I wrote this at 4AM a few nights ago. I thought it's probably good enough to share. It'd explain my recent statuses and let me share my viewpoint properly on this whole matter. Hello EMC. I've been planning the making of this thread for a while - ever since the referendum date of June 23rd was announced way back in February, actually. My mind has been crossed with thoughts of 'meh, there's no point' - and while most people here don't care, you'd much rather go follow the US presidential race instead of this referendum, I think that's a problem. "Why should I be bothered about European politics as a [insert non-European country here] citizen?", you may ask. Well, that's because the European Union is important. It ensures free movement of citizens between countries, protects their human rights, it has the primary goal of free trade between the European states, and so much more. It's a union never seen before on this planet, and it's the future: if we ever hope to unite the world, we will need a union based off the EU for every continent or the entire globe if we set aside our differences and decide to do such a thing (which will never happen). First of all, some facts: Nazi Germany breathed its dying breath, France was attempting to get itself back on its two feet, and the British Empire was a wounded old man - maintaining its superpower status until 1957, but fell behind the more youthful United States and Soviet Union - who, coincidentally, had just annexed what was essentially the entirety of Eastern Europe. Europe was tired, bankrupt, half of it lived in newfound oppression, and it was devastated by the war. It literally couldn't afford another one (the ones that cropped up due to the spread of Communism and post-WWII fallout took a heavy toll on the whole place, and they were fairly small). So what did the Western European nations do? They founded the European Coal and Steel Community - a union made to share coal and steel resources among the European states, to prevent a resource war breaking out. In the past 64 years, Europe has changed a lot. The Iron Curtain fell nearly 25 years ago, we're home to some of the most powerful economies in the world, we dissasembled the last of our colonial empires (technically) in 1999, and we've moved on from the shadow of the world wars. The European Union, in its modern form, has been around for about 23 years now. It has a GDP of $18 trillion - higher than the US, who comes in second with $17 trillion, some of the world's most powerful armies under its belt, and it is almost certainly a second superpower. Unlike the United States, it is a superpower who is interested in using diplomacy over guns and bombs to solve conflict. It is largely left-wing, too, providing a contrast to the US in this respect also - you compare the two, and realise that even somebody like Bernie Sanders would be considered a conservative if he ran for office here. Anyway, I digress. Within the European Union is a special little snowflake, called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - a member state consisting of the constituent countries of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland - or just the UK for short. It was vetoed entry into the union by France in 1967, but was allowed to join in 1973 alongside Ireland and Denmark. Ever since then, we've been the polar opposite to France and Germany: Germany kind of has France under its thumb to do what it wants, and is the most active player in the EU. The UK often seeks isolation from the mainland, and often thinks it is superior to them. They're called the EU three. So, yeah, the UK. They're having a referendum on their membership of the EU on June 26th. This whole situation has arisen due to fears of the European Union becoming the United States of Europe - something that no EU member state's population would be happy with (if you couldn't tell, we don't like eachother very much and often want to commit genocide on eachother), English nationalism, and some blumbering idiots who flaunt around the words 'undemocratic' and 'EU' in the same sentence. This is because they don't bother to check if they can vote in local EU elections and think all of its decisions are done without the public's consent... well, no, it's very different: it's the most democratic thing in the world pretty much, people just don't utilise it, and then complain when things happen that they don't like. So, what happens if Britain leaves? Nobody knows! We could go into an economic recession, businesses could leave us, Scotland could get a second referendum and vote to leave the UK so they can rejoin the EU - they wouldn't, because Spain wants to prove a country can't survive on its own when it exits a union because they're having a few problems with their Catalan population, the UK would leave the $2 trillion GDP club, but, yeah - nobody knows what would happen. A country has never left the EU before. There are no plans to help a country when it leaves, or anything to actually... make it leave. The EU would lose out on a lot of money, and it may cause other nations to leave - this amazing union that stops Europe from going to war and makes it co-operate and stops the US from doing stupid stuff might... collapse. What happens if Britain stays in? Well, life continues. The UK gets special membership status so it doesn't have to be whipped around as much by stuff that doesn't make sense here culturally. Awesome. That's something I want to see for all member nations - Europe is a varied place culturally and in its terrain. What works in one country won't work in another that's less than 50km away. Hopefully, we learn to speak up when something happens we don't like - like the TTIP deal, we need a nation to veto that, and we're hopefully going to be the one to do it because we have an NHS to protect from being bought by American companies. We give a few billion to the European Union a year, and people seem angry about that - but it's literally nothing to the government budget, as a wise NerdCubed once