So i dont know what im voting anymore. Both sides have arguments, but i dont really know what the facts are though.
Democratically, I find it weird how the british political system, after being under much scrutiny recently for being undemocratic, and watching laws get passed in which people continuously get protested to fall on deaf ears, to be painted in a more positive light by the brexit campaigners. But I guess at least having a vote is better than none, but at the same time, I dont feel entirely comfortable with our government have no regulations, especially since the tories in the past wanted to scrap the humans rights act from the EU.
I think "having a vote is better than none" is a bit misleading in the light of the sort of legislation that we get from the EU. Most of it, if passed in the UK, would be done by Statutory Instrument - which gets very little scrutiny from Parliament. We'd really just be swapping our civil servants for EU civil servants and very little, if any, more direct influence.
Economically again I feel weird. We pay 350 million a week, sounds like a lot, but really isn't,we're not going to be suddenly more economically well off by leaving.
Yes, it's essentially a nearly trivial amount. Besides it isn't £350m a week - the contribution net of the rebate is more like £250m a week, and the net contribution more like £164m a week - which is roughly what it would cost us to do a Norway-like arrangement with the EU. Net benefit roughly zero.
Ive seen the fishing industry be cited so frequently, as the EU apparently destroyed it. Yet I work in a company that exists within the UK fishing industry. They didn't destroy it, and all the fish we source must come from sustainable fisheries. From what I understand, fisheries died and shrunk because they refused to make their practices sustainable. And they were relocated, and its not like they went all off land, we have an approved supplier list of all fisheries in the UK and other places like norway and iceland, and while UK fisheries shrunk many grew. Such as peterhead. It's easy to say fisherman fished in waters for centuries, when centuries there used to be a fuck ton of fish while now there is very little.
Damn good point.
Another thing is, where do we stand on companies and tax dodging? We would a lot more operational income if we stopped letting companies avoid tax. Rather than just leaving the EU, we see france cracking down on this now something we should be doing, can this be helped with or without the EU?
Massively easier if inside the EU.
Or (and this might be some people's aim) by massively cutting UK corporation taxes so all the companies want to come here.
Immigration. I'm on a humanitarian stance on this, im not against immigration. But ive heard shit been said like "we could see a sudden influx of 750 million new immigrants because of turkey" I mean, weve taken what 5k immigrants ? and plan to take in 20k total until 2020? I dont understand this issue, the UK has rejected plans before to have to accept mass immigrants, why would that change anytime soon by staying in the eu?
The Turkey thing is just a red rag. Turkey has been trying to get into the EU since 1963. Fifty years on they've satisfied just one out of 35 requirements, and will not be joining any time soon.
But I think your numbers are wrong - the 5k/20k is (I think) specifically asylum-seekers rather than immigrants. Immigration is
much much more. Some say about 500k a year, though that is balanced by emigration of about 400k a year. Many of the people I've talked to about this have their own particular bugbears about immigration - whether it is pressure on the NHS, or having non-English speaking nurses in the NHS rather than English-speaking Commonwealth citizens, or Somali refugees, or "masses of Pakis everywhere", or Polish plumbers undercutting UK tradesmen. Everyone has different concerns and it is difficult to find a common theme.
I thin this is the big underlying theme. Personally I don't think it is a problem, but then I don't see it (much) locally.