CHAPEL END CHARLIE

A fine seaside town marred only by the presence of Harry Redknapp ...

Your arguments on here are becoming increasingly bizarre. You concede that the old Common Market has benefited our economy. Therefore why would the (more comprehensive) Single Market not do so too? The truth is we may, or may not, have developed a equaly successful economy outside of the EU - even you would concede I hope that it is hard to say either way. However, the FACT of the matter is that we have done quite well within the EU - indeed projections show that within a generation the UK economy is expected to become bigger than that of Germany in GDP terms. The analogy to be drawn here is that between the defence and prosecution in a criminal trial. The EU is being charged with an offence and the burden of proof lays on the prosecution ( i.e. the Britex campaign) to prove their case to the British people.

Like many Southampton fans I happen to live in southern England. Admittidly there is now a Polish shop on Poole Hight Street, but I don't know of any sigificant urdan area that has been (quote) "taken over" by recent EU immigrants - which I had thought was the issue we were discussing here. Obviously previous perods of mass immigratation (often from the Commonwealth) has resulted in significant societal change in many of our larger towns and cities. As for housing, if you are attempting to blame EU immigration for the rise in housing costs we see here then methinks that is a rather simplistic explanation for what is a complex issue.

Well I'm not sure why on earth you think that I am somehow immune from economic effects and there is precious little hard evidence that migration has driven down wages in our economy - as you would expect as our minimum wage legislation would restrict that crude "supply and demand" effect. So the above post makes very little sense.

The evidence is that the UK has devloped a broadly successful modern economy that exists within the framework of our EU membership. It is I think for those who claim that we could do better if we departed the EU to prove that assertion to the British people. For all the heat and bombast being generated from Tory europhobes and UKIP ("birds of a feather" if ever I saw one) I'm just not seeing that persuasive economic case being made. As I said before, the Britex argument ammounts to little more than a "leap of faith" and I'm not about to jump anywhere just became the likes of Nigel Farage, Bill Cash, and the Daily Mail tell me to.

Well I presume workers doing that kind of work would be on on (or about) the minimum or "living" wage wherever they come from. So pay is not really the issue here and if you had to pay UK born employees substantially more to do the job then costs would obviously increase and therefore the business in question risks becoming uncompetitive. In my personal experience, most of the workers from eastern Europe I have encountered in my working life come with a excellent work ethic, are often overqualified for the job (I once met a young Pole busy packing boxs who had a university degree) and are indeed doing the type of work business are finding it increasingly hard to attract British workers to. Many of them have also subsequently returned to their homelands by the way rather than stay here forever. In other words the sterotypical kipper image of the grasping immigrant here only to exploit the UK welfare state is largly a myth in my experience - a myth born from a unappealing mixture of fear, ignorance and prejudice I think.

What is the Pwc?

So let's recap. According to you poor old Ted Heath was (quote) "a tratior" for taking us into the Common Market back in the day - this despite the fact that the record shows that the man fought for this country during WWII and our entry was also subsequently approved of by the British people in a referendum. You are now also opining that it is a somehow a "fact" (a fact I note that you don't bother to prove) that Gordon Brown is lying when he claims that he threatened to resign rather than approve of our joining the single currency. This despite the observable "fact" that his actions as Chancellor, and then Prime Minister, are seemingly perfectly consistent with that stated claim. So can the forum take it that while EU supporting circles are apparently riddled with traitors and liars (in your view) the Britex camp on the other hand you consider to be a veritable haven of sanity and sweet reason?