said: "We'd make more back by getting everyone a shotgun and getting them to go out and shoot their nan in the face". Besides, we get more back from them than we give to them - they help pay for our infrastructure, they fund our sciences and other sources of national pride. It's pretty nice. They also keep setting up a European business nice and easy due to the removal of shipping costs and other stuff like that - I'm not much of a capitalist pig, so I don't know much about the business benefits, but I've heard they're great. I don't see the benefits of the UK + Gibraltar leaving at all. I've heard the benefits of what happens immediately after we leave, but the leave groups have no plan to do afterwards other than "hurr durr, British people are free! What do you mean the Scottish and Welsh didn't want to leave and feel underepresented and in a shadow of the English?". I've heard people say stuff like "but we can be like Norway!" - well, no, Norway has a way smaller population and a lot of oil to fund its economy and is an unofficial member of the EU, pretty much - they have to adhere to EU law but have even less say in it than us. It would make no sense to leave and then come back to it, just not as an official member state but still having to do what they say - which is what will happen. Others have said, 'well, we can be like Albania!'. Last time I checked Albania has a GDP of only $12 billion, it's the poorest country in Europe, and while they do love America more than the rest of Europe it's not exactly doing them wonders. My point is there's no long-term benefits to leaving, we miss out on a lot, and it's much better to just stay the way we are but under fairer membership terms and hopefully an increased use of the voice we have - which would probably happen under a Labour government, which I'm hoping we'll get sometime before 2020 with an emergency general election when David Cameron inevitably resigns. It doesn't make it any better that leaving would allow the tories to make their own bill of rights and everything they've proposed allows them to spy on us and monitor our every move. Here's some of the people who support us staying in: Sir Patrick Stewart (Actor) Benedict Cumberbatch (Actor) Prof. Stephen Hawking (Astrophysicist, etc.) Jeremy Corbyn (Leader of the Labour Party/Leader of the Opposition) Alan Sugar/Lord Sugar (Entrepreneur, new Labourite but we don't talk about that filth) Barack Obama (President of the US... duh) Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) Sadiq Khan (Mayor of London, MP of the Labour Party) David Cameron (Prime Minister of the UK) Prince William (The Royal Family stays neutral on this stuff, but he and Princess Kate have both alluded to being pro-EU) Nicola Sturgeon (First Minister of Scotland) Sir Richard Branson (Businessman) Sir John Major (Ex-Tory Prime Minister, kept the UK out of the Eurozone and the Schengen Area) Tony Blair (Ex-Labour Prime Minister) And now for the people who want us to leave: Donald Trump (US republican candidate, not exactly loved by the UK or the EU, all-around wotsit...) Nigel Farage (UKIP party leader, not loved by the UK at all) Boris Johnson (Ex-Tory Mayor of London) Sir Michael Caine (Actor, Alfred in the Dark Knight trilogy) Dame Joan Collins (Actor, star of smash hits such as... pretty much nothing. Hm...) Katie Hopkins (Racist, dumb columnist for credible newspapers such as The Sun (half of the UK's population will stab you for buying this paper) and from what I can remember, the Daily Mail, who said such things as 'sink the Syrian refugees' boats'... that went down as well as the Hindenburg). Vladimir Putin (President of Russia, absolutely batshit insane) [cont in replies]
Here's the parties that want to leave, if you're interested: UKIP/United Kingdom Independence Party Democratic Unionist Party (Pro-UK party in Northern Ireland) A small-ish group of Labour Party MPs A fairly large group of Conservative MPs The UK Communist Party (I forgot their name lol) Here's the parties that want to stay: The Labour Party The Liberal Democrats Plaid Cymru (Basically the Welsh Nationalist Party) Scottish Nationalist Party Countries who want us to stay in! The United States of America! The French Republic/France... their government, at least! Federal Republic of Germany/Germany! Ireland! Countries who want us to leave! The French Republic/France... their people, at least, who seem to want us to die in isolationism for all of the stuff we've pulled on them for the last 1,000 years! The Russian Federation... who fly bomber planes over the UK all the time... see where the problem is here? This debate has brought out a dark side in me. A side in me that... agrees with David Cameron and the US. 'Brexit' (sounds like a breakfast cereal) is sorcery confirmed. So ja, that's my point. It's probably pointless but I just needed somewhere to write things down and share it. I thought it'd be important to maybe slightly educate some people on why this matters so much and share my viewpoint. Full disclosure: I support the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, I'm from Liverpool - a working class city that is one of the most socialist-sympathising areas of Europe and has voted for Labour in every election for 100 years now, so I guess that makes me a democratic socialist. I've been Eurosceptic in the past like a lot of people in this area, but I am now pro-EU and support its enlargement to the Balkans, Eastern Europe and possibly into places who are European in all but continent, like Australia and Canada. I have Western European and some Balkan ancestry *I think... I definitely do have relatives over there though*, so I rarely ever identify as British - I'm European (parents do not think the same way though). I do not plan to stay in the UK much longer - as long as we stay in long enough for me to leave to the mainland and utilise freedom of movement, it's all good. I thought sharing this would be important for some reason. And now, a map of the EU to show you its place in the world.
