The EU Referendum

Plain and simple, is the UK better in or out of the EU??...bare in mind we pay £320 Million a week, just to stay in the EU, that's £14 Billion a year. Think of all the things that money could go towards.

Reply 1

ODES_PDES

Original post by J.Chessher

Maybe we generate more than that through a booming economy by being in

Reply 2

PossiblyNotGod

Original post by J.Chessher

I'm undecided, however overall we pay £8.5 billion or £23 million a day as we get money back from the rebate.

Reply 3

J.Chessher

Original post by Mathemagicien

1) We get a lot of that money back - I think £5 or 6 billion? - so the true figure is a net contribution of around £8 billion into the EU.
2) That's not much in the scheme of things - we spend around £12 billion on foreign aid.

Perhaps we should reconsider EU contributions as part of foreign aid? A lot does, after all, go towards the eastern developing countries

Tbh, I'm in favour of a Brexit, but only so the EU can collapse, and a better thought out Union formed from the members. In the long term, we need to be in a union (yes, including political union) of some sort with the other European countries, but not in its current form

I personally think a Brexit is the way to go. However on foreign aid, if we're spending £12 Billion, maybe that needs to get lowered substantially and actually focus on fixing the problems in our country rather than other peoples country's.

Reply 4

J.Chessher

Original post by XOR_

I'm undecided, however overall we pay £8.5 billion or £23 million a day as we get money back from the rebate.

That is still a big chunk of money, which could be better spent in my personal opinion.

Reply 5

jjh87

This whole issue of leaving the EU is ludicrous. Our problems will not all suddenly disappear by leaving, if anything they will grow. Will huge multi national companies want to base themselves in the UK outside of the EU? Probs not

As for the issue of sovereignty, we make our own laws and we are a separate land mass altogether??

Our real issues are with this Conservative government who only seem to care about their rich friends and doing the opposite of the Robin Hood story. They all grew up with money and are so out of touch with what the general population experience because they have never experienced it.

Reply 6

Jammy Duel

Original post by XOR_

I'm undecided, however overall we pay £8.5 billion or £23 million a day as we get money back from the rebate.

Actually that's not after the rebate, that's after the rebate and what the EU give back and say "you will spend this on exactly x". When you pay your taxes you don't say, for example, " I paid £12,528 of tax, but the government then spent £7,528 on me so actually I only paid £5,000", you still say that £12,528 was paid.

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Reply 7

Jammy Duel

Original post by jjh87

Well if problems stem from a particular organisation it would probably go a long way to solving them by leaving, if you have a gangrenous arm after a car crash you cut it off, you don't say "leave it to kill !e, it won't solve the other problems"

Your second paragraph makes no sense or shows a lack of understanding of how things work

And I have no idea what you're actually trying to say in the last paragraph.

As for businesses leaving, unless Cameron is a bigger moron than we all think it's not actually that big a problem, article 50 isn't being enacted immediately, it will be next year at the earliest, in induces stability in the markets, something the eurozone likely won't have with her another Greek debt crisis growing and the future of the Euro in question, coupled with the migrant crisis and the rise of the continental far right the entire EU project is risk; if a ship is sinking is it better to get in the lifeboat or have to find some driftwood when you're finally thrown into the water?

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Reply 8

AliH36541

I am in favour for the UK remaining in the EU because despite the large membership fees, it allows us to complete on the global stage and gives us greater creadability.

Reply 9

Jammy Duel

Original post by AliH36541

I am in favour for the UK remaining in the EU because despite the large membership fees, it allows us to complete on the global stage and gives us greater creadability.

Try telling that to all the similarly sized nations not in a political union, for instance I heard the Japanese and South Koreans are doing a rather good job of being credible and a competitor or the world stage.

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Reply 10

AliH36541

Original post by Jammy Duel

Thats true, and if the UK wasn't in the EU and the question was 'Should the UK join the European Union' I would probably vote 'No' but you need to remember that counries like South Korea and Japan are very different to the UK. I think it would be highly unlikely that the UK would become 'stronger' from leaving the EU and it would allmost certainly not improve our credibility.

Reply 11

Jammy Duel

Original post by AliH36541

For both parts of that statement the question has to be asked why? Why would credibility be meaningfully lost and in what way are Japan and Korea so incredibly different? I do love though when people say "if we weren't in the EU we shouldn't join, but because we are we should stay" it actually makes very little sense to say that.

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Reply 12

AliH36541

Original post by Jammy Duel

1. In a similar way that an 'independent' candidate standing for election in the UK would have less credibility then someone standing for the Labour Party. There is more credibility the larger you are and power you have.
2. I feel that it makes perfect sense to say that. The state of the economy, trade partners, laws, and governments are likely to have been different if we were not in the UK (the course of history would have been changed). Unless there was a particuarly strong argument to go thorough the very long winded process to align and organise the UK's entry which would take a number of years to do and many man hours then I would not join. Leaving would also take a number of years, and man hours and I personally believe at the end of it it all it would have negative implications on the UK economy.