Logic for Leave?

Brexit
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You say the remain voters knew what they were voting for - it was the status quo, but is that really true. Did we know that an EU army was to be put together, a greater federalisation of the EU, closer and closer tax regime, centralisation of most of the administration and probably more compulsory taking of immigrants. I am sure there are other things that we don’t know about at this stage but one thing is for sure, it would not have been the status quo. The EU is constantly changing and would not have stayed as it was as of June 2016. We were not told of any future changes, good or bad and insufficient discussion and lack of real true facts on both sides have left us with the mess we are in today. I just hope that sense prevails and we can come to a satisfactory agreement to suit both sides.

The people of Britain must have had concerns over the future of the EU as so many (and not all unintelligent or thick) voted to leave.

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If we are not told about these things how do you know about them?

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Elizabeth’s argument could be used in every GE as we usually vote for a particular party based on their manifesto, in the referendum the Leave side didn’t have one and still don’t.

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If we must have an army in modern times to defend Europe of which the United Kingdom is geographically and in many other important respects an integral part, what’s wrong with an integrated army? Wars don’t seem to have much respect for national boundaries; on the contrary, they seem to provoke and incite them.

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What’s the problem with an EU army? It’d be seperate to each country’s own army like the foreign legion is seperate to the French army. The foreign legion is like an EU army.
Closer tax regime can only be a good thing for the common man. It is too much of a coincidence that the idea of a referendum came about when the EU government said that it would do more to stop tax evasion by stashing profits in tax havens.
I agree that not all leavers were thick. Most were, some were gullible, xenophobic and the rest stand to make profits if we leave.

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There needs to be a bulwark in Europe against Russia.
Simples.

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I have absolutely NO problem with an EU army (or air force or navy come to that!)

Spending on defence for an individual country these days is un-affordable and, although we would all love eternal peace and harmony, the need for defence today is as great as it ever was. Diplomacy and cow-towing to the despots isnt going to make them behave. Europe needs a strong defence force - no one country can afford it and no one country should be expected to.

To form a deterrent to the USSR back in the Cold War, it was left to France, UK and USA to form that role. The EU cannot and does not expect that situation to be resurrected again to counter new threats from the East. It is entirely sensible that they raise a defence force from the countries that stand to gain from the protection that force can give.

I am completely baffled by the stance of some people to the objection to this proposal - what is there to worry about??? Are they afraid that a combined army of France and Germany will want to ‘finish business’ with the UK that was left undone from the Napoleonic Wars and WWII??? I wouldnt be surprised…

Nurse!!! Bring on the medication…

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I don’t know whether @Elizabeth_Cox is going to answer your perfectly reasonable question David, but she will surely be aware that she has an MEP who will willingly give her any information she wants about any aspect of EU policy that concerns or interests her, whether in her own European Parliamentary constituency, or more widely. And he/she will point her to sources of information on issues, or developments, that she needs to know of, and be pleased to do so, at a face-to-face meeting by mutual agreement if requested.

The idea that people don’t or can’t know about the EU is just a slogan adopted by people who can’t be bothered to think, or are too lazy-minded to do the civically responsible thing and find out. Like some Brexiteers, perhaps?

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I live in west London and voted Leave. I am not a racist, an idiot or confused. I am tired of some people that voted remain or would have if they lived in Britain keep calling leavers idiots etc the usual school ground name calling. I voted leave because i became concerned at the vast amount of immigrants from EU country’s arriving in such numbers in such a short period of time. This has put massive amount of pressure on local services like schools and housing. I dont blame the immigrants i know if i lived in an eastern European country i know where i would go. I dont belive you can have country’s in the same group/club where national average wage in one is €510 per month and another is €2200, how can that be fair. Not for one minute did i believe the NHS bus or listen to Boris etc. I looked at my local community, saw what was happening and decided my vote. I guess the problem was the outcome was so close 52-48 so there are going to be 48% of people fighting to stop Brexit. But please stop calling all leavers idiots etc name calling belittles your opinions.

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Torre, leaving the EU will not stop the number of immigrants entering the UK, they’ll just come from different parts of the world instead of the EU, the UK needs migrant workers to function especially when there’s nearly full employment.

I’ll ask you a question -

Would you vote the same way now?

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I’m not going to call you an idiot for voting leave but perhaps I would ask whether you researched the issues beyond just accepting sound-bite headlines.

Education and training is something of a case in point - it is massively more complex than “the immigrants (remembering for a second that EU workers are not classed as immigrants but migrant workers) are taking all the school places”.

I looked at this during the referendum, sadly I didn’t keep the finished article as a document and can’t remember where I posted it. I don’t have time to re-research it so forgive me if the figures are only ball-park.