A big part of why people want to leave is the terrorist threat but those people dont see the whole picture
Actually that's not quite true. Take a look at the United States of America. United states. Basically every state has its own unique laws and rules, what is allowed in one state isn't in the other. And they're united under one flag which is the stars and stripes. And further more it didn't come easy! Just remember the US civil war between the north and the south. Which more than often also resulted in those colonies to fall down to despair, civil war, power struggles and poverty. But yeah, we couldn't have colonies anymore, even though the country in question didn't want to break the ties and was basically not ready to support their own yet. That is the other side of this medal which is often easily forgotten or ignored. But if you look at the individual countries, obviously referring to Greece for starters, then you get to see a completely different picture. Unemployment rising dramatically, poverty is also not going too well and basically they cannot fully support themselves anymore. Fact of the matter is that Greece has gotten billions of Euro's mainly to sustain themselves. It was said to be a loan but fact of the matter is that they're not even near any possibility to pay this back. So while Europe may look like a rich superpower on the outside, there's something different going on on the inside. Especially within the southern regions. There's already talk about Italy and Spain which may also require massive financial support just to keep running. Actually I disagree there as well. It has been mentioned many times in the past that the art of warfare would change over time, and it has. Instead of using weapons we're now using our monetary capabilities. In other words: using money to get things done. Only problem is of course where that money is coming from, I once again refer to the southern countries where things aren't exactly going all too smoothly. But heck; a multi-million donation to the Ukraine ("financial support") has already been approved. Because we need them, according to the political leaders. A country which is pretty corrupt to say the least. And another problem... You say diplomacy... After Word War two it was determined that the two powers in force, the free Western world (Europe) and the East (Soviet Union / Warschaupact) would not expand their borders any further than that. Of course the whole idea behind this was to make ensure that the Soviet Union wouldn't try things, they were considered to be a major threat. So why is Europe now almost knocking at the Russian border? Basically violating that same treaty because the EU has expanded its area dramatically. Even throughout nations which never were part of Europe in the first place. You say diplomacy, I say working out their own agenda at the possible expense of world peace. In a way Europe has now become a threat to Russia. No other group of countries has expanded as much as Europe has. Which can easily be considered a threat of some sort to other countries. If you should actually picture it as such is something I'm not too sure about, I'm merely trying to reflect on this from another perspective. Europe a democracy? Sorry, I strongly disagree. First of all the obvious: the leader gets appointed, not elected. But lets look at the way we can vote... When the European elections are being held then that means only one thing: we're introduced to a group of Dutch people who have been selected to take seat in the European parliament and we can vote for them. So basically it has already been decided that some of them will go there, and we get to decide which. So what happens when I think that a German politician would be much better suited, or a French? Well, then I'm out of luck because I cannot vote for them. And another thing, very important. In a lot of European countries the people were asked about the country joining. Here in Holland we had not one but two referenda about this. Only problem: the population massively voted no. We didn't want Holland to become part of the EU. So then it was determined that we needed a new referendum, because the population obviously didn't understand what the politicians were asking. And yet again a major no was the answer. And so our government ignored the whole thing and on month later Holland was a member of the EU. So pardon me for not considering this a very democratic way of running things Even though that is true it wouldn't be as bad as many people portrait it. It's not as if they suddenly wouldn't be able to trade at all, that's nonsense. I personally think that it could do wonders for their economy. Just look at the state of the economy in the European countries. Things aren't going too well here! Yet the countries which opted out to become part of the Eurozone are doing remarkably well in comparison to their neighbors. Looking at countries such as Denmark or Switzerland. My take on the matter is that Napoleon tried, Julias Ceasar tried but you cannot force countries into one pact