Eu: In or out?

In, reluctantly.

Can't stand people saying immigration is a problem - it's not. It lets New Labour and the Tories off the hook for running the economy and the welfare state into the ground. I'm white, British and live in Inner London. If it affected anyone, it would be me. It doesn't. Very funny man on Question Time this week said immigrants don't go to Islington and that they instead go to Walsall - hilarious. On the other hand, I genuinely don't think that everyone who is worried about immigration is racist because that would be dumb.

The EU is an instrument of the ruling class and generally works against the interests of working people but I fear that UKIP would surge if we left and take 40 seats off Labour and Johnson would be our PM. It is undemocratic and unreformable but I think it's marginally less awful than the alternative because it's the only thing doing anything about climate change and the like. Our voting system is a bigger threat to democracy.

'Lesser evil' arguments won't persuade anyone but it's my honest view.

Gove, Johnson, Rees-Mogg, Farage, etc.

The hard-right Tory politicians, essentially, that want to bring back hanging, privatise the NHS, abolish the BBC, revoke same-sex marriage, invest in fossil fuels, scrap maternity leave and sick pay, curb the trade unions and impose their ideological regime of ruthless cuts and prejudiced cruelty on our cherished country.

Behind the pantomime and charades of other arguments, the sole conviction of these MPs against the European Union is that it has singlehandedly prevented them from unleashing their hard-right Tory agenda on Britain through its burdensome "regulations" - not on business, but on politics. These Eurosceptic MPs have beef with the European Union and they want to leave it because it would enable them to inflict their hard-right agenda on our country.

A 'Leave' vote is a mandate for these politicians to take over British politics and impose said agenda. Therefore, Brexit is one step closer towards Tory authoritarian rule.
This is much like how many of the businesses supporting Brexit do so because they've been sued by the EU in the past for failing environmental regulations actually making their products safe for use. These businesses want to leave so that they can get their revenge on the EU that has protected us from unsafe, dangerous household products.

Theres a rarity, an honest and well reasoned remain voter. Not many about

Do you agree that huge numbers coming into the country are a massive burden on our shared public resources like the NHS and School places? Do you agree that it pushes house prices sky high? (Remember consecutive governements WILL NOT BUILD MILLIONS OF HOUSES)

How can you even make such an argument with plenty of insdious creatures on the remain side not least tory leader Camoron ? Do you not see how silly and illogical this is?

like when we rejected AV to spite the Liberal Democrats in 2011

Of course, it would be beyond dumb to say that increased numbers of people through migration don't put pressure on public services.

But all the studies show that immigrants make a net contribution to fund those public services so it's clear the strain isn't coming from them. They're increasing demand but they're also providing the money to expand public services.

In health for example, the strain has come from New Labour's crippling PFI debt on hospitals and the Tories' toxic Health and Social Care Act 2012 which openly privatises the whole thing.

I'm glad you think I'm well-reasoned. For what it's worth, I think the remain campaign has been a boring episode of fearmongering that has failed to portray the "benefits" of the EU and has succeeded only in slagging off the economics of Brexit.

Tbf, AV was a rubbish idea and wasn't really proportional representation.

such a large base of net negative immigrants working unskilled jobs.

It does exist but it's small. Migrants don't earn much so there would have to be a large group of migrant billionaires to cancel out any supposed net takers. A large majority put in far more than they take out.

I think the net contribution could be so much better if there was not such a large base of net negative immigrants working unskilled jobs.

Alot of people who are "Leave" only have one reason - "Less immigrants will take the job i do not want to do" Not saying all, however a vast amount have these views.

Im IN, but each to their own.

But why not just have immigration of vast majority large net contributors?

I see a world where instead of 350k net migration, it is 50,000 highly skilled tax paying migrants from around the globe, not eastern europe. With the large contrasting difference between financial side of the two... we could perhaps give asylum to 75,000 Syrian children.

That seems like a much better UK than the one we have now

Selective immigration is theoretically-good, but doesn't work. I'll give you a case study from my hometown of London.

My friend is the descendant of EU immigrants. His well-educated parents both work in sectors that are struggling to find UK natives of decent-enough qualifications to fill the job vacancies within it - such as nursing. The NHS has been accused by South Mediterranean governments of 'violently' campaigning for nurses from those countries to come to the UK because not enough British people want to become nurses given the long training period and the poor pay - so the NHS runs huge campaigns in South Mediterranean countries to encourage nurses from there to immigrate into the UK, and even though they earn less than £35,000, it's still more than their native countries can afford to pay them. Immigrant EU nurses therefore help to alleviate the NHS crisis in the UK.

When my friend was born, his parents didn't know how to handle the early years childcare. They didn't feel comfortable with delegating the childcare to special minders, especially as they didn't particularly want a second child, nor were they comfortable with leaving him with family friends during his childhood - not that his parents, being EU immigrant city workers, had many family friends they could ask. Rather than moving back to their EU country, where they could actually delegate the role to aunties or my grandparents, my friend's grandparents came over to the UK from their EU country.

Now, if selective immigration had taken place, they wouldn't have been able to do that. As a result, my friend and his parents would have returned to their EU country of origin - meaning the UK would have lost out of having two skilled workers and my friend wouldn't have grown up in the UK, so he wouldn't have worked in the UK as an adult and then contributed positively himself to the UK economy like his EU immigrant parents. Fortunately, because his grandparents chose to came over, they could all stay in the UK - and although the grandparents don't work and do use the NHS, and although my friend is being educated in a UK school - the net contribution to the UK economy of that family as a whole is positive because of the high-skilled work of their parents, and the fact that all of the family itself needs basic resources (like food and clothes) which in turn increase domestic demand for goods which in turn fuels supply and jobs. By the way, you don't need to have any skills or qualifications to contribute to economic growth through the latter way - you just need some kind of income to keep on buying clothes and goods in your country of residency.

This is one story to show how selective immigration doesn't work and often backfires. You say 50,000 well-skilled immigrants are better than 300,000 unskilled immigrants - but as you can see, sometimes, you need both kinds of immigrants if there is to be any benefit at all. The moment that you enact selective immigration, you inadvertently discourage a lot of positive immigration to your country - because individuals won't be able to immigrate freely into your country - and you therefore have, in the case of EU immigration, a less skilled and less educated workforce.

There are various studies which allegedly prove that selective immigration always backfires in this way. I personally haven't seen them, but nor have I seen any other studies arguing the opposite. In my view, however, it's common sense. Yes, we want to encourage positive immigration to the UK - but it's not pragmatic to label every immigrant as 'positive' or 'negative', because when you get rid of some so-called 'negatives', you will always get rid of some 'positives' too who depend on the 'negatives' being there. Immigration should therefore never be judged on individual bases and always on whole bases - and in terms of the EU, that means recognising that EU immigration is on-the-whole positive, and therefore that we should celebrate it and not demean it, as the 'Leave' campaign is doing.

I can see the point this anecdote is making but this is simply the reality for millions of UK people. Juggling their professions around their family life. Forking out expensive child minder / nursery fee's etc.

I have to wonder just how much of net contribution this family made if you take into account the grandparents

All of you outraged and disgusted by the tory election Fraud.. remember to follow Daves orders again and vote Remain! Yayy

And? It is a good argument from the leave side.

Only this year million and a half radical muslims settled in Germany. 500,000 of them Germany lost from track and probably moved to other countries like UK.