SeanT worries about the effect on others. The people who we should most worry about are the least of these, per our Christian heritage. Those are the hundreds of millions of Africans who live in destitution and work in agriculture, shut out of EU markets through tariffs and subsidies.
The moral thing to do is to leave the EU and give them a chance to trade themselves out of poverty. Teaching a man to fish, rather than giving him handouts. We could be the first country in the Western world to embrace trade justice for Africa. It would be the 21st Century equivalent of the Slave Trade Act 1807.
That is the moral choice.
How many non-EU countries have trade deals with individual African nations or perhaps with the African Union? China, perhaps? Is that deal advantageous to the African nations involved?
I do wonder, if we remain narrowly, whether the UK could influence the EU into developing a wide ranging global associate scheme - an out-of-the box trade deal on offer to countries who meet certain standards on democracy, rule of law and corruption, renewable on a 5-year cycle (or similar).
Not only for the third-world you understand, but Remain's position still being shaky whatever the result, to provide a ready lifeboat in the event of Brexit. I have no problem whatsoever, as a Remain supporter, in putting the UK into a better position for Brexit at some future date.
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Could actually be a very good move. Clarkson is seen as a little Englander. He's not of course – he's a patriotic Englishman – but also a francophile and very pro-European.
Here's a moral dilemma, perhaps pb-ers can help me
I am a convinced LEAVER. I have very carefully weighed everything, and have - with great reluctance, and some trepidation - decided that OUT is best for my country, long term. Better for my kids.
I really really wanted Cameron to deliver some proper reform, something close to his Bloomberg aspirations, but he didn't. He came nowhere near. He failed, miserably.
That said, I have lots of friends who are now panicking, some of them are outright terrified. People poorer than me, who won't be able to endure recession or house price falls, the way I can. People worried their jobs will go.
These are people I love. I love my friends. I am about to do something that will very possibly harm them.
What do I do? What is the moral course of action?
Philosophers might provide moral guidance.
Bentham would vote Remain - greatest good of the greatest number - not personal interest or gratification.
Kant would vote Remain. Categorical imperative. ." Very prescient.
Rawlings would be a Remainer. Wish for a state of the world in which you do not know your position in it rather than based on your existing position.
I think, ethically, Remain has it. Remain has it.
Edit: And another moral philosopher said "Love thy neighbour as thyself."
But, Socrates is voting Leave.
As is Plato. Wisdom of the Ages.
In Plato's Republic, Socrates argues that a just city-state or polis is one in which there is harmony and cooperation. All contribute to the common good and all lament when misfortune happens to any of them.
In an unjust city-state, one groups's gain is another 's loss, the powerful exploit the weak, and the city-state is divided against itself. To make sure that the polis doesn't descend into the chaos of ruthless self-interest, Socrates says that philosophers must rule, for only they will pursue what is truly good, not just what is good for themselves. [Republic 475]
Just over half of economists polled by Reuters in April, for instance, said the Bank of England would probably respond by cutting rates to cushion the economy against a slowdown. The remainder, however, predicted a rate hike, perhaps to head off a rise in inflation set off by a plunge in sterling.
Well, of course President Truman famously asked for a one-handed economist, fed up as he was with economists saying 'on the one hand... on the other hand..".
In this particular case, though, I think they are right to be confused. It is not at all obvious what the BoE could do to stimulate the economy in a Brexit-induced downturn with sterling falling. Lowering interest rates (or, more likely, reintroducing QE) to provide some stimulus would make the fall in sterling worse. The room for manoeuvre would be extremely limited.
If the problem is "a Brexit-induced downturn" then a falling £ is an automatic correction for that. Making the "fall in sterling worse" would be a judgement call for the MPC, and indeed may be the right thing to do.
Even if, and it is still a big if, the Uk votes to Leave what is, supposedly, a trading arrangement next week
But you know damn well that it's not just a trading arrangement. Brexit would be the biggest shock to European politics since the fall of the Berlin wall. Anyone who says they can predict the consequences is just guessing, and predicting no consequences at all is wishful thinking.
Mr. Glenn, I am sure when I voted in 1975 to stay in I was told that I was voting for a trading arrangement. That there will be consequences to our leaving that trading arrangement I do not doubt. I suspect that they will be less than Project Fear would have me believe, as I have pointed out repeatedly, lots of countries seem to have no problem with trading with EU countries despite not being members of the EU or the single market.
The political side of the EU I regard as wholly malignant.
However, I rather think that I stand by my point that if, and it is a big if, the UK votes to Leave next week there will not be a fascist coup d'etat and that nothing will change immediately.
Absolutely! I have the same recollection. We've been lied to for 40 years
At what point do you have to take responsibility for informing yourself as a citizen of a democracy? If a politician lies you you, take it out on them, not on the rest of us.
At the time I was a young voter and naively believed that politicians told the truth. This is the first time I've had to reverse that decision.
Here's a moral dilemma, perhaps pb-ers can help me
I am a convinced LEAVER. I have very carefully weighed everything, and have - with great reluctance, and some trepidation - decided that OUT is best for my country, long term. Better for my kids.
I really really wanted Cameron to deliver some proper reform, something close to his Bloomberg aspirations, but he didn't. He came nowhere near. He failed, miserably.
That said, I have lots of friends who are now panicking, some of them are outright terrified. People poorer than me, who won't be able to endure recession or house price falls, the way I can. People worried their jobs will go.
These are people I love. I love my friends. I am about to do something that will very possibly harm them.
What do I do? What is the moral course of action?
Apply a bit of Kantian ethics:
A.) If you act on your conscience, vote Leave and everything's great you're responsible for two morally good acts (the righteous decision and the happy development) and no morally dubious ones.
B.) If you act on your conscience, vote Leave and everything's terrible you're responsible for one morally good act (the righteous decision) and one morally dubious one (the unhappy development).
C.) If you act on your conscience and vote Remain you're responsible for one morally good act (the righteous decision) but that is all - you're voting for the status quo so there's no development because the same situation would have continued if you did nothing.
You need to minimise your chances of ratcheting up morally dubious decisions. Option C can never produce any, A and B may produce none or one. So go with C.
We don't know how many ex-pats in the EU have registered to vote. I think the maximum could not exceed 300,000 (only 106,000 ex-pats in total were registered to vote in 2015). Let's assume they vote 70/30 Remain. That's 120,000 net votes for Remain.
According to this article, 300,000 might be about right:
Here's a moral dilemma, perhaps pb-ers can help me
I am a convinced LEAVER. I have very carefully weighed everything, and have - with great reluctance, and some trepidation - decided that OUT is best for my country, long term. Better for my kids.
I really really wanted Cameron to deliver some proper reform, something close to his Bloomberg aspirations, but he didn't. He came nowhere near. He failed, miserably.
That said, I have lots of friends who are now panicking, some of them are outright terrified. People poorer than me, who won't be able to endure recession or house price falls, the way I can. People worried their jobs will go.
These are people I love. I love my friends. I am about to do something that will very possibly harm them.
What do I do? What is the moral course of action?
Vote Leave. There won't be a recession because we are not going to suddenly pull out, on the 24th it will be gradual. You havetold us you are surrounded by people who are strongly lefty upper middle class remainers and haven't really had a chance to hear from avreage people voting Leave. Please go canvassing in a wwc area to find out why people are voting Leave, it will open ur eyes that this is more than just immigration. Go to Vote leave website, Events and put in London and events will come up it will take 2 hours of your day. I used to be one of those annoying door to door chuggers and it kinda widens ur views, it will give u ideas for writing aswell.
