UKC

https://speakout.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns/michael-gove-leave-fact-check?u...

I'm looking forward to the Bremain version next.

In reply to john arran:

What kinds of facts are you after? I don't speak for either camp but, for a start, and as posted on another thread here, Liam Halligan does a pretty good demolition job on the dire warnings contained in the 200 page dodgy dossier recently produced at our expense - see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/23/a-pro-eu-study-straight-from...

No doubt there will rebuttals of rebuttals of rebuttals over the next few weeks - but given that, whatever happens, the economic side of this is mostly guesswork, I don't know how useful such discussion is.

What are your own principal reasons for voting 'remain'? You live in both France and Britain (correct?) - so are those simply practical reasons for you? Economic ones? Others of principle?

In reply to Rob Parsons:

The reason I posted the link is because it's from 38 degrees, who I'd like to believe wouldn't distort these facts through political bias. I am genuinely interested in seeing what they make of Bremain facts, and they might well have published something on that already, but this is the first one I've come across and I don't feel I have time right now to go looking.

My personal reasons are not really important but suffice to say there are quite a few reasons for being in Europe that in my opinion each are far more valuable than any reason I've heard for leaving. I hope this thread may let the facts speak for themselves, but I'm very aware that around here that's an impossible hope!

In reply to john arran:


Looking at their website, they are collaborating with a body called 'Full Fact' (https://fullfact.org/) in order to subject claims from both sides to scrutiny.

For example, regarding the 'remain' side:

https://fullfact.org/europe/governments-eu-referendum-leaflet-what-we-know-...

https://fullfact.org/europe/4300-question-would-leaving-eu-really-make-ever...

I assume if you keep an eye on both https://home.38degrees.org.uk/category/eu-referendum/ and https://fullfact.org/europe/ you will be able to read everything that they produce.

No such analysis can address the philosophical and ideological questions, of course. However, this does seem like a useful effort.

In reply to john arran:


I have a bridge for sale, going cheap, one careful old lady user, who only used it to cross the Thames to get to church on a Sunday, I'll do you a special price seeing as you are a mate.

In reply to john arran:

I've said I'm for out, I've said that I don't believe most of the 'facts' on either side. No one knows.
It is really going to come down to your instinct (gut feel) and all this arguing is pretty fruitless.
We have 'Project Fear ' to an extent on both sides, I take the extremes on both sides with a pinch of salt.

look at what the currently EU is, and what they want to be in the future , and make your mind up on that.

In reply to john arran:

Do you think this provides support for staying in?

The £350m is a headline figure that is correct as far as it goes. Those citing the figure have been asked exactly what they mean many times and have said that they mean this is the amount we do not have control over. What they've said agrees with the response in the fact check.

On immigration we refused 2000 people out of hundreds of thousands and the rules governing this are not up to us. We can have a points based system if we leave, we can't if we stay. If they were being even they might have added that the predictions are that our population will by millions in short order if we do not leave.

On trade Gove's correct that we have no deals with the biggest economies in the world and we can only make deals ourselves if we're out. On a free trade deal with the EU we'd have to negotiate to get it, of course.

They do point out that Gove can't necessarily accurately predict the future, and that all claims about the future are maybes. Well, yes, all future claims are maybes, like the predictions that the sky will fall if we leave.

In reply to Rob Parsons:

Thanks Rob

In reply to Jim C:

I've seen this before on here, presumably from you, and it really does seem an absurd way to go about things.

Sticking fingers in your ears while shouting LA, LA, LA and then deciding based on what you had for breakfast is an odd way to make a decision.

In reply to john arran:

My instinct is to agree with what Boris Johnson said (just this once), and reflect that many of the people who are now predicting doom and disaster if we leave the EU are the same people who predicted similarly dire consequences if we did not join the euro. I pretty much predicted what was going to happen to the euro before its creation, and it's plain that if the UK had joined the euro our economy would be in an even worse state than it currently is. 50% youth unemployment if Greece and 40% youth unemployment in Spain are condemning a generation to hopelessness.

