'Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

[seboni121]

I was very euro positive until a couple of years ago,however this last 12 months has shown how unworkable it really is, angela has destroyed europe with her open arms speech,when the weather warms europe will be swamped with north africans,syrians and the like,once they get their euro passport thats it !, so out now before its too late , some say this is part of the plan a new caliphate ? , euro has been a disasterous experiment which has cost so much,however if we do come out i think the road will be rocky

[lol-lol]

On a UK level I am quite certain we are better off in the EU but, as I work for one of the top 10 UK/European Freight/Customs companies we recognise that the BREXIT will increase our business quite considerably with tens of thousands of extra customs entries for goods going from the UK to the 27 Member States of the EU and good coming in. In meetings with UK Customs, BIS and the relevant industries we did have one of the consultant companies give a presentation and their work gave the range of possibilities, economically, as between +1% and -2% for the BREXIT.  Plus 1% being we managed to all FTAs replicated and in place  very quickly and then -2% for the scenario for us remaining MFN status ie not full FTA and the anticipated drop in the GB pound that some of the bid accountancy/banking firms are predicting.

 

Win/win situation for me personally due to work but analysts are saying that probably net effect is negative to around 1% of GDP in the near and middle term.  Another meeting with HMRC and BIS in a few days time and will be interesting to see the latest changes on the Union Customs Code and preparation for BREXIT which we will have to be geared up for.    

Edited 7 February, 2016 by lol-lol

[VWD]

Remember the saying "I fear he doth protest to much"- is this Cameron latest in his scare tactics about south eastern Migrant camps replacing the Jungle.

[lol-lol]

Remember the saying "I fear he doth protest to much"- is this Cameron latest in his scare tactics about south eastern Migrant camps replacing the Jungle.

 

My worry is "Dave" will do a Pontius Pilate ie he will say he warned of the downsides and if the people decided to leave then he will retire think he did a good job during his reign despite the national debt doubling in his time as PM and dragging us to economic wilderness.

[gadgetman]

Cameron won't quit.

He'll be there until either his colleagues have a power struggle or the general election. Which ever happens first

Read something funny yesterday that corbyn has been to by his advisors to ready himself for a general election in late summer/autumn.

Corbyn couldn't win labour a tombola right now.

[domhnall]

Cameron won't quit.

He'll be there until either his colleagues have a power struggle or the general election. Which ever happens first

Read something funny yesterday that corbyn has been to by his advisors to ready himself for a general election in late summer/autumn.

Corbyn couldn't win labour a tombola right now.

We'll see in may in Scotland at least. Their policy of put every tax band up by 1 % is a sure fire winner with the public.

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[lol-lol]

Cameron won't quit.

He'll be there until either his colleagues have a power struggle or the general election. Which ever happens first

Read something funny yesterday that corbyn has been to by his advisors to ready himself for a general election in late summer/autumn.

Corbyn couldn't win labour a tombola right now.

 

It is hard to know how well Labour would do as there is so little indicators.   We know he got 60% support from the party membership and that many sections of British society are very disgrunted with what the Cons ie most Doctors, in fact most Health workers, the rest of the 6m public servants etc those one lower and even middle pay brackets ie the bottom 80% who are worse off with the budget changes, those that are concerned that we have been 6 years in recession and the UK National debt that continues to grow at around £75B per year.   

 

Also those who think it is absolute dumb to purchase a £100B missile system that, if you did use it, would create so much radiation that it would make the Chernobyl leak look like wearing a dodgy Chinese watch with a bit too much luminescent paint on it.   Effectively suicide.

 

With 90% of the British press firmly in the right wing of politics it is near impossible to judge how a vote would except we would see a repeat of very un-democratic non-proportional representation with Con MPs getting electing on about 20K votes, Labour needing 30K votes, and other parties needing hundreds of thousands or millions of votes per MP.   The UK the birth place but no longer the bastion of democracy.

Edited 13 February, 2016 by lol-lol

[Ootohere]

It is long overdue that the United Kingdom actually goes Metric Properly, not just with Decimalisation.

Decades behind when it should have happened. IMO

 

Very strange in the UK Selling Fuel in Litres and showing fuel economy in Imperial gallons & MPH on Speedos and Road Signs.

Selling stuff in Grams and Kilograms and have the price alongside still in Imperial Pounds & Ounces for those that never wanted the 'silly foreign system'  in the first place.

[lol-lol]

It is long overdue that the United Kingdom actually goes Metric Properly, not just with Decimalisation.

Decades behind when it should have happened. IMO

 

Very strange in the UK Selling Fuel in Litres and showing fuel economy in Imperial gallons & MPH on Speedos and Road Signs.

Selling stuff in Grams and Kilograms and have the price alongside still in Imperial Pounds & Ounces for those that never wanted the 'silly foreign system'  in the first place.

 

Might I suggest having differing Units of Measure mean that most people do not understand it and that serves the Government 1984 Orwellian agenda?

