Would you...........
 

If Britain was not in the EU and the vote on the 23rd was a vote to join the EU how would you vote?

Taking into account all you know of the EU, From how it works, immigration, the various member countries current economic situations, future countries that will potentially join, the way the EU can over rule British law. etc etc.

So would you vote to join the EU if we were not currently part of it?

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Thing is, if you were outside of it, you wouldn't really know what it was like.

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No I wouldn't vote to join just as I'll be voting to leave it this week.

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I disagree, with 24 hour news channels, an visiting other European countries we would know some facts.

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Well it seems that even being in the EU people still don't know what it's about.

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If the National feeling had been weighed against joining the EU then I think that Britain, rather than completely stay out of the EU, could well have opted to follow the route of Switzerland who in 1972/73 choose to sign a free-trade agreement followed some time later by bilateral agreements but not formally choosing full membership.

Subsequent developments mainly, as fas as I can see, concerning funding issues and the free movement of all member nations finally became too much of an issue for the Swiss and in March this year the Swiss National Council voted to withdraw its suspended application for EU membership.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switze...nion_relations

So .... Hindsight bares heavily on my answer to the question posed on this thread. Considering the idealist views I held in the early 70s I would still have wanted to join together with the rest of Europe, but with hindsight I realise I would have wanted to retain more of the things that made Britain the country I love than we were allowed to retain. Switzerland managed to keep their identity and control of much of their own independence but in the end they have withdrawn from a United Europe and I wait to see with interest what happens next with them. As will, I am sure, the Netherlands who are also questioning whether they made the right decision all those years ago.

http://townhall.com/columnists/bgasc...ve-eu-n2180133

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No, never.

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Knowing what I now do it's got to be a big fat NO!

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Correct ,back in the 60s-70s when we joined and even earlier before we joined there was no internet or 24hr news to gather information so it was a lot easier for the politicians to limit the information given to us. I would say that if the EU was suggested nowadays with all it's "ever closer political and monetary union" it wouldn't get the time of day from the electorate .

A better question would be "knowing what we know now would the politicians have allowed us the internet " they must really hate us knowing stuff

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LOL I like that, and its true too.

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The internet is showing up politicians for the opportunists and chancers a lot of them are. Not that long ago it was virtually impossible for ordinary people to access documents, speeches, comments, articles etc. to support any argument or prove a point. Now the steady stream of lies, weasel words, hypocrisy and deceit is all too readily available for those who care to look and it's not a pretty sight.

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Join and be given a large chunk of migrants (economic and asylum seekers) to house, feed and clothe? And bail out the Euro-failed states and the new ones on the horizon? Plus hand over power to obviously arrogant unelected officials with their noses deep in the EU trough?

I didn't vote YES to the Common Market, I would have to be declared insane to vote to join the EU!

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Just ask your "remain" friends... Hand on heart would they vote to join if we were not part of the EU.

Ask your "leave" friends do they really want an end to immigration? Or do they just want to control the laws of the U.K.?

We can still have open borders, it will just be up to us. Remain have been vile, leave have been weak. No matter what happens vote them all out lol.

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I think the campaigns on both sides have been both vile and weak. Neither of them have produced any actual evidence to back up what they claim are facts. Leave have promised things that could end up costing way more than the money will we save. Remain don't really talk about what concessions David Cameron did manage to negotiate. Both campaigns have either lied, or quoted sections of reports out of context.

Personally, I will be voting Remain. Not because I want a greater integration with Europe (I don't), but because while I can accept that leaving the EU MAY be better for us, with the economy still recovering from recession, I don't think we can afford the gamble that it may make things worse. After all, when our trade deals expire (and they will expire at some point, although not for several years after we leave) and we negotiate new deals, we won't be negotiating on behalf of an organisation that has 4 of the top 10 economies in the world. (Source http://www.investopedia.com/articles...-economies.asp) and a population of 742 million (source: Google).

We will be negatiating on behalf of a country that has 1 of the top economies and a population of 70 million, which isn't nearly as good a deal to offer, and there will be a price, even if that price is a worse deal.

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Do you really think the EU gets us a better deal? I mean if it does explain why we currently pay more for cars/houses/electronic goods/food/gas/electric/petrol than most of Europe? The economic argument fails, market forces will dictate the prices we pay. An with tariffs removed from none EU goods a lot of fruit/veg/white goods/cars will potentially fall in price.

I suspect the truth of the matter is, if we leave nothing really changes but we get to make and live by our own laws/rules.