Brussels isn’t the bad guy – even Boris Johnson agrees.

 

Boris Johnson Nov 2014Lack of government investment in five key areas – jobs, vacancies, wages, housing and the NHS – is the real reason we’re suffering

Source: Brussels isn’t the bad guy. Tory cuts cause Britain’s troubles | Business | The Guardian

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1975 – a more serious & intelligent debate and not a focus group in sight.

By Yasmin Ali, a member of one of the SY2E – Remain in the EU groups.

Our politics today has become like our financial services, dependent on algorithms, number-crunching, and, crucially, bare faced misselling. PPI politics, cynical and shoddy. Sub-prime politicians, taking us for fools.  I’ve no nostalgia to return to the misogyny, racism, homophobia and myriad other unfairnesses of the 1970s.  But I wouldn’t mind a bit more of its seriousness, and willingness to argue politics intelligently, from principle, and without a focus group in sight.

Please read the complete article: Holidays In 1975

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Here is my final EU referendum plea. Take a look fellow new european friends. If you like it I will spread it.

By Rupert Slade a member of one of the SY2E – Remain in the EU groups.

If immigration is your big problem with the eu, then frankly you shouldn’t be my friend. The evidence in report after report is against you. Yes, there is a pressure on services. This is due to a government that has put in place a plan of austerity and believes in the downsizing of the state as an ideology.

The target should not be EU migrants, who are 93 per cent employed and average age 29. Compare them with the 1.5 million living on the costa del sol, who are likely to be retired. They will not want to live four to a room and without question will be a bigger drain on the health service. Follow your logic and they should come home…. Just remember 5 million brits live outside the Uk. Many of us have found it very difficult to vote…..

I am an immigrant and have been for 18 years. In so called very patriotic countries like Poland, Ireland and Hungary I have made lifetime friends. If you don’t like migrants, you don’t like me.

When brexiters talk about the big wide world and the commonwealth….. sounds good, but are we really going to open our borders to India, Nigeria, Pakisatn etc….. No, we know what you are saying, it is very clear. Aussie, nz and canada are your commonweallth or your faded empire. Most of them are white…. British exceptionalism and racism comes in many forms.

If you are not repulsed by Farage’s billboard I suggest you should watch Schindler’s list or the Pianist….. take a look at some nazi propaganda of the 30s… It is the same…. When a universally loved mp whose life is dedicated to cultural integration gets murdered, the backdrop of that billboard is just too much for good people to take.

Do you have some intellectual fear of losing our sovereignty? There are a few of you. Please remember you are voting to appease people’s fear of immigration and dislike of foreigners. I am lifelong liberal, only boffins like me and some of us are really interested in our electoral system…. Please don’t kid yourself that is what people are voting for…. they are voting out of anger at dropping standards of living and fear of modernity. Note that the young are not voting for brexit. It is people my age and older.

The EU is an imperfect democracy, particularly when people are stupid enough to vote UKIP and get meps like Farage who spout on about fishermen, but then don’t bother to turn up . Yes our MEPs and governments appoint commissioners. In the same way in the Uk we need civil servants to make law happen. Yes democracy is imperfect. Scotland always vote Labour and gets tory. I vote liberal and get bugger all. Some votes are more valuable than others…. 50 seats swing the whole country……. But take that aside you have to recognise the need for European governance. We need to tackle world issues together.

Very occasionally we will be blocked( in fact 50 times in the last 10 years out of 600)….. ok I concede there is a democratic deficit….. 28 countries negotiating mean EU politics hover between uk toryism and scandinavian social democracy……. Frankly is that such a bad thing? The left scream about it being a classical liberal capitalist organisation, the right call it a bureaucratic organisation that blocks economic progress. They would say that, wouldn’t they?

The reason why the Eu was set up was to stop tyranny in Europe. When extremists want to smash our human rights or our basic liberties, that is why the eu is there as moderator…….. What is the real agenda of the libertarian right? Do you really think it is for the protection of British workers? Of course not. We know where Farage’s mind is. Do you really want to appease the angry and hating who are voting for him?

BTW if we brexit, can we demand independence for London? 75% of us would have voted remain….. why should we leave the EU and support people who voted to brexit, particularly when we subsidise them…. i am joking of course.

Why do so many brexitters assume that the EU is out to get us through the small print?. There is an agenda to do what is good for Europe. As the voting shows 90 per cent of the time that is good for us. This bizarre xenophobia towards Juncker and even worse towards Merkel is truly vile. It is not her fault her economy works and that she shows compassion to refugees….. The ww2 comparisons belong with a lot of other things in the “little england” dustbin.

In a campaign where you have had the former minister of Education saying ” the public are fed up with experts” you have to cry……. tell that to the school kids. Stop listening to the teachers, the mathematicians, the economists, the writers, the bank of England……in fact pretty much everyone. Perhaps they should do their learning from beefy botham, david Icke and that Monty Pythonesque pub bigot Nigel Farage. Does that not sum up the idiocy of the LEAVE campaign?

