EU Referendum

If it were up to me I would never of give a vote to the common idiots. What does Sharon from the post office or Bert the postman know about global economics? The vote should have been from economists, business leaders, politicians and those among the sciences who might actually have am understanding of how leaving might affect us in the months, years and indeed decades to come. rather than from the public who from my own interactions appear to favour leaving simply because 'there's too many Paki's ova' ere' takin my ard' earned dole money and all the jobs I never applied for'.

Leads down a very dark road that.

Yes.

I'm under the assumption that Shola knows that and is trolling though.

Not only is the £350m a complete nonsense (its the gross figure not including our rebate which brings the figure down to ~£190m ish) but theres also a variety of other reasons why its utter bullshit in order:

1. The value of the EU to our economy vastly outweighs the cost. Even ignoring most sensible economic arguments the value of inward investment from EU countries to the UK is about £50bn a year. That utterly dwarfs the cost of membership (and theres good reason to believe that £50bn vastly underestimates the influence the EU has).
2. If we vote to Leave the pound will take an utter battering, institutions that use London as a anglophone point of entry into the EU will leave (why would they stay?) and people will lose their jobs. Perhaps we could ride it out and come out the other side, but when Leave have offered literally no argument whatsoever for why on earth we would want to do that then, well, why on earth would we want to do that?
3. Leave's argument has been that we'd sign a trade deal with the EU to access the single market. To do that we'd have to pay a fee (Norway pays £245m a year gross although I'm not sure if the receive a rebate) so to do that we'd end up paying more, or at the very least not saving much, for less. We'd be beholden to the EU's rules (especially the 'nonsense' ones like bendy bananas that literally don't exist), and more than likely have to except freedom of movement as a condition - at the very least, both Switzerland and Norway were forced to accept that.

I know Remain gets branded as 'scaremongers' because Leave can't engage with their concerns, but they're right. The prospect of waking up tomorrow out of the EU is fucking terrifying.

Amazing how many people genuinely seem to think that they're honouring Britain's Heroes of yesterday who died at the Somme etc.

My hot take from WW1 was poorer economic conditions + Nationalism + smaller, weaker and more isolated states = Jelly and ice cream for all.

Yeah that's what I was looking at.

The official reason for entering the wars were because Germany invaded Belgium and Poland. It's absolutely staggering that people seem to think otherwise. We fought alongside Stalin ffs not exactly a great friend to freedom or democracy.

I think it's because Americans say it. And at least it is half true when they say it. They fought a war which gave them more freedom, democracy and suffrage, ours was handed down over a period of around a hundred years for varying reasons. Thank Bobby Peel, Gladstone and the Marquess of Salisbury for the vote ffs.

I think I agree with him. The UK general public is not informed enough to make a decision on the EU. We don't know enough (as strongly as I will argue for the EU) we can't make a rational decision on it with certainty and even if Remain wins it will probably be for the wrong reason.

The UK is a representative democracy, and the reason for that is because we accept that we can't be informed of enough of the decisions to make any objective judgment. If you argue that we should have a referendum on the EU, then why shouldn't we have one on the budget, why don't we have one on CTC cuts etc...?

As much as we all, rightly, dislike politicians. The principe of our democratic system is you vote for someone to represent you and to make decisions on your behalf. It's their job to be informed of the facts and to make decisions.

The problem with this referendum is the basic principle of a representative democracy has been thrown under the bus. Effectively the politicians have turned around and said 'we don't know, work it out for yourselves'. It's a shirking of responsibility that shouldn't happen. YouGov polling has shown that people inclined to Brexit don't believe what experts tell them, they don't believe what academics tell them, business leaders, politicians, anyone. It's hardly the best environment in which the country can make the best decision.

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/x4iynd1mn7/TodayResults_160614_EUReferendum_W.pdf (Raw data for that claim about trust, there was a better graphic elsewhere but I can't find it)

Its going to be a long, long night. Actually weird being this nervous about politics ha, the pound took a massive hammering as soon as the Sunderland result was announced.

Down 7 cent against the dollar in 5 minutes.

Yet people think we'll have more money to spend when we Leave. Laughable.

Pound since the Sunderland result.

The English people just sat fire to their own house and dragged the Scots and the Northern Irish down with them.

Farage already backtracking on the £350m a week he promised we would save and give to the NHS.

Lie #1 unravels just hours after the vote.

Dan Hannan has also come out and said leaving wont change immigration, only taken a few hours and the two major campaign points have gone up in smoke.