BS: 51% will vote to leave EU

Subject: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Stanron
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 07:46 PM

According to the papers 51% of UK will vote to leave EU. I'm one of them. How about you?

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 08:07 PM

You are deluded.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 08:16 PM

If that's an accurate result it seems to indicate a sizeable vote to stay. When the referendum on whether to stay in the Common Market, the early opinion polls were heavily for leaving, but the final result was overwhelmingly to stay.

The crucial thing hould be the TTIP. If that gets approved, the only way to get out of it would be to leave the EU. And that would be a massive reason to leave, the implocations of that treaty being so bad.

But that treaty could still be blocked. The advocates of staying need to appreciate that.
If jeremy. Corbyn does win that's likely to be his price for asking Labour people to vote to stay, and a very reasonable price indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Stanron
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 08:32 PM

But the previous referendum was predicated on a lie. We were asked if we wanted to join an economic community. I voted yes. Had I been asked did I want to join an ever closer political union I would have voted no, and I suspect a majority would have voted the same way. If our politicians knew that 'ever closer political union' was on the agenda we were lied to on an epic level.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 09:16 PM

We weren't actually asked whether we wanted to join anything. We were in already without any chance to vote either way. After Labour won the next election, we had a vote on whether to stay in or leave. I voted for leaving. If it had been a vote for an ever closer political union I might well have voted in favour of doing so.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 03:45 AM

Close political union does not mean surrendering our independence. It means coming together and achieving common cause with other countries on such things as trade, free movement, protecting workers' conditions, looking after the poorest people, reinforcing the rule of law and strengthening human rights. And avoiding conflict. Closer political ties would be going a long way to solving the current humanitarian crisis if we had them.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 03:57 AM

Anyway, I don't want any bloody referendums. I don't want millions of people who haven't a clue what they're voting about deciding the future of the country.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 04:03 AM

I never saw such a list of contradictions...."free movement" is affecting every facet of life, it is making equality in workers pay and conditions even harder to achieve, as more REAL jobs disappear.

Free movement was created to provide cheap labour in the short term and break solidarity amongst the working people of this country.

Loss of sovereignty is the worst aspect, we will finally be swamped and cannot lift a finger to stop it.

I say removal from the EU is imperative. It will be difficult for England, but an independent Scotland at least has a fighting chance.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 05:13 AM

See what I mean about people without a clue getting to have a say? My case is well and truly rested.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: DMcG
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 05:30 AM


According to the papers 51% of UK will vote to leave EU.

Precisely so according to the papers.   There were 1004 people in the survey. So are the papers reporting the margin of error in the survey? Without going into the formal statistics of it, you only need 11 people to vote the other way to make the majority in favour of staying. So I would guess that if you looked at this formally you would find that an accurate headline is more like: "Between 45 and 55% of UK will vote to leave the EU: Poll totally inconclusive"

And that is without looking at the precise questions, since exactly how things are phrased has a major effect on the result, hence the hoo-hah about that the exact phrase of the question should be on the real vote (and equally on the Scottish referendum).

No, it is always worth remembering that what the papers say and what the reality is are frequently quite different.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 06:38 AM

Could "will" be amended to "would"? AFAIK no referendum has yet been reliably announced, much less an actual question.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 09:37 AM

I am confused....

The Brits use their own currency....

The Brits are not part of Schengen....

What part of the E.U. do they want to forfeit?

Sincerely,
Gargoyle
A simple Yank with thanks we severed common bonds

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 10:54 AM

Open borders, social nightmares made in Brussels! etc etc.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 11:03 AM

I don't recall hearing anyone moaning about open borders a few years ago when we needed all those Polish plumbers and dentists (my current NHS dentist, Hannah, from the Czech Republic, is the best I've ever had by miles). And what about all those Brits who live on benefits in other EU countries, who far outnumber the EU citizens on benefits over here (a tiny minority of them)? I'd have thought that would have suited you!

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 11:14 AM

600,000 in    300,000 out. That's 600.000 into the UK, 300,000 out into the rest of the world.

What "Benefit Scrounger" in his right mind, would leave the UK to live on benefits anywhere else?

He could claim invalidity on the grounds of dementia?

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 11:31 AM

The poll headlines in some of the papers were totally misleading. They suggested that 51% of the UK electorate said they would vote to leave. That is not so though - it was only 43%. A whopping 17% had not made their mind up yet!