Voting Leave simply gives instructions to our Government to negotiate a looser relationship with the EU based upon the mandate secured by the Leave campaign.
Real politik governs as soon as it's cast. Neither the UK or EU is going to do anything f**king stupid and nor will either side get everything they want.
We will get a sensible plan for gradual withdrawal within the bounds of what is practically possible.
If only such sense prevailed - but what a backlash there'll be when the voters realise they've been duped.
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Somebody better make sure there is a good Steak and Chips ready for when he gets back....
I think my fellow Remainers are getting ahead of themselves. The polls showing Leave ahead are online polls, which are filled with mad Kippers overstuffing internet panels. The phone polls show it too close to call, and many of the rabble voting Leave won't show up.
I'm not sure 4 posts in is a great time to start flinging insults around.
Absolutely. One should clap like a seal, link to the Daily Mail and claim that anyone who thinks the UK is better in the EU is a traitor and/or lower than vermin. Then one will fit in neatly.
Even if, and it is still a big if, the Uk votes to Leave what is, supposedly, a trading arrangement next week
But you know damn well that it's not just a trading arrangement. Brexit would be the biggest shock to European politics since the fall of the Berlin wall. Anyone who says they can predict the consequences is just guessing, and predicting no consequences at all is wishful thinking.
Mr. Glenn, I am sure when I voted in 1975 to stay in I was told that I was voting for a trading arrangement. That there will be consequences to our leaving that trading arrangement I do not doubt. I suspect that they will be less than Project Fear would have me believe, as I have pointed out repeatedly, lots of countries seem to have no problem with trading with EU countries despite not being members of the EU or the single market.
The political side of the EU I regard as wholly malignant.
However, I rather think that I stand by my point that if, and it is a big if, the UK votes to Leave next week there will not be a fascist coup d'etat and that nothing will change immediately.
Absolutely! I have the same recollection. We've been lied to for 40 years
At what point do you have to take responsibility for informing yourself as a citizen of a democracy? If a politician lies you you, take it out on them, not on the rest of us.
At the time I was a young voter and naively believed that politicians told the truth. This is the first time I've had to reverse that decision.
This is what Ted Heath said in 1975:
"What really divides us is that those who are opposing this motion are in fact content to remain with the past development and institutions and organisation of the nation state and those on this side are those who want to move forwards into a new organisation which is going to have greater success in meeting the needs of its peoples than the nation state has done in the past."
What about that was unclear or deceitful? He told the truth, and you weren't listening.
There is a video doing the rounds of English fans teasing refugee children in Lille by throwing coins around them and laughing as they scarper to grab the coin first.
Not good.
No - not good at all. Shameful really.
At the end of the war, my mother was in a column of people heading back to Naples from Rome where they had been sheltering. There were jeeps of American troops driving past and they threw sweets out at the children, not in a taunting way. And my mother said that while it was a nice gesture she also felt humiliated that she had to be scrabbling around in the ground for sweets. That she - an Italian from a good family, from a good life before the war, from a country which had contributed so much to European civilisation - was reduced to being grateful for a few sweets like a beggar.
There may be very good reasons for not letting in all the economic migrants or refugees or asylum seekers. But they are still people. They have feelings. Flaunting their hopelessness in their faces is horrible.
Nope. This thread demonstrates the wobbling from hitherto committed Leavers (and there will be others who feel the same who won't have the courage to declare their worries in the comments either)
I am firm because I think the Government and EU needs instructions and a clear mandate for a better deal, and we will never get one unless we do vote to Leave, as the EU has always shown, and I'm prepared to accept a compromise which will definitely be less integration than we currently have now.
Here's a moral dilemma, perhaps pb-ers can help me
I am a convinced LEAVER. I have very carefully weighed everything, and have - with great reluctance, and some trepidation - decided that OUT is best for my country, long term. Better for my kids.
I really really wanted Cameron to deliver some proper reform, something close to his Bloomberg aspirations, but he didn't. He came nowhere near. He failed, miserably.
That said, I have lots of friends who are now panicking, some of them are outright terrified. People poorer than me, who won't be able to endure recession or house price falls, the way I can. People worried their jobs will go.
These are people I love. I love my friends. I am about to do something that will very possibly harm them.
What do I do? What is the moral course of action?
Philosophers might provide moral guidance.
Bentham would vote Remain - greatest good of the greatest number - not personal interest or gratification.
Kant would vote Remain. Categorical imperative. He also wrote, just after the French Revolution, "The effects which an upheaval in any state [as a result of war with another state] produces upon all the others in our continent, where all are so closely linked by trade, are so perceptible that these other states are forced by their own insecurity to offer themselves as arbiters, albeit without legal authority, so that they indirectly prepare the way for a great political body of the future, without precedence in the past. Although this political body exists for the present only in the roughest of outlines, it nonetheless seems as if a feeling is beginning to stir in all its members, each of which has an interest in maintaining the whole. And this encourages the hope that, after many revolutions, the highest purpose of nature, a universal cosmopolitan existence, will at last be realized as the matrix within which all the original capacities of the human race may develop." Very prescient.
Rawlings would be a Remainer. Wish for a state of the world in which you do not know your position in it rather than based on your existing position.
I think, ethically, Remain has it. Remain has it.
Edit: And another moral philosopher said "Love thy neighbour as thyself."
But, Socrates is voting Leave.
As is Plato. Wisdom of the Ages.
A true tragedy - time to administer the hemlock pronto!
Like I said in the previous thread, the idea that the Swiss have suffered no effect from their decision to restrict free movement is not tenable from science funding pov (a subject which I have some interest in having once, some time ago, been an Italian-based Erasmus researcher with collaborating groups based in various countries including Switzerland)
The effect of EU funding on science in the UK has not been entirely rosy. However, it is certainly true that the UK does very well out of the Science budget at the moment.
EU funding of science has produced extreme winners and extreme losers.
Extreme winners certainly include Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, London (all of which will vote remain). And the Max Planck Institutes in Germany, and the premier Universities and research institutes in the Netherlands, France and Italy.
Losers include most of the UK middle-ranking universities, as well as their counterparts in the Netherlands, France, Italy.
Extreme losers include almost all the universities in Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia and the former Eastern Block.
If you are looking for a scheme that will systematically entrench advantage, and enrich the very best universities, then the EU have that scheme.
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Could actually be a very good move. Clarkson is seen as a little Englander. He's not of course – he's a patriotic Englishman – but also a francophile and very pro-European.
Jeremy Clarkson is a ghastly man. I am shocked he is backing Remain. It is desperate if our side is embracing him.
If Remainers have any political sense whatsoever they will all leave the cabinet and allow a full-Brexit cabinet to take control for the next year. Although it will have little effect on me I believe Brexit will be a big mistake and if I am proved correct then it is essential that Brexiterts are not allowed to wriggle out of being held accountable for the consequences.
If, as I expect, we do sacrifice FoM then it needs to be done by Brexiters so they can face the voters they have duped.
That must be a huge temptation.
"You broke it, you own it"
I asked yesterday for fantasy Brexit cabinet suggestions.
Culture Media and Sport - The Moggster
It would make my life to see Mogg as a Secretary of State - better still, make him Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain!
Here's a moral dilemma, perhaps pb-ers can help me
I am a convinced LEAVER. I have very carefully weighed everything, and have - with great reluctance, and some trepidation - decided that OUT is best for my country, long term. Better for my kids.
I really really wanted Cameron to deliver some proper reform, something close to his Bloomberg aspirations, but he didn't. He came nowhere near. He failed, miserably.