In reply to John2:

Agreeing with Boris is always a worrying sign and taking Greece and Spain as illustrative examples of European economies doesn't suggest an impartial view but anybody is welcome to do either if they choose.

I try not to rely on instinct. I note that in the decades since the UK has been a member of the EU it has seen economic prosperity far exceeding the previous decades; you could argue that this may have happened anyway and you may be right. I note that in the decades since the UK has been a member of the EU the EU member states have seen a period of unprecedented peace and stability; you could argue that this may have happened anyway and you may be right. I note that in the decades since the UK has been a member of the EU we have benefited from unprecedented possibilities to travel, work and live in our neighbour countries; you could argue that this may have happened anyway and you may be right. You could argue many things and you could even, like Jim C above, dismiss all arguments as 'fruitless' and make something up instead. I think and hope that most people take a more responsible approach to facts and to decision making when our continued peace and prosperity is at stake.

In reply to john arran:

I'd take anything for 38degrees with a pinch of salt. I removed myself from their email list over a year ago, because even the environmental petitions they fired out were biased and not based on sound science. So I doubt their political stuff stands up to scrutiny either.

In reply to John2:

But we are not Spain, Italy or Greece so that was never on the cards for the Northern Powerhouse Economies.

I agree with your point about the chickenlicken 'sky is gonna fall down' if we don't stay in the EU. Same idiots.

Painful to be on the same side as Boris though ain't it? If Cameron, Osborne and Obama think it's a good idea its definately no good for the average Britain.

D

In reply to john arran:

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1&langua...

Out budget deficit as a percentage of GDP is exceeded only by Greece and Spain within the EU. Had we joined the euro we would not have been able to manage our own interest rates, and we would be in an even worse state.

In reply to Jim C:


May I suggest then, that you have a coloscopy. (No, I don't mean stick up your arse )

In reply to summo:


In this case, they are relying on analysis from 'Full Fact' - which organization appears to me to be independent, and not biased. But read about it, and judge for yourself.

It appears that '38 degrees' itself is not taking an official position on the EU referendum - see e.g. https://home.38degrees.org.uk/2016/03/07/the-eu-referendum-survey-results/ - rather, in this case, it's subjecting objective claims from *both* sides to scrutiny.

In reply to john arran:

Interesting, thanks.

In reply to john arran:

From Fullfact :

https://fullfact.org/media/uploads/leave_remain_the_facts_behind_the_claims...

In reply to RomTheBear:
Fullfacts funding comes from three independent charitable trusts: the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Nuffield Foundation and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation apparently. So not sure how impartial it is...

In reply to John2:


Have you read this?
http://infacts.org/mervyn-king-lawson-lamont-wrong-wrong-now/

"Suppose, however, that views held 20 years ago on a totally separate issue really were a useful gauge of judgment about Brexit today. Even if we leave aside King’s personal responsibility for dismantling the Bank of England’s regulatory mechanisms in the years before the 2008 crisis, the Brexit camp has an ugly skeleton in its cupboard: the few Brexit supporters with apparent credibility as economic policymakers – a group which includes Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont, two former chancellors, as well as King, but not Johnson – were mostly on the wrong side of the European currency debate when it mattered most.

"This was not when the euro was formally created in 1999. By that time, Lawson and Lamont were politically irrelevant and King was doing his best to avoid upsetting Tony Blair on the one hand or Gordon Brown and Ed Balls on the other. It was Brown and Balls who saved Britain from joining the euro – and today both of them are fully committed to Remain."

This from Anatole Kaletsky of the Times, in case you were wondering.

In reply to john arran:

Good piece here on being Conservative and Brexit. Note, it talks about political philosophy, so if you're a bit slow on the uptake (no names mentioned to prevent blushes) you might want to look away now.

https://matteroffactsblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/would-edmund-burke-be-fo...

In reply to Rob Parsons:


I thought it's chairman Michael Samuel was a tory party donor?
trustees look very pro Europe too and not without political influence.

