(They Long to be) Close to EU.
Just like me, they long to be close to you.
Why do stars fall down from the sky, ev’ry time you walk by?
Just like me, they long to be close to you.
Let the pantomime begin! Silly hats, activists dressed as ducks; those with the loudest voices being bussed from barricade to barricade; a media scrum round one of our most prominent politicians finally emerging from his house to say he has made his mind up – is this really, truly how we are going to decide the ‘EU’ question? In, Out, In, Out? Is it so simple it can be decided on carefully prepared sound bites?
I listened this morning to a Midlands MP (not closely enough to catch his name!) who was explaining his reasons for joining the ‘No’ camp. It was all to do with ‘the migrants’ he said.
‘Too many’, the country couldn’t ‘absorb any more’, hospital were bursting at the seams, there was no housing for them – oodles of sympathy for the brown faced hordes with the fierce expressions clustering at Calais – nothing to do with the colour of their skin, you understand, it was simply a matter of numbers….Cameron agreeing to take ‘another 20,000’ was just the last straw.
It was a sound bite that resonated with several people clustered round him; the butcher, the baker made appreciative murmurs – ‘another 20,000’ – and the country would topple over; the only answer was to get out of Europe.
Nobody mentioned another ‘swarm’ of migrants – not quite so brown skinned of course, but near enough. Some 250,000 of them. A quarter of a million if you didn’t quite take that number in.
The only thing stopping them marching towards Calais is that we are in the EU. Pull out and they will be on their way – and extremely angry. They aren”t even a young, vibrant, work force – you know, the one that is ‘stealing’ British jobs. Many are sick and ailing – they will fill the hospitals to overflowing; you ain’t seen nothing yet! They will demand every welfare benefit going – they know how the system works.
They know exactly what they are entitled to – and they will get it – all 250,000 of them. There is not a damn thing you can do about it; every last one of them holds a British passport, they are British citizens.
Do you seriously believe that when British citizens find that they can no longer get a meagre pension increase each year; that the winter fuel payment is withdrawn from them; the superb ‘Quantas 1st Class’ medical care that they enjoy – either free or with a contribution from a remarkably cheap insurance policy, is replaced by the ‘Ryanair NHS – envy of the world’; that the romantic pile of random limestone that they have lovingly refashioned into a freezing cold but authentic Finca is worthless – the French, the Italians, the Spanish didn’t want those properties, restored or not, and there will be no other English keen to experience life amongst the vineyards when it involves paying a small fortune for private health care, having your pension frozen, not even being able to take a part time job – for free movement of workers only applies to those within the EU….do you really imagine that they will just sit still and starve to death in their limestone tombs with a true stiff upper lip?
Perhaps you even imagine that they will take over the cleaning jobs in the care homes; the sandwich making in factories, the cauliflowers that must be hacked out of water sodden fields, the jobs that these migrants have ‘stolen’ from decent British people? Dream on.
Those that are not Pensioners are almost there; some are disabled having taken their DLA payments abroad to find cheaper housing; some have just eked out dwindling savings from better years in the UK – nowhere near enough to buy into the British housing market.
You fear the broke, angry, frightened, army of migrants at Calais? Just wait ’til you have to provide for the British contingent who will march straight through passport control and demand every concession available to them. They have every right to them.
The other bone of contention appears to be ‘we don’t want to be ruled by unelected bureaucrats from Brussels’? As opposed to unelected bureaucrats from Tyneside, or Glasgow or Cardiff? The EU might demand that your bananas are straight, but that doesn’t affect your life nearly as much as the unelected bureaucrats who decide when and how your hip joint is going to be replaced, nor the unelected bureaucrats who decide which care home you end up in and what standard it meets. What about the unelected bureaucrats who decide that it is Police policy to ‘believe the victims’, or the unelected Judges that interpret ‘what parliaments intention was’ when those you so proudly proclaim you voted for, made the law? The British Isles is awash with unelected Quangos and bureaucrats.
It is so easy to argue on the basis of soundbites – ‘we’re a proud nation’, we’ve given up our sovereignty’ versus ‘the security of being able to stop foreigners in Calais’, and ‘the strength of numbers’ – personally I think it’s half a dozen of one and six of the other. We would win some things, lose others – for what?
For the sake of change? There won’t be much change that you will feel individually. Our own unelected bureaucrats will still be counting their beans and deciding that you can’t have an extension on your house, or the latest cancer drug, or take your children on holiday in term-time.
Sing ‘Rule Britannia’ if you want.
- Bandini
February 22, 2016 at 2:17 pm -
I’m looking forward to reading the comments here!
I haven’t got a clue, to be honest, although living in Spain means I’ll be viewing the goings-on with a slightly selfish concern for my own future. There are many British here who made the move for health reasons (arthritis, etc.) as they found they could ‘live’ here rather than merely ‘exist’ back home… so the ‘outers’ had better start planning the construction of care-homes for those returning with creaky bones!
- Dave
February 22, 2016 at 2:32 pm -
I will be voting Leave, and no it’s not about immigration.
I’m leaving because I fear that if we stay the UK will be carved up into regions as set out by the EU at least ten years ago.
The counties bordering the English Channel will for part of Trans Manche.
The eastern part of England will be part of a region containing Denmark, Northern Germany and part of Sweden
The SNP want to remain in the EU- but plans indicate that the Highlands and Islands will be part of the Northern Periphery region that takes in The Faroes, Part of Norway and even Greenland.
If we try to leave and fail, I have absolutely no doubt that the EU will exact revenge by carving up the UK into separate regions.
The only reason it hasn’t started is that our Queen is still alive. Once she dies and Charles takes over I predict that our country will be no more within five years.
If you care about our country, our history, our heritage and our distinctiveness you should vote Leave.
If you believe in “Innocent until proven guilty” you should vote Leave.
I’m not so concerned about immigration. Our country has a strong tradition of taking people from across the world. Within a generation many have integrated and become as British as you or I (My great great great grandmother came from Prussia around 150 years ago).
My concern is towards thos who come into this country and make no attempt to integrate (a little like the expat community in southern Spain)
Vote Leave. You know it makes sense.- Bandini
February 22, 2016 at 2:48 pm -
Dave, I’m not sure what you mean by this: “If we try to leave and fail…”
If the UK wants to leave it can & will, surely?I think that immigration will rightly be top of the agenda for many, but as much for reasons of housing as race. The expats in Spain, for example, are not only tolerated but usually more-or-less welcomed, as the Spanish know what their boom-years were based upon: construction. There are over 3-million empty homes here, and if the price to pay for flogging ’em is yet another ‘British Bar’ they don’t seem too concerned. Spain is not yet ‘full’, but the UK may well be.
- Dave
February 22, 2016 at 3:17 pm -
Bandini- think “Hungarian uprising of 1956”
The USSR exacted retribution on Hungary for daring to revolt. It was bloody and spiteful.
The EU hates the UK but loves our money. If we try to leave they will make sure we are punished- in order to warn the other countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956- windsock
February 23, 2016 at 2:44 pm -
I wasn’t aware of any European Community armed forces of which we were not part, or which were completely independent of us.
- windsock
- Dave
- Bandini
- Mike
February 22, 2016 at 2:33 pm -
Now, why hasn’t anybody else pointed that out? Of course their pensions cease to be index linked (as they are in OZ, NZ etc. Curiously I believe they are in the US). Are you sure about the numbers? It seems about right,
-
Not just pensions Mike – loss of reciprocal healthcare is the big one.
Imagine if everyone in the UK was told they had to take out private BUPA care – and have their pension frozen, no bus passes, no winter fuel payment – and no food banks! – you get some idea of the scale of the problem.- Mr Ecks
February 23, 2016 at 1:17 am -
So we have to stay in thrall to ever-growing euro-tyranny for the benefit of 250000 ex-pats who buggered off to the continent cos it suited them?
Why exactly?
-
Because you stayed in the UK and buggered about, not doing enough to ensure this situation didn’t arise. Some of you even voted for the scummy home grown statists; and some of you have failed to notice that like the EU, comprised as we are frequently told, of a mass of disparate nationalities, so is the UK – and their priorities are not necessarily the same as that of the fictitious homogenous Englishman, John Smith.
Our excuse is that we were sipping Sangria – what’s yours?-
Seems I was way out on my figures folks – my 250,000 only applied to France.
Here’s a graphic.
-
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- Eric Hardcastle
February 23, 2016 at 5:33 am -
Just one bone of contention in an otherwise superb article : it’s Qantas not Quantas. To be pedantic , standing for Queensland And Northern Territory Air Service . (Emirates Ist Class is far superior but no gay/lesbian flight attendants)
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 11:54 am -
What reciprocal healthcare? The E111 form might cover you for basic tourist healthcare but I would strongly advise you to take out proper travel insurance because the free hospitals in some EU countries are pretty abysmal – you’ll need a private hospital.
Spain is typical. “2.Tied in with the issue of employment, comes health cover. Unless you are employed, self-employed or retired, (thus qualifying for cover under the Spanish health system), you will be required to take out private health cover.” : From a blogger that lives in Malaga.
You’re believing in myths. In Spain there is no care for geriatrics – old people are cared for by their families. Old Brits still come home to die.
- Mr Ecks
- Bill Sticker
February 22, 2016 at 10:00 pm -
UK state pensions are frozen in Canada from the moment they’re accessed. It’s been that way for years. Don’t see it changing any time soon.
-
- Helen
February 22, 2016 at 2:56 pm -
The loss of reciprocal Healthcare is already in place. UK will no longer fund the healthcare for ex pats unless they are in receipt of certain benefits or in receipt of the retirement pension. This information was given to me by the DWP before I emigrated to France in September last year. I think it became effective from 2014/2015. I do not remember hearing anything about it in the Budget – as per usual. I do not receive my pension until October this year and currently I have not taken up private Health Insurance here in France as I was quoted a sum in excess of 5,000 euros. I pay as I go and hope that I don’t get anything horrible in the meantime. This is affecting many ex pats under retirement age and I was advised that it was a good idea to set up a small business and pay my social security of around 25% of turnover.
- Wigner’s Friend
February 22, 2016 at 3:11 pm -
Three good reasons to vote leave: Nicola Sturgeon, Natalie Bennet, Niel Kinnock. Three good reasons to vote stay: Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, George Gallway.
- windsock
February 23, 2016 at 2:49 pm -
More reasons to vote stay: Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Theresa Villiers, Frank Field, Kate Hoey.
More reasons to vote leave: Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair.
- windsock
- The Blocked Dwarf
February 22, 2016 at 3:13 pm -
I’m about as Europhile as it gets, and personally would welcome the UK becoming ‘merely’ a federal state of the EUSSR.
HOWEVER
I won’t be voting in the referendum-even if I could, which I can’t as I refuse to wear the Mark Of The Beast and fill in the Poll Tax form.
After the war, the Allies insisted that the new Germany remove referendi from the political system, and with good cause (one can still have a referendum in Germany but you basically have to have a referendum about having a referendum and there are laws…oh boy do they have laws).Referendums are the arch enemy of democracy. We elect those whimsical darlings in Westminster TO PROTECT US FROM OURSELVES. Just as their unelected Lordships protected us from our elected representatives-until Blair anyways.