I think I came up with a need for an additional 220,000 school places. Now most (> 90%) of the children had been born here - relatively few, 10 or 15k arrived as school-age children. So the bulk of the increase was not directly due to immigration - some of it was down to immigrant groups settling and having families, some of it was an increase in the birth rate overall.

Now the important thing about a child born in the UK needing a school place is that the local authorities get 5 years notice of the need for a primary school place and 11 years notice of the need for a secondary school place. Thus the pressure on school places is due largely to the failure of local authorities and government to respond to an entirely predictable increase in the number of school places required.

Also given that, in the main, the kids were born here that means their parents are settled prior to and likely not part of the significant increase in EU migration following the admission of the “A8 nations” to the EU.

In fact migration from the EU has always been dwarfed by immigration from the rest of the world.

Which brings us to the Leave campaign mendaciousness - they just said things like “our schools are overflowing, lets stop immigration”. Never mind that immigration was the wrong term when discussing the EU, never mind that migration from the EU was, at most 20% of the increased demand for school places, never mind explaining the difference between migration, immigration and assylum - just show a picture of a large queue of people with non-European looking tanned faces, tell the voters that they are just waiting to swarm over us from Turkey and let people’s natural xenophobia do the rest.

I genuinely believe that a good few thought they were voting to end all immigration and to send anyone with a brown face “back home” - otherwise why did the number of racist attacks (mostly against people of colour) rise so much in the aftermath of the referendum?

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Morning Timothy, Would I vote the same way now? great question.I would but To be honest i am now so disengaged with the whole thing as i think the vast majority of people are. What being put forward by the government is not what either side of the voted wanted but because the vote was so close they are trying to please all but are ending up pleasing none. David Cameron should never offered a referendum if he has was going to quit if result did not go his way.

Why would free movement of EU nationals not end when we leave? I fully understand immigration in general will not stop nor do i want it to, my parents emigrated to New Zealand 20 years ago but this was on a simple points based system my mum is a Teacher dad a Plumber so skill required in the country at the time, there is no reason a very similar system should not work here if we need a skill or job doing you can come in, if we don’t need a skill or job doing then you cant. The idea of free movement of people when two place are economically and socially SO different is madness. When the EU was made up of mainly western country’s France, Spain etc there was pretty similar migration both ways but when the EU absorbed eastern European country’s that is when immigration became an issue.

But i just want there to be sensible conversations on the issues we face that is how you get someone to change there mind by talking, name calling and making insults gets you nowhere.

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The points system which the Tories are now advocating as used in Australia actually increased immigration.
A school place is a school place no matter on the nationality of the child.
The largest rise in the UK birth rate is in Asian British families which also changes the make up of the school population overall.
You ask fruit and veg farmers and packers where they have to go to get their labour and it is not the local job centre.
There is to be a system for seasonal workers, so all the people around Boston who object to these people coming will actually see very little difference. The companies involved are already buying farms in Bulgaria and Romania, so perhaps there will not be as much agriculture on the fens at all.

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Torcas, Location Ruffec. Now that’s a strange fact to discover about someone who voted Leave because of immigration. If Torcas really is an immigrant living in Ruffec they will have a lot of information at their fingertips that is unavailable to your average leave voter. Any immigrant coming to France knows that having EU citizenship is not in its own right enough to allow them to reside here as after three months they have to enter the health system and they can only do that if they meet the criteria, they have to either be employed, prove that their healthcare is paid for by the U.K. via an S1 or have an income of about €10,000 per year and that by moving here they will not be a drain on the state. Once they have a social security number they can register with a doctor. The have to be aware that they will need to complete a tax return in the year following their arrival. They will know that it can be hard to take up employment as it’s likely that their professional qualifications are not recognised here. This can be even more of a problem for those people who opt to immigrate and become self employed. They have to set up their business before they are able to earn a cent and to do that they have to prove that they have recognised qualifications for their chosen metier, take out insurance and register with the social security. EU immigrants to some other countries, for example Germany, find life even more complex. EU immigrants arriving in the UK find life more straightforward. They can get a job if their employer is happy to employ them, they can start earning money as a self employed entrepreneur straight away and if they’re feeling a bit unwell they can register with a local doctor and be treated free at the point of care. The process for immigration into the British Isles is far more straightforward than into her European neighbours despite them all being ‘ruled from Brussels’. To blame the EU for excess immigration is naïeve as it’s the British government who should be blamed for making it so easy. The trouble is it’s become normal to blame the EU when so often the real cause is so much closer to home. Thank God my neighbours and the shops and businesses I use locally don’t look at me as a second class citizen who is a parasite on their society.

Of course if Torcas has a holiday home in Ruffec they must hate visiting their maison secondarie and being linked with all those other immigrants who shop at Leclerc and Mr Bricolage, eat at Mcdonalds and the Walnut Tree and drive RHD cars just because they are linked by a common language.