That said, I have lots of friends who are now panicking, some of them are outright terrified. People poorer than me, who won't be able to endure recession or house price falls, the way I can. People worried their jobs will go.
These are people I love. I love my friends. I am about to do something that will very possibly harm them.
What do I do? What is the moral course of action?
Philosophers might provide moral guidance.
Bentham would vote Remain - greatest good of the greatest number - not personal interest or gratification.
Kant would vote Remain. Categorical imperative. He also wrote, just after the French Revolution, "The effects which an upheaval in any state [as a result of war with another state] produces upon all the others in our continent, where all are so closely linked by trade, are so perceptible that these other states are forced by their own insecurity to offer themselves as arbiters, albeit without legal authority, so that they indirectly prepare the way for a great political body of the future, without precedence in the past. Although this political body exists for the present only in the roughest of outlines, it nonetheless seems as if a feeling is beginning to stir in all its members, each of which has an interest in maintaining the whole. And this encourages the hope that, after many revolutions, the highest purpose of nature, a universal cosmopolitan existence, will at last be realized as the matrix within which all the original capacities of the human race may develop." Very prescient.
Rawlings would be a Remainer. Wish for a state of the world in which you do not know your position in it rather than based on your existing position.
I think, ethically, Remain has it. Remain has it.
Edit: And another moral philosopher said "Love thy neighbour as thyself."
As an alumnus of UCL Philosophy (1984, 2:2) I think I can safely say that Bentham would be LEAVE, on my premises.
Fuck your friends, think of the wider utility of the vote, for the nation as a whole.
You're correct that Bentham wasn't into friends - he is thought to have been on the autistic spectrum. But is not clear whether he would have thought the wider utility of the vote for the nation as a whole favoured Leave or Remain. He certainly wouldn't have supported a position based on your personal self-interest.
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Could actually be a very good move. Clarkson is seen as a little Englander. He's not of course – he's a patriotic Englishman – but also a francophile and very pro-European.
Jeremy Clarkson is a ghastly man. I am shocked he is backing Remain. It is desperate if our side is embracing him.
A fair bit has been made of Clarksons friendship with Dave over the years.
@tomholder: So #VoteLeave, on balance, don't appear to trust anyone's advice but their own. Ignorance is bliss. #EUref https://t.co/LubSl1rCo6
Just when leave are gaining traction Bernard Jenkin sends a threatening letter to Mark Carney resulting in a furious response and Farage does only what he can by smiling in front of the poster of human misery
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Could actually be a very good move. Clarkson is seen as a little Englander. He's not of course – he's a patriotic Englishman – but also a francophile and very pro-European.
Now I have this vision that Jeremy Clarkson is going to be the Gordon Brown of this referendum.
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
We don't know how many ex-pats in the EU have registered to vote. I think the maximum could not exceed 300,000 (only 106,000 ex-pats in total were registered to vote in 2015). Let's assume they vote 70/30 Remain. That's 120,000 net votes for Remain.
According to this article, 300,000 might be about right:
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Could actually be a very good move. Clarkson is seen as a little Englander. He's not of course – he's a patriotic Englishman – but also a francophile and very pro-European.
Now I have this vision that Jeremy Clarkson is going to be the Gordon Brown of this referendum.
He could be the John Prescott. It's been a while since someone's punched a voter.
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Could actually be a very good move. Clarkson is seen as a little Englander. He's not of course – he's a patriotic Englishman – but also a francophile and very pro-European.
Jeremy Clarkson is a ghastly man. I am shocked he is backing Remain. It is desperate if our side is embracing him.
And there you sum up the problems for the left in this debate and in politics generally. Are you Emily Thornberry?
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Let's hope he doesn't hit any voters.
Hope so - My only concern is if we substitute Ed M for Cammo and Russell Brand for Clarkson...
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
PS - Inclusion of Northern Ireland in EU Ref opinion polls.
Is Northern Ireland included in these opinion polls? If not, are the pollsters adjusting for this to provide a UK figure or are they just providing GB figures?
They are not and don't adjust for NI, Gibraltar and ex-pats.
Eagles reckons this adds 1.2% to "Remain" whereas @astjohnstone believes it's a quarter of that figure (0.3%). I haven't seen either of their workings.
Well Remain will lose c. 100,000 because of the Glastonbury festival
Surely they've all got their postal votes in ?
50,000 say "what's postal" 50,000 say "what's a vote"
I think my fellow Remainers are getting ahead of themselves. The polls showing Leave ahead are online polls, which are filled with mad Kippers overstuffing internet panels. The phone polls show it too close to call, and many of the rabble voting Leave won't show up.
Since we're in anecdote mode. I've just had two small business men round = 1handyman 1 heating engineer.
The handyman in his 50s wants someone like Thatcher back in charge, seemed quite well across the issues - and wants to vote Leave - he's still not quite sure and wondering about his kids. His daughter in her 20s is voting Leave.
The heating guy is 40s has totally gone off Cameron and hates all the EU paperwork/pretty informed too. He's certain Leave and doing it for his kids who are just coming up to 18.
Both of them talked about having control back, having a strong leader who'd take the country forward. Both concerned about immigration/mentioned knowing totally overqualified EUers doing low skilled work and stopping our youngsters getting jobs.
Most interesting half an hour. I didn't say which way I was voting.
Nope. This thread demonstrates the wobbling from hitherto committed Leavers (and there will be others who feel the same who won't have the courage to declare their worries in the comments either)
I am firm because I think the Government and EU needs instructions and a clear mandate for a better deal, and we will never get one unless we do vote to Leave, as the EU has always shown, and I'm prepared to accept a compromise which will definitely be less integration than we currently have now.
I really wish we could get a view on how the EU would react. Or even some intelligent comment from somewhere on how they might react. Would they be shocked and seek to do a better deal? Or would they breathe a sigh of relief, accept that Britain's participation has not worked out well and wave us goodbye? And if the latter, what sort of a deal would we get?
Nope. This thread demonstrates the wobbling from hitherto committed Leavers (and there will be others who feel the same who won't have the courage to declare their worries in the comments either)
I am firm because I think the Government and EU needs instructions and a clear mandate for a better deal, and we will never get one unless we do vote to Leave, as the EU has always shown, and I'm prepared to accept a compromise which will definitely be less integration than we currently have now.
What do you make Leave's chances to be now? Even allowing for some cold feet it's in a good position, no?
Even if, and it is still a big if, the Uk votes to Leave what is, supposedly, a trading arrangement next week
But you know damn well that it's not just a trading arrangement. Brexit would be the biggest shock to European politics since the fall of the Berlin wall. Anyone who says they can predict the consequences is just guessing, and predicting no consequences at all is wishful thinking.
Mr. Glenn, I am sure when I voted in 1975 to stay in I was told that I was voting for a trading arrangement. That there will be consequences to our leaving that trading arrangement I do not doubt. I suspect that they will be less than Project Fear would have me believe, as I have pointed out repeatedly, lots of countries seem to have no problem with trading with EU countries despite not being members of the EU or the single market.
The political side of the EU I regard as wholly malignant.
However, I rather think that I stand by my point that if, and it is a big if, the UK votes to Leave next week there will not be a fascist coup d'etat and that nothing will change immediately.
Absolutely! I have the same recollection. We've been lied to for 40 years
At what point do you have to take responsibility for informing yourself as a citizen of a democracy? If a politician lies you you, take it out on them, not on the rest of us.
Well this was sort of the Government, not an individual politician. And, believe it or not, Google didn't exist in 1975, nor any real electronic database. At that time people did not believe the Government would lie at a time of peace to promote it's agenda.
