Torquay United Fans Forum

Oh dear, an Austrian.

The NHS should get at least an 18 billion a year increase in funding. And the point is that would be trivial, the money we spend on the EU is trivial. Our current government has spent so long fallaciously comparing our economy to a household budget that we believe we need to count every penny. As a result, the leave campaign were able to manipulate people into thinking 350 million pounds a week was a lot of money when it fact it is not in context. I mean it's funny because these same people are acting like it's all fine that many billions of pounds were wiped out yesterday. We have just put 30 times the yearly EU net contributions into halting the slide of the economy as a result of the vote. More will follow. More and more leave voters will regret their decision. What a time to be alive.

That's weird!

Gullscorer wrote:Nigel Farage has secured his place in British political history. He deserves, at the very least, a knighthood, and a statue in Parliament Square.

For dividing up the country and potentially breaking up the Union? He deserves the Nobel Peace prize if Ireland successfully reunites.

Gullscorer wrote:There was a time not that long ago when the pound was almost at parity with the Dollar and the Euro. But the world did not end. Stock markets and currencies will fluctuate as financial speculators do their thing, either anticipating or in response to events; that's to be expected, and life goes on. But there will be more turbulence ahead. The Eurocrats will try their best to keep the lid on the kettle in the face of growing demands for further referendums in other EU countries, but the EU itself is in deep trouble and may not survive.

I'm not predicting the end of the world, but the pound has been hit hard. That will result in higher import prices and as a result inflation. This should give an idea of how volatile things are going to be for the short to medium term. This is the uncertainty the remain camp warned of. You previously dismissed it as lies, now you are dismissing it as unimportant. It's going to be difficult to count on the support of other countries if we've just precipitated a depression.

Great article of what may be to come: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... varoufakis

PhilGull wrote:So if you knew the 350 million quid was not real and couldn't be spent on the NHS or anything else. If you knew that freedom of movement with the EU would continue why exactly did you vote to leave?
I'm interested to know why people voted to leave. I've seen a lot of interviews with people saying they already regret their decision.

I think we've already heard the answer to this. It's to stop us from "marching into slavery".

Southampton Gull wrote:It washed its hands because that statement was fabricated by the media. The establishment have pulled out every dirty trick in the book and still lost their precious referendum, the people smell a rat and are slowly waking up to the reality that our government are content to keep sticking it to us. For once we've stuck it to them and now we shall see the full depth of their depravity as they seek to punish us for standing up for our rights.

The money men have simply manipulated the markets to try and scare us and will undoubtedly make things difficult for the average person, don't be fooled into thinking the BofE are doing us any favours, they aren't.
If the Scots want independence from us so bad they're prepared to hand it straight to the EU then let them go right ahead, see how far that gets them, it would be kind of ironic to witness the birth and death of independent Scotland.

The statement about the NHS was repeated in this thread by leave voters and even written on the side of Boris Johnson's bus. It is without doubt that the statement encouraged more people to vote leave than it encouraged people to vote remain. Why on earth would a force acting in the hope of staying fabricate something that would lead to more people voting to leave? That isn't logically consistent.

The money men aren't that smart, I'm afraid. They're irrational just like the rest of us. I'd say perhaps even more so, but probably not as irrational as your post. This market reaction is pure panic mode because literally all we've done so far is had a non-legally binding vote. We have not yet begun article 50 and it doesn't look like we intend to for a while. I suspect no Prime Minister is going to want to push that red button out of pure fear. They will probably use a general election to get a mandate to not press it. This is why I asked leave voters in this thread exactly what the plan is. What do people want? What do you want to happen?

And your view on Scotland belies your own conspiracy theory. On one hand, we've left the EU to great economic punishment from the establishment. Yet on the other you seem to think that Scotland will fail if it returns to the EU. Surely your evil money men will do everything in their power to ensure that an independent Scotland in the EU outperforms the rest of the UK.

My dad was obsessed with Rowe-Turner's innate ability to come off the bench and keep the ball in the corner of the far end of the pitch at the very end of games. I'm pretty sure he played centre back against us in that 2-4 Alfreton debacle a couple of season ago and was impressive that day. I'm pleased.

It's give and take though. It's not like lies were a monopoly for the remain campaign. It's not escaped my attention that the leave campaign very rapidly washed it hands of the "£350 million a week to the NHS" pledge after it won. Not exactly surprised myself but I wonder how leave voters will take that.

A larger point to spin from this is the vote was very close, it was a harshly fought election and it was a big deal for the 33.5 million of us that voted. We are now a polarised nation. We need to find a way to bridge a gap between those of us who actually liked what the EU stood for versus those who believe the EU represented a march into slavery. We need to find a way to bridge a gap between those of us who like multiculturalism versus those who want to preserve British cultural identity. And in many other ways as well. Is it even possible? I hope so. Seeing as people voted to leave and remain for very different reasons, it's not entirely clear what the country wants to happen next.

It concerns me that the leave campaign didn't have a plan for now. We've just chucked £250 billion pounds into the economy to stop it completely dying on its arse. That would have been enough to pay for 30 years of EU net contributions. I hope that puts the whole "350 million" figure into some perspective in showing how absolutely trivial that cost is. Inflation is likely and that'll make any public spending initiatives much harder to implement. What's the future? Where are we heading? Do leave voters want a left wing government or a right wing government? Corbyn? Jarvis? Johnson? Gove? Farage? Are leave voters going to be upset if we end up in a Norway style agreement that retains laws and regulations from Brussels and of course freedom of movement? Exactly what are we going to do with the Scottish and the Irish? Is the union under threat? Questions!

