EU Referendum - In/Out?

[Nicktendo]

haha :p

 

 

 

I see you are living in St Petersberg. Are you Russian, may I ask?

 

 

 

British, but I've been living and working here for almost 2 years. I'm did my Master's in Estonia, worked in Latvia and did my teacher's qualifications in Poland because it was 70% cheaper than back home. I have Estonian residency until 2017 and used it to travel around Europe until UK citizens were required to travel with a passport in 2014.

 

It's simply amazing to get on a bus in Riga and wake up the next day in Warsaw, vastly different architecture, different culture, language and people- only 12 hours away. The removal of borders and ease of travel within Europe has arguably been one of the greatest EU achievements. The fact I was given a 5 year residency in Estonia shows they are welcome and open to knowledge and expertise and have a desire to strengthen their country, many other people I studied with stayed and now work in IT or academia in Tallinn. My Master's was a two year one, the first of which was in Glasgow and the second in Estonia, paid for by the European Union in the form of Erasmus funding.

 

I occasionally return to Tartu or Riga to visit friends and even the border with Russia is a smooth process. Quick check of the baggage, visa check and you're done. Same for my girlfriend, who is Russian. Different story when she comes to the UK though. She has to prove her income just to get a visa, present a detailed itinerary at the border and spend 30 mins answering questions about who she is, where she's going and why and who she knows. It's an excruciating and far from welcoming process and only highlights the level of paranoia in the UK compared with our European brethren.

 

The EU is not an uncontrollable behemoth which dictates British politics. It is a wonderful opportunity to affordably experience and engage with hundreds of different people and cultures. To see the effects of war and history, to understand why a united Europe is a stronger Europe. The opportunity to work, study or simply holiday in beautiful places with people from all walks of life. I'll be damned if a bunch of ignorant little englanders are going to ruin that for the people who actually understand and appreciate these benefits.

[Cube]

One thing that's really annoyed me about this debate is the language being used. Why is it that a European living in the UK is an 'immigrant' and a Brit living in Europe an 'Ex Pat?'

 

I think the media uses the terms in different ways. EU "immigrants" are nasty people who steal our jobs because they're better than us (even though it's slightly more difficult to hire someone from the EU) and generally pay more taxes than they get out of the system as there's a much smaller percentage of children/elderly.

 

When they talk about "EX Pats", they usually mean people retiring to the EU, where they're no longer a drain on our resources.

[Nicktendo]

From Facebook (via The Times written by A.A. Gill).

 

We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of that most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia

 

It was the woman on Question Time that really did it for me. She was so familiar. There is someone like her in every queue, every coffee shop, outside every school in every parish council in the country. Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow, over-made-up, with her National Health face and weatherproof English expression of hurt righteousness, she’s Britannia’s mother-in-law. The camera closed in on her and she shouted: “All I want is my country back. Give me my country back.”

 

It was a heartfelt cry of real distress and the rest of the audience erupted in sympathetic applause, but I thought: “Back from what? Back from where?”

 

Wanting the country back is the constant mantra of all the outies. Farage slurs it, Gove insinuates it. Of course I know what they mean. We all know what they mean. They mean back from Johnny Foreigner, back from the brink, back from the future, back-to-back, back to bosky hedges and dry stone walls and country lanes and church bells and warm beer and skittles and football rattles and cheery banter and clogs on cobbles. Back to vicars-and-tarts parties and Carry On fart jokes, back to Elgar and fudge and proper weather and herbaceous borders and cars called Morris. Back to victoria sponge and 22 yards to a wicket and 15 hands to a horse and 3ft to a yard and four fingers in a Kit Kat, back to gooseberries not avocados, back to deference and respect, to make do and mend and smiling bravely and biting your lip and suffering in silence and patronising foreigners with pity.

 

We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of the most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia. The warm, crumbly, honey-coloured, collective “yesterday” with its fond belief that everything was better back then, that Britain (England, really) is a worse place now than it was at some foggy point in the past where we achieved peak Blighty. It’s the knowledge that the best of us have been and gone, that nothing we can build will be as lovely as a National Trust Georgian country house, no art will be as good as a Turner, no poem as wonderful as If, no writer a touch on Shakespeare or Dickens, nothing will grow as lovely as a cottage garden, no hero greater than Nelson, no politician better than Churchill, no view more throat-catching than the White Cliffs and that we will never manufacture anything as great as a Rolls-Royce or Flying Scotsman again.