So the UK IS taking it out on the Government - after 40 years - revenge is a dish best served cold.
Stark Dawning. You are clearly wrong because your view of 'developments' is crafted solely in economic terms, as Sean T's mates worry about them. There is a much more fundamental moral development around the concept of democracy, agency and the reality or falsehood of 'power for the people'. A Remain vote is very obviously a vote for the establishment, a vote for saying the little people can swivel. The deliberate defiance of authority and the elites and their manifest disdain for the plebs is in and of itself a hugely moral act.
Think of Antigone - the Sophocles original vs Jean Anouilh's rewrite. Sophocles is telling us 'do what's right'. Anouilh is saying 'don't upset the masters'. My advice is go with Sophocles.
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Could actually be a very good move. Clarkson is seen as a little Englander. He's not of course – he's a patriotic Englishman – but also a francophile and very pro-European.
Jeremy Clarkson is a ghastly man. I am shocked he is backing Remain. It is desperate if our side is embracing him.
It's a shitload better than embracing Farage and his disgraceful posters. They would make me both ashamed and embarrassed if I was anything to do with Leave. And I am many Leavers are both.
Like I said in the previous thread, the idea that the Swiss have suffered no effect from their decision to restrict free movement is not tenable from science funding pov (a subject which I have some interest in having once, some time ago, been an Italian-based Erasmus researcher with collaborating groups based in various countries including Switzerland)
The effect of EU funding on science in the UK has not been entirely rosy. However, it is certainly true that the UK does very well out of the Science budget at the moment.
EU funding of science has produced extreme winners and extreme losers.
Extreme winners certainly include Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, London (all of which will vote remain). And the Max Planck Institutes in Germany, and the premier Universities and research institutes in the Netherlands, France and Italy.
Losers include most of the UK middle-ranking universities, as well as their counterparts in the Netherlands, France, Italy.
Extreme losers include almost all the universities in Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia and the former Eastern Block.
If you are looking for a scheme that will systematically entrench advantage, and enrich the very best universities, then the EU have that scheme.
And yet, and yet.
Britain is a net gainer (particularly Russell Group in this case) = unfairly entrenching advantage Britain is a net contributer (to the Eastern block particularly) = outrageous waste of our money
I really wish we could get a view on how the EU would react. Or even some intelligent comment from somewhere on how they might react. Would they be shocked and seek to do a better deal? Or would they breathe a sigh of relief, accept that Britain's participation has not worked out well and wave us goodbye? And if the latter, what sort of a deal would we get?
It's not a monolithic organisation with a set position, it's a combination of 27 other states of differing political persuasions and each with their own interests to defend, a bureaucracy, and a rag-tag parliament with MEPs from all sorts of odd parties. There's no reason to suppose that all those disparate voices will react in the same way.
Even if, and it is still a big if, the Uk votes to Leave what is, supposedly, a trading arrangement next week
But you know damn well that it's not just a trading arrangement. Brexit would be the biggest shock to European politics since the fall of the Berlin wall. Anyone who says they can predict the consequences is just guessing, and predicting no consequences at all is wishful thinking.
Mr. Glenn, I am sure when I voted in 1975 to stay in I was told that I was voting for a trading arrangement. That there will be consequences to our leaving that trading arrangement I do not doubt. I suspect that they will be less than Project Fear would have me believe, as I have pointed out repeatedly, lots of countries seem to have no problem with trading with EU countries despite not being members of the EU or the single market.
The political side of the EU I regard as wholly malignant.
However, I rather think that I stand by my point that if, and it is a big if, the UK votes to Leave next week there will not be a fascist coup d'etat and that nothing will change immediately.
Absolutely! I have the same recollection. We've been lied to for 40 years
At what point do you have to take responsibility for informing yourself as a citizen of a democracy? If a politician lies you you, take it out on them, not on the rest of us.
Well this was sort of the Government, not an individual politician. And, believe it or not, Google didn't exist in 1975, nor any real electronic database. At that time people did not believe the Government would lie at a time of peace to promote it's agenda.
So the UK IS taking it out on the Government - after 40 years - revenge is a dish best served cold.
Since we're in anecdote mode. I've just had two small business men round = 1handyman 1 heating engineer.
The handyman in his 50s wants someone like Thatcher back in charge, seemed quite well across the issues - and wants to vote Leave - he's still not quite sure and wondering about his kids. His daughter in her 20s is voting Leave.
The heating guy is 40s has totally gone off Cameron and hates all the EU paperwork/pretty informed too. He's certain Leave and doing it for his kids who are just coming up to 18.
Both of them talked about having control back, having a strong leader who'd take the country forward. Both concerned about immigration/mentioned knowing totally overqualified EUers doing low skilled work and stopping our youngsters getting jobs.
Most interesting half an hour. I didn't say which way I was voting.
Blimey, we have had various local builders, carpenters, plumbers, electricians etc doing our basement up for the last few weeks. Not one has ever mentioned the referendum. I live in a deep, dark black hole.
Nope. This thread demonstrates the wobbling from hitherto committed Leavers (and there will be others who feel the same who won't have the courage to declare their worries in the comments either)
I am firm because I think the Government and EU needs instructions and a clear mandate for a better deal, and we will never get one unless we do vote to Leave, as the EU has always shown, and I'm prepared to accept a compromise which will definitely be less integration than we currently have now.
What do you make Leave's chances to be now? Even allowing for some cold feet it's in a good position, no?
I also wouldn't read too much into how PBers are voting, we're not really typical of the electorate at large.
Like I said in the previous thread, the idea that the Swiss have suffered no effect from their decision to restrict free movement is not tenable from science funding pov (a subject which I have some interest in having once, some time ago, been an Italian-based Erasmus researcher with collaborating groups based in various countries including Switzerland)
The effect of EU funding on science in the UK has not been entirely rosy. However, it is certainly true that the UK does very well out of the Science budget at the moment.
EU funding of science has produced extreme winners and extreme losers.
Extreme winners certainly include Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, London (all of which will vote remain). And the Max Planck Institutes in Germany, and the premier Universities and research institutes in the Netherlands, France and Italy.
Losers include most of the UK middle-ranking universities, as well as their counterparts in the Netherlands, France, Italy.
Extreme losers include almost all the universities in Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia and the former Eastern Block.
If you are looking for a scheme that will systematically entrench advantage, and enrich the very best universities, then the EU have that scheme.
I think that's true in other areas as well. Much like the premier league has feeder clubs, we've reached a stage where the EU has feeder countries (depending on sector of course). We had an article earlier this week about the impact of Brexit on London as a tech hub (it's the global #7 for VC funding).
That's great for London, but it does suppress or at least inhibit the growth of other tech hubs (we can look to the US for our examples, after decades of effort the Bay/Valley area still dominates the startup scene).
I'm not sure it applies to immigration. We're the beneficiary of current immigration flows, which (pick your poison) is either filling us full of unemployable furriners, or attracting the very best and brightest across Europe.
If those flows are purely transactional (i.e. based on the UK's out-performance of much of the EU's continental economies) then we're going to be in real trouble if those flows reverse post-Brexit.
Seguing into an entirely unrelated point, that's why I fucking hate Farage so much. Immigrants are welcome, very welcome to come here and contribute; it's simply a matter of the scale that bothers people. If we scare people enough to send them back to Krakow or wherever, that's bad on many levels. He really should shut up for the next week.
Uh-oh we've entered that short period before any given election when SeanT shares his vacillations
lol. I know. I'm an idiot.
But surely I'm not the only one with moral collywobbles. This is probably the most serious decision I will make in my life, as a voter. And there ARE grave risks, on both sides.
