DHM expressed it all very well.....and I want to follow him despite my same huge reservations about the personal company I will be keeping and 'supporting' in a Brexit vote. However I will be voting "in" for no other reasons than I am genuinely fearful of our future otherwise despite the Brexit claims the UK can again be the country it once was. The Brexit claims are no more than bravado and an appeal to the patriotic if not jingoistic nature of many. I have lived around the world and I am not at all patriotic or jingoistic so I need more than that.
What sort of UK/EU relationship will it be after divorcing (key word) the EU? On BBC QT there was a loud cheer for the response it will be a "British model". Not good enough!!!. If it becomes an EEA rules model then a lot of Brexit voters are going to be hugely angry because of Free Movement still being a condition of this model. (Let's face it a lot of votes will be purely on the basis of 'immigration' and promised reductions. Many will consider nothing else when casting their vote). If not EEA then what? WTO rules? All the economic benefits of free trade access gone for what alternative benefit exactly? Anything else is going to take a hell of a lot of negotiations far beyond the suggested Brexit timetable.
What sort of trade deals will be have with the rest of the world after Brexit? Again the answers seem devoid of any real substance. Can anybody tell me which countries are queueing up or knocking down our door to offer the UK the much more favourable deals Brexit says we can get ...if only we were to leave the EU with free market access? Maybe just maybe the UK is presently the 5th largest economy at least partly because of the access to the Free Market?
A favourite Brexit claim is that the German will still want to sell their BMWs/Mercs etc so it is their interest to do a deal. It won't be up to just the Germans though, but the whole remaining EU, admittedly under German pressure. Politically (what most seems to forget) the EU cannot afford to give the UK what it wants ...unless it wants to willingly sign its own death warrant - with other member states demanding the same, led by The Netherlands.
Politics is a dirty business. The EU will need to punish a member state for leaving otherwise there is a real danger the whole edifice will come crashing down. It might do so either way of course....with all the ecomomic devastation that will result. In or out of the EU we will not escape that devastation. Why make it more likely by voting to leave?
As for democracy....pfft! Under FPTP we are doomed to these right wing Tories having outright power for decades with just 27% of the vote, unless Labour takes Scotland back from SNP (unlikely...and definitely never of course when Scotland leaves the union with a Brexit victory). House of Lords anyone? At least we have PR with the MEP vote. It's a red herring though. People use this argument as an excuse really. It does all boil down to immigration versus ecomomics. In many ways Osborne has done more for the 'leave' campaign with his latest desperate threats and Farage the opposite with his latest poster (at least you would hope so).
And finally I actually love the concept of Free Movement: it does work both ways lest we forget (and many do). I had plans to retire to Cyprus with its cheap property and wonderful climate without the sacrifice of having to learn a new language. B'stards.
Ultimately this has all been brought about by power hungry right wing Tories (UKIP are the same people with more right wing tendencies of course) all jostling for power. Power (sovereignity is just a euphemism) to better lord it over us. There are no winners in this apart from these pillocks. Whatever happens their lives will not be affected. As normal we ordinary folk will bear the costs.
