I'm not sure which way I'm going to vote on this one either. I'd be in favour of Leave on the basis that this town needs an enema, but I don't like the look of the people dangling the hosepipe.
I really couldn't care less what nasty demagogues like Putin or their sock-puppets think about what Britain should or shouldn't do regarding its self-governance.
It's absolutely none of their business and they won't influence me one way or another.
To let them have any such influence would be to concede them a power they don't deserve to have.
I'm not bothered about Putin and his followers but it is an issue for me that the people lining up behind Leave are not those that I sympathise with in domestic politics. If your natural home is on the Conservative right then this doesn't arise.
Dair Obviously the Whisky industry is actually very robust..it should be..I personally buy a lot of it..so that is one industry that is still thriving now what else was "wiped out"
The Whisky industry has serious problems with well over 50% of the production being controlled by a single company. It should never have passed the MMC when it was proposed. It also means that the majority of the Scotch Whisky industry is headquartered outside of Scotland, a further harm to the Scottish economy.
There's a zillion ways for them to come here. They could just COME HERE, for a start (or there, I'm in Bangkok), like the thousands in Calais. If 4-10m arrive this year, as predicted by some experts, the numbers get so big they would be literally unstoppable.
Then they can appeal to courts, they just need to get one sibling in the UK and in they come, as we now know, or the EU can just decide fuck it, let the British take a million, as they seem to be doing now with quotas, on and on
The history of the UK in the EU is one of constant betrayal, duplicity, broken promises and generalised and often successful attempts to get the UK to agree to something it hates.
Anyone who thinks the immigration crisis will not follow this same pattern is a witless twat.
To be honest if the Tories went along with that then I think UKIP would be nailed on to win in 2020. The government could just take the Polish route and refuse. It has worked well for the Poles and other Eastern European nations. What are the EU going to do, throw us out just after we've voted to stay in?
As it stands the UK and Ireland have permanent opt-outs from any refugee related programmes the EU might be planning. If they tried to rescind those then they might as well throw away any chance of remain winning.
There's no way for them to rescind then without our agreement.
Where we have a serious problem is that UK courts seem to have a much broader definition of "family life" than anywhere else in Europe.
Yes, again that is a problem with our local law though. I was speaking to a French legal guy who said similar cases in France always rule in favour of the government's position which is why they have no issue with article 8 or the ECHR. If we want to solve the problem of article 8 then he said it is up to the government to outline exactly how family life in Britain is, how distant relationships go, dependency rules, even things like how quiet the neighbourhood should be apparently are important. Basically he says our laws in this area are not fit for purpose in the 21st century where everyone and his dog knows how to exploit the ECHR.
For me I'm not undecided: if we Leave our destiny is in our own hands; if we Remain it's putting faith in the hands of others.
I know that if I vote Remain out of fear/apprehension I would always feel culpable for what followed - I might regret it for the rest of my life.
I will never regret voting to give this country back self-governance.
We are always putting faith in the hands of others. The question is: which others do we put our faith in? Neither camp inspires any confidence at all.
I put it in Governments we elect ourselves and accountable to us.
I have no confidence at all in the EU. The respective impressiveness of the campaigns is a side issue to me although I appreciate it could be decisive for others.
£1,000 says Germany does not loosen it's citizenship requirements in the next 12 months.
SeanT?
Come on guys.
Everyone was forecasting this yesterday. Someone put their money where their mouth is.
If anything they will make it harder to become a citizen for asylum seekers so they can be easily resettled to Syria if the situation is ever resolved. I highly doubt they will want to hand out German citizenship the new arrivals so quickly.
It would be electoral suicide for any German political party (except possibly the Greens) to suggest making it easier for asylum seekers to become German.
Let's hope you are right and also that some other "fudge" is not found to shift the burden of non-EU migrants away from Germany and onto other countries like the UK.
On a related note, by 15-year-old daughter is off on a school trip to Berlin next month. There was a meeting about the trip earlier this week and I was struck by all the questions about the girls' safety (she goes to a girls' school). Twelve months ago, such questions would simply not have arisen.
My younger daughter's school normally runs an overnight trip to France for her year group, but that has been cancelled "for security reasons" and they will be going to a PGL thing in the UK instead. Meanwhile, I hear from a friend that her child's school trip to Belgium was called off - also "for security reasons".
If we get to the point where continental Europe is no longer seen as being "safe", I cannot see the country voting to remain in the EU.
MG So you obviously do not have a clue as to what major Ayrshire industry was "wiped out"...figures..