I think people should perhaps look it's head Moy too, who appeared from no where to be appointed as it's front man despite no real experience in this kind of work, or just perhaps knew the right people?

In reply to seankenny:

That guy (Mark Mills) ranks every single Marvel film ever made in great detail on another page on his blog. I don't know whether that makes him worth listening to or not (i'm imagining some sort of grown up child loner...but understand I could be completely wrong) Is that how you discovered the page?

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:



I thought a gradual erasing of the boundaries between high and low culture an intrinsic part of the post-modern condition in which we find ourselves. Next you'll be telling me Simon Schama is a crap historian because he writes articles on Patti Smith

I'm assuming an article on the political philosophy behind conservatism was a bit dull for your tastes, so you just clicked straight on through to the comix.

In reply to seankenny:

Joking aside, Q gives a pretty good response (IMO) in the comments

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

He makes a lot of assertions which strike me as dumb. I mean, if the Greek crisis hasn't given the EU the political will integrate closer fiscally, then what would it take? Especially since the Germans are deeply opposed. So that's a leap to assume it would happen, and then another leap to assume that if they did, bang - suddenly we have a European army etc etc.

But for the paranoia-fuelled British outers, no statement of Eurolunacy can be questioned too deeply.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

It is quite funny hearing people referring to the EU dismissively as 'politically unstable' when the UK has just barely survived a break-up referendum of its own and would quite likely be facing another one if it chooses to leave the EU. Is it dangerous to leave the EU because it would leave us in a Politically Unstable situation?

In reply to seankenny:


The EU can't survive unless it does merge more. Currently it's dividing, there are big divides financially etc.. and borders are reappearing. Unless it changes soon it's over, slowly but surely.

In reply to summo:


So rather than try to improve things, being the fifth largest economy in the world and all, we're best off out and the devil take the hindmost?

In reply to seankenny:

and how exactly should we improve things? Join the Euro? Give more money to the EU or the ECB? Just so other countries like France can have a shorter working week, or those in Southern Europe can continue retiring early? Or so French farms can receive at least 50% per hectare/per farm than the UK... or let Europe fish more of our waters? Perhaps we should fund a third EU parliament, an Italian version of Strasbourg in say Milan? Or a Spanish one in Barcelona.. they can spend a week living in hotels and working in each one, every month?

In reply to seankenny:

He makes a lot of assertions which strike me as dumb.

Well funny you say that...the trekkie posted above it that if the UK was not a member of the EU today he would vote to join. Okaaaay. I mean, with the Greek crisis, the Germans not wanting to budge, the open door immigration fiasco and schengen in ruins..youth unemployment...etc.etc...blah blah Also, he doesn't even care less whether Thor manages to prevent the Dark Elves unleashing the Aether at the centre of the convergance. Wheres the consistency?

In reply to summo:
Nah, they're all rubbish ideas.

In reply to summo:


The thing is, I don't share your gloomy vision but then I don't see Europe as something imposed by dastardly foreigners out to do Britain harm. I see the EU as something that the UK has had a hand in building and should play a part in improving - especially since the alternative looks to me deeply unpalatable. The fact that you're resorting to crazy fantasy stories to prop up your case makes it, frankly, unconvincing and melodramatic at a time when we need a sober assessement.

Here's a quote from the Economist which might give you some ideas of how we could proceed:

".. what could it [Britain] achieve if it actually tried? If it resolved, over ten or fifteen years, to remake the union in the British image? That ambition is less far-fetched than it might look. New geopolitical and security threats play into Britain’s long-standing desire to make the EU more outward-looking and security-conscious. The urgent need to make Europe more competitive—an agenda now being championed even by the French and Italian governments—similarly responds to traditional British priorities. For all the talk of integrating the euro zone, fellow northern European member states will want to ensure they are not simply yoked to poorer, more sluggish southern economies. Other non-Euro-zone states will be wary of caucusing and want to ensure that the EU continues to operate at 28 rather than 19. These developments create political opportunities for Britain."

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2016/04/obama-london

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:



Let's play fair and quote what he says eh?

