coldel

Not true? Get under the car, pull out the cats, put the HFCs in in place?

I think your post sums it up Wayne, there is very little in the way of objective views on this in a format that can be read by someone who hasn't the inclination to plow through endless technical documents. Best thing is to dispel the minorities, so arguments like health tourists are so few and far between and in the grand scheme of things cost the country pennies - arguments around these sorts of things are to be had and it shouldn't happen, but its not this sort of thing that would hold a country back from being prosperous. These sorts of issues are best left to the column inches in trash papers like the Mail in all honesty. Its not easy for countries to join the EU, Turkey fail a number of tests and have done for years and have to work through bi-lateral agreements - they don't just let anyone in, the real issue is allowing countries to join the Euro in which case they need to prove further their economic capabilities. The negotiations Cameron has just had with regards apply totally to 'people living off the state who never put into it' in effect we will be able to boot out anyone who hasn't found work within 6 months for instance. In my view Cameron could have done better, he seems a bit of a soft touch compared to some previous leaders. Most observers (CBI for instance) have done plenty of research on the benefits of being in the EU, there are net worth estimates of something in the region of £65bn, how accurate this is open to debate but most will say there is a net worth to being in it - you put in £12bn you get out £77bn. What the Leave campaigners have to convince me is that our outside EU trading will give a bigger net worth, which again it isn't and hasn't tried to establish.

Phew thank god, that was a close one!

As above, decats are really loud, I found Miltek with HFCs gave a great sound on my Zed. Loud enough whilst trundling along then really came on loud when giving it a bit of throttle.

This is a separate issue, foreign aid is something signed up to globally (the US is the highest contributor of foreign aid for instance), however I have a few issues with it and it shouldn't work as it stands. I am not against a country which is relatively wealthy per head helping a poor country where people die because they get a cold, or that half of all children die before the age of 5 etc. But firstly the money is not used properly, the governments in receipt often spend the money badly. Secondly, the countries in the UN who signed up to it signed up to give a % of GDP but many countries are using back doors to get out of paying the full amount. The UK stands but this commitment, many other countries do not.

PS, none of these responses are aimed at you JP at a personal level, I imagine your reasons for leaving are probably the same as the majority who want out - clearly there is a common theme there that people arent happy with.

It is a debate if the Leave campaign had some business plan for the exit, you could quite viably debate the benefits that they have researched and presented. OK - if I were to put numbers against it then - based on other countries, the rules and regs stay in play to around 80-90% exiting will not change this. Freedom of movement is part and parcel of being allowed to operate in the free market for example, I suspect they might though allow you to take EU markings of tyres Additionally we pay a tax if you like to be in the EU of 6% (£12bn to get £300bn imports and £200bn exports), to give context a start point for anything coming into the UK is going to be at least 20% based on how we trade with the US currently. That in a nutshell makes me think throwing caution to wind to something that currently has no economic or legal basis means, I cannot justify voting Leave on that basis. How about we put it this way, worst case scenario cost to taxpayer numbers that have been tossed around have been £3000-£4000 per year, disregarding for a minute the arguments behind it and whether its true or not, to Leave and get the benefits you believe it will bring, are you willing to possibly be £4000 a year out of pocket? If you are willing to take that financial chance for an independent UK then by all means you cannot debate anyone wanting to vote Leave.

To be fair, its easier to put an argument to stay as facts are there as we have been living it for years - the Leave campaign have to try and pull together theoretical arguments which is tougher - that said, I have yet to see from the Leave campaign any sort of plan, even one without numbers, even the basics like who are they going to recruit to start, run and maintain the trade relations? There needs to be some business plan for me to be convinced to vote Leave, even if they estimate numbers (like you have to on most business plans) but there is nothing on the table and I struggle to vote for nothing?

When we joined the EU there were 9 states in it, now there are 28, in terms of having 9.5% that is actually x3 more than based on counts alone i.e. 100%/28. When we have 20% of 9 states we only had x2 more based on counts, numerically its still a good place to be The main problem with the EU voting from a UK perspective is that the majority of EU countries want closer integration whereas the UK wants to still retain clear space, which is what a lot of Camerons recent talks were about, he was basically arguing our soveringty against 20+ countries all wanting something else of which he got reasonable success. But yes generally our votes lose as we want something the majority do not want.