[domhnall]

It is hard to kn The UK the birth place but no longer the bastion of democracy.

 

how do you work that one out?  (the first part not the second)

[lol-lol]

"The UK the birth place but no longer the bastion of democracy."

 

 

how do you work that one out?  (the first part not the second)

 

Well for the best part of a thousand years the UK (I suppose one might redefine that as England) pioneered the process to democratisation ie Magna Carta, Abolition of Slavery, Votes for women and did these things earlier than everyone else.

 

But in the last generation we have fallen down the democracy rankings.  Yes we have PR in Europena election and you have it in Scotland for your local parliament we do not have it for the key political control area in Westminster MPs.  So in Scotland Labour get nearly three quarter of a million votes and get one seat, SNP get just twice that vote and get 56 seats, hmm, something rotten me thinks.  

 

Same here in England.  Cons get 330 seats for 11.3M votes, Labour gets 232 seats for 9.3M votes ie over 40K votes per seat compared to Cons 34K votes per seat.  Other parties, a part from SNP got hundreds of thousand or millions of votes for their seats.   SNP benefited from this unfair system even more getting only 26K votes per Westminster seat.

 

Having clustered voting areas, like the Euro election seem much fairer to me.  So Scotland would be one zone, Wales another, the 6 counties another, and then England divided in to London, NE, NW, W-Midlands, E-Midlands, SE England-non-London and SW England ie areas of 3-10M or so each with 20-60 MPs or so and people actually have representation of the party they voted for instead of the party getting 36% of the UK vote have a safe working majority.     

[moley]

If anyone thinks the UK is not a democracy they should try living in Russia, Syria, Iran, China, Zimbabwe etc.........

Just because the political party you voted for didn't get elected doesn't mean we are undemocratic. 

[lol-lol]

If anyone thinks the UK is not a democracy they should try living in Russia, Syria, Iran, China, Zimbabwe etc.........

Just because the political party you voted for didn't get elected doesn't mean we are undemocratic. 

 

It is not black or white but shades of grey.  Just because of level of democracy is quite good relatively it should not mean me we move not move to improve it ie use technology to make it fairer.

 

Rather than looking at PRC etc there are lots of countries that do use PR... http://www.idea.int/esd/type.cfm?electoralSystem=List%20PR, some my surprise you.

 

I tend to aspire to look to improve to be the best rather than compare with some of the worse ie aim to be like Denmark, Finland,Norway and Sweden. 

[moley]

This would be the outcome of the last election if PR was used. I'm aware that people might vote differently if PR was used as now some people use tactical voting to try to stop a party winning a seat.

On these figures there would be coalitions formed, my guess would be that UKIP would do a deal with the Tories giving them 324 seats. Labour and the SNP would team up with the LIbDems most likely joining them, total 281. Even if the greens joined in that still only gives them 305. 

Which means the remaining parties such as Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein, DUP  etc and the independent MP's could hold the balance of power.

Not really a major shift from what we currently have. 

[gadgetman]

Look how well PR works in America. Some small states have more say than bigger states!

First past the post is what we use and works pretty well.

[Ootohere]

We are back onto General Elections.

 

If we are talking about the European Elections now, then it is not 'First Past the Post'.

 

England, Scotland and Wales in the European Elections use the d'Hondt System of proportional representation

& Northern Ireland have the Single Transferable Vote.

 

Google d'Hondt System and you might see Jeremy Vine explain it.

 

So anyway, when David Cameron MP / PM gets around to announcing a Referendum on the EU & a In / Out Question, 

it will be 1 Vote for 1 Voter and what MP's think will still only get them 1 vote,

so that is 650 or what ever out of Millions resident in the UK and not in the UK that get a vote.

[lol-lol]

This would be the outcome of the last election if PR was used. I'm aware that people might vote differently if PR was used as now some people use tactical voting to try to stop a party winning a seat.  On these figures there would be coalitions formed, my guess would be that UKIP would do a deal with the Tories giving them 324 seats. Labour and the SNP would team up with the LIbDems most likely joining them, total 281. Even if the greens joined in that still only gives them 305.   Which means the remaining parties such as Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein, DUP  etc and the independent MP's could hold the balance of power.  Not really a major shift from what we currently have. 

