Remain or Leave? - double speak?

[MorkandMindy]

Dictionary definition and usual meaning:

Remain
to continue in the same state; continue to be as specified:
eg. to remain at peace.
2.
to stay behind or in the same place:
to remain at home;
eg. I'll remain here when you goto the airport.
3.
to be left after the removal, loss, destruction, etc.,of all else:
eg. Only the dishwashing remains


Usage in referendum:

To move forward into further or complete assimilation into the EU leaving the present position.

(that would be better expressed as not to remain behind )

 

[MorkandMindy]

Dictionary definition and usual meaning:

Leave
1.
to go out of or away from, as a place:
eg. to leave the house.
2.
to depart from permanently; quit:
eg. to leave a job.

Usage in referendum:

to remain in existing agreements

joining into further agreements will require both the UK and the EU members to agree, and the UK could be removed from existing agreements though this seems in the main unlikely in the short term

 

[Genersis]

We've been the EU's special little snowflake for a while now with the sheer number of opt-outs and special allowances put in place.(especially for our financial sector)
The idea that there will be more integration, let alone complete assimilation in the near future, if we vote to remain, seems pretty fanciful.

The way things are going, especially with the Tory party, a second EU ref seems pretty likely if the first results in a remain vote.
So the Leave camp doesn't have much to worry about as far as I see things, just need patience. It would take a huge change in our political culture for our membership of the EU to become a non-issue.

Voting to leave will likely result in a slow departure, but it seems pretty safe to say at least some international agreements will eventually have to be renegotiated and renewed on an individual basis. Without the collective bargaining the EU allows, I doubt it would be to our benefit in the majority of cases. Especially not with the Tories doing the negotiating...

Regardless, currently, I seriously doubt the UK will be in the EU in fifty years...Scotland might though...

 

[MorkandMindy]

We've been the EU's special little snowflake for a while now with the sheer number of opt-outs and special allowances put in place.(especially for our financial sector)
The idea that there will be more integration, let alone complete assimilation in the near future, if we vote to remain, seems pretty fanciful.

...

The British government needs a referendum to hand substantial power over to the EU and no such referendum has ever been held.

The referendum in 1975 was to join a tariff-free zone which it was stated was in no way going to become anything more, that a European superstate of any kind was what would now be called a 'conspiracy theory'.

There has never been a referendum to join the EU, quite the opposite in fact.

The idea of two referendums is a bit odd with two chances to opt out because there were two referenda in Ireland, first to join, and when that was rejected, a second one to join which one way or another got accepted and now they are in. It is not a privilege to join, more of a requirement. But I think I'd better stop posting.

 

[MorkandMindy]

 

[MorkandMindy]

Additional comments

Tariff-free Zone
The main benefit of the EU was expected to be a tariff-free zone which was what the Common Market Referendum in 1975 was about. It is noteworthy that all ballot papers from that referendum were destroyed so

It seems unlikely a 'Leave' vote would throw the UK out of the tariff-free zone, one of the reasons being the UK is running a large deficit in the tariff-free zone. It might be to our advantage to leave.

Other
The other agreements are mainly detrimental to the UK, for example our fishing areas are now overfished by Spanish trawlers following different codes of practice from our own, and we overall contribute twice as much to the EU subsidies as we receive. The EU administration is corrupt and the expectation of a lucrative office in Brussels encourages British politicians to vote with the EU while in Parliament rather than in the interests of the British people.

Brussels produces plenty of regulations and although only 6 or 7% of businesses sell to the EU 100% must follow the regulations.

Peace
The claim that the EU has produced peace in Europe is nonsense. NATO achieved that long before the EU became a force in Europe. The EU did nothing during the Kosovo crisis and since then issues Greece and Germany in particular are having with a shared currency is causing animosity not reducing it.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Youtubes and my summaries:

Boris Johnson barnstorming Brexit speech "We happy few" 38m 5s

taking the position David Cameron took in 2013 that the EU must reform, Boris mentioned it must become less obscurantist and more transparent and accountable. The EU has done the opposite and Boris is now in favour of an 'out' vote. David Cameron has taken the increasingly unpopular side of claiming Britain's tiny vote will produce change from the inside and Boris has taken the position David held three years ago.

