Remainers, how would you answer these arguments

I'm in favour of leaving the EU at the moment, and I've set out some of my reasons for wanting to leave below. Hoping some Remainers would explain why they disagree with these:

Firstly, no one has presented anything like a suggestion to solving the various calamities which the EU is walking towards. No one knows how the Greek debt will resolve, no one knows how the migrant crisis will resolve and no one knows how hard the EU is gonna push for the fiscal and political union its leaders so desire. Extremist, left and right wing populist parties are on the rise and the whole eurozone is trapped in a stagflationary cycle. And as ever, the EU is crippled by inactivity - it took a year and a half before they even started talking to Turkey about stopping migrant flow, and the Germans have already cocked that up. Too many different people, with different cultures and different ideologies and different ideas of how they should be run, makes it virtually impossible for any meaningful solutions to be found, as evidenced by pretty much the entirety of the EU's existence.

Secondly, the people who run the EU are unilaterally pushing closer integration, in spite of the overwhelming popular opinion being against it. It's a perversion of democracy. No one really wants this closer union except a bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels/Strasbourg - and if you want an example of EU ludicrousness, how about the ridiculous waste of resources that is the transfer of EU headquarters from Brussels to Strasbourg and back every month?

Thirdly, our economy is fundamentally different to those on the continent. Our income is built primarily on our services sector and especially our financial services, whereas continental european economies are dominated by manufacturing. The economic policy that would best suit ourselves will never be the same as that which will best serve the continental countries, and given as they outnumber us we'll lose out. We're already seeing the start of this with the push for closer financial regulations, which will eventually cripple our services sector.

Fourthly, our contribution to the EU is going to go up sharply. Continental Europe is stuck in a stagflationary cycle, whilst our economy is doing rather well by comparison. As this trend continues - and it is definitely set to continue - it is inevitable that our contributions will go up sooner of later. Coupled with the similarly inevitable erosion of our rebate, and soon we'll be a second Germany; bankrolling the EU, or more accurately covering the costs of the poorer East European countries.

Fifthly, immigration. I don't have an especial problem with people coming into our country, but an abundance of cheap unskilled labour is punching through the wage floor and dragging everyone else's pay down with it. I welcome the introduction of a National Living Wage, but this will inevitably draw even more unskilled workers into the UK labour market, which will end up counteracting any positives that low-paid workers would have gleaned. Perhaps more worryingly, is that over the next 3-10 years (depending on which EU country they live in) the migrants who have entered over the past couple years will be entitled to EU passports, giving them unfettered access to Britain. Now whilst they obviously aren't all terrorists and criminals, they do pretty unanimously have incredibly backwards views on women, homosexuals and democracy, amongst other things. It would be frankly dangerous to allow these kind of people, with these kind of ideologies, a place in Britain.

I'll finish on a point which I think gets less credit than it's due; national identity. I don't feel European, and neither do most people. Certainly not in the way they do on the continent. We identify more with Americans, Australians or even some asian cultures than we do with the French or the Germans, we share more culture with them. We really don't have a shared identity with those who live on the continent. Which makes the whole desire to tether ourselves to them, especially when they're faltering so obviously, rather obvious.

Too long man/I am dyslexic

Hahaha tl;dr

1) No one has any clue how to solve greek debt, migrant crisis or rise of extremist populists, so the long term risk is inside the EU, not outside.

2) EU leaders are pushing for closer integration in spite of overwhelming popular opinion against it

3) Continental Europe is built around manufacturing, so EU policy will favour that, to the detriment of our own services - especially financial services - based economy.

4) Our success coupled with failings in continental europe means our contribution is going to rise very soon.

5) Immigration drives down wages, and once the migrants have EU passports (within the next decade) they'll have unfettered access to Britain.

6) No real notion of being European; we identify far more with Americans or the Aussies, so why tether ourselves to these failing European states.

Lot better
I am with you!

Too long man/I am dyslexic

I guess I just like the sound of my own voice.......well prose really......you know what I mean

Firstly, no one has presented anything like a suggestion to solving the various calamities which the EU is walking towards.

Secondly, the people who run the EU are unilaterally pushing closer integration, in spite of the overwhelming popular opinion being against it. It's a perversion of democracy. No one really wants this closer union except a bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels/Strasbourg - and if you want an example of EU ludicrousness, how about the ridiculous waste of resources that is the transfer of EU headquarters from Brussels to Strasbourg and back every month?

Thirdly, our economy is fundamentally different to those on the continent. Our income is built primarily on our services sector and especially our financial services, whereas continental european economies are dominated by manufacturing. The economic policy that would best suit ourselves will never be the same as that which will best serve the continental countries, and given as they outnumber us we'll lose out. We're already seeing the start of this with the push for closer financial regulations, which will eventually cripple our services sector.

