Euro referendum Glasto disenfranchised?

[PFests]

3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Is it?

It makes plenty of assumptions around claimed up-sides, but pretends there's no down sides.
It gives no context to falling EU trade since 2006, and tries to pretend it's a fixed trend when it isn't.
It pretends that the rest of the world would be there for the UK's taking - when the rest of the world is there anyway for the UK's taking when we're in the EU.

And on top of that it misrepresents the contributions to the EU by various countries, by counting money paid to the EU but nothing of what is received directly back - which is revealed by it saying that Norway pays less than half what the UK does.

The more-normal statement around a comparison with Norway deducts from both's contribution what is received directly back - and which makes the Norway contribution per-head slightly more than the UK contribution per-head.

The main problem with 'out' views is that each one is different, and that none of the 'out' views are what can be assumed we'd do if out. The reality is that our govt would do what that govt felt was in their own interests ... which with tories in power would suck any savings towards them and their cronies, while leaving the rest of us to carry any losses.

I mean obviously this isn't in-depth analysis on the EU economy, but it directly tackles an issue which the Innies are putting forward - the shot in the dark.

The rest of the world isn't there for the UK's taking, it's for the EU as a whole. Our economy is not represented as an indivdual in the WTO.

The figures around what each country gets back is shaky at best. It's hard to say whether just because a business has some vague connection with Brussels it's directly down to it. It's too difficult to say whether not paying the 'membership fee' would offset the inwards investments so I'm not surprised to see these not included, but there's enough of the Innies' side to argue these figures. The bias is obviously pro-Brexit so I'm not expecting a finely balanced article.

There have been some pretty convincing arguments on this thread, but the only media remain argument is that fear of the unknown. In Jezza style, we do need to open the debate, and discuss what other actual options there are. But I'm sure the Innies won't like the emergence of information that quells their sole argument.

[russycarps]

comparing the uk economy to norway, iceland and switzerland is utterly pointless.

It's like the scottish independence referendum all over again.

 

[eFestivals]

6 minutes ago, russycarps said:

comparing the uk economy to norway, iceland and switzerland is utterly pointless.

It's like the scottish independence referendum all over again.

Except that's not what the article did. It looked at their EU deals and what it gives them, and says the UK could have the same.

The problem with that idea is that Norway has the as-good-as the same deal the UK has now, but without the benefit of having input into EU policy ... and having essentially the same deal but on worse terms isn't anything the UK will find acceptable if we've voted out.

There's something similar with Switzerland too (I'm less sure about Iceland) - because that has free movement of EU nationals, and if we've voted out the vote will have been about stopping that free movement. So it's unlikely we'd get a deal with as much free access to the EU as Switzerland has.

And then they'd be stuff like the EU excluding 'The City' from many of the European trades its currently involved in (that article mentions that Switzerland has financial market restrictions) - which would be a very big financial hit to the UK economy.

 

[Henrik]

New VICE article published yesterday:

http://www.vice.com/read/we-asked-an-expert-could-glastonbury-swing-the-eu-referendum-232

"Here's How One Music Festival Could Decide Whether Britain Leaves the EU"

[eFestivals]

25 minutes ago, PFests said:

I mean obviously this isn't in-depth analysis on the EU economy, but it directly tackles an issue which the Innies are putting forward - the shot in the dark.

By making it's own shot in the dark, based on nothing but very-stretched presumptions, and a misleading quoting of numbers?

 

25 minutes ago, PFests said:

The rest of the world isn't there for the UK's taking, it's for the EU as a whole. Our economy is not represented as an indivdual in the WTO.

It's an irrelevance.

We can trade with whoever we want today, and we have to accept an agreed-with-them set of terms to do so. That remains exactly the same after leaving as it is now.

What might differ is the terms of trade, and while we might get a better deal with a few places we're also likely to get worse terms with many more, because we'll carry less clout than the EU does.

 

25 minutes ago, PFests said:

The figures around what each country gets back is shaky at best.

The standard deduction made from the UK's contribution to come up with the "it costs us £9Bn a year" (or whatever) isn't particularly shaky.

There's money paid from the EU directly to the UK govt for stuff like CAP and regional development programmes, which isn't shaky at all.

Because Norway doesn't get those sorts of direct payments, the numbers quoted in that article for Norway's and the UK's (and presumably the others mentioned, too) are hugely misleading.

It's very widely accepted that Norway pays slightly more per-head to the EU than the UK does, when what comes directly back is deducted.

 

25 minutes ago, PFests said:

It's hard to say whether just because a business has some vague connection with Brussels it's directly down to it.

That's true.

But it's not hard to say that the UK's exports to the EU would be diminished by our exit, as people buy firstly from those they share something with (the 'home market' effect)

By us sharing less with those EU states, their eyes will wander away from us to consider buying from elsewhere - not with every possible trade of course, but just one lost sale is to the UK's cost, to its loss.

