Wes Tender

The potential for the red-top media to poke fun at us if things go awry in a match would be enormous. "Saints lose their way", or "Saints unable to find route to goal" spring to mind.

According to the little propaganda leaflet dropping onto peoples' doorsteps currently, there are several mentions that we will be leaving Europe. Just to put the record straight, we will not be leaving Europe, only the EU. I suspect that some psycho-babble expert has suggested that Europe has positive connotations to many, whereas the EU is increasingly loathed by a significant portion of the electorate, so that suggesting that we will be leaving Europe will be rejected by the sub-conscious mind of many. The remain lot must have been upset to have lost the opportunity to have a simple yes or no vote, where again the yes position has a stronger psychological pull, therefore they are having to explore other options which might gain them a vital percentage point or two. I trust that when it comes to the televised debates, somebody will pull them up on this, as to claim that we might be voting to alter our very geographical place in the World is really swivel-eyed garbage.

A few seconds thinking about this and the implications of it wouldn't go amiss. The only reason why UKIP came into existence was to force a referendum on Europe, much like the Referendum Party before them. You're old enough like me to to have witnessed the broken promises of the various parties to hold a referendum over many, many years and you will recognise that the issue had torn apart the Conservative Party right back to Margaret Thatcher's time. UKIP only gained the momentum to become a political force to be reckoned with when they achieved the growing support of the electorate for their stance on the EU, so far from pouring scorn on Cameron for calling the referendum, he deserves some small recognition at least for being the leader of a party that finally granted them a say on the several treaty changes that have totally changed the basis of our membership of the European project we originally joined. It would surely be a poor reflection on our democracy that the concerns of a party that gained such overwhelming support in the European elections were ignored. Yes, Cameron was forced into promising a referendum because he feared that if he didn't the Conservative Party would suffer the consequences at the election, but equally the time had come to lance the boil that the European issue had become once and for all. Had there been a referendum at the time of Maastricht, then they might have got away with not holding one now. But it was totally wrong to have allowed so many changes in that and subsequent treaties without recourse to allowing the electorate to endorse them. Where I think Cameron should be called incompetent, is in not being tougher in his stance on the reforms we demanded. It was probably as obvious to our lords and masters in Brussels as it was to most cynics here, that however little Cameron was offered, he would return claiming that acceptable concessions had been achieved and that he could call the referendum recommending that we stay in the EU. Had he had more balls, he would have negotiated from a position of greater strength by stating categorically that if the reforms and concessions we demanded were not forthcoming, then he would campaign for us to leave, and mean it. As it is, he is seen as weak and vacillating and he has weakened the position of the remain campaign in the eyes of many of the electorate. Whether the EU hierarchy realised that the implications of our referendum might result in the growing dissatisfaction of other members and calls for them to have their own referenda, I don't know. Despite all the bravado they are showing in Brussels, there is a very real possibility that if we voted to leave, then others could follow and that the EU could collapse. Any possibility of our returning to a reformed EU having left, have been ruled out categorically, although it would seem to be an option that made some sense to all concerned.

Typical of the small-minded petty and personal insults bandied about by the stay cohorts. Why would I need to move from Eastleigh to anywhere else when all of the local Conservative MPs support us leaving the EU? In fact, why would anybody wish to move anywhere else based on their views on one issue which transcends political boundaries? This really is one of the most bizarre posts I have seen on this thread.

Yes, I'm quite incorrigible, aren't I?

One of your more lucid posts

Naturally I will continue to disparage the fear campaign's predictions of the trade implications made by the Department of Guesswork's worst case scenario if we left, whilst also optimistically considering the options available to us on matters other than trade.

As I would expect of you, you confuse a range of options and choices that would be available with regard to sovereignty, with predictions that are forecast on the economic scenario that might occur should we leave. You never disappoint.

Cross EU laws make sense in some instances, but not in others. It would be nice if we could decide which was which.

Typical of the remainers to trivialise the important issues. I prefer to consider the bigger picture. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12175398/EU-Referendum-everything-you-need-to-know-about-British-sovereignty.html

Precisely. And they made the law that said that their laws have precedence over ours. But I'm sure that you're happy about that.