 

The dream of Brexit isn’t that we might be able to make a brighter, new, energetic tomorrow, it’s a desire to shuffle back to a regret-curdled inward-looking yesterday. In the Brexit fantasy, the best we can hope for is to kick out all the work-all-hours foreigners and become caretakers to our own past in this self-congratulatory island of moaning and pomposity.

 

And if you think that’s an exaggeration of the Brexit position, then just listen to the language they use: “We are a nation of inventors and entrepreneurs, we want to put the great back in Britain, the great engineers, the great manufacturers.” This is all the expression of a sentimental nostalgia. In the Brexiteer’s mind’s eye is the old Pathé newsreel of Donald Campbell, of John Logie Baird with his television, Barnes Wallis and his bouncing bomb, and Robert Baden-Powell inventing boy scouts in his shed.

 

All we need, their argument goes, is to be free of the humourless Germans and spoilsport French and all their collective liberalism and reality. There is a concomitant hope that if we manage to back out of Europe, then we’ll get back to the bowler-hatted 1950s and the Commonwealth will hold pageants, fireworks displays and beg to be back in the Queen Empress’s good books again. Then New Zealand will sacrifice a thousand lambs, Ghana will ask if it can go back to being called the Gold Coast and Britain will resume hand-making Land Rovers and top hats and Sheffield plate teapots.

 

There is a reason that most of the people who want to leave the EU are old while those who want to remain are young: it’s because the young aren’t infected with Bisto nostalgia. They don’t recognise half the stuff I’ve mentioned here. They’ve grown up in the EU and at worst it’s been neutral for them.

 

The under-thirties want to be part of things, not aloof from them. They’re about being joined-up and counted. I imagine a phrase most outies identify with is “women’s liberation has gone too far”. Everything has gone too far for them, from political correctness — well, that’s gone mad, hasn’t it? — to health and safety and gender-neutral lavatories. Those oldies, they don’t know if they’re coming or going, what with those newfangled mobile phones and kids on Tinder and Grindr. What happened to meeting Miss Joan Hunter Dunn at the tennis club? And don’t get them started on electric hand dryers, or something unrecognised in the bagging area, or Indian call centres , or the impertinent computer asking for a password that has both capitals and little letters and numbers and more than eight digits.

 

Brexit is the fond belief that Britain is worse now than at some point in the foggy past where we achieved peak Blighty

 

We listen to the Brexit lot talk about the trade deals they’re going to make with Europe after we leave, and the blithe insouciance that what they’re offering instead of EU membership is a divorce where you can still have sex with your ex. They reckon they can get out of the marriage, keep the house, not pay alimony, take the kids out of school, stop the in-laws going to the doctor, get strict with the visiting rights, but, you know, still get a shag at the weekend and, obviously, see other people on the side.

 

Really, that’s their best offer? That’s the plan? To swagger into Brussels with Union Jack pants on and say: “ ’Ello luv, you’re looking nice today. Would you like some?”

 

When the rest of us ask how that’s really going to work, leavers reply, with Terry-Thomas smirks, that “they’re going to still really fancy us, honest, they’re gagging for us. Possibly not Merkel, but the bosses of Mercedes and those French vintners and cheesemakers, they can’t get enough of old John Bull. Of course they’re going to want to go on making the free market with two backs after we’ve got the decree nisi. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

 

Have no doubt, this is a divorce. It’s not just business, it’s not going to be all reason and goodwill. Like all divorces, leaving Europe would be ugly and mean and hurtful, and it would lead to a great deal of poisonous xenophobia and racism, all the niggling personal prejudice that dumped, betrayed and thwarted people are prey to. And the racism and prejudice are, of course, weak points for us. The tortuous renegotiation with lawyers and courts will be bitter and vengeful, because divorces always are and, just in passing, this sovereignty thing we’re supposed to want back so badly, like Frodo’s ring, has nothing to do with you or me. We won’t notice it coming back, because we didn’t notice not having it in the first place.

 

Nine out of 10 economists say ‘remain in the EU’

 

You won’t wake up on June 24 and think: “Oh my word, my arthritis has gone! My teeth are suddenly whiter! Magically, I seem to know how to make a soufflé and I’m buff with the power of sovereignty.” This is something only politicians care about; it makes not a jot of difference to you or me if the Supreme Court is a bunch of strangely out-of-touch old gits in wigs in Westminster or a load of strangely out-of-touch old gits without wigs in Luxembourg. What matters is that we have as many judges as possible on the side of personal freedom.

 

Personally, I see nothing about our legislators in the UK that makes me feel I can confidently give them more power. The more checks and balances politicians have, the better for the rest of us. You can’t have too many wise heads and different opinions. If you’re really worried about red tape, by the way, it’s not just a European problem. We’re perfectly capable of coming up with our own rules and regulations and we have no shortage of jobsworths. Red tape may be annoying, but it is also there to protect your and my family from being lied to, poisoned and cheated.

 

The first “X” I ever put on a voting slip was to say yes to the EU. The first referendum was when I was 20 years old. This one will be in the week of my 62nd birthday. For nearly all my adult life, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t been pleased and proud to be part of this great collective. If you ask me for my nationality, the truth is I feel more European than anything else. I am part of this culture, this European civilisation. I can walk into any gallery on our continent and completely understand the images and the stories on the walls. These people are my people and they have been for thousands of years. I can read books on subjects from Ancient Greece to Dark Ages Scandinavia, from Renaissance Italy to 19th-century France, and I don’t need the context or the landscape explained to me. The music of Europe, from its scales and its instruments to its rhythms and religion, is my music. The Renaissance, the rococo, the Romantics, the impressionists, gothic, baroque, neoclassicism, realism, expressionism, futurism, fauvism, cubism, dada, surrealism, postmodernism and kitsch were all European movements and none of them belongs to a single nation.

 

There is a reason why the Chinese are making fake Italian handbags and the Italians aren’t making fake Chinese ones. This European culture, without question or argument, is the greatest, most inventive, subtle, profound, beautiful and powerful genius that was ever contrived anywhere by anyone and it belongs to us. Just look at my day job — food. The change in food culture and pleasure has been enormous since we joined the EU, and that’s no coincidence. What we eat, the ingredients, the recipes, may come from around the world, but it is the collective to and fro of European interests, expertise and imagination that has made it all so very appetising and exciting.

 

The restaurant was a European invention, naturally. The first one in Paris was called The London Bridge.

 

Culture works and grows through the constant warp and weft of creators, producers, consumers, intellectuals and instinctive lovers. You can’t dictate or legislate for it, you can just make a place that encourages it and you can truncate it. You can make it harder and more grudging, you can put up barriers and you can build walls, but why on earth would you? This collective culture, this golden civilisation grown on this continent over thousands of years, has made everything we have and everything we are, why would you not want to be part of it?

 

I understand that if we leave we don’t have to hand back our library ticket for European civilisation, but why would we even think about it? In fact, the only ones who would are those old, philistine scared gits. Look at them, too frightened to join in."

 

Edited June 16, 2016 by Ashley
fixed spoiler tag

[Kav]

In.

Both sides have pros and cons but I feel the reasons to remain outweigh those of leaving. For many of the reasons posted in the thread already.

[Mr-Paul]

From Facebook.

 

We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of that most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia

 

It was the woman on Question Time that really did it for me. She was so familiar. There is someone like her in every queue, every coffee shop, outside every school in every parish council in the country. Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow, over-made-up, with her National Health face and weatherproof English expression of hurt righteousness, she’s Britannia’s mother-in-law. The camera closed in on her and she shouted: “All I want is my country back. Give me my country back.”

 

It was a heartfelt cry of real distress and the rest of the audience erupted in sympathetic applause, but I thought: “Back from what? Back from where?”

 

Wanting the country back is the constant mantra of all the outies. Farage slurs it, Gove insinuates it. Of course I know what they mean. We all know what they mean. They mean back from Johnny Foreigner, back from the brink, back from the future, back-to-back, back to bosky hedges and dry stone walls and country lanes and church bells and warm beer and skittles and football rattles and cheery banter and clogs on cobbles. Back to vicars-and-tarts parties and Carry On fart jokes, back to Elgar and fudge and proper weather and herbaceous borders and cars called Morris. Back to victoria sponge and 22 yards to a wicket and 15 hands to a horse and 3ft to a yard and four fingers in a Kit Kat, back to gooseberries not avocados, back to deference and respect, to make do and mend and smiling bravely and biting your lip and suffering in silence and patronising foreigners with pity.