 

25 minutes ago, PFests said:

There have been some pretty convincing arguments on this thread, but the only media remain argument is that fear of the unknown. In Jezza style, we do need to open the debate, and discuss what other actual options there are. But I'm sure the Innies won't like the emergence of information that quells their sole argument.

It's fine to discuss and consider the other options, but they only become meaningful if enough are behind one of those options - when the reality is that the leavers don't have a shared 'leave' vision.

In that respect it's wildly different to the Scottish indyref, cos while the 'no' side ridiculed the 'yes' vision, there was at least a solid vision for yessers to get behind.

So the leavers can present all sorts of different ideas - every idea under the sun - but none of them carry much weight, aside from "let's stop the foreigners coming here".

 

 

 

 

 

 

[russycarps]

8 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Except that's not what the article did. It looked at their EU deals and what it gives them, and says the UK could have the same.

The problem with that idea is that Norway has the as-good-as the same deal the UK has now, but without the benefit of having input into EU policy ... and having essentially the same deal but on worse terms isn't anything the UK will find acceptable if we've voted out.

There's something similar with Switzerland too (I'm less sure about Iceland) - because that has free movement of EU nationals, and if we've voted out the vote will have been about stopping that free movement. So it's unlikely we'd get a deal with as much free access to the EU as Switzerland has.

And then they'd be stuff like the EU excluding 'The City' from many of the European trades its currently involved in (that article mentions that Switzerland has financial market restrictions) - which would be a very big financial hit to the UK economy.

 

It's a trash article. Sentences like this are just pointless.

" Norway and Switzerland are the wealthiest and second-wealthiest nations on Earth." 

The implication of the article is that these countries are rich because they aren't in the EU. Which is just wrong.

 

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, russycarps said:

It's a trash article. Sentences like this are just pointless.

" Norway and Switzerland are the wealthiest and second-wealthiest nations on Earth." 

The implication of the article is that these countries are rich because they aren't in the EU. Which is just wrong.

 

Yep - it's the exact opposite.

They're not in the EU because they're rich, rather than they're rich because they're not in the EU. They've kept out of things to protect what they had already.

We joined the EU because we'd lost what we'd had. We were on a road to nowhere, and the EU saved us from a faster decline.

[grumpyhack]

I've found a lot of the debate so far to be quite dispiriting. So many people expressing concern about immigration. I'm not sure I can cope with four more months of racist and xenophobic rants.

[grumpyhack]

Not quite Scruff.  I'm actually English, brought up and educated in Bristol. But I took advantage of the free movement of people permitted in Britain to move across the bridge to Wales in search of employment. So I was an economic migrant who then went on to create jobs and employment for Welsh people in my adopted country. We couldn't have people from other parts of Europe coming to Britain and doing the same.

[eFestivals]

6 minutes ago, grumpyhack said:

I've found a lot of the debate so far to be quite dispiriting. So many people expressing concern about immigration. I'm not sure I can cope with four more months of racist and xenophobic rants.

Yep.

Same as it ever was, that those who complain the most about it are the ones who don't actually experience it. It's always revealed within surveys, where most people claim the problems associated with immigration are somewhere un-name-able 'over there' and not in their local area.

There are of course some people with a more-reasonable view, in one of the few towns which has had a big influx of immigrants, and where they can point at direct problems they might suffer as a result.

5 minutes ago, grumpyhack said:

Not quite Scruff.  I'm actually English, brought up and educated in Bristol. But I took advantage of the free movement of people permitted in Britain to move across the bridge to Wales in search of employment. So I was an economic migrant who then went on to create jobs and employment for Welsh people in my adopted country. We couldn't have people from other parts of Europe coming to Britain and doing the same.

Nicely said, grumpy.

The types who self-select themselves to go and take on the challenge of establishing a life for themselves in another country are the dynamic people, the best people - and not the worst.

[Mardy]

6 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

 

The types who self-select themselves to go and take on the challenge of establishing a life for themselves in another country are the dynamic people, the best people - and not the worst.

Dunno about that. Speaking personally, i'm a lazyarse slacker who couldn't face the responsibility of growing up. Living abroad allows me to avoid pretty much all the trappings of adulthood 

[tjamest]

18 minutes ago, grumpyhack said:

Not quite Scruff.  I'm actually English, brought up and educated in Bristol. But I took advantage of the free movement of people permitted in Britain to move across the bridge to Wales in search of employment. So I was an economic migrant who then went on to create jobs and employment for Welsh people in my adopted country. We couldn't have people from other parts of Europe coming to Britain and doing the same.

My first ever up-vote goes to....

[PFests]

Happy to be corrected, but everything I've found in preliminary googling says bilateral agreements can boost investment and cooperation but in terms of full FTAs the authority lies with the EU as a whole?

The yessers of IndyRef may have had a clear plan but that was because they only had one option, that being oil. The UK as a whole has many different paths it's not surprising people disagree on which one would be best. 