Fourthly, our contribution to the EU is going to go up sharply. Continental Europe is stuck in a stagflationary cycle, whilst our economy is doing rather well by comparison. As this trend continues - and it is definitely set to continue - it is inevitable that our contributions will go up sooner of later. Coupled with the similarly inevitable erosion of our rebate, and soon we'll be a second Germany; bankrolling the EU, or more accurately covering the costs of the poorer East European countries.

Fifthly, immigration. I don't have an especial problem with people coming into our country, but an abundance of cheap unskilled labour is punching through the wage floor and dragging everyone else's pay down with it.

they do pretty unanimously have incredibly backwards views on women, homosexuals and democracy, amongst other things. It would be frankly dangerous to allow these kind of people, with these kind of ideologies, a place in Britain.

I'll finish on a point which I think gets less credit than it's due; national identity. I don't feel European, and neither do most people. Certainly not in the way they do on the continent.

I'm in favour of leaving the EU at the moment, and I've set out some of my reasons for wanting to leave below. Hoping some Remainers would explain why they disagree with these:

Firstly, no one has presented anything like a suggestion to solving the various calamities which the EU is walking towards. No one knows how the Greek debt will resolve,

no one knows how the migrant crisis will resolve

and no one knows how hard the EU is gonna push for the fiscal and political union its leaders so desire.

Extremist, left and right wing populist parties are on the rise

and the whole eurozone is trapped in a stagflationary cycle.

And as ever, the EU is crippled by inactivity- it took a year and a half before they even started talking to Turkey about stopping migrant flow, and the Germans have already cocked that up.

Too many different people, with different cultures and different ideologies and different ideas of how they should be run, makes it virtually impossible for any meaningful solutions to be found, as evidenced by pretty much the entirety of the EU's existence.

Secondly, the people who run the EU are unilaterally pushing closer integration, in spite of the overwhelming popular opinion being against it.

It's a perversion of democracy.

No one really wants this closer union except a bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels/Strasbourg

- and if you want an example of EU ludicrousness, how about the ridiculous waste of resources that is the transfer of EU headquarters from Brussels to Strasbourg and back every month?

Thirdly, our economy is fundamentally different to those on the continent. Our income is built primarily on our services sector and especially our financial services, whereas continental european economies are dominated by manufacturing. The economic policy that would best suit ourselves will never be the same as that which will best serve the continental countries, and given as they outnumber us we'll lose out. We're already seeing the start of this with the push for closer financial regulations, which will eventually cripple our services sector.

Fourthly, our contribution to the EU is going to go up sharply. Continental Europe is stuck in a stagflationary cycle,

whilst our economy is doing rather well by comparison. As this trend continues - and it is definitely set to continue - it is inevitable that our contributions will go up sooner of later. Coupled with the similarly inevitable erosion of our rebate, and soon we'll be a second Germany; bankrolling the EU, or more accurately covering the costs of the poorer East European countries.

Fifthly, immigration. I don't have an especial problem with people coming into our country, but an abundance of cheap unskilled labour is punching through the wage floor and dragging everyone else's pay down with it. I welcome the introduction of a National Living Wage, but this will inevitably draw even more unskilled workers into the UK labour market, which will end up counteracting any positives that low-paid workers would have gleaned. Perhaps more worryingly, is that over the next 3-10 years (depending on which EU country they live in) the migrants who have entered over the past couple years will be entitled to EU passports, giving them unfettered access to Britain.

Now whilst they obviously aren't all terrorists and criminals, they do pretty unanimously have incredibly backwards views on women, homosexuals and democracy, amongst other things. It would be frankly dangerous to allow these kind of people, with these kind of ideologies, a place in Britain.

I'll finish on a point which I think gets less credit than it's due; national identity. I don't feel European, and neither do most people. Certainly not in the way they do on the continent. We identify more with Americans, Australians or even some asian cultures than we do with the French or the Germans, we share more culture with them. We really don't have a shared identity with those who live on the continent. Which makes the whole desire to tether ourselves to them, especially when they're faltering so obviously, rather obvious.

We have very little to do with the Greek debt crisis. The refugee crisis isn't going to go away if we leave the EU; rather, if the EU actually had a quota system, the pressure on every individual country would be much better. Regardless, the refugee crisis isn't going to go away. Left-wing populist parties aren't particularly a concern; right-wing populist parties are but, again, I don't see them really affecting us.

There won't be a further transfer of powers to Brussels without a referendum, and we're out of any "ever closer union" as per Cameron's renegotiation.

As per Cameron's renegotiation, the City will be protected. Also, the preponderance of evidence suggests that our economy will suffer if we left the EU. There won't be an economic apocalypse as some are suggesting, but regardless of the actual figure, we will lose out an economic growth; the only real question is: how much? The think-tank Open Europe has published perhaps the most rigorous estimate of the consequences, and finds that scenarios in which the economy suffers are both more likely, and the losses larger in magnitude than any potential gains. It even finds that a scenario in which we negotiate a trade deal with the EU will still see us lose out economically, unless we carry out liberalisation and maintain relatively open borders (which just won't happen), as immigration benefits the economy.