 

We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of the most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia. The warm, crumbly, honey-coloured, collective “yesterday” with its fond belief that everything was better back then, that Britain (England, really) is a worse place now than it was at some foggy point in the past where we achieved peak Blighty. It’s the knowledge that the best of us have been and gone, that nothing we can build will be as lovely as a National Trust Georgian country house, no art will be as good as a Turner, no poem as wonderful as If, no writer a touch on Shakespeare or Dickens, nothing will grow as lovely as a cottage garden, no hero greater than Nelson, no politician better than Churchill, no view more throat-catching than the White Cliffs and that we will never manufacture anything as great as a Rolls-Royce or Flying Scotsman again.

 

The dream of Brexit isn’t that we might be able to make a brighter, new, energetic tomorrow, it’s a desire to shuffle back to a regret-curdled inward-looking yesterday. In the Brexit fantasy, the best we can hope for is to kick out all the work-all-hours foreigners and become caretakers to our own past in this self-congratulatory island of moaning and pomposity.

 

And if you think that’s an exaggeration of the Brexit position, then just listen to the language they use: “We are a nation of inventors and entrepreneurs, we want to put the great back in Britain, the great engineers, the great manufacturers.” This is all the expression of a sentimental nostalgia. In the Brexiteer’s mind’s eye is the old Pathé newsreel of Donald Campbell, of John Logie Baird with his television, Barnes Wallis and his bouncing bomb, and Robert Baden-Powell inventing boy scouts in his shed.

 

All we need, their argument goes, is to be free of the humourless Germans and spoilsport French and all their collective liberalism and reality. There is a concomitant hope that if we manage to back out of Europe, then we’ll get back to the bowler-hatted 1950s and the Commonwealth will hold pageants, fireworks displays and beg to be back in the Queen Empress’s good books again. Then New Zealand will sacrifice a thousand lambs, Ghana will ask if it can go back to being called the Gold Coast and Britain will resume hand-making Land Rovers and top hats and Sheffield plate teapots.

 

There is a reason that most of the people who want to leave the EU are old while those who want to remain are young: it’s because the young aren’t infected with Bisto nostalgia. They don’t recognise half the stuff I’ve mentioned here. They’ve grown up in the EU and at worst it’s been neutral for them.

 

The under-thirties want to be part of things, not aloof from them. They’re about being joined-up and counted. I imagine a phrase most outies identify with is “women’s liberation has gone too far”. Everything has gone too far for them, from political correctness — well, that’s gone mad, hasn’t it? — to health and safety and gender-neutral lavatories. Those oldies, they don’t know if they’re coming or going, what with those newfangled mobile phones and kids on Tinder and Grindr. What happened to meeting Miss Joan Hunter Dunn at the tennis club? And don’t get them started on electric hand dryers, or something unrecognised in the bagging area, or Indian call centres , or the impertinent computer asking for a password that has both capitals and little letters and numbers and more than eight digits.

 

Brexit is the fond belief that Britain is worse now than at some point in the foggy past where we achieved peak Blighty

 

We listen to the Brexit lot talk about the trade deals they’re going to make with Europe after we leave, and the blithe insouciance that what they’re offering instead of EU membership is a divorce where you can still have sex with your ex. They reckon they can get out of the marriage, keep the house, not pay alimony, take the kids out of school, stop the in-laws going to the doctor, get strict with the visiting rights, but, you know, still get a shag at the weekend and, obviously, see other people on the side.

 

Really, that’s their best offer? That’s the plan? To swagger into Brussels with Union Jack pants on and say: “ ’Ello luv, you’re looking nice today. Would you like some?”

 

When the rest of us ask how that’s really going to work, leavers reply, with Terry-Thomas smirks, that “they’re going to still really fancy us, honest, they’re gagging for us. Possibly not Merkel, but the bosses of Mercedes and those French vintners and cheesemakers, they can’t get enough of old John Bull. Of course they’re going to want to go on making the free market with two backs after we’ve got the decree nisi. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

 

Have no doubt, this is a divorce. It’s not just business, it’s not going to be all reason and goodwill. Like all divorces, leaving Europe would be ugly and mean and hurtful, and it would lead to a great deal of poisonous xenophobia and racism, all the niggling personal prejudice that dumped, betrayed and thwarted people are prey to. And the racism and prejudice are, of course, weak points for us. The tortuous renegotiation with lawyers and courts will be bitter and vengeful, because divorces always are and, just in passing, this sovereignty thing we’re supposed to want back so badly, like Frodo’s ring, has nothing to do with you or me. We won’t notice it coming back, because we didn’t notice not having it in the first place.

 

Nine out of 10 economists say ‘remain in the EU’

 

You won’t wake up on June 24 and think: “Oh my word, my arthritis has gone! My teeth are suddenly whiter! Magically, I seem to know how to make a soufflé and I’m buff with the power of sovereignty.” This is something only politicians care about; it makes not a jot of difference to you or me if the Supreme Court is a bunch of strangely out-of-touch old gits in wigs in Westminster or a load of strangely out-of-touch old gits without wigs in Luxembourg. What matters is that we have as many judges as possible on the side of personal freedom.

 

Personally, I see nothing about our legislators in the UK that makes me feel I can confidently give them more power. The more checks and balances politicians have, the better for the rest of us. You can’t have too many wise heads and different opinions. If you’re really worried about red tape, by the way, it’s not just a European problem. We’re perfectly capable of coming up with our own rules and regulations and we have no shortage of jobsworths. Red tape may be annoying, but it is also there to protect your and my family from being lied to, poisoned and cheated.

 

The first “X” I ever put on a voting slip was to say yes to the EU. The first referendum was when I was 20 years old. This one will be in the week of my 62nd birthday. For nearly all my adult life, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t been pleased and proud to be part of this great collective. If you ask me for my nationality, the truth is I feel more European than anything else. I am part of this culture, this European civilisation. I can walk into any gallery on our continent and completely understand the images and the stories on the walls. These people are my people and they have been for thousands of years. I can read books on subjects from Ancient Greece to Dark Ages Scandinavia, from Renaissance Italy to 19th-century France, and I don’t need the context or the landscape explained to me. The music of Europe, from its scales and its instruments to its rhythms and religion, is my music. The Renaissance, the rococo, the Romantics, the impressionists, gothic, baroque, neoclassicism, realism, expressionism, futurism, fauvism, cubism, dada, surrealism, postmodernism and kitsch were all European movements and none of them belongs to a single nation.

 

There is a reason why the Chinese are making fake Italian handbags and the Italians aren’t making fake Chinese ones. This European culture, without question or argument, is the greatest, most inventive, subtle, profound, beautiful and powerful genius that was ever contrived anywhere by anyone and it belongs to us. Just look at my day job — food. The change in food culture and pleasure has been enormous since we joined the EU, and that’s no coincidence. What we eat, the ingredients, the recipes, may come from around the world, but it is the collective to and fro of European interests, expertise and imagination that has made it all so very appetising and exciting.

 

The restaurant was a European invention, naturally. The first one in Paris was called The London Bridge.

 

Culture works and grows through the constant warp and weft of creators, producers, consumers, intellectuals and instinctive lovers. You can’t dictate or legislate for it, you can just make a place that encourages it and you can truncate it. You can make it harder and more grudging, you can put up barriers and you can build walls, but why on earth would you? This collective culture, this golden civilisation grown on this continent over thousands of years, has made everything we have and everything we are, why would you not want to be part of it?

 

I understand that if we leave we don’t have to hand back our library ticket for European civilisation, but why would we even think about it? In fact, the only ones who would are those old, philistine scared gits. Look at them, too frightened to join in."

 

Haha, I posted a small section of that on my Facebook this morning, the sex with your ex bit!

[Blade]

As you all know i'm voting out but nevertheless an excellent article in The Guardian today:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/16/german-dominance-remain-eu-referendum-britain-votes-stay

 

Raises interesting points how both sides of the argument have raised ridiculous claims.

[Ashley]

Oh yeah other than the people running the campaigns themselves, I don't think anyone is under the impression people have been arguing completely fairly or accurately!

 

Which is kind of a terrifying thing. This is huge and yet people are lying, exaggerating, misinterpreting left right and centre.

[bob]

That piece Nicktendo posted was written by A. A Gill, by the way. Should probably give him credit.

[Rummy]

I hope the majority of people are voting because of the reasons you have listed, and not because they think there's too many brown people. We might disagree but it's good to read nonetheless.

 

How did you know my reasons?!?!

 

Nah but seriously I'm in. Mostly because I think Out is gonna really hurt our economy and a lot of the promises being made by the campaigners aren't actually currently feasible promises(lack of power to promise/make those decisions, uncertainties etc). Immigration doesn't come onto my radar with it at all, I'm just very scared for our economy if we're out. I think the NHS is in jeopardy either way, but I think even more so if we leave, too.