EU referendum debate: Anna Soubry and Nigel Farage 7m 42s

Short enough to watch yourselves and please post your opinions.

Mine was that of course the Business Minister and a right wing one at that, would favour the EU because the EU supply of cheaper labour has halved the labour rates in a number of industries and thereby increased the profits.

Rendering Brits unemployed or in low paid jobs is harmful to government debt but it benefits the rich and the private pension investment funds, and the Conservatives have long appealed to the rich and the old. It harms the country overall but that is somebody else's problem.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Even more comments

There is a perception that opposition to further integration into the EU and the EU project in general is the opinion of old right wing xenophobes.

It was the Conservative government in 1973 that brought Britain into the Common Market against the objections of Tony Benn.

The main effect of the EU has been to be a ready supply of almost unlimited cheap labour which has undermined any bargaining position British workforces have had.

To complete this undermining effect the EU has a strike-breaking / protest-breaking Gendarmerie based in Italy ready to fly to any part of the EU at a moment's notice and dispense violence without any individual accountability.

Both the individualist traditional Conservatives and most of the left have problems with the EU experiment. I'm not sure what arguments could be made in favor of it.

 

[Oafman]

The 'leave to escape neoliberalism' argument is nonsense. We are the main advocates of right wing economics within the EU. We generally argue against every advancement in workers' rights, and tend to insist on exemptions from many of them. We have blocked regulating the financial sector, and we've blocked the Robin Hood tax. We are pushing TTIP more strongly than anyone, even Merkel.

The EU acts as a buffer against the worst excesses of neoliberalism, which our current government would gleefully enact if they're given the opportunity. Corbyn was quite right when he predicted a bonfire of workers' rights following Brexit.

 

[HantsUK]

Am I the only person who, after hearing Farage go on about the 'huge' membership costs, is convinced that we should remain.

But then, after listening to Cameron predicting economic 'disaster' if we leave, I change my mind and think we would be better off by leaving!

Both sides concentrate on economic costs (the cost of membership, or the cost reduced future income).
Basic addition or percentages seems to be beyond either side.
Both only say what is wrong with the other side, without giving proper benefits for why we should leave/stay.

Or have I missed something?

 

[MorkandMindy]

The 'leave to escape neoliberalism' argument is nonsense. We are the main advocates of right wing economics within the EU. We generally argue against every advancement in workers' rights, and tend to insist on exemptions from many of them. We have blocked regulating the financial sector, and we've blocked the Robin Hood tax. We are pushing TTIP more strongly than anyone, even Merkel.

The EU acts as a buffer against the worst excesses of neoliberalism, which our current government would gleefully enact if they're given the opportunity. Corbyn was quite right when he predicted a bonfire of workers' rights following Brexit.

The structure of the EU is to provide a huge workforce, mostly of low paid workers, which can move into any country and undercut the wages of the local workforce. I have experienced that in the last two places I worked and have therefore left the UK.

Fundamental to the EU is free movement of labor goods and capital.

This may make the EU sound like just a smaller version of globalisation, but it is a different type of global competition.

At my third company back GE bought the company and closed all of it except production which was transferred to China.

But where production should not be moved to China or India because for example the company does not want to lose control of production or it is undergoing continual improvement, the EU provides the ability to bring a lower paid workforce in.

Structurally the EU provides a way for company owners to increase profits without moving production to Asia but by bringing lower cost workers in.

 

[MorkandMindy]

It really depends on what time frame you look at.

Over the short term the EU has helped companies get cheap labour and thereby boost their profits.

Some have said it is false economy for the nation because when a cheap Polish worker replaces a British one although the company pays less the British nation then has to pay unemployment for the British one until a service job or a total waste of time government created pointless job provides one over the longer term (that also happened to me).

Over the longer term the jobs with overpriced labour would eventually have left the country anyway as China develops the expertise to reverse engineer in ever shorter intervals of time each British product, so British pay rates would have to drop to Chinese rates to compete. The EU would then be irrelevant as a force cutting labour rates for the company owners.

As the wealthy nations run out of stored wealth there would be conformity to a World-wide value of intellectual work / administrative work / manual work as earnings come to dominate the wealth of each nation.

