moonraker

Yea it would very democratic if the EU had to comply with a Swiss referendum. The Swiss vote is for the Swiss they decided they wanted to change the relationship, ergo they accept the consequences, not undemocratic at all. Likewise if we vote out I hope none of the brexiters start complaining about the EU doing what is best for their voters. Cake and eating it comes to mind.

Use of capital infrastructure is certainly an element in calculating the impact of increasing populations. Historically societies tend to invest in capital infrastructure as the demand grows, therefore all investments to date are essentially sunk costs and only the proportion of the investment required to add, or update the infrastructure should be considered in the benefits model. Even then you are being somewhat creative, over the past 20 years or so we have seen massive investment in Hospitals, Schools and the Rail infrastructure, this was not driven by migration but by lack of investment especially in the 70’s and 80’s, so capital investment is an on-going and necessary thing, the roads, hospitals schools etc. would still be needed with or without net migration. NB. we are not the Government, you an me, we are the electorate who elect a Government, we are not the executive we do not individually or collectively make decisions except at the ballot box.

You cant seriously claim we are subject to a potential 500m people, it is more than stretching a point to claim such a potential just because the fact that the population of the EU is 500m, 99% of people have no desire whatsoever to leave their homeland so their are potentially 5 - 10m who are transient or migratory, they wont all come here. So the true potential for the UK is something less than 10m and in reality of the order of 1 - 2 m. Seems like more brexit scaremongering.

And so they may, they may also loose access to some or many EU markets, a negotiation is a multi sided event, Switzerland is in no postion to dictate to the EU.

The immigration debate is the most emotive aspect of all the EU issues. In reality the movement of people who are citizens of an EEA* signatory is not immigration, it is the free movement of labour. Therefore what is an immigrant? Any person not born here; a person whose parents were not born here, any one who is a citizen of foreign country, or only those form outside the EEA. As a baseline ONS (2014) states there are circa 4.3 million people living in the UK who were not born here. This includes children born to UK citizens outside of the UK, it does not include children of foreign nationals born in the UK. So what is the true impact of EAA free movement of labour on the UK? Of the 4.3m non UK born people 50% are from non EAA countries. With 1.1m UK citizens living in other EU countries the net movement to the UK from within the EAA is circa 1.2 m. or 1.8% of the total population. When compared to other EAA countries we are 4th in terms of inward EAA movement (we are not the first choice destination), in outward EAA Movement terms we are 5th, with Rumania, Poland, Germany and Italy being ahead of us. It is worth noting that the inward movement is primarily of young economically active working people whereas the outward movement (of UK citizens) to EAA countries has a higher proportion of retirees who are less economically active and not working. This has a positive effective on our demographic, redressing some of the imbalance in the UK’s age profile, the opposite of UK migration to the likes of Spain. The bottom line as always is the economy, all credible studies of the impact of EAA free movement of labour on the UK economy are that it has had a positive effect, it does not cost us, we gain. The real problem is the failure of government to invest in the services and infrastructure not just for the inward but for our own citizens, the EU has been used by successive governments to mask their own policy failures and our predominant right wing press has been only to happy to heap oil on the fire. Leaving the EU will not stop immigration, if we remain in the EAA it will not stop free movement of labour, it will not deal with bad UK Government policies, in fact it wont make a blind bit of difference. *EEA = European Economic Area, not just the EU.

Frustrating and upsetting as these occurrences are they are not the norm and neither are they new, when my first 2 children were born in the 1980's staff were overstretched and struggling to cope. As to how much one has or has not paid in that is irrelevant, it seems apart from the one occurrence you site you have been lucky to be healthy, unaffected by crime and safe from fire. Might I suggest that some of your good fortune is because your taxes have been used on prevention and education. Our society has long accepted we are all responsible for contributing based on our means not our need. In simple accounting terms you have been able to contribute more than you believe you have received, lucky you, enjoy your good fortune.

No it isn't Norway and Switzerland have freedom of movement and are in the Schengen area, as a condition of their trade deals. The ignorance of some of you brexiters is astounding.

Possibly interesting statistic Europeans within the EU live on average 6 years longer than Europeans not in the EU!

Im sorry your wife had to suffer but I cannot connect improved health care with leaving the EU. If we suffer, a high risk economically as a result of leaving the EU the NHS will have even more problems.

Whilst reading the rantings of swivel eyed leave loonies on here is amusing, consulting learned and wise people might be a better plan so I would sumarise as follows: So to date in favour of remaining in the EU we have; The majority of Scientists; central enablers of strong economy and an advanced nation have come out for staying in. 80% plus of senior politicians across the spectrum; these people have seen the EU from the inside and have concluded that the EU’s positives outweigh the negatives. The Bank of England; Although not endorsing one side or the other they have stated that their research indicates leaving is a far higher risk than staying; NB: Identify, classifying and publishing a risks is not a scare tactic, it is the duty of the Bank. The majority of Economists; although this is not an exact science, when the evidence has been, modelled, analysed and reviewed the majority conclude leaving is a far higher risk than staying; Big business: mixed here, 36% of the FTSE 100 have firmly declared for stay, the position of the others is not known. Many are not able to make public statements on political issues, some have chosen to remain neutral, possibly PR related. What is notable is that there is no joined up declaration to leave in the same way there is to stay; Other business: there doe not appear to be any public consensus either way among major trade bodies etc. Universities: the vast majority support the stay campaign. Senior military figures: including former chiefs of defence staff state the EU is an "increasingly important pillar of our security", especially at a time of instability in the Middle East and in the face of "resurgent Russian nationalism and aggression". And for leave what do they have; senior politicians; there are less on the leave side, of these Boris tops the list with less than a handful of current cabinet ministers backed by a hotchpotch of ex cabinet ministers, also in their ranks are the likes of Robert Griffiths (General secretary, Communist party) Harsev Bains (Secretary, Association of Indian Communists), and a fellow named Nigel Farage and others. As to rest of the categories there does not appear to be any notable professional grouping that has arrived at a consensus that leaving is the better option. If leaving were the land of milk and honey with greater freedoms and supreme sovereignty, secure borders I would have thought some learned, wise and recognised groupings would have gone public by now, or are they keeping their powder dry for the final assault on the undecided in days immediately before the vote.? Finally the group that really matters General Public;, difficult to tell at this stage but 50/50 may be fair for those decided, it is the undecided who matter.