 

I wouldn't worry about that! It's healthy to debate this. No point in the thread if we all just nodded and agreed.

 

I think some people will be glad to know that amongst those voting out, there are some level headed people doing it for reasons they have thought through.

 

I have friends voting Leave though. Whilst I can disagree and I have had discussions with some of them, I fully respect that we've all been given a vote and they're free to exercise and use that(I am tempted to remind them if it goes shit, though).

 

I'm still going to use mine, but personally I really don't think this should have been something left in the hands of the British public, in such a short time frame, with such little education provided. I think it's all just far too complex a picture for us all as armchair politicians to decide upon.

 

Just check the current odds, that's what I do. Bookies never lie.

 

The betting bug has bitten me recently. I'm very tempted to vote Leave(though odds are shortening) just so I get some small satisfaction even though it isn't the true outcome I want.

 

Could...lol (btw I would typically 'thank' this but can't, is there some sort of Thanks limit?)

 

EU sanctions on thankings and politeness I'm afraid. Soon you're not even going to be allowed to say sorry even when someone else bumps into you.

the above is just a little joke please don't get upset or think I'm mocking anyone's views for being Leave, I'm not

 

I would miss you guys!

 

Also I don't want to pay import taxes from Amazon.co.uk.

 

OMG ARE WE GOING TO BECOME N-UK?!?!

 

Oh yeah other than the people running the campaigns themselves, I don't think anyone is under the impression people have been arguing completely fairly or accurately!

 

Which is kind of a terrifying thing. This is huge and yet people are lying, exaggerating, misinterpreting left right and centre.

 

Again, this isn't an attack on those wanting to Leave(I personally can see legit arguments for both sides but feel, for me, the balance of probabilities re benefit are on those of Remain) but someone shared this this morning and I just found it unbelievable. I used to like Boris but this kinda thing quite scares me now.

 

Edited June 16, 2016 by Rummy

[bob]

 

OMG ARE WE GOING TO BECOME N-UK?!?!

 

Asking the important questions.

 

Actually what should happen is that anyone from the UK should just leave, and N-Europe would continue on without us.

[Dog-amoto]

Disgusting about the MP being killed this afternoon. Regardless of political views, this was someone's wife and mother.

 

Scum.

[Sméagol]

Asking the important questions.

 

Actually what should happen is that anyone from the UK should just leave, and N-Europe would continue on without us.

No you're still welcome here.

 

After you've shown your visa.

[Rummy]

Disgusting about the MP being killed this afternoon. Regardless of political views, this was someone's wife and mother.

 

Scum.

 

Whilst I'd agree and have to admit I'm still following it, the story is still quite current news. I don't think it's fair to tie it in any way to the In/Out referendum nor this thread. Acts and behaviour like that are purely abhorrent and nothing to do with debates like this, despite what anyone might insist or associate with them.

 

EDIT: Sorry should have said this isn't a post to dismiss your views, opinions, or feelings Dog-amoto. Just that if we were to do so I think it would warrant another thread on the separate topic of however one would opt to classify these acts. It's a dangerous topic of conversation with all the recent politics around it, but I don't wish to pre-emptively shut it down if people wish to discuss those issues sensible.

Edited June 16, 2016 by Rummy

[Nuntendo]

Whilst I'd agree and have to admit I'm still following it, the story is still quite current news. I don't think it's fair to tie it in any way to the In/Out referendum nor this thread. Acts and behaviour like that are purely abhorrent and nothing to do with debates like this, despite what anyone might insist or associate with them.

 

EDIT: Sorry should have said this isn't a post to dismiss your views, opinions, or feelings Dog-amoto. Just that if we were to do so I think it would warrant another thread on the separate topic of however one would opt to classify these acts. It's a dangerous topic of conversation with all the recent politics around it, but I don't wish to pre-emptively shut it down if people wish to discuss those issues sensible.

 

Probably best to create a new thread for it anyway. As its a big enough subject to have a thread of its own. Tying this incident in with the EU In Out thing isnt helping anybody as there are many left wing arguments for exiting the EU also. I just dont think its helpful to mix the two stories in to one thread.

[Dog-amoto]

Whilst I'd agree and have to admit I'm still following it, the story is still quite current news. I don't think it's fair to tie it in any way to the In/Out referendum nor this thread. Acts and behaviour like that are purely abhorrent and nothing to do with debates like this, despite what anyone might insist or associate with them.