I have always defended Britain to the hilt over the years for its openness and tolerance……. I know we will do the right thing on Thursday. I believe we are an open and fantastic place…. Please don’t prove me wrong.This is my last piece on the subject. My wife kath is fed up with me living on social media, but this is so much more important than a general election. It is about who we are and how we project ourselves to the world.

VOTE REMAIN

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Leave campaigner Dominic Cummings in front of the Parliamentary Treasury Select Committee.

Andrew Tyrie’s questioning via YouTube.

The full session is available via Parliament Live TV.

http://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/fe18cb0b-fae5-4778-b00f-b05fde360ed6

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What is this “Brexit” that “Mr Farage and associates” trying to sell us and why?

This post is going out to those of you who are undecided or can be swayed regarding the upcoming referendum.

I could try to convince you of the value of cooperation by bringing up examples such as neighborhood watches or workers unions. I could attempt to persuade you of the strength of a Union by pointing out that the UK is a Union of Nations, even though there has been much bad blood among these Nations in the past.

I could employ a multitude of arguments, but I won’t, I’m going to ask you a more important question. What is this man representing “Mr Farage and associates” trying to sell you.

He’s doing you a favour by offering a better product, but if that’s the case, so where are the facts and figures? Why no placard saying “Twice the yield” or “25% longer lasting”?

He might be saying that this product is healthier, if so why is there no list of ingredients? What is stopping this man from selling you a highly toxic if delicious fast-food?

If this man is claiming his company has at heart the interests and satisfaction of its clients, where is the money-back guarantee, or the after-sales package? For that matter, why is he hurrying us into this sale?

If you’re anything like me, you’ll be sceptical of salesmen who sell magic potions, don’t have any documentation, have to make the sale today, only deal in cash and don’t do returns.

What I’m asking is that you are as discerning about what the Leavers are offering as you are with your food, washing machine or car, for example:

  • How much does it cost?
  • What has it got in it?
  • What kind of mpg/life-expectancy does it have?
  • Does it come with a guarantee?
  • Or even simply “I’d like to see it before I buy”.

Don’t be dazzled by the bright lights or deafened by the loud infomercials.

Personally, if the seller has no track record, can’t show me the product, won’t offer me any kind of after-sales service and spends more time bad-mouthing the competition than he does lauding his own product, I don’t buy.

What I’m saying above is that you should look for a carefully-formulated and detailed reasoning of why “Brexit” is the product for you.

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‘Accuracy is for snake-oil pussies’: Dominic Cummings defies Members of Parliament.

Just in case anybody thinks that the Leave campaign is about reclaiming UK Parliamentary Sovereignty.

“For someone who claims to want to give sovereignty back to the British parliament you don’t seem to have much respect for the sovereignty of this committee,” Labour’s Helen Goodman pointed out.

“I want my own special sovereignty,” Cummings shrugged, his look of slight sheepishness suggesting there might be a smidgeon of rationality lurking somewhere in his brain.

I recommend you read the full article, it is not only highly entertaining but also highly representative of the Leave campaign’s attitude towards the UK’s future.

Source: ‘Accuracy is for snake-oil pussies’: Vote Leave’s campaign director defies MPs | Politics | The Guardian

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What the EU does for you and me – 2.

By Manuel Escuder, a member of one of the SY2E – Remain in the EU groups

Here is another example of what the EU can do for individuals.

Before retiring, I worked for an international company with operations throughout the world. I worked mainly in the UK, but also had a few years working in other European countries. In each of these countries, I paid my National Insurance contributions which would count towards my state pension.

However, in some of these countries, there is a minimum number of years of contributions to qualify for a state pension, so there is a risk that someone who works in several different countries, contributing NI may end up with no pension at all.

The EU pensions agreements however allows the TOTAL number of years across all EU countries to be used and each country to count for the minimum and then to pro-rata the pension payable from that country according to the years worked there.

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What the EU does for you and me – 1.

By Manuel Escuder, a member of one of the SY2E – Remain in the EU groups

Here is one example of what the EU can do for individuals.

Until recently, I lived in a remote part of Andalucia, Spain for 18 years. So I was an immigrant, aka UK-Expat.

Because of the remote location of our small olive farm, we couldn´t get postal deliveries. The only real way to get post was to contract a PO box in the nearest town, actually in the post office. This worked very well all the time we lived there; however, the cost kept on increasing each year.

Still not too onerous, until the post office decided to charge per person using the service rather than one single charge as they had been doing all those years. Thus in a household with 2 adults and 2 children, the cost just went up by 400%. I complained to the postmaster to no avail as he was just following the new rules of the organisation.

So, I researched the Human Rights act and discovered that Spain has signed up -along with all other EU countries- to all the provisions of act. One of those provisions allowed me to make a formal complaint on the basis that our human rights were being violated, and we were being discriminated due to our place of residence, being charged for a service provided free to city/town dwellers and furthermore we were actually saving them the cost of delivering mail to our door.

We won!. They recognised our family would only need pay a single charge..

Posted in Ready, reflections, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment