John B

Yes we have got control back MP Nigel Evans has admitted immigration will not fall significantly as a result of Brexit, claiming the referendum result only means “control” rather than a reduction in numbers. The Conservative MP told BBC Radio 5 live there had been “some misunderstanding” about the consequences of Brexit on immigration. When asked to say if migration to the UK would fall significantly now the country was leaving the EU, Mr Evans answered: “No." That will please many no doubt http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-immigration-uk-nigel-evans-eu-referendum-latest-news-what-will-happen-migrants-a7104021.html

I feel sorry for him some of the passing was rubbish

Out of Europe twice in a week must be record

What would you do if you thought the will of the people was a dangerous leap in the dark and obtained by deception and does not have a credible economic plan I think it probably is a dangerous leap in the dark but as I am 70 I will not have to suffer for very long the problems with the leap but my children will so bring it on whatever it is

I think if Cameron thought that the LEAVE had won fairly without promising impossible things and lied about him personally he may well have continued further as PM. allthough perhaps not as he he knows being out of the EU is going to lead to a recession. Even though I think him incompetent untruthful and arrogant I am not cheering about his departure.

Do you think it is right that Scotland has voted to remain but is now out of the EU The LEAVE team dont seem to have have no plan at the moment and are retracting that £350000 per week is to be spent on the NHS They are saying that there is going to be a recession but it is nothing to do with BREXIT and there probably will not be a reduction of immigration from the EU. I wanted REMAIN but LEAVE won so they should get on with it and get us out of the EU but others think it will lead to serious problems especially as voters may have been completely misled by LEAVE leaders on the points mentioned above. But they seem like a fair number of LEAVE voters that perhaps LEAVE was not a good idea especially as Boris could have easily been on the REMAIN side but went LEAVE as it may have enhanced his position to become Tory leader. Interesting times as Labour have no credible leader to take over from Corbyn who is a decent man with a social conscience but should never have become leader of the party

The result is accepted but there are consequences of it so lots of people are worried You are not because perhaps you do not understand the economic situation we find ourselves in today it is not a criticism but if you dont follow these things like I do you will not know Like you I follow the Saints avidly since 1962 but I also follow economics as I did it at school at the same time and politics as I really liked Harold Wilson a Huddersfield Town supporter by the way I have just read this which interests me The ratings agency Moody’s has lowered the outlook for the UK’s credit rating from stable to negative amid what it said would prove a prolonged period of uncertainty following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. Moody’s said the unpredictability of British decision-making had factored into its move, as had the likelihood of lower economic growth that it said would outweigh any savings the UK might hope to get from not having to contribute to the EU budget. “Over the longer term, should the UK not be able to secure a favourable alternative trade arrangement with the EU and other countries, the UK’s growth prospects would be materially weaker than currently expected,” the agency’s note said. Standard and Poor’s has also warned Britain’s top “AAA” credit rating was now at risk. Britain’s vote on Friday to leave the EU has sparked widespread turmoil and uncertainty, forcing prime minister David Cameron to resign and wiping more than $2tn of value from markets around the world. An austerity budget was never ever going to happen after BREXIT because as usual Osborne's econimics would have led us to sure recession however he was clumsily trying to highlight that after BREXIT GDP would reduce and there was going to be blackhole in the finances of the country. But there are other ways apart from austerity to fill the black holes which the next right wing Tory Government will have to fill as well as funding the NHS. There is also the Political Law supported by Gove Grayling Johnson IDS Patel etc which commits the governmentto balance day-to-day spending by eliminating the structural deficit sometme soon to navigate around I cannot remember the exact date because it is always changing as Osborne's policies continually raise the debt of the country Some cause for thought With hours of the result on Friday morning, the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, had distanced himself from the claim that £350m of EU contributions could instead be spent on the NHS. On another front, Liam Fox has cast doubt on the necessity of triggering the article 50 clause of the Lisbon treaty that sets out the legal process for a country’s EU withdrawal. “A lot of things were said in advance of this referendum that we might want to think about again and that [invoking article 50] is one of them,” said the Conservative MP. Tory MEP Daniel Hannan told the BBC: “Frankly, if people watching think that they have voted and there is now going to be zero immigration from the EU, they are going to be disappointed which probably means there is still going to be a lot. PS I distrust most Tory Politician with a passion as well as ones from other parties but really like Caroline Lucas

