EU membership referendum debate thread

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 13 Jul 2016, 15:21

Monbiot sees Brexit the way I do -

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... cal-system

Just one part of the 1% in a private battle with another to wrest more of the gravy train into their own pockets.

UK academics report being excluded from EU projects because of Brexit vote.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... ding-fears

UK house building looks to follow UK office building into recession

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... rexit-vote

AutomaticEarth · Post by **AutomaticEarth** » 13 Jul 2016, 15:46

I'd like to see a Scottish referendum to see Sturgeon try and get Scotland out of the the UK. That would be a great result. $40 oil means they need to get funding elsewhere.

Academics need to get jobs elsewhere if the EU will not fund them....

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 13 Jul 2016, 16:54

PS_RalphW wrote:Monbiot sees Brexit the way I do -

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... cal-system

Just one part of the 1% in a private battle with another to wrest more of the gravy train into their own pockets.

UK academics report being excluded from EU projects because of Brexit vote.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... ding-fears

UK house building looks to follow UK office building into recession

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... rexit-vote

Not George's best ever. I am sure both sides were over funded. We all know of cash for access, so how is it a Brexit story? He seems miffed at the lose vote - yet none of the remainers accept that there was a massive fear propaganda campaign, including unrelenting TV pressure to avoid leaving and to promote immigration. If people had not been scared witless it could have been a much higher leave vote.

Sounds desperate if academics might have to teach to earn their money. And less Barratt houses - how can that be a disaster?

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 13 Jul 2016, 17:07

We are building far too few houses now without cutting back. the government really is being taken in by the building industry. They are making a fortune on the land price by building too few houses, thus boosting the price of the houses that they do build.

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 13 Jul 2016, 19:30

Too few for what? The indigenous Brits breed at less than replacement and we have a falling population. Without 68 years of mass immigration we might be about 55 million and live like royalty. There are currently 4 million euro migrants squeezed in the UK and about 700000 national insurance numbers issued yearly to overseas arrivals:

http://www.snouts-in-the-trough.com/wp- ... 68x603.gif

AutomaticEarth · Post by **AutomaticEarth** » 13 Jul 2016, 20:29

fuzzy wrote:Too few for what? The indigenous Brits breed at less than replacement and we have a falling population. Without 68 years of mass immigration we might be about 55 million and live like royalty. There are currently 4 million euro migrants squeezed in the UK and about 700000 national insurance numbers issued yearly to overseas arrivals:

http://www.snouts-in-the-trough.com/wp- ... 68x603.gif

Indeed. The sad part of this is that the majority of these migarnts are not needed. They are low skilled, who are taking jobs that could be filled by the local population.

This is one area Theresa May needs to tackle urgently. Just watching Channel 4, and we have Nicola Sturgeon saying that we need to ensure that EU migrants need to be given guarantees that they can remain. I think she needs to do the exact opposite.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 13 Jul 2016, 21:07

Agreed.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 18 Jul 2016, 20:30

Scientists for EU wrote: So the UK's only world leading hi-tech company is being sold off for £24bn.
Hermann Hauser just tweeted "ARM is the proudest achievement of my life. The proposed sale to SoftBank is a sad day for me and for technology in Britain." The irony is that May & Hammond are quickly saying the sale to Japan's SoftBank is a great thing... despite May's policy speech a week ago in which, according to Robert Peston, she "was completely unambiguous that she opposed foreign companies buying our strategically important businesses."
And so instead of protecting British long-term R&D interests, we are gladly allowing key companies to be sold off in order to try and attract foreign investment when many indicators show the Brexit vote has caused foreign investment to dry up. Sales of companies on a weak pound is not the same as inward investment to our companies. Well, so much for supporting British-grown innovative businesses. Did you know that out of the world's top 50 R&D companies, 17 are EU-based, but only two of those are UK companies? (Astrazenica and GSK). Our Big R&D sector is vulnerable and it is now being hollowed out further.
Incidentally, Hermann Hauser tweeted the following on June 24th and 25th: "Brexit: Britain's worst own goal in history." and "An innumerate clown has wrecked a country ‪#‎Brexit‬"

cubes · Post by **cubes** » 18 Jul 2016, 21:26

So, business as usual then?

