[Update] The UK votes to leave the EU

[techguyone]

'it's not going to be allowed'

did we wake up in Russia?

Oh wait...

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Hom3r

Outside the EU we can trade with other countries with the EU telling us if we can.

Plus we can send paedophiles to prison for whole life with out the EU saying its not legal.

The EU doesn't say it's legal or not, this is the sort of thing that needs to me addressed, such an important decision on staying or going can't be reached when we have such little knowledge of facts

[heero_yuy]

Leave or stay is not cut and dried as the polls are 50:50. This summers tsunami of migrants might well tip the balance hence Dave's hurried, flustered "negotiations" with his EU masters in order to try and get the referendum before the magnitude of the chrisis becomes evident.

So far he's achieved next to nothing, because you get next to nothing when you ask for next to nothing, yet he keeps the anti EU ministers gagged whilst he continues to say the EU is best for us. So utterly spineless.

So if we leave the EU what interest will the EU countries have in preventing illegal migrants from making their way to the UK?

[techguyone]

Right, let's stay in the EU because if we don't, they'll offload their migrants onto us, is that positive motivation or something ?

I'm sure with the monies saved, we could you know... have a border control - we are an island after all.

[Osem]

Yup, 'threats' - veiled or otherwise - are likely to further animate the out campaign.

It's not as if the Out campaign won't also be disingenuous in their approach. I am also not sure that the 'threats' will result in a boost to the Out campaign. As I said before the fear factor is the best tool the In campaign have and unless Out can alleviate those fears with a coherent idea of what Britain will look like outside the EU then they may well be an effective weapons.

The fear of leaving the UK helped the Better Together campaign in Scotland. The fear of the Labour-SNP alliance helped the Tories win a majority. Fear sells. The Out campaign will be talking of migrants and the Eurozone. Welcome to politics.

[Osem]

Only time will tell whether threats actually work in influencing voters but there's no doubt in my mind that such tactics will give further ammunition to the out campaign since it's just that sort of 'big brother' behaviour which they claim is at the heart of what's wrong with the EU.

Originally Posted by Osem

Only time will tell whether threats actually work in influencing voters but there's no doubt in my mind that such tactics will give further ammunition to the out campaign since it's just that sort of 'big brother' behaviour which they claim is at the heart of what's wrong with the EU.

They may resent it but when casting the vote are they going to go for the status-quo or the option to leave if the latter has an uncertainty about it? Hopefully they learn to moderate it so there isn't a post-referendum backlash like there was in Scotland but 'the deal', however much it may be a political exercise, might help there.

The Out campaign will have to address the 'uncertainty' issue but rebutting the 'threats' with convincing facts. If they go down the 'bullying' route they'll lose. Labour tried the 'nasty Tories' angle when faced with the fear-mongering of the Tory campaign but they still lost convincingly partly because the threats worked.

[Osem]

The uncertainty issue is made a whole lot easier for the out campaign given the certain uncertainty of remaining in. Whether it's migration, the Eurozone, Greece or Polish dissent, the EU is in a state of chaos, which shows no sign of abating. Under such circumstances the role 'uncertainty' plays in the final vote will apply to both sides and not necessarily equally. Had things in the EU been going more smoothly in recent years and the UK now found itself in the doldrums, I'd suggest leaving would be far less appealing that it currently is. Thankfully, the EU has shown itself to be spectacularly inept and misguided just when it mattered most.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Leave or stay is not cut and dried as the polls are 50:50.

It is cut and dried, it always has been, the Govt. wouldn't risk a referendum otherwise. The polls were 50:50 at the general election, I suspect they are equally out this time. Those with strong views, eager to offer their opinion, are 'Outers' will have skewed it.

The silent majority are apathetic and uninterested in the subject. However when forced to make a choice most of them will vote 'stay', or not vote. Fear of change and warnings from all corners about 'massive risks' to their own prosperity will swing it for most. The IN campaign has been going for months, the OUT campaign won't have time to get going, hence the rush for a vote. The public are easily manipulated by the media/those in power.

Bonkers Labour MP claims Indians fought in WW2 "for the European project."

http://order-order.com/2016/01/26/la...opean-project/

This is the kind of basic ignorance of recent history that Leave has to unpick.

[Osem]

Lammy reminds me of a male version of Dianne Abbot - she talks a load of old toffee too!

For some of us it isn't about the current state of the EU or the existing treaties it's that future many at the top of the EU want a single federal European state. The EU is a corrupt dysfunctional organisation and badly needs real reform trouble is no one involved with it at a level to actually reform it has the slightest interest in doing so. Scaremongering about how badly the UK would do out of the EU is a tactic I wholeheartedly encourage the "stay in" group to embrace and hammer relentlessly as it is complete rubbish. I believe the UK's best interests in future come with it being a truly independent entity free of the EU and an unexpected bonus might be an increase in the quality of the domestic political class once they no longer have the EU gravytrain to jump on once we wise up to them and vote them out.

[Osem]

If the EU were a government - local or national - they'd have been voted them into oblivion years ago. Sadly, rather like FIFA, the Eurocrats have created themselves a nice cosy environment in which they can propagate their madness and create widespread mayhem unhindered by accountability for any of it. Is it any surprise therefore, that they've become so adept at believing their own rhetoric and perpetuating their own existence? Blatter and his cronies enjoyed years of back patting, lavish indulgence and self congratulation to the point that their indignance at being rumbled, even now, is quite staggering. The EU is really not very different IMHO. Defective, dishonest, incapable of reform and unfit for purpose - who'd want to remain within any such organisation?