The closer we get to achieving our goals and dreams the more internal resistance we face.
Nope. This thread demonstrates the wobbling from hitherto committed Leavers (and there will be others who feel the same who won't have the courage to declare their worries in the comments either)
I am firm because I think the Government and EU needs instructions and a clear mandate for a better deal, and we will never get one unless we do vote to Leave, as the EU has always shown, and I'm prepared to accept a compromise which will definitely be less integration than we currently have now.
I really wish we could get a view on how the EU would react. Or even some intelligent comment from somewhere on how they might react. Would they be shocked and seek to do a better deal? Or would they breathe a sigh of relief, accept that Britain's participation has not worked out well and wave us goodbye? And if the latter, what sort of a deal would we get?
I think the threat of contagion may shift their rigid minset. How long before other countries show big demand for a vote of their own? Surely quite a question mark over Sweden and Denmark. Brussels will buckle imo if faced with disaster. LEAVE may result in meaningful reform for the benefit of all.
I really wish we could get a view on how the EU would react. Or even some intelligent comment from somewhere on how they might react. Would they be shocked and seek to do a better deal? Or would they breathe a sigh of relief, accept that Britain's participation has not worked out well and wave us goodbye? And if the latter, what sort of a deal would we get?
It's not a monolithic organisation with a set position, it's a combination of 27 other states of differing political persuasions and each with their own interests to defend, a bureaucracy, and a rag-tag parliament with MEPs from all sorts of odd parties. There's no reason to suppose that all those disparate voices will react in the same way.
Indeed but I think a number of people will start looking at us and the world differently, in what could either be a good or a bad way. There are a set of underlying assumptions dating back to the 1950s that are viewed as infallible and unchangeable. Our leaving might just be the jolt needed for the EU to start to adapt towards the 21st century.
I really wish we could get a view on how the EU would react. Or even some intelligent comment from somewhere on how they might react. Would they be shocked and seek to do a better deal? Or would they breathe a sigh of relief, accept that Britain's participation has not worked out well and wave us goodbye? And if the latter, what sort of a deal would we get?
It's not a monolithic organisation with a set position, it's a combination of 27 other states of differing political persuasions and each with their own interests to defend, a bureaucracy, and a rag-tag parliament with MEPs from all sorts of odd parties. There's no reason to suppose that all those disparate voices will react in the same way.
If we vote for Brexit then the shadow of De Gaulle's veto will hang over our relations with the continent for evermore. They'll all say he was right and that we should never have been allowed in.
Here's a moral dilemma, perhaps pb-ers can help me
I am a convinced LEAVER. I have very carefully weighed everything, and have - with great reluctance, and some trepidation - decided that OUT is best for my country, long term. Better for my kids.
I really really wanted Cameron to deliver some proper reform, something close to his Bloomberg aspirations, but he didn't. He came nowhere near. He failed, miserably.
That said, I have lots of friends who are now panicking, some of them are outright terrified. People poorer than me, who won't be able to endure recession or house price falls, the way I can. People worried their jobs will go.
These are people I love. I love my friends. I am about to do something that will very possibly harm them.
What do I do? What is the moral course of action?
Apply a bit of Kantian ethics:
A.) If you act on your conscience, vote Leave and everything's great you're responsible for two morally good acts (the righteous decision and the happy development) and no morally dubious ones.
B.) If you act on your conscience, vote Leave and everything's terrible you're responsible for one morally good act (the righteous decision) and one morally dubious one (the unhappy development).
C.) If you act on your conscience and vote Remain you're responsible for one morally good act (the righteous decision) but that is all - you're voting for the status quo so there's no development because the same situation would have continued if you did nothing.
You need to minimise your chances of ratcheting up morally dubious decisions. Option C can never produce any, A and B may produce none or one. So go with C.
Vote REMAIN.
But your C- option is based on a false premise - there is no status quo - there will be development as the EU pushes for ever closer union and we get caught in the suck.
Sean is totally going to bottle voting Leave. Spineless.
No, I'm not (I don't think). I won't know until the day, I reckon.
But I'd be lying if I said I'm untroubled. This vote pains me, greatly. And if LEAVE wins any triumph I feel will be bitterly tempered by the sadness and anxiety of friends and family.
We're overdue a recession in any case, the euro area is going to be mired in crisis from July regardless, goodness knows how the Chinese corporate debt problem is going to be resolved and the USA might elect Donald Trump as president: none of this will be your fault no matter how you vote on the 23rd.
In essence Winter Is Coming, do you want to huddle together in Europe for warmth or look to sunnier climates for opportunities?
Why is the Eurozone going to be mired in crisis from July?
Two main reasons - 1) I think there is something in the Lehman-Deutsche analog occasionally posted by zero hedge. The UK referendum is providing a helpful distraction to buy time for DB, but they have a lot of restructuring to do still. Negative rates on Bunds cannot be helping this situation. Their Q2 results will be released on 27th July.
2) I don't think the deal agreed with Greece two weeks ago to repay debt with more debt actually remedies the situation, the country needs significantly more debt forgiveness to really put the crisis behind them. Reports in the media have suggested that the government wants to get back to business as usual ASAP though. If capital controls are further eased, you could be back to seeing capital flight that caused issues before.
Furthermore, I think that 2) reinforces 1) as people moving money from Greece will scrutinise the safety of where their money is going. Maybe July is too early, but I don't see that the banking problems have been solved, just postponed.
Like I said in the previous thread, the idea that the Swiss have suffered no effect from their decision to restrict free movement is not tenable from science funding pov (a subject which I have some interest in having once, some time ago, been an Italian-based Erasmus researcher with collaborating groups based in various countries including Switzerland)
The effect of EU funding on science in the UK has not been entirely rosy. However, it is certainly true that the UK does very well out of the Science budget at the moment.
EU funding of science has produced extreme winners and extreme losers.
Extreme winners certainly include Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, London (all of which will vote remain). And the Max Planck Institutes in Germany, and the premier Universities and research institutes in the Netherlands, France and Italy.
Losers include most of the UK middle-ranking universities, as well as their counterparts in the Netherlands, France, Italy.
Extreme losers include almost all the universities in Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia and the former Eastern Block.
If you are looking for a scheme that will systematically entrench advantage, and enrich the very best universities, then the EU have that scheme.
And yet, and yet.
Britain is a net gainer (particularly Russell Group in this case) = unfairly entrenching advantage Britain is a net contributer (to the Eastern block particularly) = outrageous waste of our money
Having it both ways??
Why don’t you ignore the referendum, and tell me how you think you could design a science policy that would create first class science research institutes in Sofia or in Lisbon or in Warsaw?
Isn’t that what a good European should want ?
So, how do we do it ?
And isn’t that what the EU should be trying to do ?
Blimey, we have had various local builders, carpenters, plumbers, electricians etc doing our basement up for the last few weeks. Not one has ever mentioned the referendum. I live in a deep, dark black hole.
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Could actually be a very good move. Clarkson is seen as a little Englander. He's not of course – he's a patriotic Englishman – but also a francophile and very pro-European.
Jeremy Clarkson is a ghastly man. I am shocked he is backing Remain. It is desperate if our side is embracing him.
It's a shitload better than embracing Farage and his disgraceful posters. They would make me both ashamed and embarrassed if I was anything to do with Leave. And I am many Leavers are both.
If BoJo or Gove embrace those posters in the same way as Cameron is embracing Clarkson then you're right. So far I've only seen a poster with Farage stood by himself in front of it, the absence of anyone let alone anyone senior from Vote Leave is quite encouraging.