like this. In many cases Europe is hurting us way more than its doing us any good. Personally I foresee Europe to crumble eventually, just like the Roman empire did. It's already brewing, the anti-European sentiments are dramatically rising, and I thin for very good reasons as well. In my opinion they made one huge fatal mistake: they didn't try to learn from history. Take a look at the United States. They realize that there will always be certain laws which cannot be applied to a whole continent. Some things may work just fine for more heavies residential areas (I'm thinking New York or California) but would be dramatic for other areas (Texas for example, just to name two very opposite regions). As such they made sure that individual states had their own say into those matters. Europe does this in the exact opposite way. They try to set up European rules which should apply to every country, even when there are severe problems with them for some of those countries. Or to put this different: there are things which would work perfectly in Germany or Holland but would cause major problems in countries as Spain or Greece. Yet that is what many politicians fail to see. Just take monetary value. Greece has always heavily relied on inflation and deflation of their previous currency in order to keep things balanced. Partly because of that they were a relatively poor country, but because of that they also became the #1 destination for vacations. Which meant more income. In their present state Greece isn't as cheap to visit as they once were. One cause of that is the way they're forced to run things. They can no longer rely on inflation and deflation, because of the Euro. Directly resulting in a steady decline of tourism. And with that also less income. The idea behind Europe is a good one, but the way they executed it is pretty horrible to say the least. Personally I hope that we do get a Brexit, followed by other nations dropping out as well and eventually the end of the Euro zone as we know it. After that they should definitely try to go for a Europe 2.0, but then actually learning from their mistakes and also taking a much better look at how the US runs things.
Leaving doesn't help with that. We retain control over our borders anyway as a result of our membership terms with the EU, it's our fairly lax airport controls that are the problem. Voting in allows us more control over our borders and stops us from having to accept EU immigrants also - if we left and negotiated a trade agreement like David Cameron has said we will, we'll have to accept EU immigrants and retain freedom of movement.
I semi-agree with a lot of what you've said here. However, Greece has always been reliant on other nations for financial support and have never done very well economically either. The problem is with the way the country is structured, and then adopting the Euro which rips control of their currency away from their nation. They voted to keep the Euro, which... eh. A good example of what I'm trying to say is about Ireland: they were once a nation that did stunningly well, and were even called the Celtic Tiger until their economy collapsed because of their politicians. A lot of Irish people now move into mainland Europe and the United States, stopping chances at a good workforce developing, because their politicians are stupid and do the most stupid of things in an attempt to 'fix' their economy. The people who remain there often try to pin the blame on the European Union for their monetary issues, even though its the country's fault. Actually, reading back on that, it doesn't make much sense. But ja, I'm keeping it there On the 'undemocratic' point: I'm used to it. I live in a country where the south looks down on the north and we don't have a voice in parliament. The EU gives us a bigger voice than our own government, so maybe I'm biased because of that. I do agree that the European Union needs to change. Change will happen though: with the new Greens president in Austria, and other changes throughout Europe - it won't stay the same. We need to stay in to promote that change. Letting the EU collapse is, in my opinion, not the way to go about it at all. That special membership status the European Union will give the UK in the event of an 'in' vote secures the base of that change for the UK, and hopefully it will eventually be applied across the whole of the EU. The UK is a fragile union in itself: we have the English here, who are Germanic with Latin influences due to our time being under a French empire. We have the Cornish, who are Celtic. We have the Welsh, who are Celtic and have been oppressed by the English for centuries. We have the Scots... or did, who are also Germanic. We also have the Scottish and Irish, who are also both Celtic. None of us like eachother and we're all divided on the EU issue. We leave the EU, the UK will likely go down too. There's also that human rights violation I mentioned in the OP. Probably ending this prematurely but I need to go for a lil bit, so This... has nothing to do with anything here...
