We're not going to turn into North Korea, and I don't think anyone's really suggesting that, but May does definitely have an authoritarian streak in her, from the Snooper's Charter, to apparently altering the results of scientific stuff she didn't like (think it might have been drugs related), and I wouldn't be surprised if she wants to see us withdraw from the ECHR. I don't hold a lot of trust in the EU, but the idea of having that larger safety blanket if the Tories overstep their mark does feel a little bit reassuring.
EU Referendum | UK residents vote today.
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We're not going to turn into North Korea, and I don't think anyone's really suggesting that, but May does definitely have an authoritarian streak in her, from the Snooper's Charter, to apparently altering the results of scientific stuff she didn't like (think it might have been drugs related), and I wouldn't be surprised if she wants to see us withdraw from the ECHR. I don't hold a lot of trust in the EU, but the idea of having that larger safety blanket if the Tories overstep their mark does feel a little bit reassuring.
I'm saying between now and next election.
If Brexit succeeds than that suggests that the electorate will probably rally around the likes of Boris and Gove anyway.
The EU will never ever do a deal with the UK without the UK making concessions on such things as Visa restrictions. It is pure fantasy to believe that the UK can make such deals without making concessions. That's another example of why I truly believe that a large part of the Brexit campaign is misleading at best.
Not only that, a lot of the rules in respect of migrants and refugees are set by the European convention on human rights, which is completely separate from the EU. Is the UK also going to leave the European convention on human rights? Maybe the UK can leave the Geneva convention, UN and NATO for that matter.
If the Tories sans EU are going to make it so bad for everyone then isn't the perfect platform for Labour?
To be fair, Brexit will mean that Britain hard working taxpayers will stop paying for lazy MEP bureaucrats who never turn up to debates.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...meron-warns-UK-needs-politicians-turn-up.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...meron-warns-UK-needs-politicians-turn-up.html
The jury rests.
Singapore. Far higher GDP than the UK, higher standard of living, modern clean infrastructure, 10-15% tax and better weather all year round.
I don't think that using small states who are very rich makes sense to be fair. The likes of Singapore, Hong Kong, UAE, Qatar, Switzerland and Norway shouldn't be used in these types of debate when comparing the likes of Germany or UK.
Maybe so but it is pretty much a cultural vacuum. I prefer living in the UK as despite all its faults it has great creative and cultural influence on the world.
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It's probably not a fair comparison as the Singapore political model would be unlikely to work on a larger scale somewhere like the UK, especially where there is such a wide disparity between urban and rural life and a significant geographical wealth differential. There's still plenty we could learn from it though, not least the values of hard work as opposed to sitting around whinging about what the political classes have ever done for us. They do say you always get the government you deserve and if the UK is truly deserving of Johnson, Gove and Farage then it really is a lost cause.
Singapore's a little sterile but there's enough decent theatre, music, art exhibitions, great restaurants etc that gets over there to make it liveable as well as things like the F1, 7s rugby and plenty of local and regional culture within a short haul flight or ferry trip. Their creative influence in terms of electronics, programming, biochemistry, engineering and masteries such as water management are second to none, sure they may not make any decent TV but you can watch the best bits of everyone elses over there anyway, the world's a very small place these days. As for UK culture and creativity are we talking Britain's Got Talent, TOWIE and creative accounting or am I missing some of the good bits since I returned?
This is pretty much spot on.
But the Government doesn't have enough support to withdraw from the ECHR, not among Tories or the wider Commons. And were there ever to be such a policy, the whole point would be to replace it with a British Bill of Rights. The evidence for Brexit brining about widespread infringements of basic rights is either tenuous or wholly contrived.
Probably, although I'd be incredibly reluctant to trust the Tories with any such bill.
So, to screw Germans and make them pay their loan.
Why didn't UK volunteer to give 100b for free to Greeks. You would have loved it, I bet. After all, solidarity.
Just to show you are as fair and balanced as you claim in your arguments, do you care to give us a run through of the right wing groups elected by the other member countries? Then come back and explain how much worse UKIP are.