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 11:37 AM

Well they do go to live elsewhere. You're good at figures when you think they suit you, so go and find some. Preferably about benefit claimants!

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 11:41 AM

Allan, I've been talking to my MP Mr O'Hara about the scenario if UK votes "out" and we vote "in".....they don't seem to see it as anything but an opportunity to go for another independence referendum.

Three years ago membership was portrayed as a plus for Scotland, now it's a definite negative.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 12:46 PM

I shall vote to leave although if we wait a little longer the whole stupid European 'Union' will implode. There's no such country as 'Europe', never has been, never will be.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 01:19 PM

I know it is one of the so called special circumstances but I'm not sure about that causing another vote. I think there will be another referendum but not until they are pretty confident of winning it. They could brush away the loss of the first referendum a bit because all in all they did well - coming from way behind to a much closer result in the end than what was expected. They couldn't afford to lose a second though - that would kill the question off for decades. So just my opinion. I know the latest poll showed a clear majority for independence but I think these results will need to be consistent over a period before it'd be considered. So not as much if the UK votes to take us out of the EU against the Scottish opinion (if that was indeed different from the remaining UK) but more how Scottish opinion actually reacts to that scenario. I don't think the forthcoming SNP manifesto will promise a referendum but I think it may state it retains the right to hold a referendum if they have a mandate in Holyrood.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 01:31 PM

we very often hear about being run from brussels, loss of sovereignty etc etc. However, as far as i know there has never been a serious attempt to rid ourselves from ongoing domination by the USA. our foreign policy is largely decided by the pentagon and our increasingly ruthless capitalist system is owned and run by american led free market interests. at least europe is prepared to pay lip service to the idea of a 'social' aspect to their systems - though that is the part that the UK government is least likely to want.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 01:33 PM

I am worried, as someone else mentioned, about the TTIP agreement. If it goes ahead we can wave goodbye to protesting about fracking or any other such thing. But I don't think that leaving the EU is a good option. Nationalism seems to be just pulling the drawbridge up and no good ever came of that. We are no longer in a position to be self sufficient and trade with the rest of the world is vital to our economy. If we keep the bonds we have with our closest neighbours we are in a much stronger position than without them. Free trade with the rest of the world sounds very grand but, to be honest, I think, on our own, we would be taken to the cleaners by some very powerful nations outside the EU. My vote is for staying.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 04:15 PM

Spot on, achmelvich.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 04:23 PM

From Peter Hitchins

n we stop this transformation of all we have and are? I doubt it. To do so would involve the grim-faced determination of Australia, making it plain in every way that our doors are open only to limited numbers of people, chosen by us, enduring the righteous scorn of the supposedly enlightened.

As we lack the survival instinct and the determination necessary, and as so many of our most influential people are set on committing a sentimental national suicide, I suspect we won't.

To those who condemn reasonable calls for national self-defence as bigotry, hatred and intolerance (which they are not), I make only this request: just don't pretend you're doing a good and generous thing, when you're really cowardly and weak.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Raedwulf
Date: 06 Sep 15 - 05:11 PM

You'll find out how people will vote if a vote is ever actually granted. Until then, it's just an opinion poll. And they often bear little relation to reality. Claiming "will vote" is just plain stupid.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,Roger Knowles
Date: 07 Sep 15 - 03:23 AM

I'll certainly vote to leave. I can't actually name a benefit since we joined, certainly my feet got bigger, from 8 to 42.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 07 Sep 15 - 04:01 AM

what have the (mainland) europeans ever done for us?

germans have shown us how to organise football and they and the spanish have shown us how to play it.
finns have shown us the best education system in the world.
french have shown us how much a sensible person should work in a week while producing great food, wine and cinema. and spiral.
iceland has shown us to punish the bankers and help the people.
apart from the french all other nations have shown us how a modern, successful and secure nation has no need for nuclear weapons or ruinous military spending.
all have moved beyond our divisive labour relations model - with workers representation on the board the norm.
workers and public assets are treated with respect and properly paid.
etc etc etc
but we choose not to see any of this with our tongue so far up uncle sam's arse.
tragic really - we have so much to teach them about beer

but we can't see any of this with

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Sep 15 - 04:15 AM

Steve, you response to the OP,
"You are deluded."