Clarkson would be more useful if people knew he wasnt a posh millionaire. They love his banter and his lack of political correctness but this will do more harm to his image than voter swaying I would imagine. I'm also surprised this is happening today. All referendum news is going to be swept away by the football.
Owen Jones @OwenJones84 Senior Remain figure expects poll swingback "unless the world's turned on its head." It has. Look at politics in the US, Europe and the UK.
Nope. This thread demonstrates the wobbling from hitherto committed Leavers (and there will be others who feel the same who won't have the courage to declare their worries in the comments either)
I am firm because I think the Government and EU needs instructions and a clear mandate for a better deal, and we will never get one unless we do vote to Leave, as the EU has always shown, and I'm prepared to accept a compromise which will definitely be less integration than we currently have now.
I really wish we could get a view on how the EU would react. Or even some intelligent comment from somewhere on how they might react. Would they be shocked and seek to do a better deal? Or would they breathe a sigh of relief, accept that Britain's participation has not worked out well and wave us goodbye? And if the latter, what sort of a deal would we get?
I don't see a strong desire to compromise to get a decision to leave reversed.
It will be a shock to the EU to lose a prominent member. There will be an unsettled period where they want to shore up any further doubts. That could could go either way: more internal integration or less.
Negotiations with the UK will go the normal EU horsetrading route. Each country will look for something from the UK: France, Ireland and the Netherlands - a chunk of London's financial services; Germany - the freedom to keep selling cars; Spain - tariffs on British fish imports and so on. This will add up to a very unattractive deal for the UK so there will be some haggling to improve it a bit. I have no doubt there will be a deal, but the EU is control of the process and the timetable and needs the deal less than we do (they will get quite a few of these things by default without a deal).
I think we need to assume it won't be a very good deal from our point of view.
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Could actually be a very good move. Clarkson is seen as a little Englander. He's not of course – he's a patriotic Englishman – but also a francophile and very pro-European.
Jeremy Clarkson is a ghastly man. I am shocked he is backing Remain. It is desperate if our side is embracing him.
It's a shitload better than embracing Farage and his disgraceful posters. They would make me both ashamed and embarrassed if I was anything to do with Leave. And I am many Leavers are both.
If BoJo or Gove embrace those posters in the same way as Cameron is embracing Clarkson then you're right. So far I've only seen a poster with Farage stood by himself in front of it, the absence of anyone let alone anyone senior from Vote Leave is quite encouraging.
Not enough. Gove needs to condemn it utterly, or be condemned himself by association.
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Could actually be a very good move. Clarkson is seen as a little Englander. He's not of course – he's a patriotic Englishman – but also a francophile and very pro-European.
Jeremy Clarkson is a ghastly man. I am shocked he is backing Remain. It is desperate if our side is embracing him.
It's a shitload better than embracing Farage and his disgraceful posters. They would make me both ashamed and embarrassed if I was anything to do with Leave. And I am many Leavers are both.
Can you not take a small step back, and realise how farcically feeble minded it is to make a decision, or indeed hold an opinion, on any issue of importance, due to the fact that someone you disapprove of holds the opposite opinion. I don't give a flying **** what anyone I dislike's opinion on Brexit is. If they want to join me, fine - good for them being right for once. Conversely I don't care if someone who I like off the tellybox tells me they're voting the opposite way to me.
It's a damning endightment of Remain that all they can hurl at the public, apart from apocalyptic prophecies of doom, is this patronising identity politics. It's treating the public as fools. And on balance, it will probably work with the much of the public, but please don't come here and try it out on people who are politically savvy.
Is Kate Hoey still a part of the Farage Leave campaign? If so, she should either immediately disown that poster or be expelled from the Labour party. That poster is among the most disgusting I have ever seen. Absolutely repulsive. What a revolting man Nigel Farage is, standing there grinning in front of something that demonises people fleeing from mass-murdering psychopaths.
PS - Inclusion of Northern Ireland in EU Ref opinion polls.
Is Northern Ireland included in these opinion polls? If not, are the pollsters adjusting for this to provide a UK figure or are they just providing GB figures?
They are not and don't adjust for NI, Gibraltar and ex-pats.
Eagles reckons this adds 1.2% to "Remain" whereas @astjohnstone believes it's a quarter of that figure (0.3%). I haven't seen either of their workings.
Well Remain will lose c. 100,000 because of the Glastonbury festival
Surely they've all got their postal votes in ?
50,000 say "what's postal" 50,000 say "what's a vote"
Haha!!!
I'm pretty happy about Leave's position right now. Barring anything significant, and I don't include Jeremy Clarkson in that, it's looking good.
Is Kate Hoey still a part of the Farage Leave campaign? If so, she should either immediately disown that poster or be expelled from the Labour party. That poster is among the most disgusting I have ever seen. Absolutely repulsive. What a revolting man Nigel Farage is, standing there grinning in front of something that demonises people fleeing from mass-murdering psychopaths.
Owen Jones @OwenJones84 Senior Remain figure expects poll swingback "unless the world's turned on its head." It has. Look at politics in the US, Europe and the UK.
In the US, Hillary is 11pts clear. After swinging back...
Is Kate Hoey still a part of the Farage Leave campaign? If so, she should either immediately disown that poster or be expelled from the Labour party. That poster is among the most disgusting I have ever seen. Absolutely repulsive. What a revolting man Nigel Farage is, standing there grinning in front of something that demonises people fleeing from mass-murdering psychopaths.
Fleeing from the mass-murdering psychopaths of Eastern Europe?
Nope. This thread demonstrates the wobbling from hitherto committed Leavers (and there will be others who feel the same who won't have the courage to declare their worries in the comments either)
I am firm because I think the Government and EU needs instructions and a clear mandate for a better deal, and we will never get one unless we do vote to Leave, as the EU has always shown, and I'm prepared to accept a compromise which will definitely be less integration than we currently have now.
I really wish we could get a view on how the EU would react. Or even some intelligent comment from somewhere on how they might react. Would they be shocked and seek to do a better deal? Or would they breathe a sigh of relief, accept that Britain's participation has not worked out well and wave us goodbye? And if the latter, what sort of a deal would we get?
Right now it's in everyone's interests to maximise talk up that it'd be disaster. That's really the only way Remain can secure the vote.
But it is a weakness of Leave that we don't have a deal on the table, and we never will have. All Leave can do is set out a negotiating position and achieve a mandate.
Based upon what I've heard and read over recent days (not least of which from rcs) I am confident if it is the latter it would be EEA-EFTA, or a looser form of associate membership. Leave aren't going to win hands down so it will be gradual and proportionate.
The Government isn't going to do anything stupid and the EU will have to engage constructively with reality.
By contrast, I really fear if we Remain. Things have gone too far now and, if we collectively bottle it, I think we'd be treated with near outright contempt in future wherever we had objections.
The actual method for voting, as opposed to registering, is not entirely straightforward. There are two ways to vote other than returning home in person. One is postal, the other is proxy. Application for both processes have now expired: well technically I think proxy can run up to tonight.
I reckon 'turnout' amongst expats will be a small fraction of that 300,000.
Is Kate Hoey still a part of the Farage Leave campaign? If so, she should either immediately disown that poster or be expelled from the Labour party. That poster is among the most disgusting I have ever seen. Absolutely repulsive. What a revolting man Nigel Farage is, standing there grinning in front of something that demonises people fleeing from mass-murdering psychopaths.
I looked at it and winced. Then looked at it again and thought back over so many conversations with voters both during the GE campaign and more recently. And concluded the poster probably gets it right for its audience.