If it was just the elections to the EU Parliament it wouldn't really matter much because its just a talking shop but have you been keeping abreast of the politics across Europe, here is an article about the Austrian Presidential election candidate.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...iumph-presidential-poll-turmoil-norbert-hofer
This idea that being in the EU prevents the UK from becoming some new North Korea is taking a bit of a battering when you look at which parties are on the rise across the Channel.
Considering that UKIP are in the last position, I guess it is not hard to guess that the other right wing parties attend those meetings a bit more.
So you think the average Singaporean 'deserves' their fascist regime with a human rights record that stinks - while you enjoyed a low tax rate????
It never snowed in fecking April as it is here in Kent at the minute, I thought 5 seconds of summer was some new band popular with the kids when I came home, not the new long range weather forecast.
Fascist regime? Get real, it's a bit authoritarian and I'm not a supporter of capital or corporal punishment and think they should repeal the laws on homosexuality but their crime rates and society speak for themselves and it's not exactly some repressive regime. Everyone enjoys the same low tax rate and the standard of living benefits everybody, I took public transport like 95% of the population and didn't live in great luxury, just made enough to ensure I'm secure from here on out.
Aye, I looked at the climate and it looks horrible. Hot and humid all year with no seasons. It depends what you like I guess but that is close to my worst nightmare. I would rather live in Alaska!
you know..I've actually thought about at least being in Alaska for the summer months.
I love nature. The Wildlife. Wolves, eagles and caribous.... gonna do it.
looks like the 'stayers' will win in the end. We will all have better standards of living ...and learn to speak German. 
What did I not cover in my reply? It's a dictatorship but that doesn't make it a fascist regime, it has 4 national languages, 3 main ethnic groups and religions plus a large ex pat population, all citizens have full medical and pension cover, over 98% home ownership amongst Singaporean nationals and one of the worlds best education systems.
looks like the 'stayers' will win in the end. We will all have better standards of living ...and learn to speak German.
Wouldn't mind learning a bit of German tbf, I reckon I'd be a lot more intimidating than I am now.
I'm the same. The wildernesses of Canada or Alaska appeal much more to me than Cities like Singapore or Dubai. I will move to the English countryside in a few years time I think as my poor man option.
just saw you goosetepping and shouting in a guttural voice.
EDIT: Scots nasal whatever you lot speak up there.
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The Fascism of Singapore
The first impression most foreigners get of Singapore is that it’s a harsh but successful state, dictatorial but developed and ultimately good for its people. One of the unspoken objectives of the ruling party, the PAP (People’s Action Party, no connection to communism) is to create an illusion of a first-world state by keeping the areas where there are tourists and Western expats clean to concentration camp standards.
Western conservatives, who have largely swallowed that illusion whole, keep talking up Singapore. To believe what they say, its educational system, its economy, its cultural policy, all the envy of conservatives who only wish democracy didn’t fear with their plans, work nearly perfectly.
In fact, that illusion is about as true as the illusion that the Soviet Union kept cultivating among Western socialists in the 1930s. The only way Singapore looks good is if you skew statistics to fit your agenda, which the PAP is not above doing. A few facts that Lee Kuan Yew, the de facto king, won’t mention in his interview, are:
– Singapore’s level of inequality is the highest in the developed world, except possibly for Hong Kong’s. Its bottom quintile is the poorest in the developed world except for Portugal’s.
– Only 25% of Singaporeans aged 16-17 go to junior college, the equivalent of high school. The rest don’t participate in the international reading and math tests; that’s how Singapore always places number 1 on these tests.
– Singapore’s per capita military spending is second only to Israel’s, even though Singapore is not at war nor will it ever be. That last fact doesn’t prevent the government from engaging in a propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the citizenry that it is.
– The combination of low wages, no social safety net, and a social security system that has no redistribution of wealth at all means that lower-class people often have to work into their 70s and 80s to survive.