Now the EUJ tries to protect us from our own politicians and I cheer whenever I hear of some hate preaching, hook handed wanker (the mind boggles) being un-kick-outable because ‘Seikh Floppy Paws’ his pet cat would pine.
Nothing in the political world is as dangerous and as unpredictable a beast as an electorate asked it’s opinion. Bring back Hanging? Hell, if it were up to The Great British Public we would still be burning Witches .
Or as one MP so aptly observed once at the end of a Radio4 ‘referendum’ : “the voters have spoken- THE BASTARDS!”
- Mr Ecks
February 23, 2016 at 1:19 am -
So the 650 scumbags in Westminster not only know better than us plebs but should exist to ensure we ordinary oiks can’t do what we want to?
Glad you don’t vote.
- The Blocked Dwarf
February 23, 2016 at 7:36 am -
to ensure we ordinary oiks can’t do what we want to?
Simple answer: Yes. Next question?
A quick read of your comments and one realises that the Great Unwashed, ie me-you-us, being able to directly change anything is bound to lead to tears before bed time.
My hope for The PlebisCide is that it at least gives whichever camp a clear and present majority, unlike the recent Scottish one.
- The Blocked Dwarf
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 12:01 pm -
If ever there is a need for a referendum it is when the choice is between “Democracy” or “Being governed by an unelected bunch of people you will never see in a far off land”.
Oh yes, now is the time for a referendum.
As for hanging, research in the US suggests that hanging is so good at saving innocent lives we could execute 100% innocent people and it would be more moral than relying on prison alone – from 3 to 18 murders are deterred for every execution.
- Mr Ecks
- David
February 22, 2016 at 3:36 pm -
The thought of 250,000 UK pensioners streaming through customs to take their place in the UK does make me laugh. I was with a friend in the House of Lords some time ago. He was a retired teacher who had moved to Spain. His old friend there, Betty Boothroyd accused him of ‘desertion’, and I could see her point. Deserting a sinking ship perhaps. All those who have moved abroad could be thought of as traitors, leaving their homeland, and setting up shop in sunny climes, where they could laugh at those left behind.
There is no suggestion of all those who have come to the UK, from the EU, having to go home again though. They will continue to use the NHS as usual. Perhaps some ‘arrangemon’ could be made for the hoards of pensioners on the continent?
I do feel they should be here in the UK though. Setting an example of what being British is all about, rather than behaving like irresponsible delinquents, drinking cheap wine, and lazing around in the sun.- Ho Hum
February 22, 2016 at 3:55 pm -
Next time the bloke cleaning your local public lavatory speaks to you with a funny accent, tell him he’s a traitor, take his bucket and cloth, and clean the toilet yourself. He isn’t the stupid piece of effluent….
- windsock
February 23, 2016 at 3:32 pm -
Everybody needs someone to look down upon, our society is inherently hierarchical – for some, having the”wrong accent” is just the easiest way to identify that. Why do you think people become MPs? (Basically I’m agreeing with you. I look down on people who look down on people.)
- David
February 24, 2016 at 9:48 am -
Ho Hum must have had a lower middle-class upbringing, where everything was done for him. He seems to look down on people who clean toilets for a living. Had he gone to a good prep-school, and public school, and had upper class parents, he would think nothing of cleaning toilets, or mucking out the horses.
- windsock
February 24, 2016 at 10:09 am - Bandini
February 24, 2016 at 11:41 am -
And lucky blighters find their true calling early in life, spending the rest of it shovelling horse-shit. Which reminds me…
David, I stumbled across something the other day which may interest you, regarding one of your investigative heroes (non-fictional, for once):
“The Sun had sharpened up its vilification, safe in the knowledge that as he was dead [he] could not bring a libel action. It used as its vehicle the ‘exclusive’ memories of former Detective Chief Superintendent Drummond Gordon Marvin of Scotland Yard’s Serious Crimes Squad. Marvin, known as ‘Lee Marvin’, and described as a ‘top cop crimebuster’, had just retired…
… The original allegation that [he] had ‘smacked’ Cradock, the rent-boy, was expanded into his having ‘beaten and sodomised’ him, adding the fact that ‘older men like [he] were known as ‘”chicken-hawks” – who prey on vulnerable lads sucked into the cesspool of corruption and disease.’”
The ‘he’ above was Russell Harty, although it could just as well have been Harvey Proctor who, coincidentally, was also trashed by the gutter press and who also had the same ‘top cop crimebuster’ on his tail, hand in hand with Murdoch’s monsters. Perhaps you’d like to pencil his name in on the Elm ‘guest list’, or maybe Dolphin Square?
- David
February 24, 2016 at 1:51 pm -
Well done ! Yes, in fact, we did find Drummond on the Elm Guest List.
- Bandini
February 24, 2016 at 1:56 pm -
I was referring to Harty, David, not Marvin.
Put him down for a ‘sauna with extras’, eh? Squeezed in there with Cyril Smith (who almost certainly arrived in Jimmy Savile’s pink Rolls-Royce). Hope this helps!- David
February 26, 2016 at 8:03 am -
You must be referring to the old Royale Group, based in Victoria London. Russell Harty, Rhodes Boyson, Arthur Marshall, Patrick Moore, and a few other less well known members.
- Bandini
February 26, 2016 at 11:51 am -
No, David, YOU are referring to the “old Royale Group”. I am merely chuckling & wondering if this is what comes of searching for a hypnotherapist who can help with “imagination”, as you were doing the other day!
- David
February 26, 2016 at 12:14 pm -
I must say I do find it very reassuring to have my own online stalker!
I do know quite a bit about hypnosis, but I am checking out some points about the witness, in the Vishal Mehrotra abduction case, who remembered many more details under hypnosis.
- David
- Bandini
- David
- Bandini
- David
- windsock
- David
- windsock
- Bandini
February 22, 2016 at 4:06 pm -
David, you’ve convinced me – I’m coming home!
Er, funds are a bit tight at the moment though, so would you be so kind as to put me up in your Chelsea mansion for a while? Ask your mum if she’d mind, eh?!? And get some decent plonk in.P.S. Can’t wait to meet Betty, the dog-walking spooks, Justice Goddard (who I understand has received ‘information’ from yourself – “again”) and all those fictional detectives who live inside your capacious mind.
P.P.S. Hang on a sec – the UK is run by a cabal of child-murdering homo-toffs, isn’t it? And you want us all to return?!? I’ll stay put, thanks!
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 12:06 pm -
They come back when they realise there is no geriatric care in Spain. Old folk are expected to be looked after by their children.
- David
February 29, 2016 at 12:14 pm -
Which is odd, as I know a number of geriatric Spanish people being looked after in the UK.
- David
- Ho Hum
- Ho Hum
February 22, 2016 at 3:52 pm -
I will vote not to leave the EU, for the very simplest of reasons, ie that our doing anything that Chris Grayling says should be a good thing proves to be, without fail, totally mad.
- Jimbob McGinty
February 22, 2016 at 10:44 pm -
Seconded
- windsock
February 23, 2016 at 4:01 pm -
Thirded (especially with Irritable Disabilty Snotarse alongside him).
- Jimbob McGinty
- Robert Edwards
February 22, 2016 at 3:54 pm -
This will be a weird one. I can already detect a longer, subtler game being played here. Referenda are not constitutionally enforceable, so if the result is ‘Leave’, then iDave (or whoever) can return to Brussels (they might even feed him) and explain (as if they don’t know already) what this actually means. His attitude will be governed by turnout and numbers.
But I doubt if the bluff would work. The EU is a self-breeding bureaucracy and has demonstrated itself to be beyond reform in British terms.
And there are several matters which argue for British exceptionalisms; The wretched Euro, The Commonwealth, The rest of the Anglosphere, never sharing our nuclear capability with Germany and a whole host of smaller matters, not the least of which are the rights of UK residents in foreign climes.
But Brits have been living abroad for years…
- Mudplugger
February 22, 2016 at 3:56 pm -
There’s no doubt that ‘immigration’ has proved to be the touch-stone that has ignited this issue for many otherwise unmoved by the topic. That’s unfortunate because it is only one symptom of the EU problem and plays into the darker sides of politics, but key players on the ‘Leave’ side have realised its electoral value and so it will stay in the headlines, emphatically aided by every boat-load crossing the Med on their way to Frau Merkel’s version of paradise.
I’m an unashamed ‘Outer’, because I never was an ‘Inner’ – I even voted Out in 1975, which shows how old I am. But my reasons for voting ‘Leave’ are about immediate sovereignty (if you can’t even control your own borders, you’re not a country but merely a province) and future prospects. The EU area is flat-lining, it has reached peak, it has nowhere to go but down – the rest of the world still has massive scope for growth which, if we are fast enough on our feet, we can make the most of our basic advantages (history, global language etc.) to establish strong bi-lateral arrangements with the growth areas for mutual benefit. But if we are hog-tied by the millstone that is the EU, dragging along at the speed of the slowest and suffering the perfidious schemings of other EU member states (no names, no pack-drill), the moment will be gone.
Even if we manage to leave the EU by 2020, I shall not live long enough to see the full benefit of that, but it is the best legacy we can leave to those who follow us, belatedly bequeathing them a country free to manage its own position in an ever-changing world and make the most of its natural advantages. It will probably be a bumpy ride, but at least our own people will then be steering it.
- Andrew Rosthorn
February 22, 2016 at 4:39 pm -
There was a referendum in Germany in August 1934, after the death of President Hindenburg. The result allowed Adolf Hitler to assume supreme power as both Führer and de facto Head of State. That’s why referendums are avoided in modern Germany.
If those permitted by today’s Conservative government to vote in this referendum were to vote to leave the EU, they would break up the United Kingdom just as sure as eggs are eggs. The Irish peace settlement depends on EU membership. Scotland and probably Wales would certainly demand referendums to leave the United Kingdom and stay in the EU. They will have voted to remain.
Even the people of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, that is everyone living north of the Mersey and the Trent, will want to stay in the EU and with my encouragement would demand to remain a region within the EU, with a population larger than many member states.
My passport says on the cover that I am a citizen of the European Union. Which Etonian toff wants to fight me for it?
Our grandfathers fought for it. Our mothers voted for it. There is one of the Etonian toffs I can think of whose great-grandfather was a Turkish politician. Yesterday’s irresponsible and greedy behaviour by the Mayor of London almost merits the fate of his great-grandfather. The EU quitters have already rigged the vote against us by denying a vote to both youngsters and those citizens of other EU regions who are already working amongst us. I know that the first person to cite Nazi history is often said to be the one who loses the argument, but nevertheless this ballot has already been rigged, just as cynically as it was rigged in 1934. Let’s hope it won’t be as disastrous.- JimS
February 22, 2016 at 5:00 pm -
Curious: ‘I am a citizen of the EU, but not of the United Kingdom’.
Perhaps, like Nicola Sturgeon, you think you have more in common with Greek socialists that you have never met, than she has with Scots like Blair, Brown and Cameron? Class warfare before cousins and culture.
- Andrew Rosthorn
February 22, 2016 at 5:29 pm -
I am just quoting what it says on the top of my British passport. I am, by a law passed in the House of Commons, a citizen of both the EU and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As a socialist and a monarchist, but definitely not a nationalist, I am also delighted to be a subject of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Nationalism kills people.