"If Britain were not currently a member of the EU, I would want to join. But even if you don’t like the EU, you should still recognise that the very process of leaving would have real costs. They theoretically might be justified by “overwhelming social benefit” or “the most extreme necessity.” But as we’ve seen they simply aren’t.

"That makes Brexit an unjustified gamble, which in turn makes it a profoundly unconservative thing to do."

You and summo both seem to be missing the point about what conservatism is (in the Burkean sense, rather than the right wing ideologue Tea Party-esqe meaning of the word) and why it may be incompatible with Brexit, prefering instead to hash over the pros/cons. A little cognitive dissonance going on, given that being older and more conservative is generally a predictor of Brexit support?

In reply to John2:


You've picked two countries which have massive issues anyway.

You could look at those in NW Europe which have more similar economies.

Also if the UK had joined the Euro, the Euro would have been stronger so maybe less affected by others, plus we could have had a say on expansion.

In reply to seankenny:

Agreed I am not taking it too seriously...being a friday afternoon and i'm about to drive to North Norfolk to join the wife and kids for the long weekend. (M11 already looks busy)

So , as usual with you...good posts and interesting dialogue. Have a good weekend.(no internet for me up there...bliss)

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

It's one thing to come to a climbing forum to argue politics, quite another to admit that you're going to... NORFOLK?!

In reply to seankenny:

Crazy fantasy stories?;

The EU preaches austerity to the PIIGS nations, while it expands it's annual budget and refused to streamline itself, like binning the farce of Strasbourg.
Have a look yourself at French farming subsidies.
Fisheries, hardly a secret.



but, the EU elite don't want the EU to look like the UK. The UK is buy on disproportionally small voice in an every growing number of countries, you only have to look at the no so big renegotiation and how little the UK got to see how accommodating they aren't.


let's be fair, would Obama merge the USA with Canada and Mexico? With open borders, migration and trade? I think not. He doesn't practice what he preaches, I bet he beat Cameron at golf though, Obama's done a lot of that in the past 7 1/2 years.

In reply to summo:



When you reduce a complex set of political actors to a shadowy "elite" you reduce your argument to sixth form level. Anyhow, make up your mind: are they a unified elite hell-bent on ruining Britain, or a bunch of squabbling in-breds doing each other over? You can't have it both ways.



America is not Britain. And all those other arguments. Still, good to see that you know more about foreign policy than the US president.


Cheap shot and shows either a limited knowledge of American politics or a serious grudge because he pointed out the holes in your fantasy.

In reply to seankenny:


The issue of what 'conservatism' actually is (or historically is considered to be) indeed forms a large part of that article. But - filing-clerk mentality aside - is it even an interesting question? Should I care whether or not Thatcher, say, or Osborne, or Johnson are classifiable as 'conservatives' by those metrics? Does it matter? More productive, presumably, is to look at what they actually did (or plan to do), irrespective of any label.

Slightly perverse, in addition, to start an article in favour of the EU with a sympathetic portrait of Foot: the 1983 Labour manifesto called for a withdrawal from the EEC.

In reply to john arran:


On political instability, and as I mentioned in another thread, Varoufakis has made the claim that the UK choosing to leave the EU has the potential to initiate the collapse of the entire edifice - with whatever knock-on economic effects that might have to both the UK and the rest of Europe. (That's to say that, in practice, the coming vote is not necessarily a 'simple' (!) choice of the UK either being in or out of the EU; it poses an existential question for the EU itself.)

That strikes me as a more worrying prospect than does the risk of another referendum on Scottish independence, which is what I suppose you are alluding to here. I'm not convinced that the Scots are necessarily any more pro- or anti-EU than is the rest of the UK - though we'll soon find out - but, for sure, the question of independence for Scotland hasn't gone away as a result of the 2014 vote, and will come back soon enough, whatever happens in June.

In reply to Rob Parsons:

Burke's idea of conservatism is of no relevance to what is supposed to be the topic of this thread - indeed, most would consider the EU to be anathema to Burke's idea of mankind being motivated by family ties and nationalism.