I doubt that Out would win if there was another Referendum in 2017 as people will be poorer there will be more unemployment possibly a small recession and promises not acted upon. But we are where we are so we will have to make the best of it but there will consequences with Law firms will be making a packet

I agree nobody really knows but money has been lost the FTSE250 which contains more British companies than the FTSE100 as it contains many US companies who report profits in Dollars are happy with the 7% fall in the pound dropped 7% as did many European and Asian Stock Markets. The UK has had its credit rating outlook downgraded to "negative" by the ratings agency Moody's after the country voted to leave the EU. Moody's said the result would herald "a prolonged period of uncertainty". But only time will tell Yesterday was a bad day lets hope next week is not a bad week as each and everyone of us will become poorer if it is This explains what happened yesterday on the Stock Markets http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/06/25/when-do-you-decide-its-time-to-worry/

Congratulations Duckie on your win I know how it feels when you achieve something that you want I wanted to Remain but not as desperately as you wanted to Leave But dont be nasty to people with opposite opinions I think analysis will show that most people of working age voted remain and those over sixty voted out so loads of people work in and around London but many are not well off as they pay high transport and housing costs and work for foreign companies like my daughter and are worried that they will move to mainland Europe.. Of course the austerity setup by the Tories caused a great deal of resentment which I fully agree with but I cannot see the Tory party addressing that . I want to see a fairer and equal society and I am like one of those nice Remain tellers you met last night so lets have a constructive conversation of how we want to move forward and what society we want we live in changing times globalisation climate change huge refugee problems poverty inequality intolerance and the key one for me how to manage an aging population as I am 70 years old but hope to survive for many years to come like all my friends and associates. As a former member of the Labour Party I know it was what they want to happen not policies formulated by focus groups like New Labour but polices formulated by the grass roots. PS who is going to pay for my extra diesel cost as prices go up and I see I may have lost 10% on my holiday euros

How can that be done here with all the cross checking carried out to see that votes cast equals the votes counted Perhaps you are suggesting that some of the returning officers are corrupt but if they are the electoral clerks will know and they will be be corrupt too. Having been involved with lots of political counts I just cannot see it happening in the UK because of the way things are done here

FTSE 100 hits two-month high, pound keeps rallying Britain’s blue-chip FTSE 100 index has just hit its highest level in two month The Footsie jumped by 110 points to 6371 points, a gain of 1.5%. That’s its highest level since 21 April, before the EU referendum campaign came to the boil. Betting now 5/1 for leave at Paddy Power The pound has just hit a new 2016 high too, up 1.5 cents at $1.4862.

Very true but being influenced by Politicians who are economical with the truth and the Press who exaggerate and lie has not helped the decision process in my opinion

It is also the opinion of many This from my favorite Economist The waves of economists, businessmen, scientists, university leaders, doctors, historians and more shouting loud that Brexit would be harmful has been incredibly impressive. It reflects the fact that this is not a debate with decent arguments on both sides, but a pretty open and shut case. But I think it reflects as well the nature of the pro-Brexit campaign. Not just that Leave have lied openly and repeatedly. Not just that they have used lies to provoke fear (Turkey). It is that they are trying to deflect the blame for failing to adequately fund public services on to migrants who are just looking for a better life. And it is working. More people feel they have personally benefited from migration than otherwise, but most people also ‘know’ that migration has been bad for the NHS. Such incorrect beliefs appear immune to expert opinion because large parts of the media shut that opinion out, and ideologues deride experts. Of course these lies play on basic fears about unfamiliar people. But the way our society used to respond to this in the past was by uniting behind truth and humanity, and through patient explanation. If some politicians tried to fan fears of migration by, for example, talking about rivers of blood they were quickly slammed down by the majority, and it has to be said also by the media. And our society was better for it. Today those politicians talking about a breaking point in front of pictures of refugees are given large amounts of air time by the broadcast media. Those pretending we are about to be swamped by Turkish migrants are cheered on by nearly all of the tabloid press. Populist politicians are about to lead once proud centre right parties on both sides of the Atlantic. And one brave Yorkshire politician that argued against all this was shot dead in the street. We cannot continue to let this pass. It will not stop with Brexit. When Brexit fails to improve our public services or our economy there will be other scapegoats. Maybe migrants already here, or nasty foreigners who failed to give the beneficial trade deals the Leave campaign pretend we will get.

How is Ruth going to be PM she not even an MP but I agree she seems pretty good but yes Cameron is usually a lying toad but on the EU he happens to be right. Turkey about to join the EU is a complete lie they may well well do so later but not in our lifetime not only does the UK have the veto but other countries do too Both France and Austria will put the question of Turkish accession to a referendum, so Turkey it would need to get approval from the popular vote in each country. So it is not going to happen

Trade costs matter what about this is that wrong too “New EU trade deal raises admin burden for UK exporters”. Cue gasps of outrage from Eurosceptics, but, if we leave the EU, this headline will be entirely of our own making. The EU could offer us the best trade deal on the planet and it would still increase the cost of regulation for UK exporters, reducing their ability to compete. As exporters are typically our most productive and most innovative firms, and more than 80% of them trade with the EU, this could be bad for our long-term prosperity. The reasons for increased regulation are simple – the EU is structured precisely to keep the costs of crossing a border down. This means that taking away even one component of that structure raises the regulatory costs of trading with the EU. As highlighted below, examples of this are how EU structures deal with tariff evasion, as well as reducing regulatory costs through passporting. Tariff evasion Governments oppose tariff evasion, meaning any trade deal needs a mechanism to ensure it cannot happen. Under the EU’s common trade policy, the tariffs due on imports from third countries are the same throughout the EU. Therefore there are no opportunities for firms to avoid tariffs, so goods can move freely throughout the EU without the need for special documentation. However, this is not the case for the movement of goods between the EU and countries with a trade deal allowing them preferential access to EU markets (such as Switzerland and Norway), because the existence of separate trade deals with third countries creates opportunities for tariff evasion. For example, if following a vote to leave the UK and EU introduced a free trade agreement, but the EU also had separate deals with third countries that did not have agreements with the UK, then exporters from those countries could ship their goods to the EU first (to take advantage of tariff free entry to the EU) and then from the EU across the border to the UK, so avoiding UK tariffs. This is not something the UK government would allow, and governments in the remainder of the EU would be similarly concerned. For this reason all preferential trade agreements contain what are known as rule of origin regulations. These set out how companies must demonstrate that enough of the production of the goods they are shipping originated in their home market and are therefore eligible for the reduced tariffs. Rule of origin regulations are complex and depend on the product. There are several different ways in which the rules can be specified and for some products more than one type of rule will apply. ‘Notice 828: tariff preferences – rule of origin for various counties’ sets out the rules for imports and exports covered by the trade agreements between the EU and Albania, Norway and Switzerland amongst others (including some parts of trade with Turkey). In other words, it covers the main alternatives to EU membership, at least if we do not want to pay tariffs. Notice 828 runs to 140 pages and is extremely detailed. For example, if you are a bicycle manufacturer, whoever is responsible for administration will need to understand the manufacturing process, because the rules set out in Chapter 87 include a separate set of rules for bicycles without ball bearings, including what materials are allowed and the maximum share of non-originating materials. Complying with rule of origin regulations is therefore costly, particularly as you may need to keep track not only of what you are doing, but also where inputs from all of your suppliers come from. Furthermore, as the EU is the biggest cross-border market for intermediate inputs in the world, costs could be increased at multiple stages in the value chain. Estimates suggest that the rule of origin regulations for EU trade deals increase compliance costs by 8% and general administrative costs by 6.8%. The cost of these rules will be particularly high for small and medium sized firms, who typically lack the scale to justify sophisticated tracking systems, meaning some may conclude that it is simply easier pay any tariffs due, rather than fill out the paperwork. Either way the increased costs of trading will undermine the competitiveness of UK exporters and push up the cost of UK imports from the EU. As over 80% of UK exporters export to the EU, the impact on some of the UK’s most productive firms will be widespread. The CEPR has calculated that the increase in costs from having to apply rule of origin regulations to trade with the EU will reduce UK exports by 1.3% of GDP per annum. Reducing regulatory costs through passporting For exporters one of the big costs is the need to meet different standards and talk to different regulators. The EU aims to reduce these costs through the Single Market, by ensuring that standards are common. Common rules mean that governments do not need to worry about whether different standards create risks, including the risk of unfair competition. Therefore a firm regulated in one part of the EU can operate elsewhere under the same rules. While the Single Market is not complete, many of the gaps reflect our preferences. For example, enabling a UK pension provider to sell the exact same product in both the UK and Germany would require the harmonisation of pension tax regimes across EU states, and this is something that politicians have preferred not to tackle. However, in other areas the Single Market has had a significant beneficial impact on how markets function. This is particularly true in sectors such as financial services, where passporting rights can allow firms to serve multiple EU markets while only dealing with one regulator. The use of passporting is pervasive. Almost 50% of authorisation requests for firms’ activities received by the Prudential Regulation Authority between March 2014 and February 2015 related to passporting, roughly two-thirds of which were requests from UK financial services firms wanting to passport their services elsewhere in the Single Market. Over 60% of firms operating in the UK’s general insurance market are headquartered in another European market and passport in under the EU Third Non-Life Directive and almost 50% of those operating in the UK’s life insurance market do the same under the EU Third Life Directive. If passporting did not exist, then these firms would have to decide whether they can still compete in the UK after the additional expense of dealing with two sets of regulators, the relevant UK regulator and their domestic regulator. The alternative will be for them to withdraw from the UK market, reducing competition and choice. The same will be true for UK firms currently operating in the rest of the EU under passporting rules. Passporting rights are associated with the Single Market, and are possible because membership of the Single Market depends on applying an equivalent set of regulatory rules. If the UK did not want to be part of the Single Market after it left, these rights would not be available. Without passporting UK financial services firms would need to set up a separate entity, domiciled in the EU, to handle any EU business, with all the inefficiencies entailed in duplicating regulatory processes and increasing the costs of managing capital requirements. It is not hard to suspect that the UK’s withdrawal from the Single Market could bring significant disruption. Summary Historically the 11% of UK firms that export have been responsible for 60% of our productivity growth – hardly surprising as in general they are our most productive and most innovative firms. Unfortunately for our future prosperity, leaving the EU would increase costs for these firms, reducing their ability to compete. While a depreciation of sterling might help compensate for these cost increases, it will do so at the cost of rising import prices, with the associated fall in living standards, and a reduction in the value of our assets. Politicians may bemoan its structure, but the reasons that the EU is structured the way it is are precisely to keep the cost of crossing internal EU borders down. It is one case where the maxim “rules are there for a reason” holds true.