I would not go so far as to claim that the above argument is a feeble one - but I think it would probably qualify for some form of disability benefit. If you are attempting to make some spurious case along the lines that because we elected not to join the single currency back in the last century that somehow implies that exiting the EU in 2016 must also be a good thing then you are clearly confusing two quite separate issues. This referendum is not about the single currency and it does not follow that our decision to retain Stirling therefore means that we should exit the EU too. This nation is under no obligation whatsoever to join the single currency now or at any time within the foreseeable future. For that matter you forgot to mention that the UK is now formaly exempted from any future EU moves towards a "ever closer union" - thanks in large part I think to the efforts of the PM. That is a valuable achievement I would have thought any Kipper on here would would approve of, but which seems oddly unpopular - probably because puritans never bother to compremise do they? I suppose it is true that David Cameron and George Osborne were too junior to have played much of a part in the single currency decision of the Thatcher/Major/Blair era - being born too late is not much of a valid critism is it? Indeed, you might more profitably employ that fact as a usful pointer as to how outdated the above line of argument is. Surely what matters is what the PM and Chancellor think now and the leading roles they play in government and this coming referendum. As for the likes of Michael Heseltine and Richard Branson etc, I just don't agree at all that they are "main protagonists" in the stay campaign - Heseltine is 83 now for God's sake! You complain yet again about the supposed "loss of sovereignty" that resulted from various EU treaties that the record shows the UK has agreed to and implemented over time. I can only repeat that we were party to these negotiations and these treaties have been approved by our leaders and in Parliament in our normal democratic manner. Have you ever considered that the reason generatons of senior British politicians (such as Margaret Thatcher) have signed up for these treaties is not because they were fervent european federalists hell bent on stealing your natonal sovereignty, but rather because they happened to consider these treaties to be in our national interest? It is so damn easy for armchair politicians on here and in the press to critise the reform deal the PM brought back from Brussels recently. It is also utterly childish to imagine that nation states can enter into complex international negotiations and emerge from the expierence achieving 100% of everything they ever wanted. In the real world of proper grown-up "realpolitik" international agreements are almost always reached via by mixture of concession, good will, and compromise on all sides. That is the way of the world.

Read this - you never know you might learn something. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11947831

Surely the most prominent advocates of our continued membership of the EU today are not old "has beens" (such as Micheal Hesletine for example) but rather the current the Prime Minister and his Chancellor of the Exchequer - neither of whom would appear to be on the record as keen enthusiasts for this nation joining the European Single Currency. So it seems to me that the somewhat selective nature of the examples you cite is indeed rather telling. But clearly some EU supporters were - back in the day - in favour of our joining the single currancy and some were not. That matter is a long settled one now and of dubious relevance to this referendum decision methinks.

Gordon Brown - for example - was vehemently oppossed to our joining the single currency but nevertheless supports our continuing membership of the EU. For that matter the Prime Minister has publicy stated that the UK would NEVER join the Euro while he was PM. So your linking of prominent Britex opponents with the old Euro question seems rater selective, if not misleading. As for the second point, any post Britex trading arrangment we may reach with the EU is a matter of speculation rather that fact and I don't think anyone is arguing that our membership of the EU is a prerequisite of cross channel trading relations in any case - that would be silly. No, the real issue here is surely whether our current unhindered access to the EU single market area, and our influence over the rules that govern it, is significantly beneficial to UK trade or not? It would seem that the clear majority opinion within British industry is that it is.

Some possible explanations for the otherwise inexplicable popularly of Donald Trump with US voters: Why are Americans so angry? - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35406324

Well this member of the electorate would find the task of displaying any great level of "respect" for the likes of George Galloway, NIgel Farge or Bill Cash to be a somewhat problematic matter. Indeed, any campaign led by politicians of that calibre risks appearing to be on the lunatic fringe of British politics. Boris Johnson on the other hand may represent a more acceptable figurehead to the British public. But here too, for all his popularity and obvious entrtainment value, I'd hesitate before describing Boris as a deep political thinker or a statesman of real substanse. Indeed, his (rather late) conversion to the Britex cause smacks of rank opportunism methinks. Set against that rather motley crew in the Britex camp, and their many friends in the press, we see virtually all this nation's leading politicians, from the Prime Minister on downwards, and the vast majority of the heads of British industry too (according to a recent CBI survey) recommending that we remain in the EU. So this question may come down to who the British public trust most - those populist voices that are playing on fears of immigration and old school nationlism, or those on the other side of the argument who warn of the consequences of getting this discision wrong. It seems to this observer of the argument that ultimatly the Britex case amounts to little more than a "leap of faith" in that voters are being asked to accept that a better future awaits this nation outside of the EU without any real evidence being provided to support that claim. At my age leaps of all kinds are becoming increasingly painfull experiences, so this voter has decided to keep his feet firmly planted on solid ground in the coming referendum.