Our per capita contribution is probably not going to get to the level where it outweighs the income that we each gain from being a member of the EU and experiencing the economic benefits. If we left the EU, per capita income would fall, even taking into account the fact that we each give around £100 a year to the EU.

There's actually little evidence of this.

Now, it is true that immigration does have a slightly negative impact on the employment of low-skilled natives, this being counter-balanced by it having a slightly positive impact on the employment of medium to high-skilled natives, meaning that it overall has no net effect.

Overall native employment can decrease due to immigration in an economic downturn due to non-EU migration, when job losses for low-skilled natives outweigh jobs created by immigration elsewhere. So, yes, there's a slight cost there for low-skilled natives during an economic downturn, which we aren't currently in.

But, on wages, which you specifically talked about, immigration has a negligible impact on the wages of low-skilled natives, but a positive impact on the wages of medium and high-skilled natives. Overall, therefore, immigration actually increases average native wages. The only people who lose out when it comes to wages are recent immigrants themselves, who see their wages drop by ~6-7%. Why is the effect so small and positive for the average native? Because immigration raises GDP per capita.

And, there's no guarantee that even low-skilled workers will lose out at all, in fact.

Peri and Foged, in a 2013 study, tracked the wages and employment of every individual worker in Denmark from 1991-2008, and tracked how they responded to large influxes of refugees from places like Somalia, Afghanistan and Bosnia. This is a particularly robust study because the Danish government randomly distributed these refugees to counties in Denmark, giving the researchers a great data-set to work with. They found that average low-skilled wages, native low-skilled wages and employment all increased, along with occupational mobility.

Why? Perhaps the fact that the refugees were randomly distributed made the difference. This suggests that we should be giving more support to regions of the UK in which immigration is a lot higher than in other places.

Also, we have to consider the massive benefits that immigration brings to the immigrants themselves, in terms of their living standards.

Surely, by this logic, we should deport any Christian and Jewish fundamentalists with incredibly backward views, as well as right-wing and left-wing extremists with anti-democratic views? Should we also screen people for these beliefs in general when before allowing them in here?

In any case, when immigrants come to the West, there's a net movement that favours the adoption of universal, liberal values. These attitudes won't go away just because we don't let people into the country; immigration actually helps people lose conservative attitudes: immigrant populations in both the United States and the UK have more liberal attitudes than those in their native countries.

This doesn't change the fact that our economy will likely suffer if we leave the EU.

The fallout from a Greek default would be catastrophic. We may not be caught in the storm quite so much as the eurozone, but it would have a devastating effect on all the EU countries. And given the IMF recently downgrading the Greek debt, effectively saying they believe it shall never be paid back, this risk is very real.

It won't go away, but control of our borders and no requirement to shoulder the burden means that the migrant crisis will have limited effect on Britain.

Left and right wing extremist populists should be a concern for us all. Golden Dawn isn't something I'd aspire to seeing within our political system exactly.

Of course there will, if by proxy if nothing else. If all the other countries become ever more closely interlinked, then their interests will align until we're just outnumbered in all the votes. This idea that we can sit on the outside whilst all the other countries form some kind of superstate is daft; once such a state is formed, it'll dominate us by virtue of its size.

You sure you read the Open Europe report? It said the most realistic effect by 2030 was somewhere between a permanent -0.8% and +0.6% change in GDP.

But you'll notice that this wasn't considered in the Open Europe report, or any other models. Combined with the inevitable loss of the rebate within the next couple of EU budgets, we'll be the biggest or second biggest contributor. And you still haven't explained why we should be contributing all this money to prop up eastern european countries which aren't willing to make the difficult economic decisions to solve their countries' issues, instead relying on our handouts.

You're right that in times of extended prosperity, the fact that immigration raises GDP means that over time, wages do end up rising. But in the short term, immigration most definitely does reduce wages - a Bank of England report by Stephen Nickell and someone else (their name escapes me) found that a 10% increase in the proportion of low-skilled workers who are immigrants brings about a 2-5% decrease in wages in these jobs.

Also, we live in a time of fairly limited economic growth, and our economy faces very real threats from the slowdown in China and the falling oil prices. And by your own admission, in these times low-skilled immigration is especially detrimental.

Except you can't really deport someone who is born here. And that's not even the point. They're entitled to have their extremist views, but they're not entitled to enforce them. Tell me the last time we saw Christians or Jews in Britain trying to enforce their views on the public, or political extremists trying to do away with our parliamentary or judicial system?

Of course, you forget to mention the other half of that which is that it puts a lot of people in our countries at risk.

The Open Europe report you quoted makes no such assertion.