Ten of the world’s leading economists have issued a warning about the consequences of the UK leaving the EU as the City prepares for the pound to plunge and shares to fall in the event of a Brexit vote in Thursday’s referendum. This is a tough choice...do I listen to the rantings of Nigel Boris and Wes, or do I listen to 10 of the world's leading economists........... In other news former and current supermarket bosses say Brexit would be 'catastrophic for millions of families' Some of the most senior figures in British retailing have signed an open letter today saying that Brexit would be “catastrophic for millions of ordinary families” because it would lead to prices going up. The letter has been publicised by Britain Stronger in Europe. Their claims are supported by a report from USDAW, the shopworkers union, saying that workers would worse off if Britain leaves the EU because of the fall in the value of the pound and the impact of tariffs on imported goods. Johnson condemns UKIPs ‘Breaking Point’ poster, saying it implied refugees were 'bad people' which is a good thing In an open letter to The Independent, vice chancellors from almost every major higher education institution in Britain say they are 'gravely concerned' about a vote to leave The pound has hit its highest level since the start of the year, in a fresh signal that Brexit fears are easing. But the only way to ease Brexit fears is to vote remain

You raise an interesting point because as one of the larger countries the UK have more votes in the 352 available in the Council but Norway and Switzerland have none but have to live with the outcome of any vote. The 352 votes are distributed as follows: France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom: 29 votes each Spain, Poland: 27 votes each Romania: 14 votes Netherlands: 13 votes Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal: 12 votes each Austria, Bulgaria, Sweden: 10 votes each Croatia, Denmark, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Finland: 7 votes each Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Slovenia: 4 votes each Malta: 3 votes A qualified majority is reached in the Council if the following conditions are met: a majority of member states - 15 member states - vote in favour a minimum of 260 votes out of the total 352 votes are cast in favour I have found information relating to the UK and voting outcome The UK government was on the losing side a far higher proportion of times than any other EU government in the 2009-15 period when the Tories were in government jumping from being on the minority (losing) side only 2.6% of the time in 2004-09 to being on the minority (losing) side 12.3% of the time in the 2009-15 period. Also, the next most frequent “losing” governments, Germany and Austria, were only on the minority side 5.4% of the time in this period. So we win a really high level of votes but not all and is dependent on the Government in power at the time the Tories always want less regulation sometimes with regard to workers rights Most of the votes are for regulations so that the single market runs smoothly so no country gets an unfair advantage The EU does not set our VAT rates in any way it just stipulates the minimum which cannot be less than 15% .The Tories have raised it from 15% to 17.5% in 1991 and from 17.5% in 2011 despite saying they would not. Fuel on VAT cannot be lower than 5% The introduction of VAT on domestic fuel and power went ahead in April 1994, but the increase from 8% to 17.5% in April 1995 was scuppered in December 1994, after the government lost the vote in parliament In its 1997 general election manifesto, the Labour Party pledged to reduce VAT on domestic fuel and power to 5% After gaining power, the new Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown announced in June 1997 that the lower rate of VAT on domestic fuel and power would be reduced from 8% to 5% with effect from 1 September 1997 In November 1997, Brown announced that the VAT on installation of energy saving materials would be reduced from 17.5% to 5% from 1 July 1998. Brown subsequently reduced VAT from 17.5% to 5% on sanitary protection products (from 1 January 2001); children's car seats (from 1 April 2001); conversion and renovation of certain residential properties (from 12 May 2001); contraceptives (from 1 July 2006); and smoking cessation products (from 1 July 2007). So we really have control on VAT which is a just a tax raising exercise Of course if VAT was reduced to zero the government would have to raise some other tax if it wanted the same amount of tax to be raised. Thanks to Gordon Brown OAPs get a £200 lump sum each year which covers their VAT. I don’t believe the EU comes up with that many laws which are not acceptable as I doubt the countries would agree to them. The Commission is composed of the College of Commissioners of 28 members, including the President and Vice-Presidents. The Commissioners, one from each EU country, are the Commission's political leadership during a 5-year term. Each Commissioner is assigned responsibility for specific policy areas by the President The European Parliament has the power at any time to force the entire Commission to resign through a vote of no confidence which is similar to our parliament This requires a vote that makes up at least two-thirds of those voting and a majority of the total membership of the Parliament. While it has never used this power, it threatened to use it against the Commission headed by Jacques Santer in 1999 over allegations of corruption. In response, the Santer Commission resigned en masse of its own accord, the only time a Commission has done so.

