EDF Straw Poll on EU Referendum

[edcam]

Most of the more visible "spokespeople" on both sides are extremely offputting but the Brexit lobby have the edge in terms of ludicrous leaders.

The fact that no independent observer or economist seems to think leaving the EU is a good idea has persuaded me to vote IN.

[uncleglen]

Azira- I think alan medic cracked that one before....

[Alan Medic]

Wasn't that because you told us you only showered or had a bath twice a year?

[JohnL]

Unsure

There are very few of us compared to national polls - I probably tend toward remain :)

I agree with the girl on Sky news on the result - a 10-15% remain majority whatever the polls say.

[Azira]

It was a genuine mistake, not a wisecrack.

[Alan Medic]

I always saw his name like that too Azira since he mentioned his bathing habits.

[Jah Lush]

[Earl Aelfheah]

OK who's the one person voted 'other'

[Alan Medic]

Seabag Wrote:

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> Alan Medic Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > You don't have to explain why you will vote one

> > way or another. There's another thread for

> that.

>

> Blimey Al, you're a ball of laughs today

That's me and Admin SB ☺

[maxxi]

rahrahrah Wrote:

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> OK who's the one person voted 'other'

Guilty.

See, I don't see myself as 'unsure' as it makes me sound like a timid ditherer when i see myself as positively 'still-to-decide'.

One of the reasons for this is that, though pragmatism suggests 'in', the idea of a leap into the unknown has an appeal - the perfect reason to pick 'other'.

Also, if someone could explain why 'other' is there as an option, and what it embraces, then it might just deter the bloody minded among us from choosing it.

Or not.

Like the in or out vote really.

Or not.

[minder]

Been trying to vote in the poll but just keeps saying 'You have already voted'.

It's had over 3,000 views but less than 450 votes.

[DulwichFox]

minder Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Been trying to vote in the poll but just keeps

> saying 'You have already voted'.

>

> It's had over 3,000 views but less than 450 votes.

People who have voted are viewing it to see how the vote is going.

Once you have voted you will get that message..

DulwichFox

[Loz]

minder Wrote:

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> Been trying to vote in the poll but just keeps

> saying 'You have already voted'.

Are you on the non-Infinity BT Broadband? You probably share an IP address with a few others, and one of them has probably already voted.

[Jules-and-Boo]

Blair says stay in - he also thought Iraq was a good idea.

OUT.

we'll learn a very painful lesson by remaining in - and then we'll have openly consented to anything EU wants - and won't be able to do anything about it at all.....

This is not about if we like our pain au chocolat, or love our summer holidays...

here's a short list of financial and industrial FUBARs from the EU then,.. (it was longer, much longer, but really tough reading. I have however edited this slightly due to those who have asked me to clarify some points. All of it has been fact-checked not only by myself but also many others.)

Cadbury moved production of several brands to a factory in Poland 2011 with EU grant. Despite promising the workforce they would not.

Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.

Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds. They have not yet said what UK plants will lose out.

Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant. That move was not wanted by Peugeot, it was forced on them by EU blundering and cost then dearly.

British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in Spain using Swedish steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales. (Just assembly. They could have been built entirely in Wales with British steel, ah Tata, maybe not then.)

Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan. (I didn't believe this till I checked Financial Times)

Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.

M&S manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.

Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with with EU grants.

Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.

Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.

Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.

Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.

Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.

ICI integration into Holland?s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs

Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of ?80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase. (Now sold on again)

JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with ?20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry. (Joint CEOs charged with financial trading fraud, insider trading)

UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.

Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.

Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.

The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online.

Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada. New trains contract awarded to German company.

39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU

The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria and those parts assembled in the UK. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.

Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn't paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Name me one major technology company still running in the UK, I used to contract out to many, then the work just dried up as they were sold off to companies from France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc., and now we don't even teach electronic technology for technicians any more, due to EU regulations.

Yes some companies are in the UK with EU funding, but have you noticed that many, like Tata, are planning to shift the production away again, as soon as they will not have to pay a penalty to the EU for doing so. Hundreds already did, just using British skills to develop products and then opt for lower labour costs, often with a serious loss in quality too like Bosch alternators. Many employ staff only on a part-time basis, minimum wage and even those sent by DWP to work for nothing, those get just their benefits.

I haven't detailed our non-existent fishing industry the EU paid to destroy, nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing, don't even go there.

I haven't mentioned what it costs us to be asset-stripped like this, nor have I mentioned immigration, nor the risk to our security if control of our armed forces is passed to Brussels or Germany.

The way companies abuse the EU commercial assistance system is not doing the EU, Britain or any other country any favours. It has massive loopholes that are simply exploited and no-one in Brussels has the wit nor sense to change it. Change in the EU is slow at best and in most cases, next to impossible due to the intense lobbying by companies with a vested interest in abusing this very broken system. I know Margaret Thatcher was not many people's favourite person, but she did get a number of measures agreed that have now been completely eroded and sadly, by her own party. Mr Junker has said that any more 'special status' for Britain will be difficult and will face legal challenges. In other words, we will not get most of them, if any.

If the EU may break up in the event of Britain voting to leave as suggested by both leaders of the Bundesbank and European Central Bank, then in all honesty, we have as a nation been propping up a failed system for too long, It will probably fail anyway, taking anyone still 'in' with it. Thus, this vote you have is not exactly 'remain' or 'leave', it is more an issue of jumping off the sinking ship while we have a chance to swim ashore now, or waiting till it is in really deep water and going down with it. Either way, being brutally honest, we get wet and will have a struggle. Question is, do you want to survive or not?

Find something that's gone the other way, I've looked and I just can't. If you think the EU is a good idea,

1/ You haven't read the party manifesto of The European Peoples' Party.

2/ You haven't had to deal with EU petty bureaucracy tearing your business down.

3/ You don't think it matters.

[Blah Blah]

You posted this on the EU thread as well and it was pointed out there that leaving the EU would not change any of that as the grants were awarded to the countries of destination. Companies go where labour is cheapest. That is just the way it is. The EU is not the cause of that. Labour costs are the primary reason why the UK fails to compete in manufacturing. Nothing to do with the EU at all.

[Azira]

Interesting Jules. So you're acknowledging that we don't have any primary industries to speak of, and yet your advocating a move that will have a massive deleterious effect on the only real industry we have left - professional services/financial markets - at least for the short to medium term and possibly longer.

If you think leaving this way is a good idea:

1/ you haven't read any EU financial services legislation, or at the very least any of the non-partisan information on the impact of Brexit on professional services.

2/ you don't understand how our economy is currently structured and are one of those delusional people who think that small businesses brings more money in or employes more people overall

3/ you don't think it matters that banks moving off-shore doesn't only impact the stereotypical rich banker type and that thousands of ordinary people directly and hundreds of thousands of people indirectly.

In different circumstances, I'd probably vote out, but not this way with the price we'll have to pay.

[robbin]

What about the price we will have to pay if we stay in and as seems likely Italy and/or Spain default like Greece did (but with a far, far larger bailout required and a much worse effect on EU growth)?

It's what the bond markets seem to be pointing towards - Japanese type stagnation for decades to come.

Short term cost to leaving, for sure. But we don't (or shouldn't) live for the short term only...

[rendelharris]

robbin Wrote:

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> What about the price we will have to pay if we

> stay in and as seems likely Italy and/or Spain

> default like Greece did (but with a far, far

> larger bailout required and a much worse effect on

> EU growth)?

We already have an agreement, made in February and to be implemented if we vote to remain, that Eurozone countries will have to bear the cost of any future bailout, not us:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36456277

[Blah Blah]

Yes but who is it that actually loans the money for bailouts? It's not us. It's that ethereal thing called international banking. The worry around defaulting of course is that the 2008 crash was caused in part by defaults. But the default of two or three nations on a bailout package is not the same as the scale of what happened in the US and accross world banking in 2008. We've been loaning money to non EU countries that have defaulted for decades. Like with any credit card, as long as the interest payments keep coming in (even if a few are missed) the bank makes it's money. And there is also a huge difference between bailing out an economy that can recover over time, and one that can't. Japan was a lesson learned since. Greece is also unlike most other EU countries, especially before the crash. She even lied about the health of her economy to gain entry to the EU. The failures of economy are the failures of something far bigger than and out of the control of the EU.

[robbin]

rendelharris Wrote:

>

> We already have an agreement, made in February and

> to be implemented if we vote to remain, that

> Eurozone countries will have to bear the cost of

> any future bailout, not us:

>

> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendu

> m-36456277

You really think it's that certain? It's not. Dodgy Dave's February 'agreement' is not in any EU treaty...

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check/2016/feb/24/david-cameron-eu-deal-legally-binding-michael-gove-analysis-joshua-rozenberg

[Blah Blah]

It doesn't have to be in a treaty. As long as the agreement is minuted (and it will be as with any official meetings), then it stands.

[robbin]

No. Read the article (and many others). It's nothing like as simple as you suggest.

[Jules-and-Boo]

so, as being of the EU, we contribute money to the EU. This would be used towards funding the debts of the country needing bailing out....bt we wouldn't bail them out directly. oh no. Cameron's agreed that.

it's laughable / very scary how different people's opinions are and the varied levels of trust people have in the EU governemnt / our own government.

[robbin]

Google Martin Schultz to find out his view - he's the President of the European Parliament. He is quite clear that there is no guarantee Dodgy Dave's February deal will be passed (in his Parliament), and until then he says it is not binding on anyone. Blah Blah, you seem completely certain, so are these other people out of their minds?

Surely there is material doubt over the true position. It might not be what you would like to hear, but that doesn't mean it's not so.

[Blah Blah]

But again, where does the money come from for the bailouts? It comes from banks. This is the irony of the banking bailout. We borrowed money from banks to errr, bailout banks. We are all beholden to banking corporations. Leaving the EU does NOT change that. We also seem to live in the bubble that says it would never happen to us as well. UK plc has had to go to the IMF for a bailout in the past. Bailout money is a loan. It's repayable with interest. For those loaning the money, it's business. We are not giving the money away here. It's just like America loaning us massive amounts to get through and beyond WW2. It took decades to repay the loan, but America didn't go bankrupt loaning us the money, and made a tidy packet in interest over the following decades.