- Gordo
February 22, 2016 at 11:53 pm -
But not nearly so many as Internationalism.
- Gordo
- Andrew Rosthorn
- zippgun
February 22, 2016 at 10:43 pm -
Well, I live in Northumberland – been in the north east all my life – and I want out. Our Labour MP, Ronnie Campbell is an outer too.
As to Scotland – I can’t wait for them to go, and was very disappointed they didn’t last time. Sturgeon wanted “independence” and to keep the “£”!!. The beloved Euro not good enough for them? Somebody should tell her you can’t have “independence” in the EU, and Holyrood will soon be just a county council with big salaries within the Imperialist EU state – but that’s what a lot of the political class want – no real work but colossal “remuneration” and a damn good life at public expense. Once they make it into the trans – national EU machine, no accountability to those they govern either.
- zippgun
February 22, 2016 at 11:40 pm -
Any rigging can only come from the Establishment – which controls the system. Hitler was the government/Establishment in 1934 Germany; now we have a PM, the opposition Labour party, a Scottish government (ie the Establishment) all pro remaining in the EU. They are the ones, like Hitler in 1934, who have the authority and power to fix the result if they wish to, and then cover it all up afterwards, not the out campaigners.
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 12:10 pm -
My grandfather fought in WWI and my uncles fought in WWII. I’m very sure they never fought for Britain to be part of a new Empire that looks remarkably like the old British Empire but based in Europe and dominated by the Germans who pay all the salaries of everyone that works for the EU.
As for Hitler, what allowed him to seize power was not a referendum – that is a socialist lie. It was the fact that he was really popular with the German people, and they continued to fight for him right to the bitter end.
- Andrew Rosthorn
February 29, 2016 at 12:40 pm -
After the death of Hindenburg and the plebiscite [referendum] about Hitler becoming the head of state, the military oath was sworn personally to Hitler by every German soldier and civil servant: “I swear by God this sacred oath that to the Leader of the German empire and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, I shall render unconditional obedience and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath.” Thousands of officers reported ill to avoid taking the oath but were made to swear it when they returned to duty. The oath triggered the officers’ plots against Hitler. Soldiers, civil servants and academics were executed, sacked or exiled as a result of refusing to take the oath. There’s a grim list of them on Wikipedia.
- Andrew Rosthorn
- JimS
- JimS
February 22, 2016 at 4:46 pm -
I don’t understand why ex-pats would have to come ‘home’ if we left the EU. There are Americans, Canadians and Australians that live here and they aren’t EU citizens. I have a friend who lives in the US and he isn’t a US citizen.
If ex-pat pensioners came ‘home’ then they would spend their pensions here rather than propping up the broken Spanish economy. If they stayed ‘abroad’ why would their pensions cease to be indexed, just like they are in the USA? The lack of linking seems to be a consequence of being a member or ex-member of the commonwealth. Is Spain planning to join the commonwealth then?
Leaving the EU will allow us to have influence at the real ‘top tables’ of the UN. We have no influence whatsoever within the EU; if we don’t like something we have to comply anyway; outside we are free to balance our options. The recent pathetic ‘negotiations’ have shown how difficult it is to move the EU monolith; the ‘solution’ will obviously be to give the commission total power and that is the direction of travel – there is no status quo option if we remain in.
Michael Gove’s ‘leaving’ speech is well worth reading.
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 12:28 pm -
People will still be able to retire and stay in Spain, just as they were before Maastricht was ever though about – it wasn’t signed until 1992. Even so there are only 37,000 Brits living in one of the most popular destinations – the Canary Islands. Makes me wonder of there are really that many Brits living in Spain. In my experience very few people that are living in Spain have given up their home in the UK- they just have a small apartment in Spain which they retreat to during the winter months, having downsized their UK home to a small bungalow somewhere away from the job market. It is unwise to move completely to Spain because there is no geriatric care in Spain – the Spanish expect old folk to be looked after by their families, not by the state.
The other matter is why would Spain want to lose all that lovely retirement money anyway? Do you think the Spanish will immediately throw out the retired Brits and thus bring about a major property collapse in Spanish resorts in a market just now recovering? Makes no sense for Spain – everybody likes retirees, especially those that will be going home to die.
Here’s one more thought – you can actually spend 6 months of every year in Florida. Given that you can buy an absolute palace for £100K in Florida I’m surprised people bother with Spain at all.
- Bandini
February 29, 2016 at 1:57 pm -
Phil, I’m in the Canaries so my experience may not be applicable to Spain as a whole – being a collection of autonomous communities with a varying amount of ‘real power’ residing in each there are obviously noticeable differences between the regions – but there certainly IS geriatric care.
It may not be very good – is it anywhere? – but it exists.It is true that the family is still largely expected to carry the ‘burden’ (of caring for its own members – perhaps not a bad thing?) but this is changing as work-patterns change: the stay-at-home mother who then becomes the baby-sitter for her children’s children is rapidly vanishing,. An astonishing statistic popped-up on the news the other night claiming that the number of Spanish 2-year-olds in ‘education’ already doubles the EU-average… whether by accident or design society is being re-engineered away from the family & towards the state.
(Using the experience of my widowed almost-mother-in-law, the state is already making an incredible effort to keep the retired active, involved in social life, and perhaps away from that ‘geriatric care’. Again, I doubt this is the same across Spain as a whole but here, at least, she is swept up in a dizzying life of trips, clubs, subsidised holidays, free slap-up meals, entertainment, etc.. I’m quite envious!)
Finally, regarding Florida: the high-level of violent crime might scare some off… and the health insurance premiums could cause pause for thought, too!
- Bandini
- Phil
- thelastfurlong
February 22, 2016 at 4:48 pm -
If you have EVER actually watched how the EU representatives vote – from a list, a HUGE lists of items, at lightning speed, clicking their voting buttons, like a mindless computer game, passing or not passing loads of stuff they can’t possibly KNOW anything about, you will realise what an absolute sham Brussels is.
One personal anecdote reveals the sham. I am a Vaper. Along with millions of others of us, we tried to defend ourselves from EU interference. The corruption and shameful behaviour from Tobacco Control concerning Article 20 of the Tobacco Products Directive that controls Vaping (electronic cigarettes), despite massive political action on our part, was MY “revealing” moment. I know the country representatives don’t know what’s going on because our very own Anna Soubry (poor thing) voted FOR the Tobacco Products Directive without parliamentary permission, NOT REALISING!!! that it included vaping products. After that she was speedily removed from Health Minister to Defence Minister!!!
The European Union is not a democracy in any way. And it makes the UK not a democracy too. There is no way (the Government says) that they can ignore Article 20 of the TPD – because it is EU LAW.
We should make our OWN laws . THAT is what Sovereignty is.
I would think most of the Expat Brits like more than the sunshine where they are – the countries they live in are not as anal as ours!
As far as I know Vapers will be voting OUT!
- Ho Hum
February 22, 2016 at 5:11 pm -
‘the countries they live in are not as anal as ours!’
Do you seriously think that the UK, particularly the Scots, Little Englanders and Mailites, will become less anal by leaving? You should write that up in The Daily Mash; ‘Bum’s Paradise to be Regained’
- Dick Puddlecote
February 22, 2016 at 6:21 pm -
Yep, that particular shambles from the EU opened a lot of eyes as to how opaque and disinterested in consequences of their actions EU politicians and bureaucrats are. They also care little about democracy considering they received record levels of engagement on the subject, choosing instead to listen to NGOs who knew nothing about what they were urging regulation of, and pharma lobbyists with vested interests.
I’m voting to leave because we have far more chance of fighting against politicians and bureaucrats in one state than in a huge conglomerate consisting of 28 of them.
I’m also voting to leave because I’ve seen first hand how incredibly damaging overweening regulations from the EU can be to business. It is a daily burden for my business, most of it not enhancing safety, efficacy or prosperity one bit. Big businesses love the EU because they regulate their competitors away. My company has been large enough to withstand the onslaught and we’ve seen over 50% of our competition disappear in the past decade. I should be pleased about that but I know it’s probably the same in every area of industry and is probably costing the UK elsewhere. It’s also quite wrong.
- zippgun
February 23, 2016 at 1:20 am -
Good stuff there, Dick.
Those who say – well, our own government/system is outdated, undemocratic, corrupt, fraudulent, inefficient etc, so what’s the big deal with getting the same via the EU, haven’t seemed to consider that trying to reform a behemoth like the EU is a million times the task of making things improve just one country.The key issue here is the ability of the mass of the ruled to remove/influence their rulers. All through our history we have been able to reform and improve our systems of governance ourselves, and government became gradually less elitist and more representative. As the powers/competences of domestic governments are handed over one after another to the EU, increasingly the ability of the citizens and their national representatives to do anything at all disappears. The EU is an elitist “we know best what’s good for you” project (again and again it shows it certainly does not ) which has an overall political form and organizational structures which minimize the amount of influence the mass of the governed can exercise through peaceful mean over what is being done to them by that transnational professional political class which inhabit its institutions.
The EU is an imperialist project by a self selected pan national oligarchy with a common purpose. That it’s rarely labelled as the megalomaniac imperialist venture it is may seem odd, until one reflects that we are taking about a project conducted by a political class which is international, it’s not just one country spreading out and taking over others, colonizing, which is how political imperialism is usually defined; further, this class takes over countries not by the old fashioned, messy method of direct conquest, but by working with powerful Quislings within the nation states to be taken over, national leaders who deceive their own people into going along with their subjection by lying about what “being in Europe” (that is being in the Common market/EEC/EU – all the countries were always “in Europe”) actually means and where things are heading (“it’s just about trade and tariffs”; ” the domestic parliament will remain supreme when it comes to creating and imposing legislation”; “there will never be a European army” etc) . Piece by piece takeover, accompanied by the siren reassurances about sovereignty not being compromised from the national fibocracies in the countries being robbed of their independence, is this project’s expand and control method, and we can see it was there from beginning in Monnet’s various burblings about his idea for a unified Europe created by gradualist means (the answer, he thought, to the sort of terrible wars the continent had seen in the first half of the 20th century).
The Euro political class tends to think it holds the monopoly on sagacity, thus the voices of the governed – “who just don’t understand, old boy” – are to be marginalized. In fact, they cannot but be marginalized in this system; a structure like the EU can’t be “representative government” for those it rules over, the nature of the beast makes that impossible. Eventually, when nation states are completely consumed, to become mere regions of the Imperial EU, the great unwashed can be ignored completely – until the inevitable violent reaction, which tends to happen eventually in such a situation.
The road to Hell is filled paved with good intentions – an aphorism the arrogant grand planners for the perfection of human society, be they a Jean Monnet or a Karl Marx, never seem to have heard.
- zippgun
- zippgun
February 22, 2016 at 10:56 pm -
The whole TPD farrago over e-cigs was an object lesson in the undemocratic, unaccountable, corporate interests grovelling (as well as dangerously irresponsible) way the EU actually operates.. Hopefully it will have opened the eyes of quite a few people who tend to swallow the polemic – all the “working together” for a better blah blah generalizations which are used to sell the EU, which is in reality an elite, secretive, bureaucratic dictatorship.
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 12:31 pm -
Imagine the revolution in public health if we got everyone off ciggies and onto vaping? The fact that the EU are aiming to do the opposite is horrifying.
