Are we sleep-walking out of Europe ?

Interest rates will go up if we Brexit.

I'm out, I've had enough of 8 years of pampering borrowers.

According to Osborne.... But many economists think they will go down. Who knows? But the uncertainty is doing nobody any good. 

Two in and one out pamphlets now delivered and not a molecule of substantive fact in any of them.  The electorate will deride based on this kind of emotive rubbish? Oh well, I guess that's democracy in action.

Interest rates need to be released to find d their own level. I think this is a different topic from the in/out debate, although both sides will drag any excuse into the emotional gnashing and face pulling.

Money moves internationally and what with quantitive easing being used by many governments, which has suppressed interest rates, I really don't see UK interest rates being affected by the in/out EU decision.   

Harry posted:

Two in and one out pamphlets now delivered and not a molecule of substantive fact in any of them.  The electorate will deride based on this kind of emotive rubbish? Oh well, I guess that's democracy in action.

Interest rates need to be released to find d their own level. I think this is a different topic from the in/out debate, although both sides will drag any excuse into the emotional gnashing and face pulling.

I am thinking of writing to the Prime Minister asking for a Tax Credit to cover the cost of the [totally empty of logical argument] Gov’t leaflet advocating I vote against my propensity!

Nine Million Pounds Sterling wasted! And we paid for it! We, the average Joes, paid for it, but apparently not those who can afford the professional charges of tax-dodging Panamanian overseas investment arrangements ...

Of course the UK electorate may vote to stay in the EU, but that money would have been better spent on A&E ....

ATB from George

Good luck with that George. I have asked for the Google tax regimen to be applied to my business because it will save me a fortune and be deferred for 10 years.

Let's see who gets lucky first!

Barack v Boris today.  Hmmm. Now who came out on top in that one I wonder? 

His intervention is nothing short of disgraceful regardless of whether you believe in or out.   From a country that is so protective of their own security and independence for his to interfere in ours is out of order.  

I suppose when you are as big and strong as the USA you can afford to say one thing and do another, but more pertinently I think Obama was fairly pointing out that the influence the UK wields will be much diminished if we stand alone rather than as part of the EU.  The rest of the world has to listen to the USA because it is the biggest economy on the planet.  The world also has to listen to the EU because it represents a massive economic bloc.  The UK's economy on its own.  Hmm. As Obama said we could be at the back of the queue.   

I doubt that to be honest but either way I'd prefer us to make our decision based on facts and without outside interference from a hypocrite.  I don't usually get involved in politics but the current campaign to frighten us into voting in is irritating in the extreme 

The thing is, there seem to be no facts. Hoorah for Obama, for saying it like it is. 

Or like it may be, perhaps, if there are no facts.  Perhaps we can have Putin tell us when he thinks we should do too, or maybe the little chap in Korea, because we struggle to think for ourselves over here, or maybe they can bring back the Hammer House of Horror and scare us properly 

I think it's all down to a balance of probabilities. There are few, if any, hard facts about the benefits of remaining v leaving the EU.

The views' of our politicians are often portrayed as "fact". I often wonder what benefit they are hoping to achieve for themselves if the referendum goes their way ?

I am slightly more inclined to listen to business leaders, and examples sit on each side of the fence. Even more inclined to listen to institutional leaders such as the Governor of the BoE and international organisations such as the IMF and the UN.

I don't have any problem with Obama making his assessment public. Likewise, Boris. But i'm somewhat surprised at the strength of Boris's assessment of which way would be best, given that he appeared to have so much difficulty deciding which way to jump in the first place.

But it's only a balance of probabilities as to what the future holds, regardless of how much future effort we put into making whichever decision we take, work !

You'd think Obama would know something about trade deals with the US.... There seem to be no experts supporting the concept of leaving, but of course many believe that Britannia still rules the waves and that we can stand on our own, and somehow a romantic notion of 'great' Britain will see us through. Why on earth Cameron took us into this in the first place: if he wasn't terrified of UKIP we wouldn't be dicing with our futures.

Only two months of this fiasco to go. 

I'm open to hearing both sides of the argument and would welcome sensible debate.  What I object to is a campaign of fear aimed at bullying us into voting to stay in.  For £9 million I would have expected a balanced summary of the pros and cons and for the government to have trusted us to make a sensible decision.  At the moment I feel that there is no trust for us to do so and a campaign designed to show us not that staying in is a positive but that moving out is really really scary.  The more people they wheel out to tell us how scary things are the less I trust the stay campaign.  Tell me the positives, counter balance that with the opposite view and I will make a sensible judgement - don't treat me like a child to be afraid of the dark. At the end of the day we have done pretty well before we were in the Eu for rather a long time and, one way or another, I'm sure we will survive either in or out.  I'm surprised we've not seen Bob Geldof telling us we need to vote in to save the world

I gather that The White House officials are backing away from Obama's comment that the UK would be a the back of the queue for any new trade deals.

