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You would not believe the hoo-ha over the wording of the (unofficially proposed) referendum question: "Should the UK remain a member of the EU?"

Not only are the arguments about the wording - how difficult is the above to understand? There are also arguments about who should bag the rights to being the "Yes" camp and "No" camp.

I tell you, it will not be long before someone calls for a public inquiry, or even a Royal Commission.

Maybe we should have a referendum on the question "question" and pick the option from a list of possibles. We could then go along with the one with the most votes, happy that everyone understands.

Let's hope that when and if they finally have a referendum that they stick with that simple question and don't load it in favour of their own preference with a "when did you stop beating your wife" sort of question.

It's the whole complicated English thing, plus the negative v positive.

If they ask the question "Should the UK leave the EU?" the answer could be Yes in a positive way and it is incredibly simple to understand.

However the way it is phrased, people have to stop for a second to think what they mean and then they must give a negative answer.

That's the only reasons I can see for wording the question this way.

In this case, however, I think they have not done themselves a service if they want the UK to stay in the EU. Currently, for those who want to leave, the entire experience is negative. Making another negative decision for positive reasons, therefore, should be relatively easy.

Personally, instead of going to war about it, the No campaign can simply tell people that the Exit answer is NO. I'd have the billboards out.

Yes to the UK is NO to the EU.
Britain in the EU is a broken Marriage with broken vows and broken promises. Who would vote Yes to stay????
If you positively dislike the EU, vote NO to positively divorce it.
One of the first words an infant learns is NO. So why should the infant EU always hear YES? Vote NO on the day.

And such other slogans...

It is not that difficult or complicated. If somebody does not understand that simple nine word question they should not be voting. It is not a philosophical question in the vein of Shcroedinger's cat of a jar full of red and yellow marbles.

Same same, argument wise.

"Should the UK remain a member of the EU?"
Yes: because...
No: because...
"Should the UK leave the EU?"
Yes: because...
No: because...

We all know why we are going to the Polling Station so just give everybody a paper with:
In
Out
* Cross out the one you DO NOT want. (Just for Liz )

Even then some idiots would get it wrong.

Workingman wrote:It is not that difficult or complicated. If somebody does not understand that simple nine word question they should not be voting.

Sadly that's neither true nor, strictly, fair. I know that my mother in law thought she was voting to leave in 75 and voted to stay. She was not an uneducated or stupid woman, she just managed to confuse herself.

That's the subtlety of seemingly simple English which is designed to be obtuse. "Should the UK remain a member" is not common English in common use today. It is old English and more akin to the backassward French our language is based on, than the direct English we use today.

Suff wrote:Sadly that's neither true nor, strictly, fair.

That's playing the semantics game and exactly what I read from those who want us out. They want "Out" to be the positive answer because they somehow think that is more in their favour. It is not, it makes no difference.

Where I come from "stay as" could replace "remain" and both would be good and clear contemporary English. We would not be confused with either version.

The 1975 referendum question was: "Do you think the UK should stay in the European Community (Common Market)?" Yes/No.

How that can be construed as confusing is beyond me. Your mil, who wanted to leave could have voted "No" = not stay = Leave, and that would be it.

Subliminal messaging is quite interesting. As I recall, the talk at the time in 75 was about "ask yourself is you want to leave and if the answer is Yes, then go and vote to leave". Whereas the question actually really means "Ask yourself if you want to leave and if you do, vote NO to leave".

In circumstances like this, the old and the visually impaired tend not to read too clearly. Also people with Dyslexia or borderline Dyslexia may have difficulty with the statement. Personally I've been developing a visual form of Tourettes over the last 4 or 5 years. I see the most incredible swear words on billboards, tv text etc only to look again and find perfectly normal text.

Which probably says a lot about my state of mind....

This is why Salmond was determined for the Scots Independence campaign to be Yes to leave. Because it then made it a positive campaign. Exactly why this has been worded the way it has. NO is always negative as it IS a negative term.

The difference here will be social media. Where people will learn that Voting NO is a Positive step in leaving. Governments are finding their little tricks harder and harder to pull as the population has direct access to wildly varying themes direct to a phone near you.....

Why my Mil did what she did is a mystery to me as she's no longer with us, but I do recall Mrs S saying that she'd said she just got all flustered and didn't read it properly.

I recall the SNP won a majority in Scotland at their second term because they literally trained the unaware and unsuspecting public on how to fill in the PR ballot papers to get a specific result. That year the hard left Scottish socialist party got much lower votes than before. This had never been done before. I'm guessing that this kind of action will be more frequent in the future.

The effect of social media is much over rated, as was proved with the general election.

Its provenance is mainly with those who do not have a vote, and of those who do have a vote it is mainly group-think - I think like you, therefore I agree. The Internet, on the other hand, is a different matter. People now have the ability to access, if they wish to do so, more information and different views to those of traditional media.

It is more likely to be influential with the undecided than political parties, the media and activists for either side. The sheeple will almost certainly vote as they have always done, it is the floating voters, or as I prefer them, the conscientious voters, who will decide the day.

The question should be simply "Should we be in or out of the EU". One box for In, one box for out.

Even then some people may be baffled though..

Reading all this I agree a lot is subliminal persausion.

We need a clear question yes or no in or out and move forward.

Sadly I guess 80% of the UK electorate know next to nothing as to how the EU works, most just see where our own country and it's laws are overridden.

I feel we should be a member of the EU as far as trade etc goes, but retain all our own laws and customs and human rights issues with no recourse for complaints to be heard by the EU at all.

The UK did extremly well for itself in the last few hundred years without the support of the EU, or Europe as a whole.

I feel strongly that in years gone by successive governments have destroyed the UK refering mainly to the loss of all our industries and manufacturing apprenticeships and tradesmen.

What are we now?

A country with no real futures for the youth of today no work for them being created, and getting to the stage of no tradesmen left young enough to teach them how to aquire a skill, I see us becoming a country of service providers and very few skilled workers. and employers encouraged by this government to use new immigrant workers instead of training and using our youngsters but letting our own youth languish on the streets with no income or support and sadly few prospects of being able to better themselves.

Time for us to regain our pride in ourselves and our country and stand up for ourselves.

Manxie xx

edited to add a Ps maybe it is time for big changes and make work available to the young a priority, their working and contibuting to the income of the country might help balance the books a lot easier than all the cuts to services of late.

Manxie xx