- Phil
- Bandini
February 23, 2016 at 2:50 pm -
I watched a documentary a while ago about how those ‘low energy lightbulbs’ came to be imposed upon us; it was a real eye-opener, not that I bothered checking any of the information, so…
Rather than the legislation being voted FOR, it crept in – according to the programme – by the passive system used in the EU: it was introduced, it wasn’t voted AGAINST, it became law.
The programme was following a couple of campaigners against those bloody mercury-filled horrors, and their argument was two-fold: they are poisonous & dangerous but, just as importantly, they are not cost-effective when all the variables are taken into account (safe disposal, etc.).
The point was also made that their supposed long-life – and I’ve personally yet to have one which came even close to matching the claims made – was a bit of a con, as the traditional light-bulb was deliberately designed to fail after a period of time agreed between the principle manufacturers (Philips, etc.). Further, a design which would have made the traditional item practically a ‘bulb for life’ was available, but the man behind that died – suspiciously, it is claimed.The role of the lobbyist in Brussels was explored, and the way that a small number of interested parties – the manufacturers who sensed a windfall – were able to push through the legislation to have incandescence outlawed, even managing to persuade the environmentalists (who perhaps ought to have been less keen on having fragile glass containers of toxic mercury-gas being installed in every home & building across the EU).
So much for a free market! This was the imposition of a nasty & soon-to-be-obsolete technology upon a continent, by the self-same industry selling the blasted product. It wasn’t a great advertisement for our EU overlords.
- thelastfurlong
February 23, 2016 at 4:22 pm -
And these long life (ha ha – ours are never that) bulbs, have not been tested scientifically for what they do to our health/vision etc.. We KNOW
- thelastfurlong
February 23, 2016 at 4:29 pm -
And these long life (ha ha – ours are never that) bulbs, have not been tested scientifically for what they do to our health/vision etc.. We KNOW that frequencies of light affect us. We have them in our house, but the table light next to us, that we read by, is the old fashioned incandescent kind. You can still buy them – “Rough Service” they are called.
No wonder depression is on the increase – our home lighting and the EU is enough to reduce anyone’s happiness index!
- Bandini
February 23, 2016 at 4:56 pm -
Just on the off chance that anyone wants to watch an hour and a half long documentary, ‘Bulb Fiction’ about CFLs in German (!) here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPUxA4g6EGs
- Bandini
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 12:37 pm -
The legislation didn’t really creep in. Dutch bulb manufacturer Philips and German bulb manufacturer Osram lobbied like hell to get rid of the old tungsten lamps because Philips and Osram had expensive CFL bulbs they wanted to sell to the public. I know this because I’m an electronics engineer and their lobbying was covered by the professional journals.
In the end it didn’t do Osram or Philips a lot of good. You can’t replace GU10 halogen spots with a CFL tube, so there was a loophole introduced for halogen bulbs – result was you can now buy halogen equivalents of all the old tungsten bulbs. Nowadays the LED technology has far overtaken CFL technology. If you really want a low energy bulb – go LED (those CFL bulbs are not more efficient as electronics engineers have known for some time. They are only more efficient “on paper”)
- thelastfurlong
- Ho Hum
- Matt
February 22, 2016 at 5:59 pm -
Oh God. Three months of scare mongering, unsubstantiated assertions, misinformation (like we will lose our winter fuel allowance—WE ALREADY HAVE do keep up). And since when was a uk bus pass usable in Spain? Can you really believe Spanish farmers would stop selling their fruit and veg? Will VW stop car exports? Give it a rest. If any treaties with the EU fall get a pen and change the title to “treaty with (name of country to be supplied)” The “inners” are getting totally stupid already with their fear mongering. What the hell will they be like in a couple of months time?
Open the popcorn- there could be much fun to be had.
- Jim McLean
February 22, 2016 at 6:25 pm -
Damn you, Raccoon Lady!! I was just slipping nicely into exactly one of those camps – the one about protecting our sovereignty etc – and feeling all pious about myself. Trust you to come along and give an original thought to this process!
Leave us alone. The out camp have their three reasons and the In camp have their three reasons. These reasons have been carefully rehearsed and prepared. We have been told what to think so that our gut feeling can tell us what to vote for.
People like you hurting our brains by making us look at things differently without any warning is just not playing fair!!- zippgun
February 22, 2016 at 11:04 pm -
If you believe in representative government, the ability of the governed to peacefully remove their rulers by voting, you cannot support this EU project at the same time. It is a despotism with Potemkin villages of “democracy”, such as the so called parliament, there to fool the rubes. A cunning elitist fraud, on a transnational scale. And if that isn’t enough, it designs disastrous grand schemes such as the Euro and the CAP, the consequences of which even someone with a bad GCSE in economics could have predicted.
- zippgun
- plantman
February 22, 2016 at 6:46 pm -
I cannot support anything that was founded on a lie and has only lost even more honour and integrity since that beginning.
“Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be established by successive steps each disguised as having an economic purpose, but will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation.” – .Jean Monnet, Founding Father of the EU.
- Andrew Rosthorn
February 22, 2016 at 7:04 pm -
Well it’s a lie that Jean Monnet ever said anything remotely like the quote that you have dredged from the crazier corners of the www. So where do you stand now?
You can’t prove that the great pioneer of the European Coal and Steel Community ever said anything so cynical. How about changing your mind?
There’s an interesting examination of how the lie was propagated at
https://eufundedproeutroll.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/european-union-what-did-monnet-say-about-europes-nations-and-the-superstate/- Mr Ecks
February 23, 2016 at 1:31 am -
Monnet was a socialist puke and supporter of the supremacy of the collective over the individual.
The EU well represents the style of tyranny favoured by Monnet and –from your support–by yourself.
Socialism has so far murdered 150 million human beings in the last 100 years. If you want to feel outrage–feel outraged about that. While the rest of us escape the kind of tyranny you favour.
- Mr Ecks
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 12:42 pm -
It’s an Empire. It is remarkably similar to what the British did in India – bribing the existing power elite to enforce Imperial rule on the ordinary folk. Consequently, there is no future in it anyway. We have the chance to get out now before it fails and drags us down with it.
- Andrew Rosthorn
- Lisboeta
February 22, 2016 at 6:48 pm -
I am puzzled as to why the “outers” think there could be any reclamation of that nebulous thing called sovereignty. Sure, the EU is a dog’s breakfast. But, unbidden by the EU, recent UK governments have managed to do their own thing, often with adverse effects on the populace. The results of elections are irrelevant (and less than half of the voters turn out for elections anyway). The quaint notion that government serves the people is hogwash: it is a self-serving cabal.
Remember, it wasn’t the EU that forced the UK into the ill-advised Iraq war. That was the decision of the government of the day, despite the mass public protests. The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), currently being discussed under such secrecy, is designed to remove any remaining vestiges of autonomy from individual European governments. For example, “Regulatory Convergence” favours laxer US legislation and will water down Europe’s stricter food and environmental laws. Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), another plank of TTIP, allows companies to sue governments if those governments’ policies cause a loss of profits. The disputes never get before a judge: they are heard by ‘arbitration tribunals’ made up of corporate lawyers. There are many other egregious aspects to TTIP. And we, the public, won’t get a say in the acceptance or rejection.
Sovereignty is a myth, whether in or out of the EU.
- Ho Hum
February 22, 2016 at 7:44 pm -
That’s exactly it. Looking back to some glorious yesterday, when the world was different, won’t cut it. Better to see where it’s going, get in there and kick about a bit, rather than hang around on the outside, and end up having to do what you’re told by everybody you end up needing to work for.
Not saying that I like the notion, but do you want to be the supermarket, or the supermarket’s supplier? – or even worse still, some yokel with his head in the sand, as seen from the other side of the Pond, North Sea or English Channel?
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 12:50 pm -
There is no “kicking about” the EU unless YOU are going to start PAYING for it.
The Greeks do not pay the salaries of ANYBODY that works in the EU.
The Germans pay all the salaries of EVERYBODY that works in the EU.
Hence the Germans get all the influence and the Greeks don’t get any. We don’t pay nearly as much as the Germans so we get overruled. If you want influence over the EU Britain will need to start paying at least as much as the Germans, and be glad about it. When our government argues for EU budget cuts, that goes down like a lead balloon with the EU – and they have all the power.
I have worked with these people – who pays the piper calls the tune, and that is the “upfront” cost of wanting influence in the EU. There are other “under the table” costs if you really want to get things done in your favour, as BMW and Mercedes and Siemens could tell you, if they though it was in their interest.
- Phil
- Jay
February 22, 2016 at 8:25 pm -
I’ve been musing about sovereignty and have concluded that it’s a very real thing, if sovereignty resides in the ability of the people to effect change – if significant numbers of voters hadn’t defected to UKIP on the back of the issue of the EU then I doubt that we’d be having the referendum at all. This means, of course, that despite being in the EU, we still have some measure of sovereignty. Given, however, that compliance with EU law is mandatory then our sovereignty is already watered down and will continue as the EU becomes increasingly powerful until Westminster becomes the village committee and I no longer care about its decisions and that if I vote for A he’ll suggest petunias whereas B will suggest begonias for this year’s hanging baskets!
The more powerful Westminster has, the more power I’ve got – I’ve got no power over the MEPs of the other 27 countries (sorry, nation states).
- Mr Ecks
February 23, 2016 at 1:35 am -
So because our own political scum are tinpot tyrants–a style that the EU brazenly encourages–we should stay with the even worse scum of the EU?
Absolute tripe.
We have far more chance of smashing the arrogance and dictatorial manners of one lot of scum–our own–who can be resisted and brought to account far more easily than a vast multi-national gang of dross born in secrecy and constructed to be utterly unaccountable for their actions.
- windsock
February 23, 2016 at 5:14 pm -
I sort of agree – you only have to look at the origin of the word – let’s all agree that we should be subject to the whims of a monarch.
The only “sovereignty” that matters is the type which you exercise on your own behalf every day, no matter who “rules”.
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 12:45 pm -
Has it occurred to you the reason the British government appears to be “doing what the hell it likes” is because it is responding to the needs of the USA, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the EU as appropriate?
Getting out of the EU is just the first stage of what we need to do to reign in our won government. I’ll be voting out for my kids and grandchildren as yet unborn. There will be problems, and there is a lot of work that will need to be done. It’s nothing compared to what my family had to go through in two world wars.
- Ho Hum
- Dioclese
February 22, 2016 at 7:00 pm -
As regular reader of your blog, I was waiting to see which way you go on the in/out issue – especially being aware that having lived in France for a number of years and recently returning to the UK. I realised this would give you a unique perspective.
Regrettably, I have to fundamentally disagree that remaining in the EU is anything other than folly and I will be writing a series of articles at my place over the coming weeks explaining why I feel this way. However, here are a trio of biggies for me :
(1) We give the EU £53,000,000 a day to belong to the club. Many people seem to believe that this money is invested back into the UK. It isn’t. The net payment to the EU is around £10,000,000,000 a year. We benefit from none of that. I say we should spend our money on our own country and not just give it away to Europe. We have an aid budget and an overseas development department which also give money to other countries, but at least we say where it goes – and that’s in addition to the £10billion. That riles me when I consider the arguments over giving an extra mere £2billion to the NHS.