That depends on whether free movement is a condition of favourable trade agreement as it is with Norway and Switzerland, in fact they are part of Shengen, so even in the EU we have more control of our borders than they do. Despite the leavers claiming we would be treated differently their is absolutely no evidence to support their claim. Indeed the mood music coming from across Europe suggest the opposite. Despite the efforts of the leavers to call everything the stay campaign say as project fear the greatest fear is the unknown and that is what they want us to vote for.

Where do I alude to survival of the Euro? My reference to the Euro was that it has caused many to re-evaluate where the EU is going and hence I contest your certainty for ever closer political and fiscal union. Currently 9 countries within the EU are not in the Euro zone. To realise your guaranteed future how will these be strong armed into accepting it?

You seem as certain that the EU cannot change for the better as you are hat the UK can obtain a favourable deal on trade outside the EU. The current problems with the Euro and the refugee crises are focusing minds, both the publics and politicians, it is these issues that provide the opportunity for change.

This, their is little public support for a European Super state in any of the 28 members. It is feasible the UK has a golden opportunity, if we remain in, to help shape and create a European Family that recognises differing cultural and political needs whilst being open and tolerant. If we leave their is no opportunity and we will be the poorer for it.

Oh dear, plenty out there, try reading it. The article Hutch refers to is from 2012, there is no link to the loan. The loan was split in 2; The vital infrastructure project, which aims to reduce congestion in and around the UK capital, benefited from a GBP 1bn EIB loan in 2009 for the project’s initial tunnel construction phase. This was complemented by a further GBP 500m loan in late 2013 to help finance a fleet of high-capacity, state-of-the-art trains – the next step in the project’s development. So the original award predates the EU regs by 3 years and the second part clearly states it was to help fund high capacity trains. Its about capacity sorry it can't be twisted into another anti EU rant.

Just checked the tunnel size was designed to accomodate proper trains not just underground models, this allows: an increase in capcity, more comfortable seating, higher sppeds and more options for roling stock. It seem Boris has once again reinvented history.

So no evidence then, just putting 2 and 2 together and making 5. Creating bigger tunnels makes real sense, the whole UK rail system is devoid of double decker trains due to our small tunnels and bridges. If we could accomodate these trains we could inrcrease capacity massively. I am sure cramped commuters would welcome this.

Any evidence for that? when first annouced the arche eurosceptic said: The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: "Our good friends at the EIB have provided us with a billion more reasons to proceed with the unstoppable force that is Crossrail. It is one of the largest loans ever secured for a transport project and I am especially pleased to have this backing for our drive to provide London with the facilities required to keep the capital one of the world's leading cities." Be funny if they called the laon in if we leave the EU.

Is this part of Project Fear 2!

Nothing to do with MPs I was quoting percentages of voters

Way off 86 Oh dear more Brexit lies, where did you get those figures from? UKIP and the Tories had 49.5% of the vote. If we assume that kipper are 100%, 50% of Tories, 30% of labour vote out (where did you get your labour supporter figures from? Even at 50% labour support Brexit only manages 46%), LD, SNP and Plaid are 100% for remain you will get to 40.1% for out, adding another 2 -3 % for marginal ‘nationalist parties’ 44% is a fair reflection from the GE. It is for Brexit to make a positive argument to leave, something they have singularly failed to do. I think your contention ‘people simply will not turn out in their droves to vote for "Bremain" but my god they'll vote Brexit’ is complete tripe or at best wishful thinking. If as I suspect the outcome will be very close, it will be very difficult for the ‘loosing side’ to accept it, especially if the turn out is less than 75%. It is unlikely to be a once and for all decision. Finnaly bi-elections have never been an indication of a national poll. And as for voting for the people britain elects, that would be the people voted for by only 37% of the electrate and who are oposed to a fairer (more democratic) voting system.

I had an interesting chat with my 92 year old father about the referendum. We had not really discussed it before and I was a little surprised that essentially he is completely baffled as to why anyone would want to leave. His view is there is no such thing as the good old days and that the EU has been a key contributor to a quality of life he never expected to achieve.

Watching and listening to Boris on the Andrew Marr show was revealing, I was not convinced he was convinced by Brexit.

I think your summary is very fair. For me (an over 50) the key is what is best for the long term security and success of the UK. Whilst the EU is very far from perfect and requires serious reform, increasing globalisation and polarisation leads me to believe that we will better of collaborating with our nearest neighbours and that the EU is the best mechanism for this. Having read much from both camps the degree of contradiction, scaremongering and downright lying can be weighed in almost equal measure.

While i have some sympathy with the overall sentiments of what you post I spotted a tinge of irony in this statement. If we cant get 28 european nations to agree what chance the world? We already have the UN and it has to compromise so much to get anything done.