 

[MorkandMindy]

The purpose of this thread is only to say that the terminology used in the referendum is misleading.

'Remain' means a lot of change over to a European legal system and a loss of our unfair share of natural resources. We will be expected to shed our national identity and to accept an unlimited number of migrants or immigrants. With the admission of Turkey low skilled pay rates will inevitably fall.

On the plus side those with houses should see prices continue to rise due to population pressure and pensions will be paid for by an increasing population, so if you own houses or are old then vote in.

'Leave' is likely to mean staying pretty much where we are. New agreements will have to be accepted both by the EU and by ourselves so are somewhat unlikely. We can unilaterally reject existing EU agreements as can the EU.

Even if we leave every EU agreement it would involve less change than the 'Remain' option would produce.


BUT the really big factor is the housing bubble. The other really big factors are how long the government and the country can continue losing money. These are all related.

 

[MorkandMindy]

I'm not really clear on which side is the better one to go on yet, I just had to think through what 'Leave' and 'Remain' actually meant.

As for pros and cons, the country is in a precarious state I would say, due to not manufacturing, importing too much unhealthy food, living beyond our means in terms of junk from China, the computer I'm using was from a batch due to be thrown out by a university two years ago and it is still going strong, I just need to blow the dust out each month using bellows for inflating an air mattress and it runs very well. For years I have used only discarded computers and enjoyed them immensely.

The UK runs the second largest trade deficit on the planet, behind only the USA, despite having only the fifth biggest economy, that plus the money our banks are scattering to the winds (EU regulations could fix that), and the unstable migrant population (can blame that on the EU) and the hyper-inflated house prices and things are very scary.

I feel like HantsUK after listening to some 'leave' arguments about how much our economy has grown and how our banks are now bigger than the Frankfurt banks as a result of not being subject to EU regulations, are actually problems and not benefits.

And like HantsUK I also don't feel the 'remain' arguments carry much weight either. What is happening is that as usual the really important stuff is being left out.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Am I the only person who, after hearing Farage go on about the 'huge' membership costs, is convinced that we should remain.

But then, after listening to Cameron predicting economic 'disaster' if we leave, I change my mind and think we would be better off by leaving!

Both sides concentrate on economic costs (the cost of membership, or the cost reduced future income).
Basic addition or percentages seems to be beyond either side.
Both only say what is wrong with the other side, without giving proper benefits for why we should leave/stay.

Or have I missed something?

I agree completely, the arguments made on both sides were facile and completely useless for basing a decision on just as the terms 'remain' and 'leave' are themselves confusing.

The public is not enlightened as to what the actual situation is. Back pre Thatcher at the end of each financial year there was a time of agonising as the figures were added up and each time the visibles made a slight loss offset by the financial sector making a small profit and the balance sheet did what the name suggested, it balanced.

Since then we have run at an overall deficit every year and privatisation has meant a lot of once public assets have been sold to pension groups etc in other countries. David Cameron's 'stronger together' is meaningless as is his opposition Boris Johnson talk of how our financial sector is now bigger than Frankfort, well it's making a loss so that is not a good thing at all.

 

[MorkandMindy]

The 'leave to escape neoliberalism' argument is nonsense. We are the main advocates of right wing economics within the EU. We generally argue against every advancement in workers' rights, and tend to insist on exemptions from many of them. We have blocked regulating the financial sector, and we've blocked the Robin Hood tax. We are pushing TTIP more strongly than anyone, even Merkel.

The EU acts as a buffer against the worst excesses of neoliberalism, which our current government would gleefully enact if they're given the opportunity. Corbyn was quite right when he predicted a bonfire of workers' rights following Brexit.

Britain was in the position it is in now of having no money and being at risk of huge imports from a country with a much better economy, the USA, back at the end of WW2.
The difference was we balanced the economy through drastic steps, currency limits on the amount of money that could be taken out of the country, and a 97.5% tax on the top income bracket. We were not going to bail out banks if they made losses and pay their executives huge bonuses.

Yes, we were a socialist country. Now we have a lot of very wealthy people and the nation as a whole is making a loss.

Best way to fix it is the way to fix everything - copy the Germans.

 

[MorkandMindy]

We are pushing TTIP more strongly than anyone, even Merkel.

