The result of the EU referendum:

[L.A.]

. . .

Johnson and Gove are concerned with the levels of immigration, as are many centre Labour MPs nothing xenophbic about it, its people like you who instantly come out with this bile that actually fuel the hard right. Now that is irony.

No, Johnson passionately believes that he ought to be the next PM and he thinks Brexit is his best chance.

Gove on the other hand is pursuing a personal vendetta because he blames the EU for the loss of his family's fishing business

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Gonners, my reasons for leaving:

From Jack Knave:
But the long term plan of the EU is not for those protections it is total rule from Brussels, just as Moscow had total rule over the Soviet Union. The Ever-Closer-Union is for all the power to be centralised in Brussels and who can tell if and when a Stalin type figure will come along in the future and rule like the last Stalin. We are not voting to get the UK out of the EU we are voting to free the European people. Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow but for some future generation who will not thank us if we allow them to be born into slavehood.

From ekim:
The trouble with bureaucracies is that they grow and grow feeding on ever more regulations with an increasing cost to taxpayers and a burgeoning and complex legal system beyond the scope of ordinary people to challenge.  I would say that the threat is not so much to world peace (if ever such a concept comes about), but it can lead to internal civil unrest, especially if it is perceived that there is no way to change the regulations other than by force.


From myself:
The European Union was formed by the Bilderberg Group. Many do not know this or anything about this group. Only relatively, in recent years, have reports of their meetings been made public. These meetings are held annually by a mix of a select few from politics, finance (ie rich and powerful bankers) business, the media, the CIA and MI6. No minutes are taken, no reporters are allowed in, there is no opening press conference, no closing statement, and participants are asked not to quote each other. The EU MEPs cannot initiate legislation, propose legislation or even the repeal of legislation, all of which comes from the unelected European commission.


All amounting to:


"The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” ~ Vladimir Lenin

I don't buy that we are living at all under the yolk of Brussels and unfortunately Brexit liers now blame migrants instead of crap government.

For the low down on revolutionary action the last page of Orwell's ''Animal Farm'' is a reminder of who will end up in charge of the UK Brexit or not.

[Hope]

Hang on your voting for remain because you don't like the Tories? Gove and Johnson are not the right of the Tory party, they are pretty liberal, e.g. both supported same sex marriage.

Whilst some of the other 'liberal' Tories opposed it.  Using same-sex marriage as a marker misses the point.  You can be right-wing and left wing and support it - and be right/left-wing and oppose it.

Johnson and Gove are concerned with the levels of immigration, as are many centre Labour MPs nothing xenophbic about it, ...

Surely, if they were concerned with the levels of immigration, they'd give correct figures, realise that people will seek to enter the UK regardless of whether we leave or remain, perhaps even end up with higher levels of illegal immigration as agreements with EU countries on cross-border security fall apart, and end up with thousands of currently ex-pat Brits in Europe being forced to return to the UK as preferemtial treatment associated with EU membership is phased out.

[Gonnagle]

Dear SweetPea,

Thankyou for your post, my reason for remaining, I am a Christian.

Our Lord suffers no borders, Our Lords laughs at mans plans, Our Lord knows that being a Christian is not the easy path, Our Lord knows that we stand outside prejudice, Our Lord knows that we are all sinners, Our Lord stands above politics, Our Lord knows our place is only to help the down trodden, that is what it means when we take up the Cross, we serve, servants of Christ, we do not serve politicians.

For me as a Christian there is only one vote, remain, we remain to serve, not the politicians but Christ, Christians offer the hand of friendship, Christians turn no one away, no matter creed, colour, religion or sexual orientation, we serve God, how do we serve God, we serve man.

Gonnagle.

[Spud]

Surely, if they were concerned with the levels of immigration, they'd give correct figures, realise that people will seek to enter the UK regardless of whether we leave or remain, perhaps even end up with higher levels of illegal immigration as agreements with EU countries on cross-border security fall apart, and end up with thousands of currently ex-pat Brits in Europe being forced to return to the UK as preferemtial treatment associated with EU membership is phased out.

But the fact is that we will never be able to reduce immigration unless we have control of our own laws on it.

[L.A.]

But the fact is that we will never be able to reduce immigration unless we have control of our own laws on it.

I think it is more fundamental than that Spud, we'll never be able to reduce migration as long as we need migrants - and for a number of reasons we need migrants. One important reason being that our economy is (currently) running quite well which means job vacancies.

