • Restricting access to welfare payments for migrant workers.
I would say that is just about the minimum he could get away with asking for, while still calling it a renegotiation. I think he will be able to secure those things, or at least fudge them enough to argue he got them.
 
Cameron's list of euro-demands is out at last. Nothing on the key issue of immigration, except to delay the payment of in-work benefits. I can see that reducing immigration slightly, but the principle of free migration is otherwise completely unchallenged. Will that be enough to satisfy the Tories say Out brigade? Will it be enough to swing many votes in the referendum? Will he even get an agreement on it in the first place? My initial thoughts are no, no, and no, but it's early days yet, plenty of discussion to come.
He avoids immigration because he can't do anything about it. We all know he can't, just as he knows he can't, but he'll carry on pretending he can and quietly hopes no-one will notice he's achieved nothing.

Problem with that is that immigration is the main cause of concern for most in this country. He'll end up with an "out" vote if he doesn't watch himself.
 
Cameron's comments of leaving threatening our "national security" were a bit embarrassing. Way too over the top.
 
Newsnight reckon that the prospective higher national minimum wage would cancel out a lot of immigrant's benefit cuts anyway, so it won't really put them off coming at all. Not that there aren't a load of other factors anyway. Good luck with selling this to your backbenchers Dave.
 
Newsnight reckon that the prospective higher national minimum wage would cancel out a lot of immigrant's benefit cuts anyway, so it won't really put them off coming at all. Not that there aren't a load of other factors anyway. Good luck with selling this to your backbenchers Dave.
His backbenchers don't really matter, let's be honest. If "stay" wins, they'll have to shut up for a while.
 
They will matter to him alright though, the tories aren't slow to knife their leader when it suits them. And changes like that change politics.

Yeah, I think they're the only ones he's thinking about tbh. He seems a really weak leader just trying to maintain power than doing anything with it.
 
If he cared about his backbenchers he wouldn't be bungling this renegotiation with such apparent enthusiasm. If these early stages in the proceedings are anything to go by, Cameron's ineptitude ought to be a real plus for the Leave campaign: you've got daft scaremongering, no significant treaty changes and weak window dressing.

Limitations on migrant benefits are a mostly punitive measure designed to create the illusion of action, as such they should be treated with the cynicism and contempt they deserve.


In other EU matters: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ut-money-faster-than-states-can-spend-it.html

 
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