EU Referendum

[TheOstrich]

Last week, we actually received our first referendum election pamphlet, delivered along with the local freebie newspaper .....

It was for the "out" campaign, a glossy A5 landscape 8-pager, slightly dumbed-down, full of political cartoons along the lines of Cameron "flashing", Junker looking shocked, and Merkel exclaiming "My, it's so small!" .

It was quite a well-written package, but definitely designed to tug at the heart than the head.

Interesting that the full-on battle for votes has reached this stage so early - the referendum is now being slated as 9 months away!

[Workingman]

It was quite a well-written package, but definitely designed to tug at the heart than the head.

That was always my big fear - the heart always wins.

Cameron, with his weak demands, has already lost the hearts of the electorate. No matter how he spins things he is not trusted. He can come back and say 'four out of five is not bad', but at the end of the day the one thing he will fail on, immigration (issues), is the one thing that will be his undoing.

Labour, Tory, LibDem and SNP all want the UK to stay in Europe, yet the Leave.eu campaign is winning hands down because those others are not trusted to be acting in our (the people's) best interests.

I could not care less when the referendum is held just so long as we can get on and live with the consequences.

[Suff]

Well it was never going to be a simple and fair discussion was it? Both sides must use every tool they have because if one side does not, the other will mercilessly use it against them.

I want the permanent seat on the UN security council in the debate. Absolutely Not One Single Party involved in this will talk about it. If the EU is a country then it is entitled to only one seat and the EU has two, Britain and France. If we lose that seat, then we really do have less influence than a banana republic. After all who listens to Texas on the world stage? Yet Texas has the economic power of 1/3 of the EU....

This is something which must be debated. But nobody will. Because, knowing the British as I do, it would immediately cause an exit if it was made publicly visible that we would lose that influence in the world within the next 50 years...

[Workingman]

I am beginning to wonder if recent events in the EU are moving things Cameron's way.

We have had the Paris massacre and all that has followed. Sweden and Denmark have now got border controls as well as those countries in the south and east. Riots in Germany following the migrant invasion. Merkel now wanting to change the law to allow for the deportation of any migrant committing crime, including refugees, following the Cologne incidents.

European politicians are now having to deal with problems their people have been warning them about for years.

[Aggers]

European politicians are now having to deal with problems their people have been warning them about for years.

It will probably be the same here.

What's the betting?

[Workingman]

European politicians are now having to deal with problems their people have been warning them about for years.

It will probably be the same here.

What's the betting?

Thanks to UKIP that might already be happening. I do not support them, but they do serve a meaningful purpose.

[Suff]

It will probably be the same here.

What's the betting?

Not if they have to override the EU to do it. Bunch of losers who won't do it. The ECHR should have been scrapped immediately Cameron came into office and he's still equivocating....

[meriad]

We haven't had any form of anything regarding the referendum. In fact I wasn't even aware it was happening if it weren't for a friend asking me - just before Christmas - what the views in Germany were about it (and I forgot to ask my brother when he was here)

I know I don't watch a lot of TV and only have the radio on for a very short bit in the morning so miss most of the news but even then I still have not once heard the referendum mentioned anywhere and I'd have thought the UK would make a huge big thing of it

[Suff]

news.google.co.uk

Not only do you get the news that the TV don't want to give you, you also get the views and opinions from around the world. Deutsche Welle has an English language site and is sometimes linked to on the UK site.

The last I saw the rest of the EU ministers thought Cameron was trying Blackmail to get some kind of leverage for the UK which it does not have today. Because most of the states could not countenance leaving the EU because of the influence and market share they would lose, they believe that the UK is in the same situation. Very few, if any of them, will have done the work to see that the UK is already trading ~50% of its export trade with the world outside the EU. Sometimes it’s over 50% and sometimes it’s over but the trend is growing, pretty soon it will be ~55% and the under won’t ever be under 50%.

Very few, if any of them, actually realise that Cameron is fighting a desperate rear-guard action to try and keep the UK in the EU, rather than trying to gain some kind of unfair advantage. The only one’s who will have done the math and worked out who is going to pay the €10.8bn we would not be paying (net), are not talking and those who will not foot the bill if the UK leaves are talking a lot.

As far as I can see Cameron has forced a deal where he gets what he wants in return for having the referendum in 2016 and avoiding opening the issues up for the 2017 elections of other countries in the EU (Germany/France I believe). All of which is being kept very quiet or mis-reported in order to keep “on message”… Which is probably why those of us who are looking know what is going on and those who are waiting to be told are finding there is little to be heard.

[Workingman]

As things stand the referendum is something going to happen in the future. When? Who knows?

At present there is no reason for either side to do anything but tug at the heart strings of the voters. It will only be in the last few months and weeks when what really matters will be revealed and debated. Till then have fun with all the sound bites and do drink to excess - you know it makes sense.