Jeremy Corbyn thinks you are.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Sep 15 - 04:57 AM

Achmelvich, 07 Sep 15 - 04:01 AM

Spot on!

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Sep 15 - 05:57 AM

Jeremy Corbyn has never met me (though I was at university with his brother). I don't give a damn whether or not he thinks I'm deluded. In fact, from what I've seen of him I wouldn't have thought he'd use that language. A puzzling and pointless post from you there, Keith.

What scroungers, Guest? Oh no! Don't tell me the royals are back from yet another foreign junket!

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: bubblyrat
Date: 07 Sep 15 - 06:59 AM

How will the "New Englanders" (sorry , I mean Syrians ) vote ??

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 07 Sep 15 - 10:26 AM

Achmenvich, Belgium could teach us a bit about beer

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 07 Sep 15 - 05:02 PM

true - we can share the love.

we could also learn from france, germany, hans blix et al that rushing into an illegal war cos george w says so is the height of idiocy. and a terrible crime against humanity

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Sep 15 - 06:41 PM

The point about a very large proportion of overseas British receiving benefits is quite right technically. When people talk about massive benefits what gets overlooked. Is that by far the largest anount of that is State Pensions, and if you retire overseas you stilll are entitled to that.

But I suppose people who go on about benefits as going to "scroungers" they don't mean that. They mean people who can't work becacause of disability and so forth.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Sep 15 - 09:03 PM

The current benefits regime in the UK is so draconian that it is impossible to be a benefits scrounger. On the contrary, many people who should be receiving benefits are excluded by the rules. Of course, there are some who gain big advantages from the system. Landlords who put up the rent every time housing benefit rises and massive profitable companies such as Tesco and Asda who pay so little that their employees can't afford to live in a house or flat unless they receive benefits. Then there's those royals. Those hawkish right-wingers who are on the lookout for benefit scroungers always seem to look in the wrong places.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Sep 15 - 10:32 PM

The State Pension is NOT a bloody 'Benefit'! It is a right for which we have paid, through NICs, over years (in my case 50 years) of work.

As a recipient of a State Pension from a scheme that I've paid in to for 50 years, I strenuously object to being labelled 'On Benefits'. It's not a 'Benefit', I've bloody earned it!

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 12:08 AM

Mr Dick in David Copperfield, who could not keep King Charles's head out of any conversation, was a brilliant portrait by Dickens of a lunatic obsessive. So much so that a person's "King Charles's head" has become a useful sort of idiomatic elliptic trope.

Our dear old friend Steve Shaw's King Charles's head is the royal family.

We all know what you think about them, Steve mate. Your dragging them into every thread, relevant or not, can become excessively tiresome & tedious. How about giving it a rest, just as a favour to the rest of us, in, say, one thread in every five?!

Best regards

≈Michael≈

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 02:34 AM

The tag 'benefit' may not be welcome and people may have contributed all their lives but the fact is like it or not it is still classed as a benefit - and it is not a benefit paid equally to everyone even if they have worked all their lives. For instance many women retired now retired at age 60 which is a whole 7 years more of claiming this benefit than my wife will be able to claim for. 7 years less of claiming and 7 years more of paying tax. It is a touchy subject for my wife and one of our elderly neighbours once made the mistake of describing people receiving tax credits as scroungers! Sorry but right at the start of the credit crunch our income collapsed and tax credits helped keep us afloat for a couple of years. We'd both paid taxes all out lives and are paying them again so we felt we'd contributed and were grateful for the help. Current pensioners are receiving their benefit from anywhere between 2 and 7 years before many future pensioners will receive their benefits. So when talking about the cost of benefits that has to be taken into account. I'm not saying that current pensioners shouldn't get it just suggesting they should count their lucky stars!!

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 07:54 AM

It may be called a 'benefit', but it is patently not a 'benefit', it's an entitlement by virtue of having paid in to the fund, exactly the same as a private or occupational pension.

