Unofficial Brexit Thread

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I'm still undecided on the issue. I live in an area that's pretty pro-leave, for the most part, so I'm leaning towards that though there's a lot of stuff saying it'd be better to stay with everything boiling down to no one knows what the fuck's gonna happen either way.

I don't really know what I'm gonna vote on thursday.

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If Brits are any sane they will leave the European Union. Sadly, I think they just might lack balls to leave or the referendum is rigged.

I'm still undecided on the issue. I live in an area that's pretty pro-leave, for the most part, so I'm leaning towards that though there's a lot of stuff saying it'd be better to stay with everything boiling down to no one knows what the fuck's gonna happen either way.

I don't really know what I'm gonna vote on thursday.

Anything you're still particularly uncertain about?

Eh. I know jack and shit about economics and politics and all that stuff and I'm not really expecting to become an expert in the next 4 days.

I guess really I'm just going to put it down to what affects me and my interests the most because of that. And I'm not entirely sure how it would affect university tuition (I'm in 2017 entry for Computer Games Design), I doubt it would affect science and technology all that much (I mean, as I understand it current standards would have to be upheld regardless if the UK would trade with EU so not much would change) and elsewise I'm not really interested in travelling all too much so the open borders thing doesn't bother me either way. And I don't really buy the "Hey we can spend £300m on the NHS if we leave,  honest!" crap or the "IF we leave = NO immigration at all!" stuff, but I also don't buy any of the fearmongering of people saying the world will end and world war 3 will start if we do leave, either.

So yeah, not entirely sure. I'm not too sure that leaving or staying would affect me on a personal level and I'm not fluent enough in stuff to make an educated decision on the matter from that perspective.

Of course Mair never said Britain first and that claim was first peddled by an MP and a kebab who weren't even on the scene but w/e works to scare the voting public into keeping faith with the Bureaucrat goal of a federalised Europe.

Thought this was interesting.

Nearly half of voters in eight big European Union countries want to be able to vote on whether to remain members of the bloc, just as Britons will in a referendum next month, according to an opinion poll published on Monday.

Forty-five percent of more than 6,000 people surveyed in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden said they wanted their own vote, and a third would opt to leave the EU if given the chance, poll firm Ipsos-MORI said.

The size of the potential "Out" vote ranges from as high as 48 and 41 percent in Italy and France respectively to as low as 22 and 26 percent in Poland and Spain, the firm said.

A part of me wants to see Paul Golding beaten to death with dildos.

Also: Brexit would make the UK more secure by scuppering plans for an EU army, French admirals claim.

A Brexit vote would make Europe and the UK more secure as it would stop the “dangerous” integration of armies of EU member states, two senior French Admirals have said.

In a letter in The Telegraph Vice admiral Michel Debray and Rear Admiral Claude Gaucherand say the UK would not be "diminished" by a vote to leave the EU but would prevent the "inevitable and dangerous" development of an EU fighting force.

They add that the UK's neighbours will want to "cooperate on close and friendly terms" even if Britain is outside the bloc because it is such a strong military and economic power.

The men, who both support a vote to leave, also warn that "scaremongering" about the UK's military prowess after a possible Brexit "makes no sense" because Britain would "remain a major force".

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Of all the things used in the Leave campaign, this one of the most fearmongering ones, in my opinion.

Britain went from a discussion where our leading pro-EU politician, Nick Clegg, hounded Nigel Farage for suggesting a European Army was a possibility--specifically labelling it a "dangerous fantasy". . . To Jean Claude Juncker calling for exactly that.

How do you expect the electorate to respond to something like that?

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Lord Guthrie has defected to Leave, again over concerns of a European Army.

We want referendum in Finland as well, and Brexit would launch that.

YouTube

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How it should react? Based on actual facts and reason.