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At the time of the referendum there was a lot of discussion regarding immigration. Much of the concern seemed to be about illegal immigrants from outside eu.

Last week a study of eu immigrants showed that they have a positive effect on the UK economy.

It would seem to me that legal immigration from within the eu will reduce under Brexit. I do see however that illegal immigration via the channel ports will increase as there would be no requirement for France to prevent it - why would they? - France will be keen to move the problem on.

On balance, to me, it would seem that Brexit will
reduce currently legitimate eu immigrants that have been shown to have a positive effect, increase illegal immigration and reduce the likelihood of us being able to permenantly move to France.

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Morning Paul, are you a teacher or have you been a teacher in west London?

Not for one second do i think by voting leave that this will solve the massive issues in schools and housing but we where all given a vote on EU membership and all that come with that decision, how can it be fair on a school that a EU family with 3 children all primary school age arrive in London not speaking the language and the school has to teach them and then multiply that family it will cause problems, i was given an opportunity to make a difference about something i care about. General elections you just end up with same wolf in different clothing and nothing changes, but with the referendum you where given a choice in or out not this wishy washy situation we are in now.

My decision to vote leave was based on my community i live in not based on left wing or right wing biased media “sound bites” nor was it based on colour of someones skin. Maybe i should have taken in to account a bigger picture but maybe remain MPs should have spent a little more time truthfully telling us the benefits of the EU rather than insulting leave MP (some leave MPs should hang there heads in shame at there lies as well)

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So, despite not believing that leaving the EU would solve the problem you voted to do so merely for the disruption that this would cause?

How is this intelligent behaviour?

As @tim17 says the effect of leaving the EU is that migration from other parts of the world is likely to increase - does it really make a difference if the family that moves in and need language support in school speaks Polish at home or Hindi?

Housing is another case in point where the issues run much deeper than EU migration or even immigration as a whole. The UK has failed to build enough houses for the past 40 years - essentially since the Thatcher government stopped Councils from building affordable housing and pretty much none of the commercial builders was able to/wanted to take up the slack.

Couple that with lack of investment in the regions so that everyone (immigrants and migrants included) wants to try to live in London and you have a perfect storm in the South East - but this is not caused by our EU membership and leaving the EU won’t solve the problems.

In fact the economic hit of leaving the EU is likely to leave us significantly less able to tackle these problems.

Finally - on the “need” for immigration - Tim is, as I said, entirely correct in saying that we need immigration (and migration) of skilled workers - but why? With 1.36 million unemployed you would think that we could fill the vacancies that foreign workers go into with home grown talent.

But we can’t because we under invest in training and education and where we do invest in education we have people doing worthless degrees at dubious centres of “higher” education, running up student debt which will never be repaid, just to keep them out the unemployment figures.

We’d rather leach off the education systems in the countries that send us workers to avoid having to pay for high quality education in this country.

Please, please tell me how leaving the EU will fix any of this?

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Morning David, clearly no one has a crystal ball and can tell us all of us how this will all end up, my prediction is there will be a second referendum remain will win and that will be that.

Its great that you fully understand the complexity of permanently moving to France could be helpful to know in the future.

Yes i have a holiday home yes i shop in Leclerc for food and Mr Bricolage for DIY bits and my guilty pleasure after an 8 hour drive from Calais is a Mcdonalds? but so do Millions of other People so not sure of the point you are making.

I have also bought a run down house that my new neighbours are over the moon that someone will bring it back to life by spending 1000s using local builders etc.

I hope you are not implying all people that voted leave view anyone as second class citizen who are a parasite on their society, ive never said that or thought that, i just don’t think everything is Rosie.

The People of Britain where given a choice in or out. It should of been down the the MP’s to make us vote one way or another not insult each other.

Long before the referendum David Cameron went to the EU told them there was problems and he was ignored. Please tell me how many EU parliament sessions have been devoted to why we voted leave, i bet you could count them on one hand. I promise you if the EU parliment does not change other country’s in the EU will have leave/remain referendum and then what?

I thought i would stick my head out from the trench for a constructive discussion and respect for each others and there views. Life would be very boring if everyone agreed all the time.

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Very true.

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Morning Paul, i’m sorry i should have said there are lots of different issues this being one of them. That voting leave could solve. Obviously would not solve chronic under investment etc etc.

Again my view is that i welcome if required all skilled workers that can take up jobs in the UK i just don’t believe in free movement for all. I am not someone who voted leave because i “hate foreigners” clearly i dont.

I do not have all the answer but i don’t pretend i do and I would not call someone names or make assumptions about someone i don’t know because they voted remain, you lose the argument if you do.