BREXIT
 

So,

It's like, a month till the UK has her referendum on whether or not to leave the European Union. I've recently helped our local Momentum branch (the activist group of Corbyn's Labour Party) host a political debate open to the public on Brexit. Unfortunately the hall was packed by pro-leave campaigners and UKIP infiltrators which skewed the conversation very one sidedly.

I know we have a few UK members but I'm also interested to get the international view on this as well? What do other people from other countries think about the potential of Britain leaving the EU? I'm firmly behind the remain camp and am quite happy to be a part of a federal European country.

It's probably for the best. EU is an absolute mess.

Surely better to reform it from within than tut about it from outside?

It's too broken for that already

I mean...care to elucidate?

I hope you don't think that fully reforming a multi-nation, trillion-euros-worth organisation with laws so convoluted that they have snails declared fish is an easy, perfectly doable task

STM, why are you against BREXIT?

If the UK leaves the entire EU will fall apart. The elite will have you believe this would be disastrous for the economy of all EU nations, but it really won't matter much.

I hope it happens. I hope the entire EU falls apart and we as a country get our sovereignty back.

First of all. Politics isn't my strong suit and In fact I barely done any research into each side. So I'm completely undecided.

What I will say is both sides aren't too clear. I've heard that leaving could cause the country to be unstable. But then I hear the exact opposite from the other side. I need some clear, factual views so then I can make my mind up.

The Brits are pragmatic.

Fact is that all individual countries worked just fine before the EU was even a thing. And the end of the EU does not mean the end of the European economic zone or the Schengen agreement. Those are three completely different things.

EU = Political/legislative

EEC = Economical

Schengen = Logistical

I can see very little reasons why any country would want to be part of an over arching political organisation, aside from personal interests and corruption. And that is indeed what the EU is completely full of and the only reason for it existing.

What about the peace the EU has brought to Europe? A continent that has never known prolonged peace since Pax-Romana, is now living through its longest ever period of non-conflict. The only countries in Europe that have faced war since WWII are non-EU states; the Yugoslav Republics and Ukraine for example. There is too much nationalism between nations for the EU to fall apart.

Just for the record, do you know what was the reason there is/was war in Ukraine?

Because Russia needed to liberate1 Ukraine. Kind of like how the U.S. liberated1 Iraq.


1-Liberate-To strip a nation of it's natural resources in the name of freedom.

And what did Ukraine want to join?

STM, the UK never planned to stay in the EU indefinitely. The UK isn't part of the Schengen area and the Eurozone.

Multiple reasons, the brush-stroke "EU" argument trivialises a conflict which threatened to destabilize not only Ukraine but other Russian border countries. Russia has a one hundred and fifty year history of manipulating Ukraine, to say it's all the EU's fault is bollocks.

I don't think that's true, the UK petitioned to join the EU once or twice before we were accepted into the community. The political class believe the UK would not benefit from being a part of the Schengen area and I think it's fairly obvious that we shouldn't join the Eurozone until the Euro as a currency is more stable (a la the US dollar). We did have a referendum to leave once before and the answer was a resounding no. I think the the British political elite's belief that we deserve some sort of preferential treatment within the union is both arrogant and dull.

STM, are you afraid of this (in case of BREXIT)?
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...-france-saying

Not at all, I couldn't care less if every single one of the immigrants in Calais came over. I'm not scared of impoverished women and children. The fear and hate-mongering on the back of nationalism in this country is the main reason we're having this childish exercise in faux-democracy in the first place

I'm voting for exit because I want:

-sovereignty
-controlled immigration, UK is overpopulated there should be tighter controls like in Auzzie land
-maybe,maybe not save a lot of money that is being pumped into the EU - no one seems to be able to prove how much return we actually get so I guess leave & see what happens
-If the economy tanks a bit then house prices will get pushed down, good for me since right now its impossible to afford

We're not over-populated though. You scale your economy to the size of your population. We have a rapidly ageing native population, whom do you think will pay for the ever-growing pension pot? If we leave the EU we'd be receiving a million pension-age expats and returning literally millions of economic immigrants who are contributing to the country through employment, taxes and spending in our industries. If we leave the EU I'm bloody terrified because the whole building sector will have to scale down and I'll loose my job!

Also please elucidate on sovereignty, are we talking to right to create our own laws (which we do have), or in the nationalistic context?

Can you elucidate?

https://www.theguardian.com/business...igrant-workers
http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.a...arket-overview
http://www.building.co.uk/the-bigger...036919.article

Our industry is fuelled by immigrant workers or non-English workers who have settled here. Much of the drylining operatives I work with are Bulgarian, Romanian and Polish.

But the UK could still follow the "Swiss" or "Norwegian" models...

Well there's your problem. You really think any of those people are going to be a positive contribution to your society? The past 30 years of mass immigration on mainland Europe should give you a very clear picture of what this new generation of wealth seekers will do to your country in another 30 years.

Don't be too hard on him: STM's all alone (for now). Furthermore, he's consistent: Corbyn supports the "refugees".

If it leaves the EU I'll probably get kicked out of the country.

Besides, I'm a supporter of a federal EU.

The Norwegians pay a similar amount of their GDP PPP to the EU in their agreement for less of the benefits that we receive by being a part of the union. I honestly don't know enough about the Swiss model to speak about them. All I can say is, the Norwegians, and indeed the Scandinavian countries as a whole, tend to be more liberally minded than British politicians.

That is categorically and empirically untrue, numerous studies have proved time and time again that immigration has been a net benefit to our nation as most become financial contributors to the country. As far as I understand it, there are more white-English people out of work and on benefits than there are immigrants. The argument shouldn't be economical though, it should be social. Simply put, we are allowing the greatest human disaster in Europe to take place since World War II because the people at our borders are brown skinned.

I feel like it's the only moral, humanitarian stance to take. The people at Calais (some common ground for you and I, Vlam) are in desperate need of help.

What do you think about Brexit, Vlam? As far as I understand it the general belief in France is that we should remain within the EU...

The vast majority of this human disaster aren't even refugees. They are wealth seekers, the majority of them are young males trying to make it to a country that (as someone promised them) will give them a lot of free money and allows them to bring their family.

Coming from Syria there are at least 10 countries directly on route that are perfectly safe to stay in and build a life. Yet these people refuse to sign in with those countries because they want to go to the wealthy countries. And that's not even pointing out that half of today's refugees come from Africa, where nothing note worthy has been changed in the past year yet people are flocking to Europe *suddenly*.

And why? Because they think they can build a better life for themselves in Europe? To flee the violence in their own country? Here is what these people are bringing with them:



Of course this is a bit over dramatized, but the video footage speaks for itself. The people that are coming in to Europe right now are the type of people that have been promised mountains of wealth, only to find out it was all a lie when they arrive. Then what do they do? They riot because they don't get what they want. Also, please count how many women and children you can spot on that video.

And at the core of all this shit is that Europe would force every country under its banner to let these people in and spend billions on trying to integrate them into our society (which the past 30 years has proven to be completely ineffective). As a country you have no say in this at all. That alone is reason enough to tell the EU to go fuck themselves.

If we leave Europe do we float away into the middle of the ocean because if so I'm not up for it