Which is why this is a debate, if there were an answer then we would all just vote for the best choice, the problem with economics is its unpredictability. In terms of the £12bn, you could do lots of things, you would want to avoid protectionism where the government uses the money to prop up businesses that are not viable - but yes you could pump lots of cash into supporting new businesses which would improve the peformance of business in this country that would be pretty clear cut. What isn't clear cut is if the costs of running those businesses if trading with the EU outweighs the investment which no one really knows as there is no precedent for what the UK is wanting to do. If the EU digs its heels in we are FUBAR regardless of £33m per day, if it plays ball we will be in a good position...that sounds appealing, but I dont think people appreciate what a good position we have already economically.

Take the cats out and put in decats

We pay £20bn a year, around £8bn we get back as a rebate so around £10bn-£12bn to be in the EU. We trade around £500bn yearly with the EU with a deficit in terms of imports vs exports. We are heavily dependent on the EU for many imports. If we retain status quo with the EU in terms of what we import then we need to make sure any additional tariffs for our £300bn imports do not exceed £12bn otherwise we are already out of pocket. Alternatively we could trade more with other countries in Asia and the Americas for example, but we would be a small country negotiating with economic powerhouses like the US and China, there is a danger they just hang us out and charge what they like. That £12bn effectively buys us access to the largest free trade market in the world worth something like £10tn - the UK is one of if not the largest member of the EU for foreign investment. The price is that £12bn plus the lack of unilateral decision making on key issues that give us this access (such as immigration). If we pull out, we don't get that £12bn back, it will be used to supplement trade agreements...

The man in the street will suffer, its the exact issue that people seem to miss. Yes the Financial sector would be impacted, but so would foodstuffs for example, where do you think the majority of your bacon comes from because its not UK farms, they mostly arrive with a Danish accent. If the agreements are not favourable (and this is the debate really, how well can the UK negotiate? If we do well then we are ok, if we don't then we will see tariffs put on common products that we import) then cost of everyday goods goes up that we have to import from the EU. Have you not noticed when buying something for your car from the EU vs buying it from the US how much more you have to pay to get the US good here? I know its not exactly the same thing as negotiating bi-lateral agreements, but it shows the man on the street is very much affected.

The Swiss are In in all but name, they are part of the european economic area and have a number of bi lateral agreements with the EU but to have those they need to pretty much act as if in the EU which includes the free movement of EU citizens. A couple of years ago the Swiss had a referendum and decided that they wanted that to stop, but now the EU is in the process of ditching all those agreements if they Swiss go through with it so could see the Swiss on shaky ground in a few years time.

...and somewhat ironically the European Court of Human Rights was the UKs idea...

Straight bananas etc. the bureaucracy that comes out of Brussels I can live with - I am more concerned about what I am giving out in one hand whilst taking with the other - ultimately i want to be better off. If saving £500m on benefits for migrants costs £50bn in export duties to me there is no sense trading one for the other. I want to see a business plan for the Leave idea, where is it? At the moment they are saying they don't want any of the Norway, Swiss or Turkey models, but there is no alternative put forwards, its not as if they haven't had time to do something this has been coming for some time now.

My wife is trained in NLP, transactional analysis etc and she finds the programmes she sees where police deal with the public just ridiculous. The fact that their job is to primarily engage with the public and that most of them have no idea how to do it just quite shocking...the way they patronise, try to humiliate people even when the person is being quite reasonable is nothing short of a farce.

You see this is why i didnt want to discuss my "reasons", i didnt mention immigration, yet you automatically assume its to do with immigration. Nhs tourism apparently costs £200 million, it may be a drop in the ocean, but its 200 million i would prefer used on uk residents Sorry, I wasn't quoting you as using the immigration issue at all or assuming such - more that when people effectively think 'I am voting out because immigration is the cause of all the countries woes' is a good enough reason to actually vote that way, which I wasn't meaning to say you were saying as much in your post.