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If we are thinking about how a early called General Election there is no benchmark other than the Oldham by-election a couple of months ago.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldham_West_and_Royton_by-election,_2015

 

The result was considered by commentators as surprisingly good for Labour, who had been expected to be more closely challenged by UKIP,^[21] and was reported as a boost for Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the party.^[22][23]  On the morning after the by-election, UKIP leader Nigel Farage and some other party sources claimed that there had been voting fraud particularly around ethnic minority voters and around postal votes,^[24][25][26] with Farage claiming the vote was "bent" and that in constituencies with large numbers of ethnic minority voters who do not speak English "effectively the electoral process is now dead".^[26][27] Paul Nuttall, UKIP's deputy leader, said to journalists: "You've got to ask yourself, is this Britain or is this Harare?"^[28] However, others in UKIP downplayed the allegations,^[29] with deputy chairman Suzanne Evans saying the party risks sounding like "bad losers".^[28] Tom Watson, Labour's deputy leader, dismissed the complaints as "sour grapes".^[27]  Farage stated that he was planning to make a formal complaint about the allegations.^[30][31] Deputy leader Paul Nuttall wrote an open letter to Greg Clark, the Secretary of State for the Department for Communities and Local Government, raising concerns about postal voting processes.^[32]

 

Now it appears that the UK is entering another recession with GDP falling except this time we have a national debt of 85% GDP rather than 42% of GDP as we had in 2008 it will be interesting to see how Gideon Osborne, plots his way out of this one.  Lowering corporation tax, allowing 40% pension relief on wage to pension contribution (thanks Georgie Peorgie) means the roof has not been fixed in the last 6 years and we have just been in the Doldrums and the screwing of the 6M public servants has not worked sufficiently without a combination of taxing higher earners and companies and investing in growth.  Nice one Cons.

Edited 14 February, 2016 by lol-lol

[Ootohere]

Are SNP teaming up with Labour now,

or even on speaking terms?

 

There are Scottish elections about to happen in May and there is no sign of any cozy coalitions currently, temporary or permanent.

 

What does happen in UK Politics and currently in the Scottish Politics is that Elected Members spend more time on the effort 

to stay in Power than on running the Economy and the Countries they are elected to Govern or be in opposition of the Party or Coalition in Government.

[lol-lol]

Are SNP teaming up with Labour now,

or even on speaking terms?

There are Scottish elections about to happen in May and there is no sign of any cozy coalitions currently, temporary or permanent.

What does happen in UK Politics and currently in the Scottish Politics is that Elected Members spend more time on the effort 

to stay in Power than on running the Economy and the Countries they are elected to Govern or be in opposition of the Party or Coalition in Government.

 

Fighting like cats in a sack it seems from outside Scotland.   

 

The UK economy just drifts on towards the edge of the world with the national debt rapidly approaching parity with a years GDP and no clear and effective plan to reverse it.

 

[domhnall]

Well for the best part of a thousand years the UK (I suppose one might redefine that as England) pioneered the process to democratisation ie Magna Carta, Abolition of Slavery, Votes for women and did these things earlier than everyone else.

I was thinking of the fact that both Iceland and the Isle of Man had parliamentary democracy long before the UK. If I remember my history correctly democracy of anything like we'd recognise it really only is around 150 years old in the UK.

[lol-lol]

I was thinking of the fact that both Iceland and the Isle of Man had parliamentary democracy long before the UK. If I remember my history correctly democracy of anything like we'd recognise it really only is around 150 years old in the UK.

 

Even Iceland did not introduce votes for women until about a century ago and then they had to be over 40, interesting.  Corsica, before even Napoleon's time had votes for women in the 1750s.

 

Timeline.......    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage#Timeline

 

We now, in the UK, have hundreds of thousands or probably several million, who cannot vote as they are not registered, for various reasons, very sad for democracy.

Edited 15 February, 2016 by lol-lol

[domhnall]

There you are then, corsica birthplace of democracy.

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[jlwah]

Now it appears that the UK is entering another recession with GDP falling except this time we have a national debt of 85% GDP rather than 42% of GDP as we had in 2008 it will be interesting to see how Gideon Osborne, plots his way out of this one.  Lowering corporation tax, allowing 40% pension relief on wage to pension contribution (thanks Georgie Peorgie) means the roof has not been fixed in the last 6 years and we have just been in the Doldrums and the screwing of the 6M public servants has not worked sufficiently without a combination of taxing higher earners and companies and investing in growth.  Nice one Cons.

Debt was 78.4% of GDP when Labour left office in 2010, somehow missing Gordon Browns mythical 'Golden Rule'. The growth in debt as a % of GDP has slowed substantially in recent years and dropped for the first time in ten years last year. Oh, and debt to GDP was actually 52.3% in 2008, not 42%, and rising rapidly - well done Labour!

 

And thankfully there are no longer 6M public sector workers, the figure is down to 5.3M and dropping.

 

Also, being one of the two or three fastest growing economies in the developed world doesn't actually sound like we're in the Doldrums.

[cheezemonkhai]

I am leaning towards us getting out now, because frankly our genuine concerns are not being listened to and many are saying there there, we know what's best for you.

The US sticking their noses in and telling us to stay in, is frankly having the opposite effect too.

Now if there were some genuine and serious changes, with the effect that we can control some of the things we're asking for I'd almost certainly vote to stay in.

[domhnall]

Things such as? The US has form on this. David Cameron got Obama to intervene in the 2014 referendum. You can probably bet they're scripting something for the Queen to say too.

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