I thoroughly agree on the immigration and the Greek economy issues. I think the EU needs to cut immigration levels from outside the European Union and needs to put a choke on the level of refugees they're letting in. Rules need to be changed to stop things like Polish people coming into the UK to have their children and then going back to Poland with British child benefit. I also believe that they need to write off Greece's debt and help them grow without putting austerity measures in place. It would also prove to be useful when the EU inevitably enlarges to include Serbia, Albania and Bosnia, who are all in very similar economic problems and have already begun to move toward the Euro. Also, it's a little more reassuring to know that 47% of the country believes we should remain, as opposed to the 43% who think we should leave, if recent polls are to be believed. Those of us who wish to remain just need a big push against the Brexiters over the next few weeks so we can win over the 10% who are undecided. Also it's interesting to note that the Brussels terrorist attacks seem to have caused remain to gain popularity. Considering the whole argument focuses on curbing immigration and stamping out the terrorist risk that comes with accepting people into the country, it's a little bit weird to go join the side of the people who kind of support it
Okay. Definitely not reading this at this time, I was planning to head to bed soon But I think this is interesting, to a degree, and I generally like the way you write, so I might read this later. It's quite an important matter, isn't it?
Found a nice little quote on Reddit today... "Brexiters love the past and hate history. Many of them are revisionists, propagating the idea that the EU somehow tricked them and that it was just a free trade agreement that became something else. They forget that EFTA was the British response to the more politically integrated EEC. They forget that post WW2 Britain was in terrible shape all the way up to the 1970s. They say the Americans would never accept anything like the EU even though they did about 10 years after independence when they stopped being a confederacy and formed the federal American states we know today."
While I do agree that David is my generation's Margaret Thatcher (and when she died we literally partied and then gatecrashed her funeral to play 'ding dong the witch is dead'...), I'm not going as far to say that Donald Trump would be better than him. I would take Cameron over Trump any day of the week. At least David talks some sense sometimes and isn't racist all of the time, and he's not a fascist either. If you think that Trump would be better than Cameron, you're clearly misinformed.
Trump has businesses but Is racist Cameron has tax scandels Allegations involving a pig Has cut disabled benefits
Jo Cox was a Labour Party member of parliament, and supported accepting Syrian refugees, immigration, and wanted the UK to stay in the European Union. She has a long history of wanting the best for the working class, and didn't want the UK to intervene in the Syrian civil war - she wanted a civil, ethical and non-violent solution instead. She's also done aid work and stuff. She was assassinated today while holding a surgery - which is when MPs go to a public place and answer questions from the public on issues. Stabbed and shot multiple times before dying an hour later from her wounds. First MP who hasn't been linked to Northern Ireland to be murdered since the 1800s. Want to know why? Because she was pro-EU. Her killer shouted 'Put Britain first!' (Or 'Britain First', who are an extremist right-wing political party here) before shooting her with a homemade gun. He then kicked her multiple times as she was lying on the floor. Truly disgusting. This thing is getting people killed now and this guy's nationalist effort to kill some innocent, well-meaning person might have backfired on him trying to get the UK to vote leave. See why I think this country is backwards?
Post by Lux_miles <deleted by Baradar67> Saying things like this makes you just as insane as you think those you oppose are.
Leave is looking like it has a lead. If Bloomberg is accurate only 44% of the voting population thinks we should stay. Things are not looking good. We have until Thursday to turn this around. The predictions I read a few months ago have so far turned out to be accurate, I'm just hoping the last part of them where it says that on the actual day there will be a stay majority is fulfilled too. EDIT: The BBC's tracker says that both sides are at 44% from the votes already sent in. If the result on Thursday is indeed leave, it looks like I'm saving up to flee to Germany sooner than I wanted to lol.
Post by Lux_Miles <deleted by Baradar67> Stooping doesn't get things done. You can despise someone all you want, but encouraging and hoping for an innocent person's murder makes you worse than what you hate.
Please keep this thread on-topic (most of you have) and without comments wishing people dead, especially in light of the events this week. It is those sorts of comments that staff will take action on and a reason to lock a thread Continuing to make comments like that could result in a ban from the forums and/or other action.
u have put so much effort into this and it amazes me pros to leaving is freedom to allow or disallow immigration it is easier to check borders of incoming and outing people currency compatibility becomes a new challenge so does open borders
