The Remainers

[cromwell]

Sounds like a 70's TV series, doesn't it? With maybe Alexandra Bastedo in it.

But the people who advocate remaining on the TV and in papers like the Guardian - they seem to have no case, or no belief in their case.

I know it isn't the 1970's any more (worse luck). We have had evidence in the last few years of the many and varied failures of the EU. The Eurozone crisis. The virtual collapse of Greece. The wanting to take money out of the Cypriot people's bank accounts. The refugee crisis. The fact that Greece has 50% youth unemployment, Italy 40%, etc etc. The lack of democracy in the EU may be intangible, but these events are not.

So the remain camp has only two stances. One which is predicting financial armageddon if we leave, and no one knows if that's true or not. The other is to say "Yes, we know the EU is crap, but...". Because given the events above and many more like them, they can't deny it any more. They can't pretent that the EU is a success, a financial wonderzone where everyone is well off. They have to have a "But".

There is no "But", to me. The EU has failed, is failing and will go on failing. The "We will reform the EU from within" argument - really? Has the EU said that it wants to be reformed? I think not.

Voting to stay in is an endorsement of everything that has gone wrong in the EU and an encouragement for the EU to get even more undemocratic.

Not for me, I vote out.

[Suff]

After the USSR fell, it was abundantly clear how utterly horrible it had been during the reign of the communists. So why did more Russians not leave?

Well, fences, minefields and border guards apart, the simple answer was that TASS, the official news agency and the Government had most people convinced that the outside world was this utterly hostile and evil place where everyone and everything was set up to steal from you. Where honest people did not exist. A bit like saying the rest of the world was a pirates haven and that the USSR was the only possible alternative.

When Russians did get outside they were amazed. By our technology? No, they had sent people to space. By our utilities and devices in the kitchens? No, they already knew about them because they were available from the GUM store to senior party people. What they were totally amazed about was the simple availability of food whenever you wanted it so long as you had money to buy it. The Russians had simply bought into the idea that simple staples like Flour and vegetables (forget meat), were difficult to come by and that you had to stand in line and queue for it.

This extremely unsubtle brainwashing had the vast majority of the masses believing (along with a secret police to discourage other thought), that this was the way of the world and that to try and do otherwise would turn the county into those piratical westerners.

The EU brainwashing, on the other hand, has been far more subtle and more seductive. We have food availability and an easy life and the delusion of self determination. Our brainwashing has been that to leave the EU casts us out into an evil world in which we will have to work 3 times as hard for half the return. Where our country can only function within the EU under the restrictions of the EU.

Yet, look what happens when you don't conform. Your banks are collapsed, your economy is destroyed and then you are put on a drip feed lifeline of pain and suffering until you get the message. The easy life is the velvet glove, conform or you will feel the iron fist.

Never mind the fact that the truth is out there. The world is not divided into the EU, China, Russia and the US. Australia does very well thank you very much on way, way less than we do. Oh and they seem to have the money to buy our carriers for defence without running up huge budget deficits. New Zealand also does very well thanks. As do dozens of other countries.

Britain doesn't have it's permanent seat on the UN Security Council because it's some 3rd rate banana republic. It has it and retains it because Britain is one of the top 5 powers AND economies in the world, one of the few western countries which emerged from the 2nd world war undefeated and whole. If we were to leave then the calculation would change. Today we are the #5 economy in the world, sometimes #6 behind France when the Euro is doing well (might be so today as the government has managed to talk the £ down against he €). If we were to leave the EU and the EU were then to morph into it's superstate that has already been set up, which we are holding back, then the UK would remain the #5 economy in the world until Russia grows again. Our very worst case would be #6 behind India. That bears some thinking about. The UK is not growing. Russia and India are. This is because the EU discourages growth outside of the allowed limits and actively stops states from growing and changing their position within the rankings. Which means that inside the EU the UK could never, ever, grow beyond Germany because the EU won't allow it.

Also within the EU you can fall. But that fall is then permanent. If we were to screw up so badly that our economy fell below, say, Italy (not so hard it would only take a 30% drop), then we would be pinned there unless we broke a whole lot of EU rules because you can bet your bottom dollar that Italy would use their influence as a founder EEC member to block the UK rise again.