This is important. Currently energy companies are plowing billions back into renewable energy development, but 1. there isnt enough cash to build what is needed and so they get funds from the government, if they need to build more, then the taxpayer has to pay for this 2. there are only so many wind farms and hydro plants you can physically build on and around a small island 3. there is not sufficient infrastructure to transport the additional power needed around the country The cost of owning the car is not the cost to plug in and charge up and how much VED you pay, its the end to end cost from energy creation to deployment which currently is coping with the tiny percent of electric cars on the road, who is going to pay for all the above to change to accommodate 10m EVs or 20m EVs? You must take a longer view point on it than just the 'I saved £X this month beat that'

It will take 10 years to actually exit and then bed down a completely new economic system operating with the EU, at least. This isn't something you can turn on and off every couple of years. The cost of simply (I say simply rather ironically) will run to billions in terms of just staffing and maintaining our new trade agreements across the EU - that would even vary massively depending on if we adopt a single trade approach or on a bi-lateral basis in which we would need to set up trade agreements with each trading partner. What happens to all the UK nationals outside of the UK once we exit? Its can't be BAU for them. Do we discriminate against an immigrant who is willing to do the sloppy jobs that UK people wont do vs an immigrant that is a doctor? One is higher paid than the other, but both are working and earning their way in life so why discriminate? (which is what I don't like about the reference to the Aus idea). If we want access to a free market i.e. the EU in terms of how we trade, we have to allow for the free movement of immigrants... What about the US? They align with us and support us in many ways, because we get them a voice at the EU table, what happens to that relationship when we become less important in that respect? Trade with the EU is worth something like £400bn per year, we pay around £10bn a year to be in it once you take into account the rebate - are we confident we will not incur trade taxation to the sum of £10bn because if it exceeds that you are already financially worse off? Greenland is an interesting example of the challenges of going it alone - its not a comparable one as theirs is a much simpler model, but that they exited to 'grab back control' of their fishing industry, but now want back in because they cannot negotiate competitive deals with China or the US without being within the EU. Probably sounds like I am a Stay, and I am veering towards that, there is something that makes me feel a little entrepreneurial and tempted by a Leave, but at the moment I dont think many people have really looked into this and what it means...that they are voting quite blind not realising what they are committing to.

PS I am just playing all this back from 'as independent a view' as I can find online, I am no top EU legislative economist! But with just say 1 hours searching you can make a much more informed vote on this than just defaulting to voting 'to keep the immigrants out'

Absolutely you can still push your own local laws but anything which will impact EU law and trading has to abide by laws operating in both directions, there has to be balance of compromise to what both sides expect in a deal? Greenland voted out in the 80's, they managed to renegotiate a better deal on fishing in its waters, so reducing other countries fishing it and allowing for their own fleets to have more access - but, other countries can still fish it. So it can work better, although they now find themselves in an economy that has topped out as they voted out based on that single policy, and now are considering wanting back in, although thats much harder than leaving it seems and will take years.

I have been reading up on the impact on the more objective sites and the idea it appears that leaving the EU will let the UK suddenly become this self serving entity seems pretty wide of the mark. The ECHR for instance, is part of any Europeans countries trade agreements who are outside of the EU. So even if we vote Leave, we still have to sign up to it to negotiate the trade agreements that will bind the UK to the EU, in the same way Norway for example have to. It will be true of many EU policies, except by being out of the EU we no longer have a say in what or how they are created. There seems to be this view that we vote Leave, then the following week we are own country and can do what we like which is not true. Actually the whole exit time period will take a minimum of 2 years before anything actually happens in terms of negotiating the exit.

I guess what I want to hear from the Leave people is what economic model they want to adopt? Something like the Swiss?

My general feeling is that because everything is so vague from both sides everyone will vote on their emotional stand point than any rational one - and it seems like so many people have associated immigration as the driving issue within the EU its likely to work very much in the favour the Leave campaign... ...and my next thought would then be do Scotland have another referendum on UK membership? Leaving the EU is a big constitutional change, one that could justify another vote north of the border.