I really have to laugh at the assertion that I didn't understand your point, when I had made the same one myself earlier, that nobody could prove whether we would have been better off never having joined the European project. Furthermore, nobody can predict our future prosperity if we stay or if we leave. What is difficult to understand about that? I have accepted that we have been reasonably successful in the EU, but with the caveat already acknowledged by you that we may well have fared better outside. This is really simple stuff so far, so I hope that you have no problems with it. The nitty-gritty is whether in the future we would do better staying in the EU, or better off leaving. You can base your position on our record of the past by all means, but you must accept that our future prosperity outside of the EU would include substantial continuance of our trade with the Euro-zone, despite all of the doom-laden predictions inferring that somehow we would be going it alone, facing trade tariffs, having to accept freedom of movement of people, etc, etc. This ground is already well-trodden and if you believe that how it was in the past with the EU is how it will remain in the future, then good for you. There have already been substantial changes in many of the economies of the Eurozone and seismic recent immigration problems that make the future very uncertain either way. In the same way that we will agree to disagree, as I said, the electorate will vote depending on what they believe to be the factors that motivate them personally. That is the economy, immigration, sovereignty, all sorts of things. PS. Britex is variously a maker of car seatbelts, a fabric supplier, or an Aussie Urinal manufacturer. I believe you meant Brexit.

Naturally we will attempt to renegotiate a new trading relationship with Europe, but could we not join or help form other trading blocs? Why would we have to be on our own? Or in simple analogy terms, if you leave one club, you are free to join others, aren't you?

It seems a perfectly reasonable question, but as you cannot with any certainty give any credible reason as to why we couldn't have achieved pretty well the same trade results and economic growth solely as part of the original Common Market rather than as part of the EU, you resort to the typical ploy of somebody stuck for an answer and pour scorn on the question. What do you mean "even you"? Show me anywhere where I have stated the opinion that it was possible to predict what the situation would be had we not joined the European "project." Likewise, I have also found it almost impossible to get the stay brigade to accept that it is not certain that the status quo will be maintained looking forward and that the future under our continued membership is also a leap in the dark. I'm sorry, but I think that your analogy is simplistic crap. Criminal trials deal with fact, not the sort of wild speculation and supposition dressed up as fact that is bandied about by both sides. There simply is no proof either way and the electorate will therefore vote depending on what they believe to be the factors that motivate them personally.

I'm not disputing that joining the Common Market has been a good thing, I campaigned for it when I was a young adult. But let us hear your argument for why the successful modern economy could not have been achieved in exactly the same way had the Common Market remained as it was, instead of morphing towards the bureaucratic juggernaut that it has since become via successive treaty changes.

I'll take that as an admission that history cannot indeed prove that we have been better off in the EU than out of it. And well done for realising that history is about the past, not the future.

History cannot suggest any such thing, as there is no parallel time scale of us being out simultaneously to compare with. If the economy became stronger after we joined, you cannot claim that membership of the EU brought about that rise in prosperity, as it could well have happened anyway. Since we joined, several large British manufacturing industries have declined significantly. Is that therefore the fault of the EU?

*Yawn*

Yes, we won the game and gained three points. But you have missed one aspect that might have a bearing on our eventual placing in the league - goal difference. So it doesn't matter whether Mane missed his penalty, or that we weren't awarded one for the foul on Long, nor does it matter that one was not awarded when we won against Stoke, apart from the goal difference which could potentially have been +2 to the good.

And the other side of the coin needs to be accepted into the debate too. We might know how we have done in the EU up to this moment, but as well as the uncertainty of our future in the event of us leaving, there is also the uncertainty of how the EU will progress in the future. What with the collapse or decline in many of the economies in the EU zone, the mass immigration into the EU from the Middle East and Africa, it is almost as hard to predict our future within the EU as out of of it. It seems that you have a very low opinion of this country, its government, manufacturers, entrepreneurs and exporters if you think that they will be just "hoping and praying" that things turn out alright if we left. I would expect them to act immediately to find other markets to negotiate trade deals with whilst there is the safety cushion of the two years before the current EU trade basis changed.

Another jibe from Verbal (the Labour Party will never elect Corbyn) Diarrhoea. I think that the electorate are getting pretty fed up with these made up figures bandied about by the fear campaign. For the benefit of his simple mind, I'll highlight the relevant words for him. They are "estimated" and "could be". So equally their guesses could be out by billions and millions. Whenever there is another report from the Brexit side estimating the financial benefits of leaving, the people that prepare those reports are dismissed by Herr Verbal as swivel-eyed loonies. On here, I suspect that many are getting fed up with Verbal and his petty, infantile name calling.

Yes, I voted UKIP in the European elections, because it was appropriate to vote for them as the main eurosceptic party in order to force the referendum. It is the only time that I have ever not voted Conservative, which I also stated at the time. Does one vote for another party make you a member of that party? If my memory also serves me correctly, you have also voted for different parties. Who does that make you a supporter of?