– Singapore’s literacy rate is 92.5%, just above this of Palestine and just below this of Thailand.
– Despite the country’s cult of economic growth, its GDP per capita has stagnated since 2000.
– Despite draconian sentencing laws for violent crime, Singapore’s crime rate remains far higher than Japan’s.
Westerners who live in Singapore or who are familiar with it in passing usually complain about the small things, like the low-level censorship of movies, which, while heinous, at least doesn’t impoverish the population. Everything else – the systematic destruction of the livelihood of the poor, the impoverishment of the middle class, the plundering of the treasury – doesn’t even register in their minds, or gets rationalized.
Singapore is essentially a third-world country that has a developed business district that allows corporatists, expats, and the upper class to pretend they live in anything but a backward fascist state. In advanced countries, unions are permitted to strike; in Singapore, they’re not. In most advanced countries, the poor share in economic growth; in Singapore, they no longer do. In advanced countries, there’s a social security system that ensures that old people don’t have to choose between food and medicine, or clean floors into their 80s; in Singapore, there isn’t.
Whenever people criticize them, Lee Kuan Yew and his cohorts have two excuses for their behavior. The first is accusing the critics of libel; the laws that the PAP wrote and the judges the PAP appointed then conveniently find any opposition politician who’s insufficiently timid guilty of libel, and impose a fine just higher than the politician’s net worth. The other is accusing their critics of not understanding Asian values, which roughly mean, “Whatever is convenient for the ruling party” (Mahatir Mohamad, Lee Kuan Yew’s Malaysian counterpart, engages in the same tactic, while we’re at it).
There won’t be change in Singapore as long as Lee and his gang of plunderers – Singapore’s government salaries are among the highest in the world, with the Prime Minister netting a million US dollars a year – are allowed to determine what forms of dissent are allowed, and as long as the people acquiesce. Make no mistake about it: the periodic talk about reform is as serious as the American courts’ handling of segregation with all deliberate speed in the 1950s.
There won’t be change in Singapore until a civil rights movement of 300,000 people converge on Parliament and demand real democracy, a commitment to gender and ethnic equality, a social system that doesn’t throw the poor into gurneys, and the right of unions to collectively bargain.
Singapore has a decent GDP per capita; there’s nothing wrong with it that a revolution – preferably peaceful – won’t fix. Changing government spending priorities from the military to schools and increasing taxes to create a serious social safety net will only improve the country’s economic situation by not dooming most people who were born poor to work more degrading than McJobs. Abolishing political censorship will make the government more accountable to the people. Abolishing moralistic restrictions on people’s lives (gay sex is illegal in Singapore; so is hetero oral sex) will do nothing but give the people more freedom, and annoy a few conservative old fuds, which is a good thing.
Obviously, there are a lot of fascist countries in the world, many of which do far worse things than Singapore. But nobody in the West worships their educational systems or their economic development, and nobody in the first world considers them anything but fascist states. And, as far as I know, no first-world state has signed a free trade agreement with any such fascist state the way the US has signed a free trade agreement with Singapore.
Canada is a not too far a drive for me. I was going to do that whole route from Duluth all along Lake Superior...Grand Murray, Little murray, Two harbors..and beyond.
Man its just beautiful....that part of the state.
Damn. I'm jealous. I have done a bit of America but Cities rather than the countryside. Anyway, better get back to some referendum talk!
Not sure you can trust a polling organisation that cant even get a simple pie chart right.
A bit far fetched to call Switzerland & Norway small states. I mean, Norway is bigger than the UK ffs! What next? Holland? Belgium? Maybe Portugal?
(But, I get your point if you talk about city states)
Population. Norway has 5m while is very rich on oil. Their standard will obviously be higher than that of any big state.
Hannan should definitely be Leave's shortlist for the big BBC TV debate.
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That's a strange looking 49% on the chart.
You mean the North Sea gas fields? Norway is part of the EEA btw. What about Switzerland? Guess they're rich with cheese, chocolate and kookooclocks?
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