So I suppose Brexit are right in a way, if they crash the economy migration will plummet.

[Nearly Sane]

Odds shifted back in favour of Stay, currently 15/8 on

[Aruntraveller]

We may not be in full control of migration to us from the EU  but half of migration is from outside the Eu which we have control over if we do choose. That we dont choose to do so is a political decision taken by our 'sovereign'goverments for economic reasons.

[ProfessorDavey]

But the fact is that we will never be able to reduce immigration unless we have control of our own laws on it.

We already have complete control over non EU immigration. How's that working out for you, reduced to a trickle, hardly anyone coming here from India, or Nigeria, or China, or Mexico. Nope, with complete control non EU immigration remains higher that the non controlled EU migration. And most importantly the trends in both EU and non EU immigration mirror each other.

Conclusion - the 'controlled' non EU migration is no more controlled than the 'non controlled' EU migration.

Why - because the key driver isn't whether or not we have nominal controls - nope it is economic - if there are job vacancies that can't be filled by UK people, either because they won't take them or because they don't have the skills we will fill those vacancies from overseas and any 'controlled' immigration policy will always allow this or otherwise the government will be telling potato famers that their unpicked crops will have to rot and their livelihood destroyed. The government will be telling you that you elderly mother in law won't have any carer coming to visit her on her essential care package - the government will be telling you that you cannot see a GP for months because they haven't been able to fill the vacancies when their two senior partners retired.

[jakswan]

Davey remind us what you said about UK -China trade deal?

Iceland has trade deal with China.

[ProfessorDavey]

Davey remind us what you said about UK -China trade deal?

Iceland has trade deal with China.

is that one like the China Switzerland trade 'deal'. You know the one where Switzerland allows tarrif free trade access for China into their market immediately, but they only get access to the Chinese market (hopefully) in 15 years time.

Some deal. But that's what happens when negotiations are massively unequal. The little guy ends up grappling whatever crumbs they can get from the big guys table.

[jakswan]

is that one like the China Switzerland trade 'deal'. You know the one where Switzerland allows tarrif free trade access for China into their market immediately, but they only get access to the Chinese market (hopefully) in 15 years time.

Some deal. But that's what happens when negotiations are massively unequal. The little guy ends up grappling whatever crumbs they can get from the big guys table.

Don't think so:-
https://www.mfa.is/foreign-policy/trade/free-trade-agreement-between-iceland-and-china/

I seem to recall you claiming we could do a deal with China independent of the EU?

[jakswan]

Conclusion - the 'controlled' non EU migration is no more controlled than the 'non controlled' EU migration.

Which is demonstrably untrue.

[Harrowby Hall]

The European Union was formed by the Bilderberg Group. Many do not know this or anything about this group. Only relatively, in recent years, have reports of their meetings been made public. These meetings are held annually by a mix of a select few from politics, finance (ie rich and powerful bankers) business, the media, the CIA and MI6. No minutes are taken, no reporters are allowed in, there is no opening press conference, no closing statement, and participants are asked not to quote each other. The EU MEPs cannot initiate legislation, propose legislation or even the repeal of legislation, all of which comes from the unelected European commission.

I must confess that I had never heard of the Bilderberg group. But Sweet Pea's concern aroused my interest, after all, she has put us right about crop circles, electromagnetic pulses from CERN causing earthquakes and the heinous fraud of the so-called "moon landings". Her ability to detect high-level conspiracy and to give us appropriate warning of the dangers and damage facing us is without parallel on this forum.

So looked up Bilderberg Group on Wikipedia and was horrified with what I saw:

The group's original goal of promoting Atlanticism, of strengthening US-European relations and preventing another world war has grown; the Bilderberg Group's theme is to "bolster a consensus around free market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe" according to Andrew Kakabadse.[3] In 2001, Denis Healey, a Bilderberg group founder and a steering committee member for 30 years, said, "To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."

I think that it is their practice to begin each meeting by sacrificing a virgin (though where they manage to find them isn't known).

[Rhiannon]

All right-thinking would-be virgin sacrificers have moved onto root veg these days, HH. Much less mess and you can make soup with the leftovers.

[jakswan]

Odds shifted back in favour of Stay, currently 15/8 on

Betfair has it 1.66, implied probability of leaving now at 40%!

[Nearly Sane]

Betfair has it 1.66, implied probability of leaving now at 40%!