Governments of all persuasions in this country have sold us our businesses down the river since WW2 (the EU has nothing to do with this imo).

bigjim · Post by **bigjim** » 19 Jul 2016, 18:03

AutomaticEarth wrote:This is one area Theresa May needs to tackle urgently. Just watching Channel 4, and we have Nicola Sturgeon saying that we need to ensure that EU migrants need to be given guarantees that they can remain. I think she needs to do the exact opposite.

I think EU migrants already here should be allowed to stay. They have friends and family here and some of them actually do good jobs- and may have bought family with them who wouldn't normally be able to do work that attracts a work permit.

The hospital where I work employs many Spanish and Portuguese people as nurses and radiographers who do a good job and have made a home here. They might well qualify for work permits if necessary, but their family members may not- it'd be an absolute disaster for staffing levels if they had to leave because their boyfriends / girlfriends etc. were kicked out.

I also believe the country would become a more tedious place if the European migrants were shown the door.

Don't forget, if EU migrants were kicked out of this country, we'd probably see a large number of disgruntled Brits coming the other way in return.

bigjim · Post by **bigjim** » 19 Jul 2016, 18:09

fuzzy wrote:Not George's best ever. I am sure both sides were over funded. We all know of cash for access, so how is it a Brexit story? He seems miffed at the lose vote - yet none of the remainers accept that there was a massive fear propaganda campaign, including unrelenting TV pressure to avoid leaving and to promote immigration. If people had not been scared witless it could have been a higher leave vote.

Sounds desperate if academics might have to teach to earn their money. And less Barratt houses - how can that be a disaster?

Universities cannot exist through teaching alone. They need to do research too, and we need them to do research to drive knowledge and innovation forward.

I'd like to say there was a fair amount of tosh chucked out by the leave side of the referendum too- that magic £350m a week figure and the 'lets take back control' slogan that was rammed down all our throats, even though the UK parliament has always been the sovereign lawmaking body of the country.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 19 Jul 2016, 18:12

The reason there is a shortage of indigenous staff for the NHS is due to a deliberate policy of not providing enough training places in this country in order to offshore the training costs to the countries of origin of said migrants. Which, of course, puts an intolerable financial burden on the taxpayers of already poor countries. So, the argument that we need migrants to fill NHS jobs is based on a cynically politically engineered "need".

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 19 Jul 2016, 18:15

bigjim wrote:....the UK parliament has always been the sovereign lawmaking body of the country.

Under the EU, the UK is not the single sovereign law making body in this country. That is the primary point of Brexit. What you have just posted is factually incorrect.

Post by **clv101** » 19 Jul 2016, 18:59

cubes wrote:Governments of all persuasions in this country have sold us our businesses down the river since WW2 (the EU has nothing to do with this imo).

Indeed, the only part BREXIT played was to make it a bit cheaper than last month.

Little John wrote:The reason there is a shortage of indigenous staff for the NHS is due to a deliberate policy of not providing enough training places in this country in order to offshore the training costs to the countries of origin of said migrants. Which, of course, puts an intolerable financial burden on the taxpayers of already poor countries.

Absolutely. It's pretty indefensible to make special dispensation for foreign-trained medical staff from poor countries to work here. There's an argument for the UK to reimburse the training costs to of these workers to their home treasury... or a much better argument to train more in the UK!

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 19 Jul 2016, 20:58

Little John wrote:
bigjim wrote:....the UK parliament has always been the sovereign lawmaking body of the country.
Under the EU, the UK is not the single sovereign law making body in this country. That is the primary point of Brexit. What you have just posted is factually incorrect.

You are, not unusually, factually wrong. The UK parliament has constitutional laws. Those include the Bill of Rights, The Act of Union, The Human Rights Act and the European Communities Act 1972. (and about 10 others).
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1972/68/contents

This affect how law is enforced in the UK. It is entirely possible for the UK parliament to explicitly enter into law something in conflict with EU law. That, however, leads to expulsion from the EU.

The UK constitution is written down, but is not just in one place. Some parts are in the house of commons journals.

It is the European Communities Act that enables EU law to have force.