When the President of the European Commission expresses a desire for the Union to move towards having an army, this is an expression which must be given due consideration. It's not simply the personal aspirations of one man; it's the political aspirations of the current President of the Commission. That has more weight than you seem to be willing to give it. Does it mean anything concrete, such as in terms of forthcoming legislation? No, and I'm not claiming it does. But it belies the attitude of those at the top of the EU as to which direction the union should be going. And it's not a path I want my country to tread.

As much as the law states that the UK effectively has a veto, numerous European politicians are in favour of effectively having a European Army (and the Germans are currently trying to make progress in that direction). But, we are not simply voting for the next five or ten years. The decision we will take will have lasting effects on a much longer time-frame; how far into the future can you reasonably say that a European Army is not on the cards? Especially with the drastic need for greater fiscal and political integration if the Euro is to survive.

The EU, presumably, could establish some kind of Army only between consenting member-states. But then we come back to my central concern of the UK being on the periphery of a two-speed Europe, now in the realm of security as well as economics. Among other names who have called for greater martial integration is an Italian foreign minister, Angela Merkel and--as I'm sure you know--Guy Verhofstadt. It's blindingly clear that the "European elite", as populistic a term as that is, is somewhat enamoured with the idea.

the odds that we're going to be seeing an actual European army are just about zero.

Can you say you trust future governments to act appropriately in this manner? I don't, and I'd rather remove the possibility altogether. Why have an integrated European defence force alongside NATO? Numerous political organisations all acting in the same arena almost invariably compete with one another for resources, and usually to the detriment of their policy areas.

As convincingly as you make the case that it is unlikely a European Army will be formed, to claim the probability is "around zero" is ludicrous. Not only are some pretty fucking massive names making noises about this, but some countries are clearly willing to push towards and it has military officials very concerned. It is symptomatic of this federalising attitude that seems to pervade the European Union; we don't even need a European Army, NATO works just fine, yet all the same it keeps coming up time and time again because European politicians keep fucking talking about it.

It's not crazy to think that the long term goals of the EU is to push something that is akin to the US.

EU army is there to keep the EU countries on a leash.

It's not crazy to think that the long term goals of the EU is to push something that is akin to the US.

The problem is that the EU reminds more of the USSR than USA.

So I'm like 60 pages into Roger Bootle's book, and the past ten or so pages have brought up some points that I would really like to see discussed:

- The European Union suffers from a profound and existential identity crisis; what is its purpose? It is to link together countries which are culturally European? To link together countries which are geographically close? Is it to simply keep expanding, and to be a progenitor of global governance? Without answering this question, it is entirely unclear which direction the EU should be heading in.

- The EU has made its expansionist desire quite clear; the integration of second-wave, former Communist-bloc countries like Romania and Bulgaria (which have per capita GDPs a fraction of the size of founding members) and the potential integration of even larger and much poorer countries like Turkey ad Ukraine makes this undeniable. Yet the existence of the Euro--and the will of the European elite--is inexorably going to push towards greater integration. The Union cannot exist as both an expansionist and an integrationist body.

- The rotating country-based presidency of the Council of Ministers makes no sense; the civil servants and bureaucrats of a country like Croatia are much less numerous and, in general, less experienced than those of the UK or Germany.

- The Centre for European Reform details how weird the Commission is as an institution; it is altogether legislative, quasi-judicial, analytical and regulatory.

- The expanding nature of the EU--and QMV--gives individual countries less voice, and many important decisions are simply made between heads of state and the president of the Commission.

- Institutionally--and culturally--membership of the European Union represents a significant divergence from the British democratic tradition. As far back as the Anglo-Saxon kings, rulers were effectively elected (by the witenagemot) and the subsequent Norman rulers toned down their authoritarianism in response to unruly barons and the growing power of Parliament. In 1327 Parliament deposed Edward II and in 1399 it deposed Richard the II. Again, Charles I and James II were deposed, and the supremacy of parliament was established with the Glorious Revolution in 1688. Democracy in Britain essentially means the ability of the people to immediately remove the government when they so wish; governance by European institutions--and by the Commission, no less--breaks with this tradition.

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