(2) I want to live in a self governing country where the laws are decided by the UK Parliament not a foreign one. I want the highest court in the land to be the Supreme Court not the European Court. Look at the farce May went through to deport Hamza, our own rulings being repeatedly blocked by the European courts.
(3) I’ve no problem with controlled immigration along the lines of the Australian system. What I’m not prepared to accept is unfettered right of abode and work and benefits in the UK. You have the skills we need and we have jobs to fill them, then that’s great. Come on in. You’re welcome, but don’t come here claiming benefits while you look for a job.
And you’ll notice that there’s not one single thing in Cameron’s non-existent, non-legally-binding ‘deal’ that addresses any of the above issues.
- zippgun
February 23, 2016 at 1:38 am -
He went, he saw, he surrendered.
The very sight of Cast Iron Dave rushing round pleading with a bunch of tin pot Europols most people never heard of, to be allowed to do this or that, pleeeeezzzz – to be sent away with a flea in his ear – shows exactly what foot the boot is on. All the “competences” domestic governments still have are simply ones which will be being removed by the next series of treaties.Cameron has not got a legally binding deal for the pitiful scraps they’ve thrown him to aid the grand deception, anyway.
- zippgun
- Ed P
February 22, 2016 at 7:04 pm -
Away from the control of the EU Britain could reestablish its trading and cultural ties with the Commonwealth.
It’s very sad how we have turned our backs on our natural partners, with all the shared language and history, due to this damned EU project.
As plantman reminds us above, Federal Europe was always the intention. Lies at the start and more lies ever since – why would anyone believe Cameron has achieved anything worth having?
- Lisboeta
February 22, 2016 at 7:22 pm -
Somehow, I doubt that countries like New Zealand would give that idea the time of day! If your erstwhile beau had summarily dumped you, would you be inclined to trust them again? Especially if you’d since got your life back on track with other partner(s).
- Gordo
February 23, 2016 at 12:01 am -
Blood is thicker than water, Messrs Cameron, Osborne, Milliband, Bercow etcetera understand this.
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 12:55 pm -
NZ, Australia, Canada all want free trade with the UK. The only reason they want us to stay in is so that we can push the EU towards free trade deals with the commonwealth countries. If we were out, they could get those free trade deals with the UK right away, because it makes far more sense to be in a trading relationship with your main CUSTOMERS than with your main COMPETITORS.
- Gordo
- zippgun
February 23, 2016 at 1:49 am -
The man who gave us the Lisbon treaty (EU constitution) referendum, 10s of thousands net migration rather than 100s of thousands, fairer inheritance tax, the “great repeal “of New Labour’s police state.
Just look at the record, as Al Smith said. Why should we not believe him?To be serious, just compare and contrast his grand oration on what he said he was going to get for us from them and the vacuum he returned with. It doesn’t need to be a question of belief – that would only be relevant if it hadn’t happened yet. We know what happened.. His own words reveal the mendacity of any pretense he has fulfilled what he supposedly set out to achieve in any way.
- Lisboeta
- Oi you
February 22, 2016 at 7:34 pm -
I don’t think we’ll be allowed to leave. The EU is already a dictatorship and like most dictators, it has many nefarious ways of making sure it gets its own way. Something to do with war perhaps. You know the one coming up in the middle east…
If not, the petty bureaucrats in Brussels will think of some other way of exacting revenge. Our departure will cost them dearly financially and in others ways make them look like fools. They won’t forgive that.
:o)
- Sackerson
February 22, 2016 at 7:48 pm -
If we were out already, why would we join the EU?
- Ho Hum
February 22, 2016 at 8:09 pm -
So we could moan. Politicians, Left, Right, and Centre. Journalists, Tabloids and Broadsheets. The Borg, the one with, and the one without, any real knowledge at all, or passing semblance of neural activity. Not forgetting those who write blogs, those who read them, and so help me, almost anyone that ever wrote a comment on one. And everyone that’s not having a good day and wants to blame it on something…
- Mr Ecks
February 23, 2016 at 1:39 am -
So that is your argument?
Anyone who hates the tinpot tyranny of the EU is someone you don’t like. Because they shouldn’t. Because…. blank-out.
Are you old enough to vote at all?
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 12:58 pm -
I always said that after the signing of Maastricht in 1992 it would all go wrong. You give power to politicians and immediately they want to use it. When they do it all goes wrong. There is not a problem in the world that can be solved by more politicians. More politicians always means more problems. Same with the Eurozone, bound to go wrong because the drive behind it was political.
- Andrew Rosthorn
February 29, 2016 at 1:13 pm -
With your dating of the Maastricht Treaty to 1992 I think you accidentally made our point for us. Whatever the trials and tribulations of the EU in the 23 years since Maastricht, there has been no war in Europe.
Our post-Maastricht peace has therfore lasted three years longer than the 20 years of patchy peace between the Versailles Traty of 1919 and the invasion of Poland in 1939. And that’s not counting the Spanish Civil War, the Anschluss or the Rape of Czechoslovakia. Like an old locomotive, with steam leaking from her joints, the EU still pulls the train. She ain’t broke, so don’t fix her!
- Andrew Rosthorn
- Mr Ecks
- Little Black Sambo
February 24, 2016 at 7:51 pm -
“If we were out already, why would we join the EU?”
Good question, and Cameron is on record as saying that he would, thus demonstrating the depth of his deludedness.”
- Ho Hum
- Frankie
February 22, 2016 at 8:31 pm -
Out out out out out out!!!! I dislike disagreeing with the Landlady, for whom I have a high degree of reverence BUT….
I hate the bureaucratic nonsensical morass that is the EU… It is run by faceless people we don’t seem to be able to vote for; costs us a fortune and makes life in the dear old UK more difficult by far. It is the only subject for which one is allowed an unmarked text book of the impenetrable list of EU statutes in the LLB exam (or CPE equivalent) and that in itself says something…like it’s bleedin’ impossible to get your head around.
It is a club, one that we cannot afford to be in. We are a Sovereign nation (apparently) and yet a parcel of jobsworths who never ask me what I think, can make arbitrary decisions in a country I rarely visit, which affect me and mine, without me having any right of protest. Fair?? Democratic??? My BACKSIDE!! Why, for example, does the European Parliament have TWO places that they sit? Strasbourg AND Brussels… Efficiency? Value for money?? Nonsense.
It is a gravy train, for the well connected. Look at the sort of chaps they send to be EU Commissioners. Leon Brittan? Peter Mandelson?? Neil Kinnock??? Lord Hill???? Who he??? I went through the list of current EU Commissioners and confirmed that I had never heard of any one of them. It is a self-serving trough, from which this may be our one chance to escape, or at least to try. To not exercise the right to leave is to say, “Well, we’re doing just fine in the EU, things could not be better, really…” We all know that our lives are indisputably more complicated, in every way, because of EU meddling and the fact that we implement every loony idea or Directive that comes from there, rather than taking a more pragmatic view.
Look at the fuss made when someone like Cameron had the temerity to suggest that perhaps reform of the rules was somewhat overdue… and what little he got for all that effort. Bah!!
There is no possible way that Europe will stop trading with us and what does being a member mean to Mr. Average anyway? Don’t we still have to cue, sheep like at the airport when entering one EU country and returning to our own, regardless of what the Treaty says? “Without Let or Hindrance”… that is what it says on my passport… Don’t make me laugh!!!
I personally could not give a stuff about the alleged 250,000 UK citizens living abroad, and doubt whether, morally, they should have had Winter Fuel Allowance in the first place; acceptance of such when one no longer lives in the country that doles out the allowance feels to me more than slightly barmy…or perhaps…well, I won’t say.
I consequently feel little sympathy for those retired Brits abroad as they gasp in the heat of another beautiful sunny day, wishing their air conditioning was more efficient, while the less well off/motivated elderly shiver in their council houses or sheltered accommodations and wonder whether they should either eat something or avoid freezing to death…
No… SORRY, Landlady, but on this occasion you fail to persuade.
If only to really piss the Scots off, we have to vote to get out, stand on our own feet, be responsible for ourselves first an foremost. I have no issue with people coming to this country to work and bring up a family, it is that diversity that makes us stronger as country, I feel. I don’t think we are ‘full’ by any means. For me, it is the bureaucratic nightmare at the centre of the EU that we must be rid of for good. A Common Market? Yes. This shambles?? No.
For Cameron to label all those who want to vote to get out as being sympathisers, hirelings of the idiotic Farrage or the nincompoop George Galloway, well, that just put the lid on things for me, so my mind is made up. The Chief Buffoon Boris is a distraction, interested only in his own advancement, but…
I have weighed all the evidence and I, and anyone I can persuade (and I have yet to meet anyone who professes to want to stay in) will be voting to come out.
Frankie
- The Blocked Dwarf
February 22, 2016 at 8:52 pm -
*starts a campaign to have ‘the referendum’ officially rebaptised as ‘The PlebisCide’ *
- Michael
February 22, 2016 at 8:52 pm -
I’m voting to remain. I want to be ruled over by people I did not elect and who are duty-bound to uphold the interests of foreign nations over my own.
- Matt
February 22, 2016 at 8:55 pm -
What was that crack by Camoron? A leap into the dark? By leaving? Have we always been in the EU then? From the first day of our existence? I see it as a leap BACK to how we were before we joined this vile commie undemocratic experiment in World Governance —note that. Not World GOVERNMENT.
Forty years ago I read somewhere that if we joined we could never leave. Who in their right mind joins any club that they cannot leave. Only a cretin or Heath would lead us into that. Lies lies lies all along the way.
The simple way will be best IMO. Tell them tomorrow—thats it not a penny more from us, and don’t bother with edicts from the European Court we will ignore them. What are they going to do to us? Declare war? Now pull up some chairs to sort out the details. Please God let our long humiliation end in June,- zippgun
February 23, 2016 at 1:59 am -
We must remember that generations have grown up who have no personal experience of when the UK was not in the EU, when it was still a proper country. Even I was a mere teen when fat Ted took us in – and I’m pretty ancient now. To them it may seem a leap in the dark, to me it’s the essential step one in the battle to get representative government back. The latter being totally impossible while part of the Jean and Bob’s imperialist project.
- zippgun
- Cascadian
February 22, 2016 at 9:06 pm -
“Sing ‘Rule Britannia’ if you want”……….then the landlady exited, smiling broadly and with tongue planted firmly in her cheek.
Her point is well made, no matter your choice the decline continues, perhaps to the detriment of the refugees from the NHS in Europe. She being in an almost unique position to judge outcomes given her recent experiences.
It would be wonderful to hear from Elena ‘andcart , somebody who knows a thing or two about surviving in Europe under difficult circumstances.
- Fat Steve
February 22, 2016 at 9:09 pm -
Difficult for me to muster much enthusiasm for the EU debate …..little more than an opportunity for talking heads to parade their ‘erudition’ though frankly EU agendas are so well concealed those talking heads have no real idea of whats in store in the long run …..could be good or could be bad.
