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

[fatmanfilms]

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

Nothing to do with good judgement of the politicians or other experts you advocate running the country.

[cyrus]

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

Coz it's not 1973, and I'm not just talking about visa free access to europe. Although it would be interesting to see what happens once the leavers start putting limits on immigration from other EU countries.

[Medea Fleecestealer]

Darn - quote thing don't seem to work any more.

Sbrinz, but the EU won't change, that's the problem. And do we really want to continue to be part of an organisation that can't even get its accounts straight?

"More than €133.6 billion of European Union budget payments last year were "affected by material error"… the European Court of Auditors fails to give the EU budget a clean bill of health for the 21st year running."
The Times, 10 November 2015

"The European Court of Auditors (ECA) gave the budget a clean bill of health overall, but found that 4.4% was mis-spent - the budget "error rate"."
BBC News, 10 November 2015

https://fullfact.org/europe/did-audi...ign-eu-budget/

There are too many layers for these things to go through for accurate accounting. The UK would be better being in charge of its own finances so we, the UK public, know where our money is going.

[Sbrinz]

	Quote:	fatmanfilms
	Nothing to do with good judgement of the politicians or other experts you advocate running the country.

I stated already: London financial journalists were saying before the crash and forced exit, do not join the Euro/ERM, but UK politicians signed us up. I think we have all learnt something after that ongoing disaster. Britain today is much stronger by not being in the Euro. Cameron recently obtained for Britain an official opt out from the Euro.

The UK pound floats against the Euro but the Greek, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese Euro cannot move, and so other factors become changeable. In the old days the Lira, Pisa and Drachma would have simply devalued, but today they cannot devalue their currency. And so the result is high unemployment in these countries, with resulting migration to the UK.

I've spent most of the last four days reading tons of material relating to the history of the EEC/EU, the treaties of Rome and Maastricht and current arguments both for and against a British exit from the union.

I have deliberately sought material to challenge my previous thoughts on the subject, so have been reading plenty of stuff in the Guardian, Independent and similar newspapers in addition to watching the Brexit film and articles in the Telegraph etc.

The most disappointing thing has been that the more I read from the Remain camp, the more determined I become to vote Leave. Their arguments are, quite simply, patronising, insulting, packed full of scaremongering and ad hominem attacks on "little englanders" and so on. The worst argument came from a lefty friend who said that we need the EU "to protect us from the Tories" - in other words, we need an unelected, external organisation to protect us from a political party who could be quite easily toppled from their democratically precarious perch in four years' time (if not before).

I was genuinely hoping to have my opinions challenged, to leave me ambivalent, so that I could hold an internal debate before going ahead and making my vote. Now, there's simply no chance of my voting for the UK to stay in the EU. None at all.

Good job, Remainers!

[Blueangel]

	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.

My old college mate runs two forums in Spain and is constantly shocked by the number of ex-pats there who openly support UKIP and will be voting leave. They're not retired, just short sighted, bigoted and stupid. They really don't see how their own situation would be affected.

	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!

One of the very first things I was taught when I began work in the travel industry is that a British passport holder requires the fewest number of visas of any other passport holder in the World.

	Quote:
	TOP RATED COUNTRIES 1) Finland = Germany = Sweden = USA = United Kingdom (174 points) 2) Canada = Denmark (173 points) 3) Belgium = France = Italy = Japan = Korea (Republic of South) = Luxembourg = Netherlands = Portugal = Spain (172 points)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/tr...-anywhere.html

[cyrus]

Yeah, and look at the difference between those passports. Even in the Daily Mails ranking, while obviously trying to put queen and country first, the difference in all those countries you posted is 2 points.

Britain no longer has it's empire, but it's still got the backing of the EU.

[Sbrinz]

	Quote:
	(heavily edited) I've spent most of the last four days reading tons of material relating to the history of the EEC/EU... Now, there's simply no chance of my voting for the UK to stay in the EU. None at all.

Another worry is not simply to remain or to leave, it is the transitional period of at least 10 years, when new legal agreements & trade treaties are drawn up.
The negotiations for a deal between Canada and the EU have been ongoing for 10 years. Then all the EU countries will have to sign up to it or it dies.
Has anyone considered how long the UK will need to get back to the position it has today?
To throw away all the advantages for just 1.4% of the UK budget (I read the figure recently but I cannot find it again)
To start off from zero in a world where the USA and China are with the EU dominating everything.
The UK has few real friends in the world, most of the old empire have been let down by the UK and will not be very helpful.

Before Britain joined Europe, it was dying, it produced cars that nobody wanted, it had expensive coal and steel, and violent workers.
Without Europe, and European investment and treaties today, the UK doesn't look very attractive.
How are these new customers and allies going to be won over?

[cyrus]

And where will that 1.4 extra budget go? You think the Brexit people are going to save the NHS, fix the schools, social security and give you a job? Bollox they will. Some very rich people will get some tax breaks and that's the last you'll ever see of it.