Moved from 1.56 when I looked this morning.

[Rhiannon]

Analysis from Graham Sharpe.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/brexit-betting-bookmakers-say-leave-odds-will-be-favourite-by-the-weekend-2016-6

[jakswan]

Moved from 1.56 when I looked this morning.

Moved since I last checked 1.68 now.

https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/#/politics/market/1.118739911

[Nearly Sane]

Moved from 1.56 when I looked this morning.

And moved on to 1.7

[Nearly Sane]

The Bilderberg Group have long been subject to all sorts of consiracy theories - if you want an interesting take on it try Jon Ronson's book Them and his documentary series The Secret Rulers of the Worlds

[ProfessorDavey]

Which is demonstrably untrue.

Wrong it is demonstrably true.

So lets look over the past 3 year or so. Specifically using the start point when Croatia joined the EU in 2013 - sensible as this means that the overall countries and population of the EU (and therefore potential migrants) is stable.

This is also useful as it coincides rather well with the government push to reduce migration to the tens of thousands. Now if EU migration is uncontrolled, but non EU migration is controlled (in practice) then you'd expect that the government would have curtailed net non EU migration (which is can control) but would have been unable to do anything about EU migration. So that non EU migration would have stabilised or even fallen (under government control) while EU migration would have continued to rise.

Problem is that changes in the two (EU and non EU) net migration pretty well perfectly mirror each other.

So at that point in mid 2013:
Net migration: Non EU - 138k
Net migration: EU - 131k

By 2015 (latest figures) there had been a big increase, but interestingly the increase is actually greater for the (apparently) controlled non EU migration than for the (apparently) uncontrolled EU migration.

So by the end of 2015 non EU net migration had risen by 38% compared to that 2013 figure, EU migration had risen by only 31% in the same timeframe.

So much for controlled vs non controlled.

Sorry, once again to puncture your ill informed dogmatic balloon with actual data and actual evidence. But hey Brexiters aren't really interested in facts and reality.

[jakswan]

Wrong it is demonstrably true.

So lets look over the past 3 year or so. Specifically using the start point when Croatia joined the EU in 2013 - sensible as this means that the overall countries and population of the EU (and therefore potential migrants) is stable.

This is also useful as it coincides rather well with the government push to reduce migration to the tens of thousands. Now if EU migration is uncontrolled, but non EU migration is controlled (in practice) then you'd expect that the government would have curtailed net non EU migration (which is can control) but would have been unable to do anything about EU migration. So that non EU migration would have stabilised or even fallen (under government control) while EU migration would have continued to rise.

Problem is that changes in the two (EU and non EU) net migration pretty well perfectly mirror each other.

So at that point in mid 2013:
Net migration: Non EU - 138k
Net migration: EU - 131k

By 2015 (latest figures) there had been a big increase, but interestingly the increase is actually greater for the (apparently) controlled non EU migration than for the (apparently) uncontrolled EU migration.

So by the end of 2015 non EU net migration had risen by 38% compared to that 2013 figure, EU migration had risen by only 31% in the same timeframe.

So much for controlled vs non controlled.

Sorry, once again to puncture your ill informed dogmatic balloon with actual data and actual evidence. But hey Brexiters aren't really interested in facts and reality.

Before we move on to that could you answer two questions which you have not answered.

I seem to recall you claiming we could do a deal with China independent of the EU?

I suspect the EU will try to keep us in, as a matter of interest if we get a leave vote will you be campaigning for a new deal, or, just blindly insisting that it isn't possible?

[ProfessorDavey]

I seem to recall you claiming we could do a deal with China independent of the EU?

We can and we do:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/24/britains-deals-with-china-billions-what-do-they-mean

As do many other EU countries. I gather that Germany has been particularly aggressive in penetrating the Indian market and developing a whole range of trade deals.

[jakswan]

We can and we do:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/24/britains-deals-with-china-billions-what-do-they-mean

As do many other EU countries. I gather that Germany has been particularly aggressive in penetrating the Indian market and developing a whole range of trade deals.

That is one question attempted but doesn't really address it, I'll rephrase that one hopefully making more difficult for you to obfuscate.

1. I seem to recall you claiming we could do a free trade deal with China independent of the EU?

2. I suspect the EU will try to keep us in, as a matter of interest if we get a leave vote will you be campaigning for a new deal, or, just blindly insisting that it isn't possible?