TTIP is something we definitely don't want to join. For one thing would wipe out the NHS and replace it with something a lot less cost effective, the USA has shown what a medical systems is like when it is run on a commission basis for profit...

 

[MorkandMindy]

But then there's immigration, migration and refugees. Britain had policies on those, but in the EU it could be more difficult.

One possible opinion would be that since the US is fond of bombing Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Libya, Iraq and so many other places producing refugees into Europe, maybe something could be done for the people who become refugees a lot closer to where they are instead of having to go through the huge culture shock of coming to a cold rainy country with a different language. A vote of 164 to 3 against in the UN doesn't seem to discourage them so maybe there is some other way to discourage the Americans from bombing anything they don't understand.

But they (we) did crap in our own back garden by beggar-thy-neighbor policies against Central America and supporting fascist governments and Iran / contras, now we have refugees coming to the USA, oh dear, we need Donald.

 

[theFijian]

The 'leave to escape neoliberalism' argument is nonsense. We are the main advocates of right wing economics within the EU. We generally argue against every advancement in workers' rights, and tend to insist on exemptions from many of them. We have blocked regulating the financial sector, and we've blocked the Robin Hood tax. We are pushing TTIP more strongly than anyone, even Merkel.

Agree that argument doesn't stand up at all, but then it seems to me that neoliberalism is just old protectionism. European and north American corporations want preferential access to each others marketplaces (which is all TTIP is in effect) whilst still preventing developing countries access to these markets because of punitive tariffs. Take coffee and cocoa for instance. There are no tariffs on unprocessed coffee and cocoa levied on african exporters, but there are on processed products. African exporters could be earning more by exporting roast or ground coffee but the associated tariffs mean it's cheaper not to. This is solely to protect the coffee and cocoa processors in Europe. So rather than exporting wealth to Africa, we want to keep it in Europe.

The EU acts as a buffer against the worst excesses of neoliberalism, which our current government would gleefully enact if they're given the opportunity. Corbyn was quite right when he predicted a bonfire of workers' rights following Brexit.

To be honest I find the idea that the EU is immeasurably better at protective workers rights a bit fanciful, or perhaps we mean just European workers rights, not those in africa or asia. But the key thing is, if you don't like the Tories, the good news is we can vote them out! Unelected EU commissioners cannot be voted out, our elected MEPs are little more than glorified lobbyists.

And as for TTIP, it won't be going away anytime soon, it will come back with a different name if needs be. And of course if Jeremy Corbyn manages to become PM and wants to re-nationalise the railways (as he's said he will) then the EU, and associated corporations, wont let him.

 

[Oafman]

To be honest I find the idea that the EU is immeasurably better at protective workers rights a bit fanciful, or perhaps we mean just European workers rights, not those in africa or asia.

This campaign will not be won on the working rights of Africans! You're right, but nobody seems worried about working conditions overseas.

But the key thing is, if you don't like the Tories, the good news is we can vote them out!

I keep trying.

Unelected EU commissioners cannot be voted out, our elected MEPs are little more than glorified lobbyists.

As much as there is a democratic deficit at the top of the EU, I think this has been overplayed (like pretty much everything else in this campaign).

The commission does not ratify law, that's done by parliament, and just because none of us care about European elections, or can name our MEPs, that doesn't make them any less elected. And via PR, so no wasted votes!

And by the way, I keep hearing from people who never vote in European elections moaning on and on about how the EU is undemocratic. That's not directed at you, it's just a bugbear of mine from this campaign. If you don't vote your grumblings about an absence of democracy carry a fair bit less weight!

Also, Brussels seems to be finally waking up to this. Complaints about this are widespread across Europe, not just from Britain. If the EU has any plans of surviving in the long term, it needs to do 2 things: (1) become more democratic, and (2) abandon the push for federalism.

And as for TTIP, it won't be going away anytime soon, it will come back with a different name if needs be. And of course if Jeremy Corbyn manages to become PM and wants to re-nationalise the railways (as he's said he will) then the EU, and associated corporations, wont let him.

TTIP is pretty much dead, in its current form at least. But I agree, they'll keep trying.

Does Brexit help us though? I'm trying to imagine what sort of trade deal Boris, Gove and IDS will negotiate for us with the US. It would not be pretty.