But Anna waaaay more enthusiam to see you back in the swim after some days of silence (I hope literally as well as metaphorically)) Gotta say I worry a bit when you don’t post ….even if you don’t fancy putting fingers to keyboard every day the Queen of Constructive Criticism could issue an occasional Court Circular when engaged on matters other than her blog to assure her loyal subjects that she remains in good(ish) health coz , (and I reckonI speak for more than a few), we do worry.- Pericles Xanthippou
February 22, 2016 at 11:06 pm - Ho Hum
February 23, 2016 at 1:06 am -
I agree about the bulletin, Steve
- Fat Steve
February 23, 2016 at 10:07 am -
Well Ho Hum we don’t agree on much except the important things in life
- Fat Steve
- zippgun
February 23, 2016 at 2:07 am -
Well, one biggie which may be coming down the pike is…
… Anthony Bliar (Mr WMD hissself!) is spearheading the attempt to make “tolerance” compulsory via the EU. Doubtless with long spells in prison for muttering about feminism or dissing the ROP. Coming your way in an EU directive soon, courtesy of those fun commissioners you can’t elect….or remove (and probably even speak to in a language you understand).
- Pericles Xanthippou
- adams
February 22, 2016 at 11:02 pm -
Vote remain and Britain is finished . Vote Leave and the EU is finished . Anna’s smug detached viewpoint does not sit well with me who lives in London and has seen the ethnic transformation speeding up over the last twenty years . My local school now has a few token white in the school a complete reversal of previous years . Often even the white people on the Rail station platform are not British , shouting in their mobiles in languages I do not recognize . I now feel I am in a foreign land and it is not a feeling I am comfortable with and certainly this transformation has not been requested by me . I have not been consulted . Bliar , McDoom , and now Camoron know better .The deluge of mass immigration has to stop . preferably NOW . No chance is there even with this referendum ? I have two daughters and fear for their future in the Britain that is developing while under the tender supervision of the Brussels apparatchiks .
Ex Pats in where ever will not be forced to return to Britain . They are covered I think by some Vienna Treaty which guarantees their rights pre any new constitutional changes . Status quo or leap in the dark ? Not at all . This is not the choice on offer . The EU is bent on a federal EU with the euro for all and rule from the Brussels sclerotic elites . The journey to the bottom is not over yet .
VOTE LEAVE is all there is . Staying in the monstrous money gorging juggernaut is strictly for lunatics .- zippgun
February 23, 2016 at 2:10 am -
You left out Straw, the grey eminence of NUS infamy.
- Fat Steve
February 23, 2016 at 10:34 am -
@Adams
Can’t agree with your criticism of Anna’a piece but I can see your point about this country being unrecognisable from the one in which many of the contributors here grew up.
It may be worth your while looking at this character who is a founding Father of EU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nikolaus_von_Coudenhove-Kalergi#Quotes
Just two of his quotes are
The man of the future will be of mixed race. Today’s races and classes will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-Negroid race of the future, similar in its appearance to the Ancient Egyptians, will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals. ”
“Instead of destroying European Jewry, Europe, against its own will, refined and educated this people into a future leader-nation through this artificial selection process. No wonder that this people, that escaped Ghetto-Prison, developed into a spiritual nobility of Europe. Therefore a gracious Providence provided Europe with a new race of nobility by the Grace of Spirit. This happened at the moment when Europe’s feudal aristocracy became dilapidated, and thanks to Jewish emancipation.
I speculate that the European project in itself may be noble but where the people who control it might lead it is the worry.
Too big to fail is the argument that saved the Bankers and the EU will /already has started to employ that argument (the leap in the dark)- windsock
February 23, 2016 at 5:18 pm -
“I can see your point about this country being unrecognisable from the one in which many of the contributors here grew up.”
Thank whatever universal deity of your choice for that!
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 1:12 pm -
Being in a mixed race relationship myself I don’t much care about all that.
What I do care about is that when I took my son for a look at Brunel University it was swamped by East European prospective students. I wondered why. Well it turns out an East European student can avoid the dearth of good universities in East Europe by coming to the UK to study on the same basis as UK students. That means they can also claim a UK student loan. They only need to pay the loan back if their salary exceeds the required level – when they return back to East Europe, assuming they can be traced of course.
Right now some very good UK universities are taking East European qualifications for entry:-
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/uni-life/international/your-country/europe/poland.page
Pretty soon I should imagine that Polish colleges will be teaching UK A Levels to make it a bit easier.
So, when my youngest son has to go to uni, I wonder just how many students from Europe he will need to compete with? And will student loans be available or will the demand be so high and the rate of payback so low the government will have withdrawn them? And then there’s the job afterwards – how much competition to be a computer scientist or electronics engineer in the UK when lots of East European students trained in the UK might decide to stay here rather than go back to East Europe?
I’m voting LEAVE for my children and my future grandchildren. I owe it to them to do the right thing. I’m passing the legacy of a millennia of British advancement to my family. The East Europeans will have to advance their own countries, not look for the easy ride at my families’ expense.
- Andrew Rosthorn
February 29, 2016 at 1:38 pm -
This “millenia of British advancement” you mention sounds dodgy.
A thousand years would take you back beyond the Norman Conquest, to a year when the Anglo Saxon Edmund Ironside was fighting for control of England with Cnut, the Danish king. Edmund lost the Battle of Assandun on October 18, 1016. He had to settle for holding Wessex, leaving Cnut in command of the rest of England, as part of a Viking kingdom. Not much British about 1016 then?
We need to be reminded that the political union of Great Britain dates only back to 1706. Norman Davies, the eminent historian, born in Bolton, now living in Oxford and Kraków, married to a Polish scholar, has noted the existence of 2,000 previous states in the British Isles in his book The Isles: A History. (London: Macmillan, 1999).
- Andrew Rosthorn
- windsock
- zippgun
- Pericles Xanthippou
February 22, 2016 at 11:14 pm -
Now, I’m firmly in the British camp (for reasons with which I shall not now bore the ‘regulars’); but how nice it is to see a cogent argument (of any kind and in relation to any matter) from the E.U. camp, rather than the incessant clamour of ‘leap in the dark’ we’ve had from it over the week-end.
(Even in the extremely unlikely event of Anna’s Eisodus, I don’t think the return of a quarter-million genuine British pensioners would trouble the electorate any more than the ingress of 150,000 or so Bulgarians &c.; the immigration problem is a cultural one relating to the Third World and was already rendered insoluble by Labour, adept at the creation of its own client state, a decade or more ago.)
This, however, is the debate we need: one advancing ideas the electorate can think about and use to guide it toward a reasoned response in the forthcoming plebiscite. As Jim McLean says, “Trust [Raccoon Lady] to come along and give an original thought to this process!”
Politicians stand aside: allow raccoons to handle this!
En passant:
I see that a comment by Andrew Rosthorn makes a point I also make often: the whole World is governed by socialists, regardless of the labels they append to their escutcheons; it’s an inevitable consequence of universal equal suffrage. I do, however, disagree with his conflation of nationalism and a desire to preserve national culture;
Much agree with JimS’s recommendation of Mr. Gove’s speech: although Mr. Gove’s declaration in favour of the British camp will inevitably receive less attention than Boris’s, he is the one really deserving of acclaim;
“Big businesses love the EU because they regulate their competitors away.” — Dick Puddlecote.
ΠΞ
People’s Front for the Liberation of Jerusalem (Ancient Feet)- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 1:13 pm -
These pensioners don’t go away forever anyway. They come back to the UK to die. That’s assuming they ever went away completely anyway – most only spend the winter abroad.
- Phil
- right-writes
February 22, 2016 at 11:43 pm -
In the words of Roger Waters and Pink Floyd…
I have always had a deep respect and I mean that most sincerely…
No seriously…
But on this one you are barking up the wrong tree Anna.
We must leave, this is not about snipping some kind of phantom anchor and floating the UK out to the middle of the Atlantic, to bob about aimlessly, neither is this about being “in Europe”, as clearly we are.
Oh no…
This is about understanding what “sovereignty”, and democracy means, and your jocular drivel suggests that you have no idea, either that, or you believe that it is worthless.
I could expend an awful lot of
breathe-ink explaining what I mean, but instead have a look at this programme made by Russia Today, a discussion between two British politicians that are usually implacable enemies, but both understand the nature of those two words.https://www.rt.com/shows/sputnik/332357-eu-referendum-brexit-campaign/
Who knows, with a bit of luck, if we leave the EU, the other nations that are currently locked into this absolute effin’ disaster of an attempt to create a political union on the model of the extinct Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia, won’t have to wait for war-war before extricating themselves, and relatively free movement without the loss of freedom will return to the peoples of Europe.
This is nothing to do with xenophobia, it is everything to do with outdated concepts called democracy and sovereignty…
You need to slow down a bit and think before you spout your ill thought out invective Anna.
- Dioclese
February 23, 2016 at 8:05 am -
The medical question is interesting.
Many Brits abroad return home because they are seriously ill and want free treatment on the NHS. - binao
February 23, 2016 at 8:11 am -
Very little point in offering a referendum if there’s any doubt on the result, and given the resources available to Cameron, I assume this entire pantomime is just part of the journey. A journey that will get Britain fully on board eventually; we’ll just take a little longer but when the oldies die out most resistance will cease. After all, for most sub-retired, ‘OUT’ is a step into the unknown.
It’s easy to get sidetracked by individual issues, problems that might or might not arise in the unlikely event of Brexit. The assumption that consequences of Brexit wouldn’t or couldn’t be dealt with, leading to hardships of all sorts seems to me to be another part of the scare campaign. The scare campaign works because there isn’t a coherent plan for Brexit; hardly a surprise given that HMG is dedicated to membership. So the status quo has it, except the status quo isn’t what we’re going to get.
Me?
I’ve done the ex-pat bit, lived & worked in mainland Europe and various parts here too; I’m no little englander.
I think Gove has it about right.
Sadly being right won’t make a difference.- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 1:23 pm -
I’m 51 so a long way from retirement. I will be voting LEAVE. In fact I will be helping the campaign for LEAVE.
I don’t see that voting LEAVE is a step into the unkown any more than voting REMAIN. The EU is not staying still. Maastricht was signed in 1992, the Eurozone was formed in 1999, the Lisbon Treaty in 2007. What’s next? Rumours are complete fiscal union and the formation of an EU army – some may dispute this but how do you or I know? There is certainty in EU certainty. EU change will definitely be coming to a nation near you and none of us know what change is planned next, whether we want it and how we could stop it if we don’t want it.
Vote LEAVE is the safer option. We are in control of the change that we want and don’t want.
- Phil
- Duncan Disorderly
February 23, 2016 at 8:44 am -
I note the very clear similarities between this referendum and the previous Scottish independence referendum.
I have grown to despise the concept of ‘sovereignty’. It is a magical concept that makes everything better, and solves all problems. Never worry about how it achieves this. It just will! Also, never worry about downsides or risks! It’s all just ‘project fear’/’fearmongering’. What about trade? Who cares! Stop fearmongering!
I do not deny that there are problems with the EU. It should have solved the Greek crisis years ago, which would involve biting the bullet and writing down their debt. Skulls need to be banged together. But you could have problems like that without the EU.
There are no good reasons for leaving the EU. And the fact that some pish-stained reactionaries commenting here want to leave is good reason to stay in, just to spite them.
- Stewart Cowan
February 23, 2016 at 9:15 am -
“There are no good reasons for leaving the EU.”
