EU – The Moment of Truth

That is unfortunately true, Laine.

Far-right groups in Germany and, especially France, the Netherlands, Denmark, are pushing for a copycat referendum if, if, if Brexit wins. All are playing on fears of refugees. There is a possibility that they’ll win such a referendum in France.

The result is likely to be a major disruption of trading relations, increasing the economic woes we’ll be submerged in.

This is threatening to be the biggest step backwards since the Second World war to a world based on trade rivalries and beggar-my-neighbour policies.

How can it be avoided?

Resisting the far-Right by Europeans, and resisting the right-wing Tory/UKIP alliance, which is playing on fears of ordinary people here.

I follow Labour, Greens, SNP, LibDems, and left-wing Tories like Ken Clarke, along with the OECD, IMF, Institue of Fiscal Studies and over 90% of economists who cannot believe that people are about to be fooled into Brexit.

Oh and the remain camp aren’t playing on the fears of ordinary people ? You’ll be out of work, stuff your pensions, you’ll get taxed more, house prices will drop (yeah right) and growth will slow and i’ve probably missed a few there Oh and you really want people to follow this sorry looking prick

I wouldnt trust him to babysit

A powerful piece in the Guardian setting out the Brexit position, eloquently from a working class point of view. Without resorting to the ignorant scare stories of the Remain camp..

“Brexit is the only way the working class can change anything.
Lisa Mckenzie”

“Working-class people’s voices are rarely heard outside their communities, and almost never within the political or media sphere.”

“As a group of east London women told me: “I’m sick of being called a racist because I worry about my own mum and my own child,”

“Over the past 30 years there has been a sustained attack on working-class people, their identities, their work and their culture by Westminster politics and the media bubble around it. ”

“In the last few weeks of the campaign the rhetoric has ramped up and the blame game started. If we leave the EU it will be the fault of the “stupid”, “ignorant”, and “racist” working class. Whenever working-class people have tried to talk about the effects of immigration on their lives, shouting “backward” and “racist” has become a middle-class pastime.”

“The referendum has opened up a chasm of inequality in the UK and the monsters of a deeply divided and unfair society are crawling out. They will not easily go away no matter what the referendum result.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/15/brexit-working-class-sick-racist-eu-referendum

sceptical guy wrote:

Labour is almost united in wanting people to remain in the EU, and to halt the UKIP/right-wing Tory attack on working people under the banging of drums and waving of a flag.

But Labour is also aware of the ways in which working-class people have been attacked, and their conditions made worse.

The way out of that isn’t to make the country worse off, or to take chances on leaving the EU without any preparation or policy for what would happen, but to reform the EU – on migration, on democracy, and on increasing the social rights already enshrined in EU law.

If any Brexiteer can present me a responsible alternative trading policy which will prevent the economy getting smaller (with all that means for the NHS ec), I’ll vote Brexit on 23 June. I initially voted not to go in.

But relations with Albania and Ukraine a advocateed by Michael Gove, the elader of Leave, are not a responsible trading alternative, while the timetable presented by Brexiteers would be certain to lead to a very painful and bitter divorce – anyone who’s ever been through such a divorce will know what that means.

but the UKIP/rightwing Tory alliance doesn’t seem to care. They wave a flag, but if they do win then once the drinking and flag-waving and cheering are over, we’ll find ourselves in a bleak situation, and the bitteness and divions in the country may well take a rturn for the worse.

Labour says vote to remain. I’m with Labour on this one, not with the false friends of UKIP/rightwing Tories..

The pub bore, knows everything there is to know, dismisses any views that do not mirror his. Is incapable of healthy debate. Every post contains an insult. Shouts all the time and empties a bar area quicker than a fart empties a lift.

Pete wrote:

We’ll have our own, are BMW Audi Mercedes etc gonna allow tariffs to be placed on their products ? Of course not. They sell 1 million cars a yr to the UK it’s their highest profit margin in the world

And what are remain saying ? Without the EU you can all stuff your human rights and working practices. Why would leaving the EU erode any of that

Sterling has risen since March overall

Unfortunately, Pete, the German car manufacturers are bound by treaty.

You’re right, they’ll lose money, along with a lot of EU exporters to the UK – we do 50% of our trade with the EU.

But the EU is a high-tariff wall to protect EU members. That means if we leave, we have to pay those tariffs, and German cars become dearer, along with all EU goods we import.

An eventual trade deal, which will take a long time (unless we take the Norway option which Brexiteers have explicitly rejected) may or may not include a deal for their cars – but nobody’s going to be doing us any favours in any future trade deals (and all trade deals will be nullified, according to the WTO director general, as they have been signed under EU law).

We are embedded in the EU economy, and EU law (a constitutional nightmare if we leave). To break dfrom that is going to hurt, and hurt for a long time.

I’m afraid that in return for an influential position within the EU – and quite a privileged one, without membership of the Euro or commitment to closer European union – we’ll be getting dependency on the US and China.

And they won’t be doing us any favours. They’ll be looking out for themselves, as the Chinese dumping of steel on the UK market has demonstrated to the workers of Port Talbot.

Unless the leave side can show us all a different trade policy – and they don’t have one. They’re wanting us to leave under the waving of flags and the banging of drums, on a wing and a prayer