I agree with you Charlie but it is not surprising that many of the electorate do not believe the government with regard to the economy as they have constantly been lied to since 2010 when VAT was raised after saying they would not - VAT is a regressive tax hitting the poorest hardest They then introduced an austerity program backed by low wages and zero hours contracts which has led to more poverty and the lowering of the standard of living for most whilst raising the standard of living many of the wealthiest if inflation and oil prices were not low things would be even worse. How they got back in GE15 beggars belief but was probably due to scaremongering lies about the Labour Party and a willing Press. This time during the referendum scaremongering does not go down well and the Press is not willing and they need the Labour Party and if Brexit takes place they will probably blame the Labour Party for their own incompetence. I think the scaremongering of the In campaign has a great deal of truth but has not been articulated in a sensible way but the Out scaremongering does not have that much truth. The balance of evidence is that Brexit would be a major macroeconomic disaster starting on Friday morning leading to more poverty unemployment and a lower standard of living in the UK and elsewhere in the world This will fall hardest on the poorer of this country like the Tory austerity has done here and the Eurozone austerity has done in Greece. George Soros the speculator involved in Black Wednesday in 1992 agrees and the following has been written by him. My 60 years of experience tells me the pound will plummet, along with your living standards after Brexit. The only winners will be speculators Brexiters seem to recognise that a sharp devaluation would be almost inevitable after Brexit, but argue that this would be healthy, despite the big losses of purchasing power for British households. In 1992 the devaluation actually proved very helpful to the British economy, and subsequently I was even praised for my role in helping to bring it about. But I don’t think the 1992 experience would be repeated. That devaluation was healthy because the government was relieved of its obligation to “defend” an overvalued pound with damagingly high interest rates after the breakdown of the exchange rate mechanism. This time, a large devaluation would be much less benign than in 1992, for at least three reasons. First, the Bank of England would not cut interest rates after a Brexit devaluation (as it did in 1992 and also after the large devaluation of 2008) because interest rates are already at the lowest level compatible with the stability of British banks. That, incidentally, is another reason to worry about Brexit. For if a fall in house prices and loss of jobs causes a recession after Brexit, as is likely, there will be very little that monetary policy can do to stimulate the economy and counteract the consequent loss of demand. Second, the UK now has a very large current account deficit – much larger, relatively, than in 1992 or 2008. In fact Britain is more dependent than at any time in history on inflows of foreign capital. As the governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney said, Britain “depends on the kindness of strangers”. The devaluations of 1992 and 2008 encouraged greater capital inflows, especially into residential and commercial property, but also into manufacturing investments. But after Brexit, the capital flows would almost certainly move the other way, especially during the two-year period of uncertainty while Britain negotiates its terms of divorce with a region that has always been – and presumably will remain – its biggest trading and investment partner. Third, a post-Brexit devaluation is unlikely to produce the improvement in manufacturing exports seen after 1992, because trading conditions would be too uncertain for British businesses to undertake new investments, hire more workers or otherwise add to export capacity. For all these reasons I believe the devaluation this time would be more like the one in 1967, when Harold Wilson famously declared that “the pound in your pocket has not been devalued”, but the British people disagreed with him, quickly noticing that the cost of imports and foreign holidays were rising sharply and that their true living standards were going down. Meanwhile financial speculators, back then called the Gnomes of Zurich, were making large profits at Britain’s expense. Today, there are speculative forces in the markets much bigger and more powerful. And they will be eager to exploit any miscalculations by the British government or British voters. A vote for Brexit would make some people very rich – but most voters considerably poorer. I want people to know what the consequences of leaving the EU would be before they cast their votes, rather than