Congratulations to those who wanted to leave. Although I voted to remain, I will support you all in ensuring the government upholds the result of this referendum. This is an important day for democracy in this country and I'm very pleased there was a high turnout. I hope that we can make this work!

Gulliball wrote:I've just voted, although it was in pencil so probably won't count. My 93 year old mother shouted hers out, which definitely won't.

And then all the MI5 agents cheered and put their rubbers down.

Nah I voted to remain, I think it's for the best long term.

Well I understood, you just haven't made a good argument. The fact is anyone from those countries can come to the UK to do those things the way things are. They need only apply for a visa. In most cases all this requires is they have a valid passport, no previous convictions and where necessary (i.e. if they plan on a longer stay than 30 days) proof that they can support themselves during their stay.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-uk-visa

All of your valid reasons would be covered by "Tourism, including visiting friends or family" which is granted under the Standard Visitor visa. They're not difficult to obtain so long as you have the aforementioned items. I think that's very fair!

https://www.gov.uk/standard-visitor-visa

Again, this has squat all to do with the EU. Hence "bizarre".


I thought this was obvious, but it wouldn't be very flexible to have free movement with Peru seeing as it's over 6000 miles away and separated by a very large ocean!

You'll note that countries not even in the EU take full advantage of free movement due to the excellent economic benefit it provides. Examples include Switzerland and Norway. Now, that's weird... I've heard those two countries mentioned a lot during this referendum. Yeah, they've been prominent examples from the leave campaign demonstrating how our economy would not suffer in the event of an exit! Hm I wonder why. Could it be in part down to their full use of freedom of movement within the EU? Why yes, yes I believe it is.

Your analogy is bizarre. If a South African wished to travel to the UK for the reasons you listed, they are perfectly entitled to so with a Standard Visitor visa. What's that got to do with the EU?


Something that bothers me about the immigration debate is that too much emphasis is placed on the migrants themselves. The vast majority of migrants to this country are very decent people who are paying our country the ultimate compliment by wishing to live, work and/or study in our borders. We have the fifth biggest economy in the world, so why is it that our public services are incapable of supporting immigration? When you look at the numbers being thrown around with regards to immigration to this country, we're talking about a tiny percentage of our overall population. Thus if there is a strain on our resources, it is not the migrants who are responsible but our government for not providing more. The inflation rate is very low so there is more than enough capacity to spend. In summary, we should demand more robust public services.

To use a footballing analogy, going after the migrants instead of inadequate public services is like playing the man instead of the ball. That is why I think some people perceive racism when the topic comes up as it does. It's a definite free kick and you might even get a yellow card. I can understand that on paper a simple solution would be to limit immigration. But it's not practical. You can't put a straight cap on immigration and you can't understate the flexibility afforded by freedom of movement. Even if we leave the EU, the one guarantee is we will retain freedom of movement. All we'd really be able to do is change our current work visa programme, which we could do regardless of tomorrow's vote. We shouldn't because it already works quite well as it is. But if you really want more South Africans to be able to work here, I've personally got no problem with that!

What are people's predictions for the result?

I reckon 53.2% Remain, 46.8% Leave

LOL no way! Can someone call Cliff Thorburn please?

forevertufc wrote:I do agree with a lot of your sentiment there, I'm clearly going to vote leave, but do realize the path ahead for the country regardless of whether we choose to remain or leave is not going to be perfect, and in the event of vote leave winning there will need to be compromise, I just believe that's no reason vote remain and maintain the status quo because, perhaps we're a little scared of what may, or may not happen afterwards.

Totally agree with you there. I can be upfront and say that my decision to vote remain is partially motivated by caution, but it's not my only reason. If there were more of people like you on the leave side, I'd feel more comfortable myself voting to leave.

forevertufc wrote:Can I just also point out, that £176 million a week is the UK's net contribution to the EU, our country does put in £350 million a week, of course what vote leave conveniently left out is, is we get back £74 million in rebates, £100 million goes into EU projects so such as collaborative science which is clearly dear to your heart , which leaves a net contribution of £176 million in my belief.

You're right that we put in £350 million and the £176 million a week is the net contribution, i.e. what we spend. On science specifically, some money comes back here for UK based research, but my contention is that we reap the full benefits of EU-wide science. It's not just the money, it's the organisation of different scientists working on different projects with shared knowledge. The success stories from this are effectively dividends that you can't put a pound value on.

And there are other things that the EU spends in countries other than the UK which have a benefit on the UK itself that you can't put a straight value on. A bulk of the EU budget is spent on agriculture. We import about a billion pounds worth of Spanish vegetables and fruit every year. It's of importance to us, at least in the short term, that Spanish farmers grow good crops. The next largest chunk of EU budget goes on regional aid. At some point in the great immigration debate we need to ask ourselves why people wish to come here. Perhaps improving their lives in their home countries is a more pragmatic way to reduce immigration. But for more direct measures against illegal immigration, the EU spends money on crime and border control. We benefit at least a little from that. There are many other examples. So, rather than a cost or a tax, I would consider the £176 million a week net contribution an investment. How we value that investment is going to vary from British person to British person, but it's not zero.