Here’s one of the best (among a great many!): http://www.realstreet.co.uk/2011/07/why-the-european-union-must-be-dissolved
- right-writes
February 23, 2016 at 10:06 am -
Well found/said Stewart…
I expect Mr. Disoderly is a “Monnet proffesor”, or at least just thick, in his spare time.
Mind you the use of the word “pish” indicates Scrottishness.
- Stewart Cowan
February 23, 2016 at 10:32 am -
Thank you, right-writes
I am actually Jockinese myself, but there are an awful lot of silly people who live here who think that ‘independence’ means being dictated to by foreigners.
- Stephen
February 23, 2016 at 11:47 am -
Thanks Stewart, no offence implied.
Incidentally, I just had a phone call from a good friend with whom I have shared a Romanian handyman, painter and decorator. He is currently working at her place, and was worried that he might be sent home if we left the EU.
This man has been here legitimately for 10 years, so he came here despite the EU, not because of the EU, (remember there was an embargo on people from Romania and Bulgaria until January 2014) and he has two children born here.
He is extremely good at his job and goes out of his way to explain what went wrong with previous contractors’ “work” as he puts it right.
What a lot of people do not realise is that people that are useful, such as this fellow, will not have any problem exercising what is essentially free movement, as I didn’t when I went to work in the Netherlands 45 years ago, after registering and arranging a contract there, before the amazing EU answered all of our prayers…. NOT! Indeed, we are going to be enabling 2.5billion people from the Commonwealth, easier qualified access to this country post EU, which has not been permissable since the EU was foisted on us by the traitor Heath and his collaborator Wislon.
- Stewart Cowan
February 23, 2016 at 12:51 pm -
No offence taken my dear fellow. I lived in the land of the Engs for 13 years and jolly decent most were. Offence cannot be given – only taken (as they say!).
A Scottish friend of mine moved to Germany a few decades ago and works for the government. She also lived in Italy. A cousin lives in Thailand and Spain. The son of a friend lives in the USA, etc.
What we don’t need is the cultural vandalism deliberately inflicted on us by open-doors immigration (see Andrew Neather) to destroy our culture and economy to absorb us into EU and global tyranny.
- right-writes
February 23, 2016 at 4:59 pm -
Now that must be confusing… right-writes on one computer and Stephen on another… As Homer would say Doh!
- Stewart Cowan
February 24, 2016 at 2:00 am -
I gathered it was the same personage!
- Stewart Cowan
- right-writes
- Stewart Cowan
- Stephen
- Stewart Cowan
- right-writes
- Cloudberry
February 23, 2016 at 12:09 pm -
I note the very clear similarities between this referendum and the previous Scottish independence referendum.
I have noticed that a lot of the pro-Scottish independence/vote leave arguments seem to be the same, mainly along the lines of becoming a plucky little country where everything in the garden is rosy.I’m sure the Russians would love it if the UK left the EU, thereby weakening the pair of them.
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 1:26 pm -
Sovereignty is just a fancy word for power. Either we the people have it, or somebody else does. If you want somebody else to have power of you, your life, your kids life and your grandchildren’s lives then vote “remain”. I shall be voting LEAVE.
- Stewart Cowan
- Stewart Cowan
February 23, 2016 at 9:13 am -
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
Frédéric Bastiat (1801-50)
We must leave the EU or we will be returned to Medieval servitude. We’re already half way there with the taxes we pay and the rules we obey.
- Ho Hum
February 23, 2016 at 9:22 am -
Er, OK…. So, once out, you’re going to take your tent down to ‘Occupy Threadneedle Street’? Best of luck with that…
- Stewart Cowan
February 23, 2016 at 9:29 am -
Rather bizarre comment. You obviously believe that a cabal of unaccountable lawmakers overseas can be fully trusted to have our best interests at heart. That’s not being trusting, it is being dangerously irresponsible. I can envision a Monty Python sketch revolving around a crowd of really stupid people being ordered to do the most ridiculous things and paying for being humiliated, demoralised and dehumanised.
- Ho Hum
February 23, 2016 at 9:45 am -
Exactly! The Brits have never needed anybody overseas assisting them, as they’ve always managed to do that perfectly well themselves. And sing ‘Always look on the bright side of life’ while they’re at it…
- windsock
February 23, 2016 at 5:27 pm -
I find myself agreeing with you a lot Ho Hum. I think I’ll just let you do my commenting for me, but please consider everything you have said so far to have received a +1 from me.
I love the way everyone talks so blithely about friends and relatives living all around the world, but seem averse to having any Johnny Foreigner as a neighbour. One could argue their sentiments indicate that ALL borders should come down.
- Mr Ecks
February 24, 2016 at 1:59 am -
More nonsense.
Resistance to creeping tyranny does not equal xenophobia. The old stand-by of the lying leftist.
Johnny Foreigner is free to prescribe for his own. Not for me and mine.
- Stewart Cowan
February 24, 2016 at 2:17 am -
Mr Ecks,
Leftists use very mean tactics because they believe they are entitled to because they believe that they inhabit the moral high ground.
To please the dissenters… When I worked in an office in London’s Oxford Street, it was an incredible and exciting workforce: from various parts of England; from Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland; an American woman and a French woman; an Algerian Muslim and a Nigerian conman; some Indian girls, etc.
People were working, not looking for free handouts by the million.
This was 1991 and there was absolutely no need for ‘equality’ legislation as the bosses were a) an Irish-Indian woman, b) a Scottish woman and c) an Arab man.
If anything, there was a very small proportion of Londoners working there, but that’s not discrimination. It’s their city, so they should just shut up when other people take the jobs and sign on and stop thinking they have a right to get a job when there’s a whole world wants to live there. Some people. Not that I would have wished that job on anyone anyway.
And there was none of this LGBT garbage either. People just went to work to get on with trying to make a living.
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 1:35 pm -
I was married to an Asian for 18 years and I’m now in a new relationship with an Asian woman. That doesn’t change the fact that we only provide food for 50% of the people that live on this island and the streets and cities are seriously overcrowded. Due to the fact that the UK had a relatively low crime rate before immigration began, it now has a much higher crime rate simply because it has moved towards the average crime rate of the nations it chose to import people from.
Mass immigration was a mistake for the UK. It needs to be stopped before the problems get any worse and our quality of life continues to suffer.
- Phil
- Stewart Cowan
- Mr Ecks
- windsock
- Ho Hum
- Stewart Cowan
- Ho Hum
- backofanenvelope
February 23, 2016 at 10:37 am -
what worries me about leaving the EU is that it will be a long and complicated process. It will be carried out by the very plonkers that got us into the mess in the first place.
- Stewart Cowan
February 23, 2016 at 10:45 am -
It will be, but the longer we leave it the worse it will get.
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 1:36 pm -
At least our plonkers are better than their plonkers. Jean Claude Juncker has all the political experience of the Mayor of Bristol but is running a supra-national Empire of 370million people.
- Stewart Cowan
- Dave_G
February 23, 2016 at 11:00 am -
Yes, we MAY get 250,000 arriving but that will be ‘it’ – a one-off surge (potentially) of people who have actually CONTRIBUTED to this country and MAY want to cash in on that contribution.
The single most important issue is that it would be a ONE OFF influx, not 300,000+ each and every year ad infinitum.
If we HAVE to support people I know where my contributions would be better served – and that’s with those who’ve paid to support ME in the first place.- Ellen Coulson
February 23, 2016 at 1:54 pm -
and, of course, Dave G most of those returning 250,000 or 1,000,000 will already be receiving pensions and Winter Fuel Allowance (or not).
- Bandini
February 23, 2016 at 2:12 pm -
I’ve often seen it written that the UK in fact DOES need a massive influx of immigrants, if only to balance the books with an ageing population & falling birth-rates. (More immigrants = more taxpayers)
It seems like a pretty desperate way of keeping the plate spinning to me, particularly with the failure over generations to ensure adequate housing is available… but politicians aren’t renowned for tackling painful situations when they can leave them for others to sort out some time in the distant future.
Perhaps the money saved by not being in the EU would make up for the shortfall if immigration was stopped/greatly reduced? One for the economists.- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 1:41 pm -
If I had been told that I wasn’t having enough kids and we were going to backfill the spaces with people from every corner of the globe then I would have had ten kids!
I was told the world was overpopulated and the UK in particular. Was that another lie?
If we need so many people to support the elderly – why do we keep so many kids in education until they are 22? Rumour has it, it is because there isn’t any jobs for them….
Fact is that Tescos et al want immigrants because it means more consumers. So much easier than opening a branch in Islamabad or Warsaw. Maybe other Brits have to pay from some of these migrants to be fed. Maybe the whole thing will collapse in 5 years time. The CEO of Tescos doesn’t care about that. It’s not his job to care. He has a 5 year outlook to maximise profit. It’s in Tescos interest. It’s not in YOUR interest.
- David
February 29, 2016 at 1:47 pm -
The whole World is overpopulated. There are not enough resources to house, educate, and give medical services to everyone on the planet now, and the World population is about to double. You need to put your efforts into world population control.
- Ho Hum
February 29, 2016 at 2:03 pm -
You are Chauncey Gardiner and I claim my £5
- Ho Hum
- David
- Phil
- Ellen Coulson
- Andrew Rosthorn
February 23, 2016 at 3:23 pm -
Dead right Bandini. “A pretty desperate way of keeping the plate spinning” is a good description of some of the ghastly suggestions prompted by the ethnic cleansers attracted to this controversy. The long, sad refugee trains will be rolling again if these EU quitters get their way.
The founders of the European Union had lived on the continent between 1914 and 1947 and seen countless trains rumbling north, south, east and west, shipping “the wrong sort” of people around to suit the confused minds of nationalist politicians. Primo Levi in “The Truce” describes the scenes on the railways after the opening of the death camps and the clearing of luckless ethnic German farmers from their ancient heimats in Poland and Czechoslovakia. It wasn’t just the Germans and the Russians that did this stuff, the British and the French did it too. After Versailles, Woodrow Wilson landed us with the idea of dozens of referendums, they called them plebiscites, in the border regions between the old empires. The deadly consequences are well described in Timothy Snyder’s 2011 book “Bloodlands”.
No-one, in the very stroppy atmosphere of Anna’s snug this week, has tackled my earlier point that Brexit would break the UK. Scotland, Wales and Northern England would refuse to leave the EU and continue to resent rule by public school PR men and women and by the casino bankers in London. People have just posted some silly remarks about cutting Scotland adrift. I think that our lovely landlady deserves a better class of customer than the flag-waving hoodlums who descended on the snug last night. Shall we adjourn to the public bar?- Bandini
February 23, 2016 at 3:40 pm -
I think things may be adjourning to the pub car-park, judging by some of the strong opinions on offer!
- Mr Ecks
February 24, 2016 at 2:07 am -
Given the disgraceful assorted crap offered as argument for tyranny-support on here it would not be a surprise if tempers boiled over.
The wars of Europe were about the scum at the top cashing in. When the mushroom cloud appeared it was obvious that the old game was over. So the shite at the top decided to join forces and rip everybody in Europe off as a joint enterprise.
That is the true origin of the EU. And talking a lot of crap about the horrors caused by the previous management policies of Europe’s scum leaders is no justification for their new set of scams. It is a disgrace to the memories of the millions who have already died in state-manufactured horrors.