[fatyeti24]

5 minutes ago, Mardy said:

Dunno about that. Speaking personally, i'm a lazyarse slacker who couldn't face the responsibility of growing up. Living abroad allows me to avoid pretty much all the trappings of adulthood 

Haha, I see similarities. I'm currently reading this with my feet up in Italy, not least because it's a fair bit cheaper than doing the same in my previous home of Manchester. 

[grumpyhack]

22 minutes ago, Scruffylovemonster said:

Well that put my shite joke into its rightful place!! 

No Scruff. For clarification, it was a good joke and I didn't take offence.  But it also gave me the opportunity to make a point. (And win a couple of upvotes).

Edited February 23, 2016 by grumpyhack

[eFestivals]

13 minutes ago, Mardy said:

Dunno about that. Speaking personally, i'm a lazyarse slacker who couldn't face the responsibility of growing up. Living abroad allows me to avoid pretty much all the trappings of adulthood 

hey, it's not exclusive.

 

[eFestivals]

12 minutes ago, PFests said:

The UK as a whole has many different paths it's not surprising people disagree on which one would be best. 

True, but the EUref is about buying into a path.

One path (remaining in the EU) is fairly well defined, while the alternative can be anything you might choose - but what you choose isn't necessarily what you get.

I'm waiting for the outers to make clear what they expect to happen with the EU citizens who are here right now. While they might find ways to avoid a clear-cut "deport them", the one certainty of out is these people will be less welcome here than they currently are.

Edited February 23, 2016 by eFestivals

[russycarps]

and what happens to all the brits living in spain and france etc?

 

[PFests]

3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

True, but the EUref is about buying into a path.

One path (remaining in the EU) is fairly well defined, while the alternative can be anything you might choose - but what you choose isn't necessarily what you get.

I'm waiting for the outers to make clear what they expect to happen with the EU citizens who are here right now. While they might find ways to avoid a clear-cut "deport them", the one certainty of out is these people will be less welcome here than they currently are.

Which is why I welcome Hannan's piece, numbers and figures aside. The light these sort of talks will shed, or lack thereof, could make Outies reconsider their option as well as Innies. Keeping the shot in the dark as dark as possible hurts both sides.

I'm not sure I fully understand your last point. If people were legally residing before a change in the law is that not fair game? I don't see why they'd need to be deported, just less numbers inwards from that point on?

I do agree that part of the negotiations after a leave vote would need to focus heavily on UK citizens already living abroad.

[eFestivals]

11 minutes ago, PFests said:

Which is why I welcome Hannan's piece, numbers and figures aside. The light these sort of talks will shed, or lack thereof, could make Outies reconsider their option as well as Innies. Keeping the shot in the dark as dark as possible hurts both sides.

you'd maybe have a point if the article was enlightening, but it's not.

It's designed to make people believe a fallacy, that we could have the same deal for much less money, via a false representation of the costs of EU access.

 

Quote

I'm not sure I fully understand your last point. If people were legally residing before a change in the law is that not fair game? I don't see why they'd need to be deported, just less numbers inwards from that point on?

while they might not be 'deported', they'd be likely to come under some sort of 'working visa' mechanism, and given that working visas will be issued on some sort of restricted basis to new applicants, it's illogical that those already here wouldn't have to satisfy the same rules.

While it might be illogical it's still possible that some sort of kludge would be worked with that and they'd be permitted to stay. However...

Given that new people wouldn't be as welcome (in law) to settle here, it would be daft to think that that change wouldn't impact back on those who are here in some manner, even if it's nothing more than the occasional "go home" muttered in their direction.

Edited February 23, 2016 by eFestivals

[smudger]

10 hours ago, russycarps said:

and what happens to all the brits living in spain and france etc?

 

They'll have to sell up and come home to drain the NHS even further, although of course most have paid into the NHS all their lives but are now claiming welfare over there. We can then send all those EU nationals, who were nicely educated at another country's expense and are now paying tax here, many working for the NHS, back to where they came from.......

 

Oh wait a minute.......

[smudger]

1 minute ago, smudger said:

They'll have to sell up and come home to drain the NHS even further, although of course most have paid into the NHS all their lives but are now claiming welfare over there. We can then send all those EU nationals, who were educated at another country's expense, but paying tax here, probably by working for the NHS, back to where they came from.......

 

Oh wait a minute.......

 

Edited February 23, 2016 by smudger

[JoBalls]

The great thing is that now the referendum has been confirmed, they keep saying on the news "only 120 days until polls open!" which obviously means "only 119 days until Glastonbury gates open!"

[JamieKThomas]

11 minutes ago, JoBalls said:

The great thing is that now the referendum has been confirmed, they keep saying on the news "only 120 days until polls open!" which obviously means "only 119 days until Glastonbury gates open!"

I foolishly follow a twitter account that counts down to Glasto every hour, I've come a bit desensitised to how close it actually is, 4 months!

[LondonTom]

On 2/22/2016 at 7:35 AM, eFestivals said:

they knew it so much that after 4 years they returned him to office....?

London seems to be trying to rival some others on the myth-inventing front at the moment.

 

I didn't say it made a difference to their thinking