The UK in the EU is what I call our "California".

California has the largest GDP of any state in the US, slightly lower than the UK, but it has half the population.

So far, so good. Now, tell me, how many embassies and how much influence does California have in the world?

Because when the EU forces every country to turn their embassies into trade legations and the foreign and defence decisions are made from Brussels, that is where the UK will be.

Don't believe me? The EU is in the process of setting up Embassies in every country in the world. With ambassadors and full staffs. The EU already sits on negotiations such as the Syrian negotiations. Why? A trading block has NO place in these negotiations so why are they there?

Simply because the EU IS a country and it has just not finished it's reorganisation. Don't believe me? Read the Top line on the front page of your passport!

Don't believe me?

Why is this not Front and Centre in the Brexit debate? Because this is not a debate as WM says. Because if we DID debate this then it would expose huge issues with the EU.

Also this.

The European Union (EU) has been an observer state at the United Nations (UN) since 1974 and has had enhanced participation rights since 2011. The EU itself does not have voting rights but it is represented alongside its 28 members, two of which are permanent members of the Security Council, those being France and the United Kingdom.

Why 2011 as the step change in the representation? Remember that 460 page "cleaning up" treaty. You know, that one, the Lisbon one that Gordon Brown tried to sneak in and sign without the press seeing him. Yep that one which made all the "Nation States" into "Member States" of a country called the EU. Had the Constitution stood, we would have lost our seat on the UN security council by now.

I predicted this back in 2013. I raised a petition with the government to try and force a debate that raise a bill which forced a Brexit if we had to hand over our seat. I asked the UKIP to get behind it, I asked the EDL to get behind it. Neither did.

NOBODY will discuss it. WHY???

This is really key because if this was discussed properly with the truth being out there, Leave is assured.

Stupid is as Stupid does!!!

[pederito1]

Who said "You can`t fool all of the people all of the time" very apt I think and I wonder if anyone has done an unbi.ased CBA of our time in the EU or perhaps it has been suppressed like Chilcot will that ever see the light of day?

[Workingman]

I have made the decision not to comment on any more EU threads till after the referendum.

It is not that I don't have counter arguments and views, I do, but I cannot be ar5ed any more.

I want us to remain in, but I am going to vote Leave simply to screw things up. I won't be around long enough for any changes to make much of an impression, and my children have already decided to leave Europe once their career paths are sorted out.

[Suff]

True. But did you ever consider that the reason they are totally focused on the present is because pretty much nobody wants what is coming in the future for the EU???

[cromwell]

I have made the decision not to comment on any more EU threads till after the referendum.

It is not that I don't have counter arguments and views, I do, but I cannot be ar5ed any more.

I want us to remain in, but I am going to vote Leave simply to screw things up. I won't be around long enough for any changes to make much of an impression, and my children have already decided to leave Europe once their career paths are sorted out.

That's a bit sad about your children Frank. It's such a big decision to leave everything that you have ever known.

btw - I don't think we will leave, whatever the result of the referendum. 10 years to sort out the terms of leaving? Plenty of time for more "renegotiation" there, I think.
I'll still vote to leave though.

[Workingman]

That's a bit sad about your children Frank. It's such a big decision to leave everything that you have ever known.

Yes, at first glance I would agree, Crommers, but they are both well educated, well travelled and in jobs that are in demand just about everywhere. The World really is their oyster.

[Suff]

btw - I don't think we will leave, whatever the result of the referendum.

Of course the merchants of doom are saying that the second we vote "leave", they'll start the paperwork and 2 years later we'll be booted, agreements of not...

I have suspended belief of anything the Remainers say for the duration of the campaign.

[Suff]

The World really is their oyster.

More so than at almost any other time in History... I wish them luck.

[cruiser2]

Saw a bit on the news this morning when a former President of Ireland saying if we leave the EU it will be a disaster for both the UK and Ireland.
Why are people who have no authority in the UK trying to get in on the act?