I can't claim to be an expert on Ayrshire but in the last few years carpetmaking and whisky blending have both ceased in Kilmarnock alone.
would be a long list Dair , used to have the largest munitions factory in the northern hemisphere, lots and lots of mining, shoes, Massey Ferguson , Hyster blah blah. Surprised that Dickie missed that given the amount of wanking off he does about him being a miner. Dickie more interested in making sure he is in UK for less than 90 days no doubt.
I agree 10m is way too high (even if it is being canvassed by apparent experts). My best guess is like yours, 2-4m, which is possibly double the number that came this year, with all the sturm und drang that created.
Its truly Wagnerian.
Pedant alert: If it's sturm und drang, it's Haydnesque, not Wagnerian.
Just briefly dropping by, but thought my PB tory friends may like to go apoplectic over the progress on junior doctors. Looks like a big government climbdown:
Take a look at @ShaunLintern's Tweet: //twitter.com/ShaunLintern/status/690472474199334912?s=09
'Confidential offer' leaked like medical records left in a hospital bin.
Still, good to see it confirmed that the dispute really is all about money, rather than working extra hours.
Sean Lintern is the patient safety edidor for the HSJ, a management rather than clinical journal.
The leaked letter concerns pay but also tighter regulation of weekend hours to prevent abuse by employers.
Hunt has made plenty of leaks so the BMA JDC are entitled to do the same. Indeed the JDC have managed their spin far better than Hunt.
There's a zillion ways for them to come here. They could just COME HERE, for a start (or there, I'm in Bangkok), like the thousands in Calais. If 4-10m arrive this year, as predicted by some experts, the numbers get so big they would be literally unstoppable.
Then they can appeal to courts, they just need to get one sibling in the UK and in they come, as we now know, or the EU can just decide fuck it, let the British take a million, as they seem to be doing now with quotas, on and on
The history of the UK in the EU is one of constant betrayal, duplicity, broken promises and generalised and often successful attempts to get the UK to agree to something it hates.
Anyone who thinks the immigration crisis will not follow this same pattern is a witless twat.
To be honest if the Tories went along with that then I think UKIP would be nailed on to win in 2020. The government could just take the Polish route and refuse. It has worked well for the Poles and other Eastern European nations. What are the EU going to do, throw us out just after we've voted to stay in?
As it stands the UK and Ireland have permanent opt-outs from any refugee related programmes the EU might be planning. If they tried to rescind those then they might as well throw away any chance of remain winning.
Apparently we can refuse to take the quota, but if we do that we lose the right to deport. The EU and the ECJ boxes us in, every time.
The ticket is to not let them. No need to worry about deportation if they can't get in. Heighten security in Calais (even if in means paying for it ourselves) and make sure the tunnel is properly protected with massive electrified fences.
MG So you obviously do not have a clue as to what major Ayrshire industry was "wiped out"...figures..
I can't claim to be an expert on Ayrshire but in the last few years carpetmaking and whisky blending have both ceased in Kilmarnock alone.
would be a long list Dair , used to have the largest munitions factory in the northern hemisphere, lots and lots of mining, shoes, Massey Ferguson , Hyster blah blah. Surprised that Dickie missed that given the amount of wanking off he does about him being a miner. Dickie more interested in making sure he is in UK for less than 90 days no doubt.
Looking at those industries, it's easy to tell that Kilmarnock businesses closed due to foreign competition. For example workers in the Far East could make a pair of shoes for a fraction of the price that someone at Saxone could do so. If local workers were prepared to work for a tenth of their salaries and without striking, they might have remained in employment.
Nothing to do with 'Unionists', more to do with consumers who want cheap shoes.
For me I'm not undecided: if we Leave our destiny is in our own hands; if we Remain it's putting faith in the hands of others.
I know that if I vote Remain out of fear/apprehension I would always feel culpable for what followed - I might regret it for the rest of my life.
I will never regret voting to give this country back self-governance.
We are always putting faith in the hands of others. The question is: which others do we put our faith in? Neither camp inspires any confidence at all.
I put it in Governments we elect ourselves and accountable to us.
I have no confidence at all in the EU. The respective impressiveness of the campaigns is a side issue to me although I appreciate it could be decisive for others.
There is a basic inconsistency in your opening line. The governments we elect ourselves have at all times since the 70s supported membership of the EU and it seems highly likely that this one will too at the time of the referendum. So you're only prepared to put faith in them on terms that they do not wish to operate under.
As for the main point, here's the thing. The EU bureaucracy and hierarchy is, as it always has been, insufferably smug, bourgeois, myopic and reactive. Such characteristics are bearable in an organisation that is performing adequately. For most of the EU's existence, it has performed adequately (and sometimes very well).