Why didn't the pundits analyse the Long penalty claim on MOTD2? Usually they do, but seemingly not when either it is a case of it being us, or rather that it was against one of their glory teams.

It really does sound a long time ago, the last century, doesn't it? But to those of a certain age, possibly even you, talk of the last century when one was born half way through it, resonates as being the 19th century, not events that happened anything more than 16 years ago. I take on board that you are an apologist for what you consider to be democratic, that just because a government is elected to deal with the ordinary matters of a nation state, it somehow has the right to pass treaties that change the entire basis of our national sovereignty without recourse to the electorate for endorsement of those changes. That these treaties were signed because those politicians thought that they were acting in the best interests of the nation is arrogance in the extreme and now that the electorate finally have the opportunity to have their say, I sincerely hope that they teach them a lesson to show them that we are not to be taken for granted. Yes it is easy for commentators to conclude that Cameron would not come back with anything near what he wanted. It was forecast in advance that he would return with thin gruel and dress it up as a successful mission before calling a referendum. This isn't just armchair warriors and the media, but also a significant percentage of politicians too. As you point out, there is difficulty in achieving a 100% success rate in negotiations such as these, which need to be reached by a mixture of concession, goodwill and compromise. But it has been a game of poker where the EU hierarchy might have badly misjudged the mood of the British electorate, who have seen that the concessions are a sham. Had Cameron played a much stronger hand by having the balls to be a man of principle and threaten to campaign to leave had we not been granted the concessions we wanted, then he might have been successful. As it stands, little concession has been achieved, no real goodwill from the EU and certainly very little in the way of concession. The better advice to these negotiations would have been to speak softly and carry a big stick. Now all of a sudden when it looks like a very close run thing, panic is starting to spread around the EU. Other nations are also being pressed by popular pressure to hold their own referenda. There is even talk of the whole entity imploding and the EU becoming a greatly diminished force in World trade without us. Just a reminder though; as has already been pointed out several times to your fellow apologists for the EU, not everybody who wishes to leave is "kipper". I am a Conservative. There is also cross-party support for the Brexit campaign, but go ahead and label everybody who is against staying as UKIPers if it makes you feel good.

This was the epitome of the game of two halves. We were really dire in the first half and it is debatable whether if the crap referee East had allowed the Long penalty whether we would have had an effective psychological advantage that would have prevented them still scoring the two goals they did before half time. In fact, apart from those two goals, they had hit us decisively on the break so effectively carving us apart that but for a decent save by Forster and poor finishing for the other chance, they could easily have been 4 up, game over. For all that Koeman made the tactical changes with the two substitutions to commence the second half, it isn't unfair to be critical of his original choice of starters, where Wanyama would have maybe been the more solid choice than Clasie and also perhaps when we were being torn a new one, why tactical changes at the very least were not made halfway through the first half. But it was certainly the case that the substitutions for the second half were incredibly effective, as we looked far more solid with Wanyama as the impenetrable midfield barrier and with the pacey threat of Mane on the break to counter the Liverpool high-pressing plan. When their third went in, we thought that was it, game over and another rout to follow, but luckily the goal was overruled for what didn't seem clear at the time and we breathed again. As others have pointed out, it seems that the decision was only overruled because Tadic had a moan at the linesman, and it should never happen that the official was not capable of making the right decision without pressure from players. The glory teams do it all the time, so it is refreshing that we obtained a positive outcome ourselves for once. When our penalty was awarded and Mane stepped up, most around me had an inkling that he would not score it and when he failed to convert it, everybody asked why Pelle had not taken it. But massive credit must go to Mane for not letting his head drop afterwards and being capable of scoring two goals. Pelle's was also magnificent and I can't recall the last time that the ground erupted so noisily when we went ahead. There followed probably the loudest and most together rendition of "When the Saints" that I can recall too. It truly was one of the most memorable games since we got back to the top flight and what with other recent milestones like the Mane fastest hat trick, the Sunderland 8-0, the 4-0 Arsenal thrashing, this will also be long in the memory. And just to finalise the euphoria, we hear that the under 21s have humbled Liverpool too and that Rodriguez has scored a hat trick. So all of a sudden, Long, Pelle, Mane and potentially Rodriguez have all had confidence boosts and were they to all start firing on all cylinders, wouldn't we have one of the most potent strike forces in the division?