after. A vote to leave could see the week end with a Black Friday, and serious consequences for ordinary people. I think the Government also could have done more to sort out the concerns of the electorate affected by large numbers of new EU citizens. The recent concessions obtained from the EU on Benefits should have been implemented earlier . More houses schools and general infrastructure should have been funded in areas of high migration Attention should have been paid to checking that Employers were paying the going rate and not undercutting UK workers. Recruiting for worker only in the EU should have been banned. They were only interested in reducing the deficit caused by the Global Banking Crash and getting re-elected I think the electorate can see them as a shallow government which had many of the leading Brexiteers in leading positions piling on the misery

It is a lie to say that Turkey are about to join the EU they might join in the future so might Russia but not for decades surely helping Turkey to become a Western democracy is a good thing is it not But as I only have three posts I would like to reply to the out warrior Wes Tender on Switzerland and not discuss blatant fear mongering further Switzerland’s longstanding application to join the EU has not had a significant impact on the country’s politics for more than 20 years, as its accession negotiations have been suspended since 1992 in the wake of a referendum to join the European Economic Area, when the Swiss voted down the idea of closer ties with the EU. Some politicians even argued that the vote was an unnecessary formal procedure that didn’t make much sense as Switzerland is no longer regarded by the EU as an official candidate to join the block so not particularly relevant but more relevant is that other small Balkan countries wish to join as they see economic advantages to joining the EU. If we leave do you fancy Boris for PM and Farage an unelected member of the House of Lords is Boris going to close the unelected Lords and what is he going to do about the monarchy as we cant vote them out. I agree with Michael Heseltine that Boris does not seem to have the right values to be PM not that Cameron has either The reason I mentioned this is that I saw this fascinating insight into Brexit and Boris Johnson, by his former colleague Martin Fletcher, a former Times foreign correspondent For 25 years our press has fed the British public a diet of distorted, mendacious and relentlessly hostile stories about the EU - and the journalist who set the tone was Boris Johnson. I know this because I was appointed Brussels correspondent of The Times in 1999, a few years after Johnson’s stint there for The Telegraph, and I had to live with the consequences. Johnson, sacked by The Times in 1988 for fabricating a quote, made his mark in Brussels not through fair and balanced reporting, but through extreme euro-scepticism. He seized every chance to mock or denigrate the EU, filing stories that were undoubtedly colourful but also grotesquely exaggerated or completely untrue. The Telegraph loved it. So did the Tory Right. Johnson later confessed: “Everything I wrote from Brussels, I found was sort of chucking these rocks over the garden wall and I listened to this amazing crash from the greenhouse next door over in England as everything I wrote from Brussels was having this amazing, explosive effect on the Tory party, and it really gave me this I suppose rather weird sense of power." Johnson’s reports also had an amazing, explosive effect on the rest of Fleet Street. They were much more fun than the usual dry and rather complex Brussels fare. News editors on other papers, particularly but not exclusively the tabloids, started pressing their own correspondents to match them. By the time I arrived in Brussels editors only wanted stories about faceless Brussels eurocrats imposing absurd rules on Britain, or scheming Europeans ganging up on us, or British prime ministers fighting plucky rearguard actions against a hostile continent. Much of Fleet Street seemed unable to view the EU through any other prism. It was the only narrative it was interested in. Stories that did not bash Brussels, stories that acknowledged the EU’s many achievements, stories that recognised that Britain had many natural allies in Europe and often won important arguments, almost invariably ended up on the spike. Boris Johnson is now campaigning against the cartoon caricature of the EU that he himself created. He is campaigning against a largely fictional EU that bears no relation to reality. That is why he and his fellow Brexiteers could win next week. Johnson may be witty and amusing, just as Donald Rumsfeld was in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, but he is extremely dangerous. What began as a bit of a jape could inflict terrible damage on this country.

