The Brexit referendum thread: potential consequences for GB, EU and the Brits in CH

	Quote:	Sbrinz
	As permanent as, don't go away for more than 6 months?

I wasn't planning on doing so, but thanks for the warning.


The fact remains that those of us who live here on C Permits are very unlikely to be affected by whether the UK stays or leaves the EU.


As arguments for voting Remain go, this is one of the weakest ones.

[fatmanfilms]

	Quote:
	I wasn't planning on doing so, but thanks for the warning. The fact remains that those of us who live here on C Permits are very unlikely to be affected by whether the UK stays or leaves the EU. As arguments for voting Remain go, this is one of the weakest ones.

As B permits last 5 years it won't make any difference to anyone. Brit's got C permits after 5 years before the EU agreements.

[curley]

	Quote:	Mfam
	Until recently I was all for the entrepreneurial vote and get out. Just relocated back to Switzerland and having kept my c permit open I have renewed it. C Permit is based on being an EU citizen. End of story self interest means I vote in.

C permits excisted long before the EU and it's not based on EU citizenship .... there are loads of Serbians with C permits here (most came in when they were still Yugoslavs) and Turkish, not to mention Italians who live happily on their C permit because they don't want to become Swiss, just live and work here. Hope that helps you change your mind back to the original voting plan

Keeping your own country in the EU only to make sure you can live in a country that's not in the EU ..... I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about that.

[decryphe]

	Quote:	Mfam
	C Permit is based on being an EU citizen.

No. You can come from any place in the world and acquire a C permit. It's bound to a couple of prerequisites and that you stay located in the country after you get it. But as long as you then stay, they cannot revoke it anymore (hence "permanent").

[FrankZappa]

	Quote:	curley
	Keeping your own country in the EU only to make sure you can live in a country that's not in the EU ..... I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about that.

I saw something similar on TV recently among totally unintegrated Brits living on the Costa del Sol. They were all for votiing to stay in, but admitted that if they lived in the UK, they'd be voting to leave. It's called naked self-interest.

[zurich99]

	Quote:	Loz1983
	BREXIT: The Movie. Not watched it yet but the full crowdfunded video can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/166389884

It is hard not to watch that and not feel really pi**ed off... I'm amazed I would like to see the other argument thou, but I imagine that Movie ends in WW3

[zurich99]

	Quote:	fatmanfilms
	I don't think any of them have a clue TBH. They all work in high paid jobs with a good pensions so what is good for them is not necessarily good for the population as a whole. A good example is most of the population would benefit from a 60% fall in house prices & rent costs, of course the experts would loose a lot of money......

This is why its so hard to trust any of them, and maybe why a lot of the general pubic are still undecided.

[lewton]

	Quote:	FrankZappa
	I saw something similar on TV recently among totally unintegrated Brits living on the Costa del Sol. They were all for votiing to stay in, but admitted that if they lived in the UK, they'd be voting to leave. It's called naked self-interest.

At the same time I expect some people will vote to exit the EU just because of their own self interest.
So I guess we shouldn't judge.

[Sbrinz]

I was in Britain two weeks ago, and I am very worried.

Intelligent people are saying "We get all this immigration, and we can't get rid of them" and are confusing the European Court of Human Rights with The European Union.

The people I spoke to claimed Britain only exports 25% to Europe when in fact it is closer to 50%.

They claimed Britain pays £18.2 billion a year to Brussels, when the net amount is less than half of that. UK treasury says it costs about £8.8bn net per year.
https://www.google.com/search?site=i...RI9DcaD-lgM%3A

Some of these liars should be put up against the wall...

[zurich99]

	Quote:	Sbrinz
	Intelligent people are saying "We get all this immigration, and we can't get rid of them" and are confusing the European Court of Human Rights with The European Union.

I was also back in the holidays and this about sums up a lot of my family and friends. Im not surprised they are confusing ECHR and EU, thats the point isn't it? not many people are exactly clear who does what 'In Brussels' its just the lumped into the 'EU'

[fatmanfilms]

	Quote:	Sbrinz
	I was in Britain two weeks ago, and I am very worried. Intelligent people are saying "We get all this immigration, and we can't get rid of them" and are confusing the European Court of Human Rights with The European Union. The people I spoke to claimed Britain only exports 25% to Europe when in fact it is closer to 50%. They claimed Britain pays £18.2 billion a year to Brussels, when the net amount is less than half of that. UK treasury says it costs about £8.8bn net per year. https://www.google.com/search?site=i...RI9DcaD-lgM%3A Some of these liars should be put up against the wall...

Lets face it, the EU has been a disaster for the UK & a success only for Germany. Why would you want to be in a club where almost all the members are in a terrible financial situation.

Britain's economy has never tracked the EU, it's very lucky we did not join the Euro.

Have you even watched the film linked above?

A British passport allows you to travel in more countries visa free than a Swiss or German passport. The English are quite good at making arrangements with foreign countries!

[Sbrinz]

In the eighties when the possible UK membership of the Euro was being discussed, the serious London journalists were prophesying doom.

They said as there was no individual political control by each Euro country on its own economy, the currency would bring financial pressure and high unemployment and inflation to the weaker southern countries.

They also pointed out a similar situation happened when at the end of the USA war of independence, when the southern states were forced to adopt the northern dollar. The southern states could not change anything, and the result was widespread poverty in the south.

Now the UK is faced with another enormous decision, and I would rather believe statements from monetary experts, than speeches from political leaders.