Perhaps we should seek comments from Donald and Hillary and potential leaders of other significant nations before we cast our votes ?

But moving out is scary. When the multinationals disinvest, inflation rises and the pound tumbles, it really will be scary. I'd rather trust Cameron (much as I hate to say it as a member of the Labour party) than Gove and Farage. 

I'm a floating voter on this Nigel, I would trust anyone who tried to give me balanced facts, even if those facts are scary.  What I don't trust is a campaign based solely on fear and I don't trust Cameron in the slightest or his very rich friends and political supporters who line up to frighten me into voting for the status quo.  I detest Farage and his ilk, but I am wary of labour politicians who have changed their life long views on this subject too.  Surely it can't be too hard for someone to give us the pros and cons without the scare story or the false  appeal to patriotism so that we can make an informed decision.  Sometimes you have to take a step into the dark, I can cope with that if I know the facts, and I can equally hold firmly onto what we have if its the best there is on offer, although that seems a sad thing to me, but I would like to make that decision on available data rather than on scary propaganda.  

I agree entirely, but the sad fact is that there are no facts. Leaving would see us in uncharted waters.  You only have to look at the current instability to realise that five to ten years of further instability while we try to cut trade deals cannot be a good thing. 

I suppose it depends what is on the other side of that five or ten years.  it is for the opposing sides of the argument to make their case to give us some assurance one way or another but so far they have failed dismally. A sad indictment of UK politics that there is little by the way of debate or logic and too much playing to the emotions 

Dajay posted:

"A sad indictment of UK politics that there is little by the way of debate or logic and too much playing to the emotions "

It could be worse. I'm in the States at the moment listening to the Republican and Democrat "Debates". Certainly no logic in the Republican debates, with perhaps just a little more substance and logic, although a bit too much mud-slinging in the Clinton/Saunders debates.

Perhaps the UK politics scene is not quite so bad after all.

But then I look at the likes of Johnson & Gove, and begin to wonder!

dayjay posted:

His intervention is nothing short of disgraceful regardless of whether you believe in or out.   From a country that is so protective of their own security and independence for his to interfere in ours is out of order.  

It was very good advice. The President is quietly but seriously very worried about the stresses the European Community is now going through and considers Britain an important even critical voice in keeping things together. Many of you are obviously very young or not history buffs. The failure of the European Community would be a tragedy with no good outcomes. 

As to the comment about being protective about our own security I think a look at history will inform you otherwise. Certainly we have self interest, sometimes selfish self interest(yes even stupid/misguided) self interest . But, however imperfectly, I can think of no other world power in history that has spent more of its own capital defending the rights of others. Think Marshall Plan, post war Japan, NATO, United Nations. The fact they we have benefited as well makes it no less significant. Are we perfect? far far from it, and trust me, we know that better than you. But if you look at defense spending as a percentage of GDP, Britain and all of Europe are not even close. Just who do you think picks up the slack? And that defense support comes at a cost to us in aging infrastructure, lack of government spending on health, food safety and  a lot of other issues.

As to bubbling Boris' comment about my half Kenyan President, that just pisses me off. I probably won't be around, but history is going to be very kind to this President both internally and abroad. I can't even imagine what it has taken for this one black man born in my country to achieve all that he has facing all the racism that still exists in this country. Dignified and honorable wherever goes and whatever he does. A record of achievement as an administration despite a poisonous political atmoshpere in Washington that we may be only now on our way to fixing. An adminstration of competence without a wisper of scandal. Damn proud off him in case you're interested.

Dayjay

Sorry about the rant. Nothing personal..........Boris just touched a nerve today and, honestly, leaving the EU would not serve Britain well. Now, no more interference from this American.

Cheers

Hungryhalibut posted:

I agree entirely, but the sad fact is that there are no facts. Leaving would see us in uncharted waters.  You only have to look at the current instability to realise that five to ten years of further instability while we try to cut trade deals cannot be a good thing. 

Fact is Britain used to *not* be part of the EU...uncharted waters really?  Your best argument for staying a part of the EU is that it would be scary to leave.  As a subject of Mr. Obama I can say that you should listen to what he says and do the opposite.