"The Witch" 17th century New England. Thinking that their pilgrim settlement (or "Plantation") is not quite puritanical enough for their religious tastes a family with five young childen depart the relative security of the stockade in order to make a new life for themselves alone in the vast woodland wilderness that lays before them. Soon baby Samual goes missing in circumstances that seem supernatural to their way of thinking and this family - deeply immersed in the religious fundamentalism of the age - start to turn on each other ... Most reviewers are categorizing this exceptionaly powerful example of modern cinema as a horror film, but you won't find many cheap thrills here because this film is more interested in exploring a different type of terror. In a strange way the film it most reminded me of was Stanley Kubrick's "The Shinning" - that same slow pace, sense of a isolation and darkley oppressive atmosphere. If you are thinking of seeing it for yourself I should warn you that this film is a intense experience and in truth pretty heavy going at times too. It is also one of those films that will remain in the memory long after you have left the cinema.

I'm half way through the thriller "The GIrl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins. Rachel, a young women whose life seems to be falling apart as acholism and depression takes a unshakable grip on her, rides the train into Euston everyday. A signal often halts her train outside the same trackside house and observing the seeming happy couple who live there Rachel 'projects' all her lost hopes and unfullfilled dreams of happiness onto them - people she has never even met. But this perfect world of the imagination is nothing but a fantasy of course and when the wife Rachel imagines she might have been goes missing our pathetic heroin is drawn into a mystery that grows steadily darker with every passing day ...

Yes it will be interesting to see how this situation pans out. Something tells me the Swiss will have to bend to the will of the EU, rather than the other way around.

In my personal experience most of these "unskilled" EU citizens you speak of are working hard at jobs few British workers would want to do in this day and age. Recent Home Office research shows that there is very little evidence to show that immigration has either increased unemployment or decreased wages in this economy. That does seem counterintuitive I grant you, but that is what the evidence shows apparently. Why would employing some Polish chap to pick crops in Norfolk on the minimum wage stop the NHS from hiring a trained nurse (on good money) from the Philippines?

We are straying somewhat from the EU, but the NHS as we know it today would probably not be able to function were it not for the many foreign born nationals it employs. For that matter a induvidual not requiring fequent healthcare services while they are relatively young is not all that usual methinks - you can rest assured that situation will change with time! A wise man once said that;"I like to pay taxes, with them I buy civilization"

Unfortunately for the Britex cause it is not a simple matter of weighing trade balances because Norwegian and Swiss experience shows that developed European states that seek to gain full tariff-free access to the vital and hugely lucrative EU Single Market must also accept the principle of the free movement of people too as this is considered by member states to be a core principle that cannot be compromised. Think of it as akin to applying to join an exclusive members club - i.e you either accept the club rules or forget it. A pretty stark ''take it or leave it'' or even ''Hobson's Choice'' situation in other words. Some facts for your information: 1 > The record shows that the UK elects to accept more immigrants from outside the EU than from within. 2 > In 2013 Norway - despite not being in the EU - accepted TWICE as many EU immigrants (per head) as the UK then did. 3 > Despite the fact that Germany (supposedly all-powerful in the EU) runs a substantial trade surplus with Switzerland the Swiss have nevertheless been informed that their recent referendum decision to curtail immigration is incompatible with their access to the EU Single Market. You talk of all the ''well respected'' politicians who support the Britex cause. Well I can only reply to that by stating that all those currently holding the ''great offices of state'' in this country, i.e. the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Defence Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, along with the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition ALL the main party leaders (with the obvious exception of UKIP) and the majority of our MP's have concluded that our continued membership of the EU is in the national interest. Even the governor of the Bank of England seemed pretty unenthusiastic I thought yesterday, so the ''stay'' camp would seem to be rather more respectable - in that sense - than the ''leave'' side. Yes although the PM has secured a opt-out from any UK commitment to a ''ever closer union'' I do agree that our soverengthy is indeed compromised by our EU membership - to some extent at least. However, don't you think that the soverengthy of the UK would be severely compromised were England to vote to leave and the rest of the UK opted to remain perhaps? It seems to me that anyone who knows the first thing about this nation and its long history really should know that he concept of ''soverengthy'' itself is always a relative and flexible term, rather than absolute and immutable one. The world is a complicated and difficult place - we can't simply ''pull up the drawbridge'' and excuse ourselves from it.