Right now the EU is not performing anything like adequately. It is confronted by multiple crises. It needs decisive imaginative action to deal with each of them. It is not getting it and there is no sign of it getting it. Every crisis has been left to go to waste. Getting out of such a dysfunctional organisation would seem like a good idea.
And yet what are we offered instead? We are offered braying nonsense about putting up the barricades and fantasy about being able to negotiate very favourable terms because Johnny Foreigner will just have to damn well do as he is told. It's reactionary and incredible. To be led by those advocating such a course of action might very well make a bad set of circumstances still worse.
To put it in football terms, there is no point taking a transfer from Aston Villa to sign up with Bolton.
Just briefly dropping by, but thought my PB tory friends may like to go apoplectic over the progress on junior doctors. Looks like a big government climbdown:
Take a look at @ShaunLintern's Tweet: //twitter.com/ShaunLintern/status/690472474199334912?s=09
'Confidential offer' leaked like medical records left in a hospital bin.
Still, good to see it confirmed that the dispute really is all about money, rather than working extra hours.
Sean Lintern is the patient safety edidor for the HSJ, a management rather than clinical journal.
The leaked letter concerns pay but also tighter regulation of weekend hours to prevent abuse by employers.
Hunt has made plenty of leaks so the BMA JDC are entitled to do the same. Indeed the JDC have managed their spin far better than Hunt.
Doesn't look like a "major climbdown" to me.
That being said, I have found it hard to grasp the strength of feeling compared to the difference between the positions on both sides anyway.
Did you see the Finnish manners classes I linked to up thread? You can't buy a wife, women can go outside alone, wearing a short shirt isn't inviting sex, gays are people too etc
£1,000 says Germany does not loosen it's citizenship requirements in the next 12 months.
SeanT?
Come on guys.
Everyone was forecasting this yesterday. Someone put their money where their mouth is.
If anything they will make it harder to become a citizen for asylum seekers so they can be easily resettled to Syria if the situation is ever resolved. I highly doubt they will want to hand out German citizenship the new arrivals so quickly.
It would be electoral suicide for any German political party (except possibly the Greens) to suggest making it easier for asylum seekers to become German.
Let's hope you are right and also that some other "fudge" is not found to shift the burden of non-EU migrants away from Germany and onto other countries like the UK.
On a related note, by 15-year-old daughter is off on a school trip to Berlin next month. There was a meeting about the trip earlier this week and I was struck by all the questions about the girls' safety (she goes to a girls' school). Twelve months ago, such questions would simply not have arisen.
My younger daughter's school normally runs an overnight trip to France for her year group, but that has been cancelled "for security reasons" and they will be going to a PGL thing in the UK instead. Meanwhile, I hear from a friend that her child's school trip to Belgium was called off - also "for security reasons".
If we get to the point where continental Europe is no longer seen as being "safe", I cannot see the country voting to remain in the EU.
Your daughter is 15?
THIS video, by a 16 year old German girl, is causing a storm on Twitter and FB.
'And yet what are we offered instead? We are offered braying nonsense about putting up the barricades and fantasy about being able to negotiate very favourable terms because Johnny Foreigner will just have to damn well do as he is told. '
You don't think Johnny Foreigner wants to trade with the UK as well particularly as the UK has a £70 billion trade deficit with the EU ?
Or is that just braying nonsense ?
Can't imagine how countries like Canada and Australia survive without the EU,.must be all those barricades they put up.
'Let's hope you are right and also that some other "fudge" is not found to shift the burden of non-EU migrants away from Germany and onto other countries like the UK'
The EU will find a temporary fudge or delaying tactic and then implement after what they hope will be a UK Remain vote.
I agree 10m is way too high (even if it is being canvassed by apparent experts). My best guess is like yours, 2-4m, which is possibly double the number that came this year, with all the sturm und drang that created.
Its truly Wagnerian.
Pedant alert: If it's sturm und drang, it's Haydnesque, not Wagnerian.
£1,000 says Germany does not loosen it's citizenship requirements in the next 12 months.
SeanT?
Come on guys.
Everyone was forecasting this yesterday. Someone put their money where their mouth is.
If anything they will make it harder to become a citizen for asylum seekers so they can be easily resettled to Syria if the situation is ever resolved. I highly doubt they will want to hand out German citizenship the new arrivals so quickly.
It would be electoral suicide for any German political party (except possibly the Greens) to suggest making it easier for asylum seekers to become German.
