Wes Tender

Reading that article enthuses me that he would seem to be a good fit for us, encouraging the youngsters and playing exciting football. He sounds a bit like a Poch Mk 2.

Millions of people were unhappy about the implications for us from the Treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon. And its taken all these years for them to be allowed to vote on that, despite successive governments of both political persuasions promising a referendum. Every single Treaty should have been put to the electorate and wasn't. What form of democracy is that?

What, you mean the healthcare and pensions that most of us contributed towards throughout our working lives?

Pre-Maastricht would be fine for me.

I'm OK with that. Back to the time when we stood on our own two feet, made all of our own decisions to run our country via our own Parliamentary system which is admired throughout the free World. Back to when all of the decisions that affected us were made by politicians we could dismiss if we thought they had not served us well, a time when we looked outwards to trade with the rest of the World and before our legal system was subjugated to one outside of our shores.

Some very worthy sentiments which I agree with.

Time for us to unite and plan our exciting future outside the EU. Let us go forward together.

That might be the case, but my reasoning is that the older voters will already have been registered, so that it is the younger ones who have been added, persuaded by the campaign to register. Whether they actually turn out to vote is another matter, but having taken the trouble to register, it suggests that they probably will.

You're right. When an undecided voter has the pencil poised over the ballot paper and makes their final decision, they will look at both options and reading Leave, will bring up the sub-conscious "and take back control." As you say, they have received some clever marketing advice.

There is a record number entitled to vote, which possibly favours remain, I would imagine.

To be ignored; it's the Daily Mail

Ah, here we are, the arrogance surfaces from yet another of the intellectual elite who people the remain camp. I have been a voter since 1 was 18, yet despite having voted in 12 General Elections, I don't seem to have grasped the simple fact that once elected, a Government will comprise the Prime Minister who was the leader of the party before the election and their choice of ministers, often comprising those who were shadow ministers or the party spokesmen on those issues. It is you and Timmy who are disconnected from reality if you seriously believe that most of the electorate will not vote for the traditional parties they have usually supported, just because they don't like the personalities who will take one or more of the leading posts in the Government. Regarding my dislike for Cameron and Osborne, the possibility that I might not have disliked them at the time of the GE seems to have eluded you. It is only during this referendum campaign that this dislike has surfaced, but as I say, the chances of them being candidates for leadership of the party at the next GE are very remote.

I'm glad that you insist that what Dave, our Prime Minister says is irrelevant to Turkey's application to join the EU, as by implication he is not to be trusted by the electorate in both this referendum, or indeed in the running of the Country, which as a Conservative voter is deeply disappointing to me. Naturally, the issue of Turkey's future membership would not have arisen had Dave not championed it, so quite why it is the credibility of the Brexit campaign that is in question is beyond me. It is for the electorate to decide, but they might well conclude that Dave has not come out of that particular episode smelling of roses and that might affect their referendum decision. Which oft quoted statement are you referring to? Yes, I remain optimistic that our departure from the EU will be beneficial to us in the medium to longer term and happy to take that chance based on all of the factors, not just the economic arguments. Those are mitigated by the reasoning that we will continue to trade with the EU like most other countries do, without having to accept the free movement of peoples and that it is mutually advantageous not to have a tariff war. I am confident that this course of action will be the one most beneficial for our children and grandchildren. I admire your optimism that we could call another referendum if the onward march of the EU is further towards a USE and an EU Army, but for some reason the counter position of reapplying if we left is not an option. It has taken us decades to get a referendum on our continued membership, despite several treaty changes to our original deal, so how long would it take to call another one? In any event, didn't Dave gain an agreement that we would not be a part of any further EU integration? No, I don't trust that claim either.

On the contrary, your post is a classic example of your stellar reasoning. I didn't vote for them; I voted for the Conservative Party. Do you honestly naively believe that everybody who votes for a particular party wholeheartedly endorses the leader of that party?

In your opinion he happens to be right. As a Conservative, I believe that regardless of the referendum vote, Dave is finished as the leader of the Party, ditto Osborne. A way will be found for Ruth Davidson to be a candidate for PM by the time of the next General Election and she will be a formidable opponent to her rivals. I'm reticent to make forecasts about the time-scale of Turkey's possible acceptance into the EU, especially "in our lifetime" ones. Granted that depends on the age of the person stating that opinion, but the passage of events in other Countries which were thought to be basket cases when it came to democratic issues have proven that it is a mistake to rule out these things as highly unlikely to happen. I have already witnessed several of these events in my lifetime. Regarding the veto issue, I wonder why we didn't use it as a powerful weapon in the case of any of the other recent countries who joined, in order to gain the reforms to the EU that we wanted.

So Dave ought to have told Turkey that unless those conditions were met, then they had no chance of joining the EU, shouldn't he? Then there wouldn't have been this ammunition to be used against him, that just preceding the announcement of the referendum, he was the leading apologist for Turkey and their membership of the EU. Add that to his statement that if we did not receive the reforms to the EU that we sought, that he would campaign to leave the EU and you have probably the most deceitful PM in recent political history. The electorate are entitled to think that if his credibility over matters like these is so untrustworthy, then why should they accept anything he says about what the implications are of our continued membership of the EU?

The most wounding thing for the Remain camp last night was the interview with the advisor to the Turkish President who was scathing towards Cameron and his duplicity over the prospects of Turkey joining the EU. Exposing the leader of the Remain campaign as a liar means that the electorate can place little trust in Dave's word. Also coming on top of the information that the British Embassy in Ankara has a pledge on behalf of the British Government stating that it wants Turkey to join the EU and there remains quite some credibility to the prospects of their membership in a much nearer time scale than Dave's ridiculous end of the Century. On a side note, the remain side of the debate did well to ditch the three shrill harridans from their last effort and although the Union lady and Sadiq Khan were also shrill, it was a clever move to bring in Ruth Davidson, who performed very well and has done her chances of replacing Dodgy Dave as PM no end of good.

I didn't see the ITV News, but I'm assuming that there was not a mention about the rioting in Calais. No doubt it will return to the headlines on the 24th.

I think that what will happen, is that post a Brexit, we will wait and see what actually happens, not what some economists predict will happen. They aren't infallible and some have been known even to exaggerate their forecasts. The Chancellor, (whoever it is at the time that the budget becomes due), will propose measures to stabilise the economy, which if they were along the lines that the current Chancellor is proposing, would not get past Parliament. What your cited report covered was for 2019-20, two or three years hence. What was threatened by Osborne was an emergency budget very soon after a Brexit, against a background of a Treasury forecast of a dip of just 0.4%. As I asked, who is right?

:lol:

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/watch-andrew-neil-grills-ed-vaizey-second-time-george-osbornes-eu-spin/ Who to believe, eh? Vaisey couldn't name a single economist who would support a budget which raised taxes and cut spending in the face of us heading into a forecast recession. Furthermore the Treasury forecast was for a dip of just 0.4%. Even if we voted to Remain, Osborne's political career is finished as his credibility and trustworthiness are through the floor.

Look, I've constantly repeated the message but it doesn't penetrate your skull. I've listened to all of the economic arguments, weighed up all of the other factors like immigration, sovereignty, the subjugation of our legal system, etc and on that basis, I will be voting OUT. You can vent your spleen all you like, although I worry about your blood pressure, but your time would be better spent posting in reply to those who give a damn.

Is there an echo in here? I'm sure that my response about the "pal" thing was to Shylock. You really ought to pay more attention to the campaign if you're going to deny that politicians (you know, the likes of our Prime Minister and Chancellor) have originated tales of doom and gloom should we Brexit. Now, they might be quoting their favourite pet economists, but it is they who enunciate it and they who carry the greater influence because of their position. Where have I stated that we can quickly and easily form new trading arrangements? Oh no, I haven't specified any time scale or claimed that it would be easy. Once again it is either your poor comprehension that lets you down, or else your propensity to believe that you can read my mind. Perhaps your poor comprehension of what I'm thinking is letting you down too.

Firstly, I'm not your pal. Secondly, who to believe regarding Trade, eh? The former Trade and Industry Minister, or Shylock, whose expertise on trade is an unknown quantity to me. I was aware that our trade with Ireland was greater than that to China and Hong Kong combined, but that fact is usually used to demonstrate the point I made, that the EU comprising 28 member states makes it incredibly difficult to finalise trade deals with the significant players because of conflicts of interest involving one or more members of the EU. The EU's trade deals are hardly a shining example of how good they are at arranging these things. We have several options available to us apart from the WTO route post a Brexit, and two years to sort it out when things will continue much as they are. I'm confident that despite of all the forecasts of doom and gloom from Call me Dave and Osborne, that the various options have long ago been discussed and that once they have realise that Project Fear has failed to frighten the electorate, those contingency plans will spring into action and they will have their minds concentrated on whether they can remain in power at the next General Election by persuading the electorate of their capabilities. Despite all the bluster about how this is strictly a one off in/out vote, the implications of our departure will be seismic to the EU and open up the probability that the Euro will collapse and other members will hold their own referenda and follow us out of the door. We could therefore arrive at a situation that continued trade between the EU Countries that remain and those who could choose to leave will be vital to keep their economies going and that reforms will take place which would make it more attractive for us to consider rejoining, or even that a two-tier project might emerge Just a small correction though, you appear to have ignored the point I made earlier that the EU market of 500 million, includes our 65 million population.

The £350 million figure has been defended as a gross amount, akin to somebody's earnings before deductions. Personally I would prefer it to be quoted as the net figure, but as the Remain camp put out the scandalous "every household would be £4300 worse off" statement, then let's see you defend that. Even last night, Call me Dave insisted that we risked our trade with the EU's 508 million population, rather carelessly overlooking that 65 million of them were us in the UK. I'm not longing for a past Britain; I'm optimistic for our future prosperity outside of the stagnant EU, and better prospects for future generations. I realise that this is a concept that you cannot countenance, that in your blinkered mindset an assured future is only cemented by belonging to this failed project, but it seems that pretty well half of the electorate share this vision, so go ahead and label them all as deluded fantasists if it makes you feel better.