 

EDIT: Sorry should have said this isn't a post to dismiss your views, opinions, or feelings Dog-amoto. Just that if we were to do so I think it would warrant another thread on the separate topic of however one would opt to classify these acts. It's a dangerous topic of conversation with all the recent politics around it, but I don't wish to pre-emptively shut it down if people wish to discuss those issues sensible.

 

Nah it's ok. Been following it on Twitter and eyewitnesses are saying he was chanting EDL and making strong Out chants as well. But I suppose you can't trust everything you read on Twitter or any social media for that matter.

[Fierce_LiNk]

Disgusting about the MP being killed this afternoon. Regardless of political views, this was someone's wife and mother.

 

Scum.

 

That's horrible. I had no idea what you meant because I was checking this post in my break at work. Just read the BBC coverage. That poor family.

 

As for me, I am definitely 100% IN. Remain.

 

I do find it odd that people have a problem with unelected officials in the EU, yet are completely fine with the House of Lords and the Queen...Also, to add further fuel to that, I never voted for David Cameron and the Conservatives, yet they still got in because of our shitty voting system.

 

I don't trust the Conservatives at all to call all of the shots. I think that's an absolute disaster waiting to happen. I also understand that the EU does need reforming, but I do still think that we should be a part of it. We need to be building and mending bridges, not burning them. I've also yet to see a truly viable plan of how we would deal with leaving the EU. The main message seems to be focusing on border control. "Take back control" seemed to be the message of the Leave campaign. I'm more concerned about our own officials, such as Michael Gove (the prick who is hated by every single teacher in the entire nation), Jeremy Hunt (hated by Doctors...and the public), etc.

[Raining_again]

100% remain.

 

Lots of leave votes from people i've spoken to but to be honest I think a lot of it is based on an awful lot of ignorant racism.... Still a bloody problem in this country....

[Eenuh]

I'm worried about how many people are actually voting Leave because of xenophobia and racism (even if they try to hide it). Reading comments on news articles and Facebook highlights just how many people blame "immigrants" or Brussels for their problems, when really those problems are caused by their own government, by austerity measures, by the economy going down the drain because of the banking crisis...

 

It makes me very sad reading these comments, and to be honest, a bit scared too. When people ask me where I'm from, I'm worried I'll get judged badly or treated differently simply because I'm from the EU.

 

The thing is that I didn't come here to steal any jobs (my first job here required you to speak Dutch, don't think many English could do that), I didn't come here to take your benefits (never had any in my life), I didn't come here to use your NHS (never been seen by a GP or been to the hospital in the UK) or take up spaces in schools (don't plan to have children). I only came here because my other half just happens to be English and I speak the language, so it made sense for me to move. And there are lots of people like me here, moving here to be with the one they love, or moving to get into the industry they want a career in.

 

It's difficult not to take this whole debate personal, but I find it impossible not to, there is just so much at stake, so many lives that will be affected. And I feel personally attacked by some of the comments I've seen online and in the news, just making me very sad, angry and scared.

 

[bob]

I did see a great quote on Facebook:

 

Not all Leave voters are racist, but all racists are sure to vote Leave.

[Nicktendo]

I did see a great quote on Facebook:

 

Not all Leave voters are racist, but all racists are sure to vote Leave.

 

 

 

Billy Bragg

[Falcon_BlizZACK]

100% remain.

 

Lots of leave votes from people i've spoken to but to be honest I think a lot of it is based on an awful lot of ignorant racism.... Still a bloody problem in this country....

 

I feel like making a poll on racism, would anybody object?

[Kav]

A must-watch... an actual expert (Professor of European Law) talking about both remaining and leaving.

 

Edited June 21, 2016 by Kav

[Ashley]

I feel like making a poll on racism, would anybody object?

 

What exactly would the question be...?

[Falcon_BlizZACK]

What exactly would the question be...?

 

Are you a racist? (No, Yes, No but...)

 

And then perhaps a frank discussion on the topic if it goes that way.

[MoogleViper]

Are you a racist? (No, Yes, No but...)

 

And then perhaps a frank discussion on the topic if it goes that way.

 

You already did that.

 

Based on this thread.

 

 

But I think it would be good to have an updated thread. I don't think I was ever racist, but I did grow up in a 99+% white, working class community, so was ignorant of certain racial issues. Since that thread I've gone to uni, met many people of different races/nationalities/cultures, even met some middle class people (but I still don't like them), so I've definitely become more enlightened.