When people point out the fundamental pointlessness of the EU, which would rather spend billions of euros of its citizens' money on the farce of the monthly deampment to Strasbourg than come to a mature decision to seat its parliament in one place, its defenders resort to bluster and obloquy.

The title of the thread is 'Reply to - Brexit - some facts', and the fundamental fact is that the UK pays substantially more into a bureaucratic machine than it receives in return.

In reply to John2:
So what's your point on taxes. I pay far more personal tax than I get back, your point is silly.

In reply to Rob Parsons:
I'm not convinced that the Scots are necessarily any more pro- or anti-EU than is the rest of the UK - though we'll soon find out -

I'm not convinced either, I'm Scottish and I'm for out, but It is not a big topic of conversation at home or work so not sure what the split is .
As you say, we'll soon find out.

In reply to neilh:

By taxes I assume you mean the UK's contribution to the EU budget.

When you pay income tax that goes to pay for education, health services, etc.

Some of the money the UK pays to the EU is given back to us in the form of agricultural payments, scientific research grants, etc (why wasn't it just left with us in the first place?)

Some goes in grants to other nations, some of which are poorer than the UK.

And some is spent in paying for the glory that is the EU's bureaucratic support system - all those parliamentarians and commissioners need their salaries, and their pensions once they retire.

What the UK's EU contribution does not go to pay for is the essential social services that our income tax and other UK taxes go to pay for.

In reply to summo:







Check your facts re Obamas vacation times..
http://www.factcheck.org/2014/08/presidential-vacations/


No, the U.S. Wouldn't but it's adding another state very shortly and has NAFTA.

But also the U.S. is already a large collection of states, so yes I think it has practiced what it preaches

In reply to John2


I'm glad it does, i doubt if the money had been left with us it would have been spent on the above.

In reply to jonathan shepherd:


How would Europe work of we all took back the same amount we put in?

Things costs.. The stronger nations support the weaker.

We pay into development grants to support the poor areas, sometimes that's also in the UK or Ireland but often that's out east. What's wrong with that? The more we can assist the development of those countries the stronger they will be and the more stable they will be. The stronger they are the better they can protect their borders and assist refugees themselves.

It's quite disappointing how selfish people are. Many say they have socialist views but when it comes to helping the less fortunate they can go jump..

In reply to Roadrunner5:

but those states had a largely shared origin, language and culture. The EU is effectively 20 plus different historical origins, languages and currencies (prior to Euro).

Even now the US can't agree. What has happened with all Obama's big dreams? Blocked in senate, congress etc.. It's almost too big to function effectively, any change takes many times longer than a single or even double term in office, the only thing that they seem to be able to do quickly is go to war.

In reply to Roadrunner5:



which is fine, Norway pays in, but directly to aid budget in respective emerging eastern nations. It's doesn't get thinned out first in Brussels, Strasbourg etc... it doesn't go to help those poor impoverished French farmers etc.. You can still help countries without being in the EU. The UK does that already beyond the EU.

In reply to Roadrunner5: I agree with you entirely, i've just noticed the comment from the poster i replied to at the bottom of my post, i meant to delete that. All I was trying to say was if the money hadn't been put into Europe I doubt our government would have used it to benefit the causes I mentioned (At least not all of it.)

In reply to john arran:

Instictinve voting exactly what the 'expert ' commentators said was the only option ( even after absorbing the sum total of all the 'facts' on either side.)

You read/ listen to them, but in the end they are pretty much all projections/ guesses/ lies/ half truths , you will have to go on your instinct on the day

if you want to kid yourself you are making an educated vote based of the facts of the matter then that's fine with me.

In reply to jon:

As I said to others, there is no vote available that just based on 'the facts' you are going to have to wing it , like the rest of us to some extent.
( and it was not just me that was saying that)

In reply to Jim C:


Are these expert commentators you're choosing to believe any more reliable than the ones you're dismissing as useless, or is it that they serve to confirm your pet argument, absurd though it is?