Referring to pensioners as 'benefit claimants' is demeaning and insulting to people who have paid their whack, and are receiving the pension that they have paid for, over many years - many more years than they are likely to receive their pension.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 08:44 AM

Well, Michael, when the chat turns to benefits recipients it's very hard NOT to include the royals! Including them may be an irritant to you, but it provides a corrective to those hawkishly-intolerant right-wingers and ignoramuses who are so quick to condemn the unemployed, the low-paid and the sick for receiving benefits. The royals are just as fully in receipt of state-money-that-they-haven't-actually-worked-for as any of those, and they don't even need it.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 08:47 AM

Oh well -- I'm an OAP of some long standing (18 years, blimey!), and it doesn't really bother me unduly if that's how I'm officially designated as long as the dosh goes into my bank every Monday. I'm reminded of the saying cited by an Evelyn Waugh character (in Brideshead Revisited iirc): "It doesn't matter what people call you, so long as they don't call you 'Pigeon Pie' and eat you up".

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 08:52 AM

Cross-posted -- sorry Steve. The money "the firm" get from their notional allowances is for the payment of their staff and the upkeep of their estates, largely accessible to the public. For their own menus plaisirs, I am pretty sure that they sedulously make sure that it their own money, rather than any public money, which pays.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 09:03 AM

Well I have a half-acre garden which I have to upkeep myself and I've just had my chimney repointed. I had to buy my own lawn mower and the petrol for it and I've just paid the bloody builder out of my own money. And I've got a lot less than they've got. Next...

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 09:04 AM

And all their money WAS public money until their ancestors/accountants robbed us blind.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 09:14 AM

Animadvert away, Steve. Have yourself a ☯ You're quite a nice, harmless, dear old fellow for all that, I dessay!

Best regards

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Raggytash
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 09:31 AM

Michael,

Perhaps you could expound and elucidate on the subject and proclaim to all we mentally impoverished folk just how the royal family came to procure all their (vast) substantiality.

Cheers

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 09:57 AM

No idea! Quite happy to take things as I find them, in general. How did Steve get his ½-acre of garden for that matter? (Not that I envy it; I mean, I have only an itsy-bitsy garden, but more than I want as Emma & I are no sorts of gardener and it's quite costly to keep under control). I'm sure that one could find the answer to your concerns by googling judiciously; but where it all came from is not a topic I wish to expend time & energy on. There it is; one can never start anywhere but here, you know. & what difference it makes, except to the perpetually and quasi-professionally and resolutely aggrieved who seem to abound, around here and passim, I cannot conceive.

≈M

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 11:11 AM

I bought it with the house. I didn't inherit it (or money to buy it), steal it, enclose it, receive it as a gift or send soldiers in to take it over. I don't have tenants on it who do all the work of tending it, who then pay ME for the privilege so that I can make millions every year out of it without so much as lifting a finger. I look after it exclusively by myself and I've turned it into a wildlife haven. At the moment it's giving me first-rate organic spuds, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, apples by the ton, raspberries and herbs and it looks very nice. It took me 26 years to pay for it. I don't breed animals on it so that I can shoot at them for fun. Everything opposite to how the royals come by and exploit their land.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Stanron
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 11:41 AM

How did the Royals come by their stuff? Look no farther than 1066. Actually you should. Bill the B claimed that Canute promised it all to him a couple of years earlier, but where's the proof? In the meantime Harold was on the spot and doing rather a good job of seeing off the Vikings. Bill the B got lucky at Hastings and it all went downhill from there. Bill the B won the lot and gave what he didn't want to his pals. Male offspring begat male offspring, with perhaps the occasional mattress mishap along the way and here we are today. Queen V started off rather lacking in the filthy stuff and only got rich as a result of donations from her subjects and inheriting the crown estates.

The crown estates are interesting. All the income from them, and that's a lot, goes straight into the treasury. The civil list, the money that goes to the Royal Family, comes out of that. Guess which is the larger amount?

One point of irony is that the Angles and Saxons, represented in the left corner by Harold (elected by the way, albeit from a small circle) were displaced by Bill the B in the right corner (elected only by himself). Harold's stock came from somewhere around what we now call Germany. Bill the B was from Viking stock who had settled in France. So the big pot originally belonged to Germany, was lost to Viking French and guess where the people who have it now come from? Funny old world.

Incidentally I have wondered if the virulent hatred the left have for the right is some kind of racial memory of the Saxon hatred for the Normans. It makes as much sense as any other reason.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 08 Sep 15 - 12:36 PM

Stanron not all of the left "hate" the Royal family.

I think the Queen has done a sterling job, I find the Chookie Embra amusing and Charlie thought provoking.

I don't think they do any harm, don't meddle in politics and have a view of the world which is probably better than the whinging gits who get on their case.