[fatmanfilms]

	Quote:	Sbrinz
	In the eighties when the possible UK membership of the Euro was being discussed, the serious London journalists were prophesying doom. They said as there was no individual political control by each Euro country on its own economy, the currency would bring financial pressure and high unemployment and inflation to the weaker southern countries. They also pointed out a similar situation happened when at the end of the USA war of independence, when the southern states were forced to adopt the northern dollar. The southern states could not change anything, and the result was widespread poverty in the south. Now the UK is faced with another enormous decision, and I would rather believe statements from monetary experts, than speeches from political leaders.

You seem to forget that from 1987 the £ unofficially shadowed the Deutsche mark & then the UK joined the ERM on 8th October 1990......... only they blew out on the 16th September 1992. Margret Thatcher was the prime minister at the time, Maggie was pro the EU like the majority of the Conservative party at the time.

[Medea Fleecestealer]

From the Telegraph:

How does it all add up?

Taking account of the money that comes back and the aid spending, Britain last year gave almost £6.5 billion to the EU that would otherwise not have been paid out if we were not members of the club. That’s almost £18 million a day.
EU supporters say that money is more than worth it, since it is prerequisite of membership and thus access to the single market, which they say profits the UK by far more than £6.5 billion.
Leave campaigners argue that outside the EU, Britain could still negotiate access to the single market while keeping some or all of that membership money.

How does Britain compare with other EU countries?

For many years, Britain and Germany were the only significant net contributors to the EU budget. Now, however, there are ten countries who pay more in than they get back.
In terms of total contribution, Britain remains the second biggest payer behind Germany.
But when each contributor’s payment is divided by the number of people in the country, Britain sinks down the table. On a per-head basis, Britons are the eighth-biggest contributors to the EU. The biggest payers are the Dutch: every one them sends almost four times as much to Brussels."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...EU-budget.html

Of course as we all know, there are lies, more lies and statistics. So take any figure you want and it'll be right if you say so loud enough.

[curley]

	Quote:	FrankZappa
	I saw something similar on TV recently among totally unintegrated Brits living on the Costa del Sol. They were all for votiing to stay in, but admitted that if they lived in the UK, they'd be voting to leave. It's called naked self-interest.

Assuming those are the retirees, that' even more short-sighted concerning Great Britain as a whole And probably just as the dicussed example with Switzerland wrong thinking ..... even Swiss people retire in Spain and other southern EU countries.

	Quote:	lewton
	At the same time I expect some people will vote to exit the EU just because of their own self interest. So I guess we shouldn't judge.

It's not really about judging, it's worrying about democracy. See, in a direct democracy like Switzerland people tend to forget that voting about everything is not only a right (a privilige) but also a duty. So voting based on some short-term personal benefit is not the kind of political activity of each single democracy can actually work well on. Even worse when like in the discussed cases their reasoning is not even applicable. Luckily so far in Switzerland when the shit hits the fan (excuse my language) even the lazy/desinteresed/passive ones crawl out of bed to prevent extreme things like e.g. the Schwarzenbach initiatives over the decades or some of the stunts SVP pulled. There was one very important statement in that film: If the Brits vote "in" there is no going back for probably a century.

As to "...vote exit before of their own self interest" I can't think of an example for that really. Except maybe keeping the rights of democracy, which I would not consider selfish or in s short term thinking as it was not always natural, people long before us fought hard for it and once you hand it back - which in my personal opinion is happening in EU - that's it folks.

[cyrus]

	Quote:	fatmanfilms
	A British passport allows you to travel in more countries visa free than a Swiss or German passport. The English are quite good at making arrangements with foreign countries!

Well a large part of britains visa access is it's old empire and colonial past, something the UK no longer enjoys.

And while UK is currently one of the best passports for visa free travel, the difference between it and other EU nations is access to like 1 or 2 countries. Germany and Sweden currently claim the most visa free access, and Switzerland has the same number of visa free countries available.

https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php

And how will the UKs visa arrangements cope with losing the backing of the EU?

[Sbrinz]

The Telegraph owners live outside the EU in the channel islands, and are very anti EU.

Compare Wikipedia figures to the Telegraph's figures, and both are similar,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget...European_Union

Annual figures for UK in 2014

1. UK contribution in 2014 €11,341 million
2. UK contribution in 2014 (including TOR) € 14,072 million
3. total expenditure in UK €6,908 million

item 2, minus item 3, gives a figure of net contribution at €7,164 millions per year which is €19.7 millions per day (About 1.4% of the UK budget)

We pay less per country than France, Italy, Germany. We did pay more than anyone, but thankfully Thatcher brought us an enormous rebate!

I argue that for the present it is far better to work within the EU to bring about changes, than to jump off into the unknown, with very few friends.

[Sbrinz]

I think a major problem with Britain's attitude to the EU is they are upset that there is no transparent democracy. The Germans, French and Italians all experienced dictators that told them what to do. Britain never had dictators, Britain has the Queen. Britain is not used to being told what is good for them.

I have to ask you, is it better to elect politicians to high managerial posts or to employ people that have been trained in top management schools? Is it better to change everything every 5 years, or to have a steady policy?

[fatmanfilms]

	Quote:	cyrus
	And how will the UKs visa arrangements cope with losing the backing of the EU?

You did not need a Visa to visit France, Germany, Switzerland or Italy pre 1973, why would that change now?

	Quote:	Sbrinz
	I have to ask you, is it better to elect politicians to high managerial posts or to employ people that have been trained in top management schools? Is it better to change everything every 5 years, or to have a steady policy?

You have not watched the video have you? The ability to change any government who does not do what the electorate wants is important if you live in a democracy. People who do a bad job need to be fired, no jobs for life with zero accountability.

[Sbrinz]

I haven't forgotten that Britain was forced out of the ERM, and that was a very big piece of luck!