What we get Remaining in the EU and what we will get if we Leave

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Originally posted by John Danzig on his Ideas on Europe Blog

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Why I will not go gentle into that nightmare of a disintegrating Europe.

This gallery contains 11 photos.

Originally posted on Andrew James:
1973-78: A Common Market or a Project for Peace? My childhood and youth were spent in ‘splendid isolation’ from the rest of Europe. My grandfather had almost made it to the Western Front in 1917,…

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Immigration has been, on balance, beneficial to Britain – Africans for Britain

Africans for Britain has withdrawn from the Vote Leave campaign.

We fear a take over of the campaign by the radical wing which is likely to scapegoat immigrants. Most of our members and sympathisers have a history of migration. We believe that the current system is discriminatory but we do not blame the beneficiaries or want to be used against them. Immigration wherever it comes from has been on balance beneficial to Britain.

 

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Nigel Farage’s 10 month trade deal, another myth.

Nigel Farage used the US-Australian Free Trade Agreement as the counter-argument to predictions that it would take 5-10 years to negotiate a UK-USA FTA.

His assertion is that it had taken just 10 months to negotiate the US-Australia FTA. Let’s look at it:

It is true that the actual commercial negotiation did only take 10 months using the North American FTA as a model

What he fails to mention is that the US had been trying to get such an agreement since the 1980’s, and when agreement in principle was reached in 2001, it took until 2003 for negotiations to start, and until 2005 for both countries to ratify.

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The prizes of promiscuity

Imagine if you will a married couple. They have been together for a considerable time. One day the husband decides that he wishes to divorce his wife. However there are certain caveats attached. Th…

Source: The prizes of promiscuity

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We need something more reliable than the Leavers having their fingers crossed

The Future mesn't depend on Leavers having their fingers crossed

Thanks to Paul Wild a member of one of the SY2E – Remain in the EU groups

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EFTA states contributions to the EU is on an equal footing with EU member states.

On BBC Radio 4’s “”Any Questions” last night (22nd April 2016), Nigel Farage claimed that Norway makes no contributions to the EU (though he acknowledged it voluntarily makes some donations to poorer EU member states) and that it incorporates only a small number of EU regulations into its law.

He said all this with such authority and force that for a moment I was worried I’d misunderstood the situation.

But no. He was lying.

According to official Norwegian government report “Outside and Inside” (2012 — Google for PDF):

“All 17 ministries work with EU/EEA matters, and so do most of the subordinate agencies and all 429 municipalities, much of whose work deals with EEA-related matters. EU law has been incorporated to some extent into around 170 of a total of 600 Norwegian statutes and approximately 1 000 Norwegian regulations.

Norway’s association with the EU has implications at all levels, from matters affecting daily life (vehicle inspections, the working environment, food quality) to major structural issues (the common labour market and the financial market), as well as the balance of power between the Storting(parliament), the Government and the courts, politicians and civil servants, the capital and the regions, employers and employees, etc.”

Meanwhile, the Norwegian government’s Mission to the EU reports:

“Norway’s financial contributions include funding to reduce disparities in Europe and contributions to the budget of EU programmes and agencies we participate in.”

Per capita, Norway pays under its EU agreements roughly what the UK does.

Nobody on the “Any Questions” team seriously challenged Farage. They were shocked, and maybe, like me, doubted their own understandings. Perhaps they assumed he was playing by their own rules and not lying. Some hope.

Not only do leaders of the Leave campaign refuse to give any clue as to what a post-Brexit Britain would look like. They make up their own “facts” about the current reality.

Thanks to Graham Watt a member of one of the SY2E – Remain in the EU groups.

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