Is Kate Hoey still a part of the Farage Leave campaign? If so, she should either immediately disown that poster or be expelled from the Labour party. That poster is among the most disgusting I have ever seen. Absolutely repulsive. What a revolting man Nigel Farage is, standing there grinning in front of something that demonises people fleeing from mass-murdering psychopaths.
If Hoey doesn't disown it by tonight she should be ejected from the party within 24 hours.
@BethRigby: BREAK: @JeremyClarkson to join Cameron on campaign trail today - former #TopGear man, reaching the voters that others #remainers can't reach
Could actually be a very good move. Clarkson is seen as a little Englander. He's not of course – he's a patriotic Englishman – but also a francophile and very pro-European.
Jeremy Clarkson is a ghastly man. I am shocked he is backing Remain. It is desperate if our side is embracing him.
It's a shitload better than embracing Farage and his disgraceful posters. They would make me both ashamed and embarrassed if I was anything to do with Leave. And I am many Leavers are both.
If BoJo or Gove embrace those posters in the same way as Cameron is embracing Clarkson then you're right. So far I've only seen a poster with Farage stood by himself in front of it, the absence of anyone let alone anyone senior from Vote Leave is quite encouraging.
Not enough. Gove needs to condemn it utterly, or be condemned himself by association.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges 58s59 seconds ago People tweeting, "why are you still confident". 2 facts. 1) Leave lead around 2%. 2) Average swing back to status quo is usually 2%-3%.
Since we're in anecdote mode. I've just had two small business men round = 1handyman 1 heating engineer.
The handyman in his 50s wants someone like Thatcher back in charge, seemed quite well across the issues - and wants to vote Leave - he's still not quite sure and wondering about his kids. His daughter in her 20s is voting Leave.
The heating guy is 40s has totally gone off Cameron and hates all the EU paperwork/pretty informed too. He's certain Leave and doing it for his kids who are just coming up to 18.
Both of them talked about having control back, having a strong leader who'd take the country forward. Both concerned about immigration/mentioned knowing totally overqualified EUers doing low skilled work and stopping our youngsters getting jobs.
Most interesting half an hour. I didn't say which way I was voting.
Blimey, we have had various local builders, carpenters, plumbers, electricians etc doing our basement up for the last few weeks. Not one has ever mentioned the referendum. I live in a deep, dark black hole.
Nope I think you are in the real world - just feel sorry for the poor handyman and heating engineer referred to being ranted at instead of allowed to do their work.
Is Kate Hoey still a part of the Farage Leave campaign? If so, she should either immediately disown that poster or be expelled from the Labour party. That poster is among the most disgusting I have ever seen. Absolutely repulsive. What a revolting man Nigel Farage is, standing there grinning in front of something that demonises people fleeing from mass-murdering psychopaths.
Agreed it is a revolting poster. Remain's best hope is the continuing desire for Farage to hog the limelight. It is no coincidence the Leave bounce followed that ITV debate where Boris, Gisela and Andrea featured for Leave. Farage I'm pleased to say is doing his best to reverse the uptick.
Nope. This thread demonstrates the wobbling from hitherto committed Leavers (and there will be others who feel the same who won't have the courage to declare their worries in the comments either)
I am firm because I think the Government and EU needs instructions and a clear mandate for a better deal, and we will never get one unless we do vote to Leave, as the EU has always shown, and I'm prepared to accept a compromise which will definitely be less integration than we currently have now.
What do you make Leave's chances to be now? Even allowing for some cold feet it's in a good position, no?
I think Leave wins under the radar or not at all.
I am not optimistic. I'd say 55%-60% chance of Remain.
Is Kate Hoey still a part of the Farage Leave campaign? If so, she should either immediately disown that poster or be expelled from the Labour party. That poster is among the most disgusting I have ever seen. Absolutely repulsive. What a revolting man Nigel Farage is, standing there grinning in front of something that demonises people fleeing from mass-murdering psychopaths.
She was on the boat with Nige yesterday, so I'd guess yes, very much still part of the Farage campaign.
Is Kate Hoey still a part of the Farage Leave campaign? If so, she should either immediately disown that poster or be expelled from the Labour party. That poster is among the most disgusting I have ever seen. Absolutely repulsive. What a revolting man Nigel Farage is, standing there grinning in front of something that demonises people fleeing from mass-murdering psychopaths.
I looked at it and winced. Then looked at it again and thought back over so many conversations with voters both during the GE campaign and more recently. And concluded the poster probably gets it right for its audience.
A utilitarian view on ethics for the EU debate is this.
Remainers are for total utilitarianism whereas Leavers are for average utilitarianism. The two have been used to think about optimum population sizes, in economics.
The difference? A bit like the difference between GDP and GDP per capita.
If we increase our population it increases our GDP overall but it has the potential to drive down GDP per capita. Particularly if those coming in are low skilled. We could end up with the 'repugnant conclusion' - whereby we increase our GDP by a LOT but we have lots and lots of people with a tiny bit of income/utility.
People in the real world understand this philosophical abstract in real-life. They recognise quite easily that with finite resources, more people simply leads to pressure on housing, schooling and the NHS which drives everyone's quality of life down. Therefore they are average utilitarians. This can happen at the same time as the economy growing - sound familiar?
The government, big business and those who can cream it off at the top are total utilitarians.
For what it is worth, Bentham would be for total, JS Mill for average IMO.
Comments
I do wonder, if we remain narrowly, whether the UK could influence the EU into developing a wide ranging global associate scheme - an out-of-the box trade deal on offer to countries who meet certain standards on democracy, rule of law and corruption, renewable on a 5-year cycle (or similar).
Not only for the third-world you understand, but Remain's position still being shaky whatever the result, to provide a ready lifeboat in the event of Brexit. I have no problem whatsoever, as a Remain supporter, in putting the UK into a better position for Brexit at some future date.
In an unjust city-state, one groups's gain is another 's loss, the powerful exploit the weak, and the city-state is divided against itself. To make sure that the polis doesn't descend into the chaos of ruthless self-interest, Socrates says that philosophers must rule, for only they will pursue what is truly good, not just what is good for themselves. [Republic 475]
Plato was an elistist Remainer.
A.) If you act on your conscience, vote Leave and everything's great you're responsible for two morally good acts (the righteous decision and the happy development) and no morally dubious ones.
B.) If you act on your conscience, vote Leave and everything's terrible you're responsible for one morally good act (the righteous decision) and one morally dubious one (the unhappy development).
C.) If you act on your conscience and vote Remain you're responsible for one morally good act (the righteous decision) but that is all - you're voting for the status quo so there's no development because the same situation would have continued if you did nothing.
You need to minimise your chances of ratcheting up morally dubious decisions. Option C can never produce any, A and B may produce none or one. So go with C.
Vote REMAIN.
http://www.connexionfrance.com/expat-voters-overseas-registration-Electoral-Commission-view-article.html
I think they'd probably split more towards Remain than 70/30, however.
"What really divides us is that those who are opposing this motion are in fact content to remain with the past development and institutions and organisation of the nation state and those on this side are those who want to move forwards into a new organisation which is going to have greater success in meeting the needs of its peoples than the nation state has done in the past."
What about that was unclear or deceitful? He told the truth, and you weren't listening.
At the end of the war, my mother was in a column of people heading back to Naples from Rome where they had been sheltering. There were jeeps of American troops driving past and they threw sweets out at the children, not in a taunting way. And my mother said that while it was a nice gesture she also felt humiliated that she had to be scrabbling around in the ground for sweets. That she - an Italian from a good family, from a good life before the war, from a country which had contributed so much to European civilisation - was reduced to being grateful for a few sweets like a beggar.