1> The Common People. What I try to ''recognise'' is typical human behaviour as I perceive it - i.e. most people in my experience will put practicable considerations, such as paying off mortgages and feeding their children etc, ahead more esoteric notions concerning constitutional reform or the supposed advantages of leaving the EU. You can (and probably will I suspect) continue to object to this, but do try to comprehend that not everyone thinks as you do and you may well be somewhat atypical. 2 > Border Control. I must inform you yet again that even if we were to vote to leave in the coming referendum then any new free trade arrangement we could REALISTICALLY negotiate with the EU would almost certainly entail the UK continuing to accept the principle of the free movement of workers. That afterall is implicit in the ''Single Market'' concept as it applies to major industrialised nation states in Europe. I can easily understand why you personally find this to be somewhat uncomfortable, or at least inconvenient. Nevertheless, this seems to be the fact of the matter. 3 > Project Fear. You may have swallowed whole this so called ''Project Fear'' line being peddled by the likes of Boris Johnson and his cronies in the press. However, a equally valid interpretation would be that the Prime Minister is calling the situation as he sees it and warning people of the potentially serious long term implications for this nation of a Britex victory. I for one don't see that there is very much wrong with him doing that frankly - if that is what he honestly believes. Even if I did accept that ''scare tactics'' are indeed being employed in this debate, then any suggestion that only one side of the argument here would stoop so low is nonsense of course. 4 > The Papers. It seems to me quite evident that many of our newspapers are indeed notorious purveyors of anti-EU propaganda. ''Exhibit A'' in the case for the prosecution being virtually any edition of the Daily Mail published in the last twenty years! If you consider that this widespread and virulent Eurosceptic attitude among the editors and owners of our national press is founded on some high minded and principled objection to EU Treaty amendments (mostly agreed to by our leaders and endorsed by our Parliament by the way) then good for you I suppose. Others methinks may well suspect that the real motivation here is more connected to selling newspapers to that ''Little Englander'' segment of our population that still exhibited some degree of latent xenophobia in their attitudes. 5 > R Day. With months of arguing still ahead of us I'm not going to be so rash as to try and predict the winner now in a race as close as this one surely is. However, I reckon that the chances of you waking up on R Day+1 morning with a nasty shock to the system are at least as high as mine are right now. Time will tell.

Those who decide to stress the so called ''fear'' tactics of the remain campaign without even bothering to mention the veritable barrage of blatant anti-EU propaganda that much of our press has been peddling to the British public for decades now risk ridicule methinks ... Yes basing your stay or leave decision on pure economic self-interest, rather than on more esoteric notions such as sovereignty or political independence, may lack a certain degree of nobility I suppose. However, in my experience that is how millions of ordinary people think and I'm not about to come on here and lecture these people on the error of their ways.

^ Well those not directly, or even indirectly, employed in the motor industry may well elect not to take into account the future prospects of that manufacturing activity in their personal referendum decision. Equally I suppose those who are now retired can safely vote to take what is surely something of a ''gamble'' on our nation's trading future safe in the knowledge that the consequences of that decision may not much effect them individually. On the other hand those working in UK car plants, facilities that would almost certainly not exist today were it not for our EU membership, may well take a different view of that matter as airy notions surrounding sovereignty and independence take second place in their mind to the very real problems of feeding children and paying off mortgages. Like many questions how you answer is all a matter of perspective.

It would seem that a large majority of our motor industry - not just the German owned parts - would prefer that this nation votes to retain its EU membership. http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/brexit-77-uk-motor-industry-wants-britain-remain-eu

Funny stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGc2nN9OguQ