In Out Shake It All About

The economy is always going to play second fiddle to immigration with the people that need convincing to vote "Stay".
In my limited experience with apolitical folk, it's by far the main factor(followed by "sovereignty").

Unless the Stay campaign can convince soft sceptics/undecided right leaning voters that leaving the EU will not prevent Johnny Foreigner, and especially Mr Mohammed Mohammed, moving in down the road stealing Brits' money, healthcare and houses; this campaign will NOT be an easy victory.

I just don't think that's possible. The Leave campaign has the more emotionally raw arguments that I feel will rile up voters a lot more.
Easy arguments, from paranoia and intolerance.
No one will be listening to the arguments about this % that %, economy this, economy that.
They'll hear "Leaving will give us the sovereignty to protect ourselves from terrorists", "Leaving will enable us to end the flood or immigrants, save the NHS and save other vital British public services.", "Leaving will allow us to deport any dangerous foreign criminals.", ETC.
All they need to do is murk up the idea that staying in would be good for the economy, minimise the possibility of a break up of the UK, and rebuff the rhetoric that leaving would be a leap into the unknown and it's plain sailing for them.

I currently believe the Leave camp has a stronger base, and will win easily if turnout is low.(and has a decent chance of winning if turnout matches the general election)
One of the biggest factors is going to be getting the young pro-Europeans to actually vote...my hopes aren't high.

I know polls have often given leads to Stay, but I think that's more down to caution than anything; once the campaign is in full swing, people will start making up their minds, and I thing a chunk of the stay vote is in fact very soft.

I really hope I'm proven terribly wrong though.
It's not like I have much in the way of precedents to work from.
(My current views are derived mainly from the last EuroParl vote, the Scottish Referendum, the last General Election and a whole dollop of anecdotal experience as to the current political Zeitgeist.)


Sorry Jonathan. I've realised reading over this post that it probably comes off as a rant, and it's not even that relevant to your post.

Immigration, economics... these are red herrings. The referendum should be about who governs the UK, that's it. Either it's the government elected by the British people (be they Labour, Tory or other) or wether unelected, unaccountable technocrats in Brussels have the right to enact laws which materially affect you and I and about which we literally have no say.

theFijian said:

Immigration, economics... these are red herrings. The referendum should be about who governs the UK, that's it. Either it's the government elected by the British people (be they Labour, Tory or other) or wether unelected, unaccountable technocrats in Brussels have the right to enact laws which materially affect you and I and about which we literally have no say.

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The elected national governments of member-states each nominate a member to the European Commission(the legislative body of the EU), and are then confirmed or rejected by the European Parliament. Which itself is directly elected in a manner far more legitimate than our Westminster elections and ludicrous House of Lords.

Sure, it's two layers of representative democracy, and I understand many are not comfortable with that; but this claim they are unelected and that we have no influence on the EU is simply false. Every Eurocrat involved with forming or voting on legislation has been elected directly by, or by someone who has been elected directly by EU citizens.

No one stands for election onto the EC, there is no grass-roots movement which can influence who these people are (unlike our MPs and MEPs), so the difference between being appointed and being elected is rather large is this case.

While people are crying out for more and more power to be devolved to local and national level (ie. Scotland, Wales etc.) the clamour to divest further powers away from the UK to eurocrats who have no interest in the economic or social good of Britain (why would they?) is really rather strange in my eyes.

You make a decent point, the idea that "x government body has no reason to care about y region" has seemingly been around since forever, and I believe can be applied to any level of our democracy.

Unless someone is completely against politics and politicians, one has to trust some level of government in spite of this failing.
In my local area, there are richer and poorer districts, primarily business and primarily residential districts.
Even at this level you see people give up on elections and politics because "The politicians just want to hand the poor people in the poor districts money for their votes" or "the politicians want to drive all the poor people out of the borough" usually followed by "Why would they care about me/my area?"
This seems to me an example of a microcosm seen at every level of representative democracies to some degree.

I don't see what is so crazy to believe that, while we may not always come out better in specific EU wide decisions, that such decisions are made to better the Union as a whole, and in doing so to benefit us in the long term.
Especially as I think it's fairly hard to argue that successive UK governments haven't shown some level of favouritism towards the south of England at the expense of other, poorer, regions in attempts to boost the UK's economy as a whole.

You are correct about the nomination process being very different, and yeah, I would like to see it changed(it seems to me to be in place so the national governments have collective control the legislation, rather than the European Parliament); but over all, I think the EU's problems are near enough the same to the problems we have at the Westminster level.


I think a lot of the discussion rests on the idea that foreign politicians couldn't possibly want the UK to succeed, either that, or that they're responsible for letting all the foreigners in. In broader terms, I see the EU debate as set around a discussion on foreigners, foreignness, and how foreign a person can be before they can no longer be trusted to be invested in our countries well-being.
Perhaps I am just being cynical though.
Personally, I think the UK, and UKers generally think far too little of foreigners.

Genersis said:

Personally, I think the UK, and UKers generally think far too little of foreigners.

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I trust foreigners quite a lot, just not foreign politicians, and especially unelected ones.

theFijian said:

I trust foreigners quite a lot, just not foreign politicians, and especially unelected ones.

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They are elected.

And honestly I see little reason to trust foreign politicians less than our own.

Genersis said:

They are elected.

And honestly I see little reason to trust foreign politicians less than our own.

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Apologies I was talking about the EU commissioners, rather than all European politicians (who have of course been democratically elected unlike the commissioners).

And to clarify I wasn't saying that I trusted European politicians less than our own. I was responding to the 'not trusting foreigners' remark.

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