I was surprised last week that she was in the Leave Camp but she was But here is some even better news Pound and shares soar as Brexit fears ease https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2016/jun/20/pound-shares-markets-eu-referendum-brexit-fears-business-live?page=with:block-5767900de4b0b4b233941b25#block-5767900de4b0b4b233941b25 Sterling is rallying hard this morning - another sign that Brexit worries are easing. The pound has jumped more than two cents, or 1.5%, to $1.4572, after weekend opinion polls showed the Remain campaign picking up more support. That’s its highest level since June 7, before opinion polls showed the Leave campaign in the ascendant.

Some good news for the Remain Camp but a lot more to come Michael Gove as well as a most of the electorate are appalled by Nigel Farage’s recent Breaking Point poster making Sayeeda Warsi quit the Leave campaign saying "Are we prepared to tell lies, to spread hate and xenophobia just to win a campaign?" Economic issues are central to the UK referendum debate. Winners of the Nobel prize in economics believe that the UK would be better off economically inside the EU. British firms and workers need full access to the single market. In addition, Brexit would create major uncertainty about Britain’s alternative future trading arrangements, both with the rest of Europe and with important markets like the USA, Canada and China. And these effects, though one-off, would persist for many years. Thus the economic arguments are clearly in favour of remaining in the EU. George Akerlof Kenneth Arrow Angus Deaton Peter Diamond James Heckman Eric Maskin James Mirrlees Christopher ****arides Robert Solow Jean Tirole Turkey is not going to join the EU in the next thirty years just a lie and scaremongering from the Leave team The UK's car industry, more leading businessmen have backed the campaign to stay in the EU.In a joint statement, the car industry's trade body and company executives warned that leaving would increase costs and threaten jobs. Directors at Toyota UK, Vauxhall, Jaguar Land Rover and BMW, as well as from component makers GKN and Magal Engineering, voiced their support. Rory Harvey, chairman of Vauxhall, said: "We are part of a fully integrated European company where we benefit from the free movement of goods and people. We believe not to be part of the EU would be undesirable for our business and the sector as a whole." Richard Scudamore, executive chairman of the Premier League, pledged his support to remain in the EU, and said the 20 clubs in the top tier also wanted to remain. Diageo's chief executive has written to the company's 4,773 UK employees, telling them that it would be "better for the UK, better for Diageo and better for the Scotch whisky industry that we remain in". Mr Menezes said Diageo benefitted from ease of access to the European single market, as well as trade deals that the EU has negotiated with the rest of the world. "The EU has so far concluded, or is negotiating, over 50 of these global agreements, many of which provide significant commercial benefits for Diageo," Mr Menezes said in his letter. Negotiating new deals after a Brexit could take years, he said. This has led to on the betting sites REMAIN 72% LEAVE 28%

Tom London ‏@TomLondon6 The oldest trick in the book The rich rip off the poor and persuade the poor it is all the fault of immigrants

YouGov's Anthony Wells says they don't think that move to REMAIN is connected with Jo Cox tragic urder as 33% tell YouGov Brexit would make them worse off, up from 23% two weeks ago

History teaches us that hysteria & fear mixed with misinformation are usually to be avoided when making irreversible decisions.