Have you heard of Matthew Elliott? he is the one who masterminded the AV referendum in 2011 for the conservatives. He's turned public opinion 27% in favour of AV to 36% against by the time the referendum took place. He's the man who is masterminding now the leave campaign. His tactic is simple enough, like in the previous referendum, an exagerated price tag was put on the cost of AV and pictures of better uses of money did all the talking. This time his tactic is the same, exagerating the cost of membership and suggesting better uses for the money. The remainers are making the same mistake as his previous opponents. They head straight to the bait, pointing out the obvious error in the amount, thus repeating themselves the core message that there is a price to pay and the money can be better used elsewhere.
Brexit, for once some facts.
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Matthew Elliott understands that widespread modern human weakness, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.
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the OECD predicts that the EU need 50 million immigrants by 2050 to keep things like they are and the UK need probably 10% or 5 millions, just to replace those in the workforce that reach retirement. Where do you want to get them from? Africa, Middle East, Asia or EU?
I tend to steer clear of political discussion on this forum, but importing immigrants to maintain the status quo is not a good arguement. Somewhere along the line, the immigrants will require exactly the same and the problem increases exponentially.
The solution to this problem requires fundimental changes in the way we live our lives, resulting in a more sustainable existance. Opening the gates to the masses as a solution is simply kicking the can further down the road.
In the long distant past (1970's) I was a member for the company I worked for of a Think tank named "The Home of the Future" organised by the Research institute for Social Change (That bit worried me at the time, but I digress) we brainstormed the sort of future that would be appearing around the year 2000, and we got some things right, like solar and wind power and tablet computers, but failed woefully to anticipate the appearance of the internet, and optimistically foresaw the appearance of automated manufacturing facilities that would free people from the need to work, and bring about a revolution in leisure, research and the arts.
Ah well as Father used to say, remarking about me I might add
"Nothing is foolproof to the talented fool!"
But seriously, how could we have envisioned that the greed and cowardice of the moneyed classes would impel them to invest in what is virtually slave labour in the far east, rather than bite the bullet and invest in automation here?
In our defence I plead "Diminished Responsibility" though "insanity" will do when we dared to imagine that these millstones around the neck of Humanity would do the right and honourable thing.
And their greed has transformed China into a Nightmare megapower affecting our future and everyone elses too, and inevitably the Chinese will bite the hand that fed them.
And the few we do produce go into the computer games creation industry, where the opportunities and money are in the UK.
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After at least 10 years of negotiation to leave the EU with a trade agreement, effectively none of any importance.
Why 10 years? Well, Switzerland who weren't even members needed 7 years just to get a limited trade agreement. That agreement contains 120 individual agreements, some with limitations not applicable to members.
Not only do we have a wider range of trading interests to argue than Switzerland, we will also be trying to negotiate ourself out of our EU membership bonds. It's therefore bound to take much longer.
The minimum time allowed to leave the EU is 2 years, but there is no upper limit on the period to negotiate leaving before departure becomes effective. At my age I don't expect to see the UK out of the EU, even with a leave vote.
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One thing is certain, if we vote to leave Cameron's position will be untenable, but don't worry Chris Evans will be looking for anew job by then..
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and who do you think is going to replace him? Don't forget that parliament is split 2 remainers for each brexiter. It will be chaos if Brexiters win. it's more likely that the conservatives are going to split, then follows a vote of no confidance and possibly hung parliament with no party can form a coalition.
Further to my above post on this link, the Swiss found the greatest difficulty in trade agreement negotiation with the EU was in financial services, important to them. The EU commission refused to discuss this area at all and nothing has been resolved.
Given how vital financial services are to our economy and the scale and profitability of our financial services business with the EU, this is potentially a massive problem.
Once again emphasising how voting to leave the EU is a vote for a leap into an unknown future full of pitfalls.
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Given how vital financial services are to our economy and the scale and profitability of our financial services business with the EU, this is potentially a massive problem.
Once again emphasising how voting to leave the EU is a vote for a leap into an unknown future full of pitfalls.
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Unless of course the EU is so fed up with us it won't have us back!
Johnson is in with a chance but I think there is more chance that Trump will be the next US President (odd: 13/8) than Johnson be PM (odd: 11/4). If Brexiters win, the remainers are still the majority among conservative MPs, so will want to keep Cameron and unlikely to yield to Johnson. Within a year, the consequences will be clearer, a future goverment can always claim that the country's interest is within the EU, so try a new referendum.
I suspect that some of the remainers in parliament, particularly the conservative party are really Brexiters but have taken that line as a career option. It will be interesting to see how they react should we vote to leave