- windsock
February 24, 2016 at 7:48 am -
I agree up to a point. That point being that the scum at the top of Europe are no different (better or worse) than the scum at the British top. There is scum everywhere (although our definitions of that may differ). Leaving will just make us more vulnerable to the scum at the top of the USA, China, India (or wherever our scum end up going with their begging bowl). For better or worse, I’d rather our scum aligned with European scum to fend off the scum that lives in safety further away.
But what is worse, for both of us, is that you could say none of this really matters to us pond life bottom feeders (as the scum would see us); the global wealthy will soon be a global cabal and borders will only exist for us, not them (which is already true to a large extent).
- Mr Ecks
February 24, 2016 at 10:08 am -
No sense then in making a bad situation worse by giving EU-trash the chance to dictate to us.
We have more chance of smashing our own scum.
As for the “inevitable” march of global tyranny–just remember that the useless bastards ruin everything they touch. As witness the current financial mess worldwide. Their tyranny cannot stand because they can’t make it run without economic freedom.
The ultimate danger is that the morons at the top believe the Agenda 21 shite. That the clock can be turned back on human progress to create a stable tyranny in which the elites can rule forever while those plebs who survive do so as techno-serfs at best.
But even that won’t work because once they try to turn the clock back what they will get will be Mad Max world not some stable socialistic tyranny.
The good guys are going to win.
- windsock
February 24, 2016 at 10:20 am -
I think we probably agree more than we disagree – except I don’t see the danger as “socialist”, but totalitarian, however that manifests itself. I don’t think it’s left vs right. It’s wealthy against everyone else. I think being part of one “gang” gives us more security than being a loner (I’m not saying loners don’t thrive – but for everyone that does, there’s probably also a suicide). I’m not sure that those leading the Brexit charge are not going to be leading us over a cliff to their own advantage,
As for “elite” – please, can we not use that word? To me it means someone who has achieved great things through academia or creativity, by effort. I prefer to refer to “the elites” as the wealthy. They just have more money. They are not a better class of person, even if they think they are.
- Andrew Rosthorn
February 24, 2016 at 2:49 pm -
Dear Windsock, On checking my Shorter Oxford, thumb index edition, I find that the word elite does not mean “someone who has achieved great things through academia or creativity, by effort”. It means “The choice part, the best, [of society, a group of people, a select group or class”. The word comes from old French and Latin and one could argue that it means the very opposite of you say.
I hope we all agree that there has been too much talk about “scum”, “trash” and “dregs” in the snug this week. The stroppy Mr Ecks, and others, have reminded me of the angry man at breakfast in 1940, being told by his wife in a famous Punch cartoon, which you can see at http://punch.photoshelter.com/image/I0000y1hpElw_CAs
“Calm yourself dear. Even Hitler can’t be both dregs AND scum.”- windsock
February 24, 2016 at 3:01 pm -
One could argue…. if one tried really hard. Do you really believe that those commonly described as “the elite” are “The choice part, the best, [of society, a group of people, a select group or class”?
- Andrew Rosthorn
February 24, 2016 at 3:42 pm -
No. Those are alternative dictionary meanings. Those commonly described as ‘the British political elite’ are certainly not the best, but they are select.
More and more of them went to select fee-paying schools, fewer and fewer ever did another job before being selected, more and more of them were coached in political cynicism in America. This used to be the only country in the world where you could wake up listening to Yesterday in Parliament and know what party the speaker represented from his accent. Now all the youngish ones sound the same. Even the Labour Party leaders went to public school or Oxbridge, with that usual twelve months interning in Washington.
With Britain’s richest 1% having, quite recently, accumulated as much wealth as the poorest 55% of the population put together, the dear old UK looks too economically divided to survive a Brexit. Note how soon the customers in the snug this week started bringing into their EU arguments the subject of Class, that fascinating lifelong hobby pursued by so many people in the South East of England.
Those rambling on about UK sovereignty should remember that the ultimate sovereignty in any country lies with the risen people. Just because we haven’t had open rebellion here since Chartist coal miners seized Newport in 1839, doesn’t mean the political elite can continue to fool around with the levers of the huge centralised power concentrated on Whitehall and Westminster by both parties since 1979.
I’m no fan of Patrick Pearse as a politician, but his poem The Rebel might be worth repeating to George Osborne, the trickster behind The Northern Powerhouse, HS2 and other Potemkin villages offered to those who live north of Watford:
“And I say to my people’s masters: beware
Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people,
Who shall take what ye would not give. Did ye think to conquer the people,
Or that Law is stronger than life and than men’s desire to be free?
We will try it out with you ye that have harried and held,
Ye that have bullied and bribed… tyrants, hypocrites, liars!”
- Andrew Rosthorn
- windsock
- Andrew Rosthorn
- windsock
- Mr Ecks
- windsock
- Mr Ecks
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 1:46 pm -
What historians don’t want you to know is that at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century the Jewish population of Europe had a revolution. Some became highly orthodox forming the Heredi Jews. Others became secular and highly politically active. From the point of view of those outside the community they saw that part of the Jewish community had become very fundamentalist with some pretty appalling views of non Jewish people, and others seem to have taken a liking to joining anarchist and communist groups resulting in gun battles in the streets and detonation of bombs. In other words, not entirely unlike what we see happening to the Muslim community today. A rise in anti-semitism was the inevitable reaction to the revolution in Jewish thinking. Read some history on Heredi jews on Wikipedia for more information. Seems like the politicians have re-created exactly the conditions that led to the last holocaust, perhaps on purpose.
- Bandini
- The Blocked Dwarf
February 23, 2016 at 3:28 pm -
A little insight into the minds of Johnny foreigner (or at least his MSM): I watch the German TV news every evening. All the last week or so there was a large chunk of airtime devoted to the , then, upcoming EU-Summit…because pretty much every EU nation other than the UK was hoping for it to produce a solution to the ‘refugee crisis’. We were given indepth analysis of every country’s ‘views’, every leader got some airtime.
Any EUer watching would have been forgiven for thinking that the summit was solely there to deal with the refugee crisis. No mention of BREXIT whatsoever. It simply didn’t feature. Finally, on the evening before the summit started, BREXIT got a mention…just.
Last night on Radio4 someone was saying that the other EU leaders were more than a little pissed at having had to spend time dealing with the whole BREXIT thing and I can quite believe that. From what I can gather from friends and family, a lot of EU’ers just wish the UK would piss or get off the pot. Either leave or get with the program. If i had been Juncker or Merkel I would have told Dave to “fucken-sie-off, have your referendum and let us know how it turns out. Until then stop trying to drag us all back to 1945! You won the war,Dude, get over it.”
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 1:51 pm -
The German media has as a goal the interest of Europe. Clearly one country resolving the immigration crisis by quitting the EU altogether is not something the German media is going to want to dwell on at length. People might star asking if Germany should quite the EU before there is fiscal union and they have to start paying for the Greeks.
- Phil
- the moon is a balloon
February 23, 2016 at 3:39 pm -
Two things occur to me:
If we currently send £10billion per year to the EU in net contributions, we could use some of that that to fund some provision for the approx 1.5million (?) EU expat pensioners and such. With apologies, that is presumably an actuarially dwindling number and the forward financial burden should be guessable to a decent accuracy
And my lad caused astonishment at school at last election time when, as his teacher attempted to browbeat him to his own point of view, the boy said that how one voted might depend on whether one is voting for the good of oneself or the wider good of the nation as a whole. This was by all accounts a very rare thought. I think though that we may be doing something right with the kid.
I suggest also that : if the vote is Leave, there will be another bout of negotiation and another referendum until the right answer is given, and if it is Stay, the EU will still die anyway. So let’s not fall out over it.
- Phil
February 29, 2016 at 1:55 pm -
I think young people often vote in favour of the party that appears to be the best for all the people, whereas older people tend to vote in favour of those that seem to offer the best deal for their kids.
I will be voting LEAVE because it is the best option for my kids and future grandchildren. Less competition for places at good universities, a working welfare state, the possibility that we might actually get the deficit down to zero (impossible when you have millions of East Europeans coming here to work at Starbucks on a minimum wage paying £500 a year in tax when government spending is £12,000 a year per person) and less completion for jobs.
- Phil
- binao
February 24, 2016 at 3:25 pm -
The point has been made that some contributions here have been a bit fiery.
I have lately found it quite soothing to convert my own outbursts to nato phonetics. All in the hope that its less offensive. Hearing the welsh windbag being shamelessly sucked up to on R4 a couple of days ago, prompted ‘whiskey tango foxtrot’, followed by ‘what a charlie uniform…’
Trying to remember all the letters brings down the blood pressure.
Just a thought. - Phil
February 29, 2016 at 1:58 pm -
I will be voting LEAVE because it is the best option for my kids and future grandchildren. Less competition for places at good universities (East Europeans can study in UK universities whilst the UK taxpayer pays for them), a functioning welfare state, the possibility that we might actually get the deficit down to zero (impossible when you have millions of East Europeans coming here to work at Starbucks on a minimum wage paying £500 a year in tax when government spending is £12,000 a year per person) and less competition for jobs.
These things are all real and quantifiable. Stuff about impact on the UK economy is finger-in-the-air stuff and irrelevant given a good UK economy merely sucks in more EU economic migrants willing to do our jobs for a lot less money.
- Bandini
March 4, 2016 at 12:25 pm -
I’ll just drop this in here as it may be of interest to some – that very strange MP, John Mann, asked for some information regarding the UK’s payments to other countries for treatment of UK citizens overseas, and the figures make interesting reading.
The three main beneficiaries are France, Ireland and – wahey! – Spain, with a respective NET cost of 140, 200 & 220 million pounds.
Mann went off on one in his usual ‘Members’ subsidised bar’ manner, apparently convinced that the problems of the NHS (budget 115 billion) could be solved by clawing back this expenditure (625 million). Nevertheless, it does make interesting reading & may be of more use to the ‘leavers’ rather than the ‘remainiacs’…
I’m don’t know if the EU ‘health passport’ costs are included in the above, and don’t have time to check. But as a nation residents of the UK apparently make an astonishing 60 million foreign trips a year, 12 million of those to Spain according to the Office for National Statistics.
I’m therefore not sure if treatment of those sprained ankles & broken bones – nor those stomach pumpings – are in part responsible, let alone the more serious accidents leading to emergency hospital treatment.There is also the point which no doubt flew right over Mann’s ever-bobbing head that if the UK citizen wasn’t being treated abroad they would have to be treated back ‘home’ (i.e. it wouldn’t be a simple question of saving £625 million) – which ties in quite nicely with the subject of the landlady’s article.
- Bandini
February 26, 2016 at 12:34 pm -
Hardly stalking, David: you make public appeals for ‘assistance’ and – guess what? – the ‘public’ notices.
Besides, as you are only too fond of telling us (repeatedly) you are a provider of ‘information’ to Op Midland – and now also to the Goddard Inquiry too.
You, David, are a ‘person of interest’ to MY inquiry!Now count backwards from a hundred & listen to my voice: “You – are – a – nutter!”
- Bandini
February 26, 2016 at 12:57 pm -
Whoops! Sorry, that was a reply to David further (much further!) up the page:
https://annaraccoon.com/2016/02/22/they-long-to-be-close-to-eu/comment-page-1/#comment-18205726434427203
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