There may be very good reasons for not letting in all the economic migrants or refugees or asylum seekers. But they are still people. They have feelings. Flaunting their hopelessness in their faces is horrible.
I am firm because I think the Government and EU needs instructions and a clear mandate for a better deal, and we will never get one unless we do vote to Leave, as the EU has always shown, and I'm prepared to accept a compromise which will definitely be less integration than we currently have now.
EU funding of science has produced extreme winners and extreme losers.
Extreme winners certainly include Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, London (all of which will vote remain). And the Max Planck Institutes in Germany, and the premier Universities and research institutes in the Netherlands, France and Italy.
Losers include most of the UK middle-ranking universities, as well as their counterparts in the Netherlands, France, Italy.
Extreme losers include almost all the universities in Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia and the former Eastern Block.
If you are looking for a scheme that will systematically entrench advantage, and enrich the very best universities, then the EU have that scheme.
We are in the peak pre-vote 'wobble'....
I imagine this is basically a personal favour.
Polls now herded around too close to call.
Party like it's 2015 again.
50,000 say "what's a vote"
The handyman in his 50s wants someone like Thatcher back in charge, seemed quite well across the issues - and wants to vote Leave - he's still not quite sure and wondering about his kids. His daughter in her 20s is voting Leave.
The heating guy is 40s has totally gone off Cameron and hates all the EU paperwork/pretty informed too. He's certain Leave and doing it for his kids who are just coming up to 18.
Both of them talked about having control back, having a strong leader who'd take the country forward. Both concerned about immigration/mentioned knowing totally overqualified EUers doing low skilled work and stopping our youngsters getting jobs.
Most interesting half an hour. I didn't say which way I was voting.
@tnewtondunn: "James and I only agree on 3 things: sandwich spread, the old Subaru Legacy, and Britain staying in" @JeremyClarkson
https://t.co/btMzNvuWiE
So the UK IS taking it out on the Government - after 40 years - revenge is a dish best served cold.
Think of Antigone - the Sophocles original vs Jean Anouilh's rewrite. Sophocles is telling us 'do what's right'. Anouilh is saying 'don't upset the masters'. My advice is go with Sophocles.
Britain is a net gainer (particularly Russell Group in this case) = unfairly entrenching advantage
Britain is a net contributer (to the Eastern block particularly) = outrageous waste of our money
Having it both ways??
That's great for London, but it does suppress or at least inhibit the growth of other tech hubs (we can look to the US for our examples, after decades of effort the Bay/Valley area still dominates the startup scene).
I'm not sure it applies to immigration. We're the beneficiary of current immigration flows, which (pick your poison) is either filling us full of unemployable furriners, or attracting the very best and brightest across Europe.
If those flows are purely transactional (i.e. based on the UK's out-performance of much of the EU's continental economies) then we're going to be in real trouble if those flows reverse post-Brexit.
Seguing into an entirely unrelated point, that's why I fucking hate Farage so much. Immigrants are welcome, very welcome to come here and contribute; it's simply a matter of the scale that bothers people. If we scare people enough to send them back to Krakow or wherever, that's bad on many levels. He really should shut up for the next week.
1) I think there is something in the Lehman-Deutsche analog occasionally posted by zero hedge. The UK referendum is providing a helpful distraction to buy time for DB, but they have a lot of restructuring to do still. Negative rates on Bunds cannot be helping this situation. Their Q2 results will be released on 27th July.
2) I don't think the deal agreed with Greece two weeks ago to repay debt with more debt actually remedies the situation, the country needs significantly more debt forgiveness to really put the crisis behind them. Reports in the media have suggested that the government wants to get back to business as usual ASAP though. If capital controls are further eased, you could be back to seeing capital flight that caused issues before.
Furthermore, I think that 2) reinforces 1) as people moving money from Greece will scrutinise the safety of where their money is going. Maybe July is too early, but I don't see that the banking problems have been solved, just postponed.
Isn’t that what a good European should want ?
So, how do we do it ?
And isn’t that what the EU should be trying to do ?
Apropos of nothing - "Brexit Would Be ‘Disaster,’ Deutsche Bank’s Chairman Says"
Senior Remain figure expects poll swingback "unless the world's turned on its head." It has. Look at politics in the US, Europe and the UK.
Corbyn tells me he's been 'depressed' by referendum campaign and how it's focused on immigration
Dear God Corbyn.... don't you ever go outside Islington?
It will be a shock to the EU to lose a prominent member. There will be an unsettled period where they want to shore up any further doubts. That could could go either way: more internal integration or less.
Negotiations with the UK will go the normal EU horsetrading route. Each country will look for something from the UK: France, Ireland and the Netherlands - a chunk of London's financial services; Germany - the freedom to keep selling cars; Spain - tariffs on British fish imports and so on. This will add up to a very unattractive deal for the UK so there will be some haggling to improve it a bit. I have no doubt there will be a deal, but the EU is control of the process and the timetable and needs the deal less than we do (they will get quite a few of these things by default without a deal).
I think we need to assume it won't be a very good deal from our point of view.
It's a damning endightment of Remain that all they can hurl at the public, apart from apocalyptic prophecies of doom, is this patronising identity politics. It's treating the public as fools. And on balance, it will probably work with the much of the public, but please don't come here and try it out on people who are politically savvy.
I'm pretty happy about Leave's position right now. Barring anything significant, and I don't include Jeremy Clarkson in that, it's looking good.
But, yes, it won't be great for London, or for the UK generally.
Average of last five online polls: Leave 52.0%, Remain 48.0%.
But it is a weakness of Leave that we don't have a deal on the table, and we never will have. All Leave can do is set out a negotiating position and achieve a mandate.
Based upon what I've heard and read over recent days (not least of which from rcs) I am confident if it is the latter it would be EEA-EFTA, or a looser form of associate membership. Leave aren't going to win hands down so it will be gradual and proportionate.
The Government isn't going to do anything stupid and the EU will have to engage constructively with reality.
By contrast, I really fear if we Remain. Things have gone too far now and, if we collectively bottle it,
I think we'd be treated with near outright contempt in future wherever we had objections.
The actual method for voting, as opposed to registering, is not entirely straightforward. There are two ways to vote other than returning home in person. One is postal, the other is proxy. Application for both processes have now expired: well technically I think proxy can run up to tonight.
I reckon 'turnout' amongst expats will be a small fraction of that 300,000.
Gibraltar is a different story.
Even many Leavers are disgusted by it.
People tweeting, "why are you still confident". 2 facts. 1) Leave lead around 2%. 2) Average swing back to status quo is usually 2%-3%.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html
I am not optimistic. I'd say 55%-60% chance of Remain.
Damn! Their lies are better than our lies!
Remainers are for total utilitarianism whereas Leavers are for average utilitarianism. The two have been used to think about optimum population sizes, in economics.
The difference? A bit like the difference between GDP and GDP per capita.
If we increase our population it increases our GDP overall but it has the potential to drive down GDP per capita. Particularly if those coming in are low skilled. We could end up with the 'repugnant conclusion' - whereby we increase our GDP by a LOT but we have lots and lots of people with a tiny bit of income/utility.
People in the real world understand this philosophical abstract in real-life. They recognise quite easily that with finite resources, more people simply leads to pressure on housing, schooling and the NHS which drives everyone's quality of life down. Therefore they are average utilitarians. This can happen at the same time as the economy growing - sound familiar?
The government, big business and those who can cream it off at the top are total utilitarians.
For what it is worth, Bentham would be for total, JS Mill for average IMO.