[Jim2007]

	Quote:	Sbrinz
	I would rather believe statements from monetary experts, than speeches from political leaders.

The problem with monetary experts is that their opinions are just that! During the banking crisis in Ireland you had couple of professors jumping up and down taking credit for predicting the crisis, of course if you look at their output over the years you'll discover that they have spend a life time predicting a banking crisis - stopped clocks and all that.

[curley]

	Quote:	cyrus
	Coz it's not 1973, and I'm not just talking about visa free access to europe. Although it would be interesting to see what happens once the leavers start putting limits on immigration from other EU countries.

If Britain left the EU they could still be in Schengen-agreement (Switzerland is) so still no visas necessary.

[fatmanfilms]

	Quote:	Sbrinz
	Another worry is not simply to remain or to leave, it is the transitional period of at least 10 years, when new legal agreements & trade treaties are drawn up. The negotiations for a deal between Canada and the EU have been ongoing for 10 years. Then all the EU countries will have to sign up to it or it dies. Has anyone considered how long the UK will need to get back to the position it has today? To throw away all the advantages for just 1.4% of the UK budget (I read the figure recently but I cannot find it again) To start off from zero in a world where the USA and China are with the EU dominating everything. The UK has few real friends in the world, most of the old empire have been let down by the UK and will not be very helpful. How are these new customers and allies going to be won over?

You don't need trade agreements to trade with the EU, as I mentioned before you have not watched the video.....

The EU does not have a trade agreement with China, strange that you can get things made in China in the EU.

Why do we want 'friends'? we want customers, friends expect something for nothing-

[Sbrinz]

	Quote:	curley
	If Britain left the EU they could still be in Schengen-agreement (Switzerland is) so still no visas necessary.

That is a major No-No for the UK. Britain is not with Schengen.

[cyrus]

	Quote:	curley
	If Britain left the EU they could still be in Schengen-agreement (Switzerland is) so still no visas necessary.

Again, not just talking about Europe, and also, AFAIK, Britain is not a member of the Shengen agreement, To my infuriation, I still need to go through 2 seperate passport checks to fly into the UK.

[Blueangel]

	Quote:	Sbrinz
	Has anyone considered how long the UK will need to get back to the position it has today?

2 years to disentangle itself from current trade deals based upon EU membership + 6 yrs to negotiate new deals. That's a shitload of uncertainty.

I tend to think of more day to day consequences and how those would affect my friends and family in the UK. One of the things that pees me off the most about Switzerland is not being able to do a weekly shop in one store only, and the cost of our weekly shop. My OH says it's fine relative to the wages here, but what if the variety of goods in a Tesco Extra or Asda shrunk to 50% of what it was pre-Brexit and the cost of the average weekly shop increased. Even a moderate increase would hit a lot of people very hard, and how long would it be before British wages increased to match this? A few years?

[Sbrinz]

The US & EU is with the World Trade Organisation, WTO HQ in Geneva. China was invited to join, on favourable terms, which is why we are now flooded with Chinese products in almost every sector. The EU has an agreement indirectly with China.
Friends or allies make trade deals and agree on many things. Britain, as part of the EU, has these arrangements in place. If Britain leaves the EU, much will have to be put in place again.

I watched half the video, I thought it was sensational journalism. Good night!

[fatmanfilms]

	Quote:	Blueangel
	2 years to disentangle itself from current trade deals based upon EU membership + 6 yrs to negotiate new deals. That's a shitload of uncertainty. I tend to think of more day to day consequences and how those would affect my friends and family in the UK. One of the things that pees me off the most about Switzerland is not being able to do a weekly shop in one store only, and the cost of our weekly shop. My OH says it's fine relative to the wages here, but what if the variety of goods in a Tesco Extra or Asda shrunk to 50% of what it was pre-Brexit and the cost of the average weekly shop increased. Even a moderate increase would hit a lot of people very hard, and how long would it be before British wages increased to match this? A few years?

Food will be cheaper in the UK if they leave the EU, do you think that the EU will refuse to sell us goods? Buy Buy German car industry. :mannered:

[cyrus]

	Quote:	fatmanfilms
	Food will be cheaper in the UK if they leave the EU, do you think that the EU will refuse to sell us goods? Buy Buy German car industry. :mannered:

How so? They won't refuse to sell us food, but you think it will be cheaper? how?

[cyrus]

I mean, I guess we'll have access to all the food that falls outside of the regulations in place. Rejoice, you can have unbent bananas and bent cucumbers! All the incorrectly identified meat, stuff judged unfit for human consumption, doesn't ship well, is incorrectly labelled, all that stuff?

[adrianlondon]

I think Britain should stay in the EU and that the EU needs a huge amount of reform. Having said that:

	Quote:	Blueangel
	2 years to disentangle itself from current trade deals based upon EU membership + 6 yrs to negotiate new deals. That's a shitload of uncertainty.

Voting in a particular direction because one fears change is not good. Stockholm syndrome.