Let's hope you are right and also that some other "fudge" is not found to shift the burden of non-EU migrants away from Germany and onto other countries like the UK.
On a related note, by 15-year-old daughter is off on a school trip to Berlin next month. There was a meeting about the trip earlier this week and I was struck by all the questions about the girls' safety (she goes to a girls' school). Twelve months ago, such questions would simply not have arisen.
My younger daughter's school normally runs an overnight trip to France for her year group, but that has been cancelled "for security reasons" and they will be going to a PGL thing in the UK instead. Meanwhile, I hear from a friend that her child's school trip to Belgium was called off - also "for security reasons".
If we get to the point where continental Europe is no longer seen as being "safe", I cannot see the country voting to remain in the EU.
My 10 year old son is due to go on a school trip to Normandy this summer. This has been the Year 6 school trip for years. Lovely hotel on the beach. Bayaeux Tapestry etc. No concerns about that. But the coach in previous years (my daughter went on it a few years ago) goes through Calais and I have some concerns about that.
Just briefly dropping by, but thought my PB tory friends may like to go apoplectic over the progress on junior doctors. Looks like a big government climbdown:
Take a look at @ShaunLintern's Tweet: //twitter.com/ShaunLintern/status/690472474199334912?s=09
'Confidential offer' leaked like medical records left in a hospital bin.
Still, good to see it confirmed that the dispute really is all about money, rather than working extra hours.
Sean Lintern is the patient safety edidor for the HSJ, a management rather than clinical journal.
The leaked letter concerns pay but also tighter regulation of weekend hours to prevent abuse by employers.
Hunt has made plenty of leaks so the BMA JDC are entitled to do the same. Indeed the JDC have managed their spin far better than Hunt.
Comments
I have no confidence at all in the EU. The respective impressiveness of the campaigns is a side issue to me although I appreciate it could be decisive for others.
On a related note, by 15-year-old daughter is off on a school trip to Berlin next month. There was a meeting about the trip earlier this week and I was struck by all the questions about the girls' safety (she goes to a girls' school). Twelve months ago, such questions would simply not have arisen.
My younger daughter's school normally runs an overnight trip to France for her year group, but that has been cancelled "for security reasons" and they will be going to a PGL thing in the UK instead. Meanwhile, I hear from a friend that her child's school trip to Belgium was called off - also "for security reasons".
If we get to the point where continental Europe is no longer seen as being "safe", I cannot see the country voting to remain in the EU.
The leaked letter concerns pay but also tighter regulation of weekend hours to prevent abuse by employers.
Hunt has made plenty of leaks so the BMA JDC are entitled to do the same. Indeed the JDC have managed their spin far better than Hunt.
Plenty of gags on the Caine theme today. Like to see one with a shot of him in Zulu and the caption 'Syrians! thersands of em!'
Nothing to do with 'Unionists', more to do with consumers who want cheap shoes.
As for the main point, here's the thing. The EU bureaucracy and hierarchy is, as it always has been, insufferably smug, bourgeois, myopic and reactive. Such characteristics are bearable in an organisation that is performing adequately. For most of the EU's existence, it has performed adequately (and sometimes very well).
Right now the EU is not performing anything like adequately. It is confronted by multiple crises. It needs decisive imaginative action to deal with each of them. It is not getting it and there is no sign of it getting it. Every crisis has been left to go to waste. Getting out of such a dysfunctional organisation would seem like a good idea.
And yet what are we offered instead? We are offered braying nonsense about putting up the barricades and fantasy about being able to negotiate very favourable terms because Johnny Foreigner will just have to damn well do as he is told. It's reactionary and incredible. To be led by those advocating such a course of action might very well make a bad set of circumstances still worse.
To put it in football terms, there is no point taking a transfer from Aston Villa to sign up with Bolton.
That being said, I have found it hard to grasp the strength of feeling compared to the difference between the positions on both sides anyway.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35353310
new thread, new thread
'And yet what are we offered instead? We are offered braying nonsense about putting up the barricades and fantasy about being able to negotiate very favourable terms because Johnny Foreigner will just have to damn well do as he is told. '
You don't think Johnny Foreigner wants to trade with the UK as well particularly as the UK has a £70 billion trade deficit with the EU ?
Or is that just braying nonsense ?
Can't imagine how countries like Canada and Australia survive without the EU,.must be all those barricades they put up.
'Let's hope you are right and also that some other "fudge" is not found to shift the burden of non-EU migrants away from Germany and onto other countries like the UK'
The EU will find a temporary fudge or delaying tactic and then implement after what they hope will be a UK Remain vote.