UK Brexit - should the UK leave the EU?

Moll Flanders said:
I've looked at the arguments to leave and I don't find them very convincing. People will vote for economic reasons and it feels much safer to stay rather than leave and risk a recession.

It seems to me that the leave people are much more passionate than the remain.
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Yes because they want a different way of life.

I'm very concerned about the economy and large numbers of immigrants coming into Europe. It will be the same
tax payers and people that are working that will have to subsidise everything.

I have worked and save very hard for everything I have and am gutted that retirement will be difficult.
 
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shyvas said:
Yes because they want a different way of life.

I'm very concerned about the economy and large numbers of immigrants coming into Europe. It will be the same
tax payers and people that are working that will have to subsidise everything.

I have worked and save very hard for everything I have and am gutted that retirement will be difficult.
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Well I don't know about the whole of Europe, but in Britain immigrants are a net positive to the economy.What have the immigrants ever done for us? | The Economist

I think it's because I've mostly lived in London, but I don't see the downsides to immigration. They are less likely to claim benefits and do a lot of jobs that British people don't want to do. The NHS would be even more in a mess without immigrants.
 
Moll Flanders said:
Well I don't know about the whole of Europe, but in Britain immigrants are a net positive to the economy.What have the immigrants ever done for us? | The Economist

I think it's because I've mostly lived in London, but I don't see the downsides to immigration. They are less likely to claim benefits and do a lot of jobs that British people don't want to do. The NHS would be even more in a mess without immigrants.
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Yes, every country is different. Where I live it's not quite the same situation.
 
I think he EU is an undemocratic servant to corporations. I think big business isn't good for the world, or Europe. I think big business isn't even good for itself in the long run. Rich people don't really understand what is good for the world, or themselves.
I'm more and more inclined to say screw the EU. We don't want their Euro currency, or their homogenising of different cultures. Countries like Greece need to run their own business, and go back to having their own currency.
 
Well from what I have read the EU insists on austerity for Greece, going against what the Greek people actually voted for.
 
Blobbenstein said:
Well from what I have read the EU insists on austerity for Greece, going against what the Greek people actually voted for.
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Does n't mean diddly what the Greeks vote about - they borrowed the money and people/organisations want it back. The EU is sitting between the Greeks and the debt holders. That the EU/ECB did not know, or did not want to know, is another topic.
 
I don't really know much about Greece situation, but lending money to a country and insisting on austerity, may be a bit like lending money to a tramp, and telling him he can buy food, but not leather working gloves which would enable him to do a job. He has to pay back the money mind, but no buying any gloves.
 
Think of it more like a man with an average job who suddenly can borrow money very cheaply so he decides to buy himself a big house or two, new cars, boats, a helicopter, etc and then do the same for his family and friends. Then to top it off, he does not want to pay any taxes.
 
robert99 said:
Think of it more like a man with an average job who suddenly can borrow money very cheaply so he decides to buy himself a big house or two, new cars, boats, a helicopter, etc and then do the same for his family and friends. Then to top it off, he does not want to pay any taxes.
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oh well maybe. I read somewhere that Greeks even set up their own electric generators so that don't have to pay tax......!

I think it might benefit them, though, if they left the Euro, and got their own currency back.......partly intuition, but it has helped the UK that it kept the pound.
 
shyvas said:
I have worked and save very hard for everything I have and am gutted that retirement will be difficult.
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https://fullfact.org/economy/welfare-budget/ Over half of the states welfare payments go on pensions and disability payments - unemployment benefits are miniscule. So blaming unemployed immigrants is just a politicians trick to mislead.
Your private pension, along with a lot of others, was gambled away by the City.
 
robert99 said:
https://fullfact.org/economy/welfare-budget/ Over half of the states welfare payments go on pensions and disability payments - unemployment benefits are miniscule. So blaming unemployed immigrants is just a politicians trick to mislead.
Your private pension, along with a lot of others, was gambled away by the City.
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We get state pensions over here. I have a very small percentage that is considered a private pension.
 
shyvas said:
We get state pensions over here.
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Well, at least we hope to get them at some point in the future.

But is is common knowledge that the concept of old age pension has - a long time ago - in most Western countries changed from "put some money into the pot now so that there is something for you to take out of it some decades in the future" to "the working people on one side are putting some money into the pot, and the retired people are taking it out on the other side".

Problem is that with increased longevity more and more people are retired and live longer and less people are working. Not really the fault of refugees or immigrants, but possibly easier to explain that way ...

And it does not help that politicians are typically closer in age to the people getting their old age pension out of the pot than to those putting in the money. Luckily for politicians (and unluckily for us), the rules applying to politicians' pensions are typically more favourable than those for "normal people".
 
shyvas said:
We get state pensions over here. I have a very small percentage that is considered a private pension.
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I know, I'm a Brit too and hope to get my couple of shillings when I'm old and grey, but the UK should have taken the old Japanese view of pensions - save more yourself i.e. private savings ("In Japan, the post office was the world's largest savings bank with 198 trillion yen (US$1.7 trillion) of deposits as of 2006." In the 1970s Japanese households saved 20% of their income! ) Rich people might not call it pension saving (trusts, funds, whatever) but it's the same thing - and you can bet they don't intend to pay tax on it and will draw their state pension too.
 
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The plan for us is to retire early (2026 is the date I am planning for) so I am not relying on my state pension, but see it as a bonus. I imagine the state pension age will rise again before I reach the current official SP date anyway...

I see what the polls say and I am hoping that the remain camp will win, but it seems to me that the leave people are the majority just from what I'm reading online. Maybe it is just that the leave people are making more noise. :shrug:

I might be overly optimistic, but I think the UK would be okay in the long run even if we did vote to leave.
 
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Hedge funds and banks commission Brexit exit polls - http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7e26d896-241c-11e6-9d4d-c11776a5124d.html#axzz4AAjEMGPZ - Hedge funds and investment banks have commissioned private exit polls in an attempt to make profits from the result of the UK's referendum on EU membership next month.
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A significant move in sterling is guaranteed on the result of the vote, with a modest rise expected if Remain wins and a sharp drop anticipated if there is a vote for Brexit.

Financial markets have recently all but discounted a Leave vote, according to Adam Cole of RBC Capital Markets. “The UK’s implied EU exit risk premium has collapsed to the point where the implied probability of exit is close to the level before last May’s election, when few thought there would even be a referendum,” he said, raising the prospect of wild swings in sterling if Leave appears to be doing well on June 23.

(80% chance of "stay in" according to the hot shots in the City)
 
The EU is so big and is trying to be so many things at once: Political union, economic union, monetary union, rumours of plans for its own military and a United States of Europe - surely that is the logical end result of what the EU is today?

Big countries are a threat to democracy as legislators are so removed from the people who they represent that it's difficult to hold them accountable. I think decisions are better taken closer to those they affect.

Though, I think supranational decision-making in some policy areas makes a lot of sense, such as regulation of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions where it affects everyone.
 
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