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[Z3K]

Would Britain leaving the EU theoretically make it easier for Americans who want to move there because we'd be on an equal playing field with EU nationals?

It all depends on if the US makes it easier for British people to move to the US, since a lot of these visa and immigration issues happen on a like for like basis.

 

[Ashes]

Would Britain leaving the EU theoretically make it easier for Americans who want to move there because we'd be on an equal playing field with EU nationals?

Not a chance.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

So this was an interesting response to the Sun from a Dutch (source didn't specify, presuming somewhere in the Netherlands) newspaper:

 

[Fernando Fernandez]

The Battle of the Thames was as depressing as it was incredibly entertaining. We're never getting another season of The Thick of It

I'd have loved a Brasseye special on Brexit.

 

[Stereogatari]

Slightly off topic, but it just struck me how fucked up ut is that England has no parliament of its own.

The Battle of the Thames was as depressing as it was incredibly entertaining. We're never getting another season of The Thick of It

I'd have loved a Brasseye special on Brexit.

Is Brooker doing anything on it?

 

[PJV3]

Hopefully Osborne manages to get through his Mansion House speech tomorrow without fucking things up further. He's not getting help writing it from officials so I'm not very confident.

 

[Psychotext]

Slightly off topic, but it just struck me how fucked up ut is that England has no parliament of its own.

That'll be next after brexit... followed by the breakup of the UK.

 

[Ushojax]

At least the carnage post-Brexit will provide some entertainment. UKIP will disintegrate as Farage joins Boris' cabinet and Corbyn will need to be hurriedly put down before Labour go the way of the Lib Dems.

 

[ClosingADoor]

So this was an interesting response to the Sun from a Dutch (source didn't specify, presuming somewhere in the Netherlands) newspaper:

This was their cover, it's one of the biggest newspapers here:

Newspapers taking stances in this is pretty strange to me. Certainly never seen something like that over here in Holland before I think.

 

[PJV3]

That'll be next after brexit... followed by the breakup of the UK.

How depressingly right wing would England be, I can imagine Churchill day already.

 

[trembli0s]

This was their cover, it's one of the biggest newspapers here:



Newspapers taking stances in this is pretty strange to me. Certainly never seen something like that over here in Holland before I think.

Curious, I'm in the US so I don't know much of the EU politics besides the Spanish side (due to my mom being from Madrid). What's the general sentiment in Holland around the EU and this whole situation?

 

[Lucreto]

I really hope all these polls are a ploy by the remain side to scare the youth and remain supporters into voting. I know some people were getting complacent and thought remain was a done deal.

I am predicting huge student protests if leave wins. These are the people who are going to feel the pain the most. It won't do much except cause headaches.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Curious, I'm in the US so I don't know much of the EU politics besides the Spanish side (due to my mom being from Madrid). What's the general sentiment in Holland around the EU and this whole situation?

Was some talking about this before in this thread. Holland is more and more anti-EU also. Biggest party in the polls right now wants out. We had a referendum on the EU trade deal with Ukraine recently where about 60% of people voted against (only 32% showed up, but still).

All around Europe you see more and more anti-EU opinions popping up. People blame the EU for the loss of jobs (partly true for some sectors because of freedom of movement), the Euro mess with Greece, immigration issues and more.

If we had a vote on it today, I don't know how it goes. A recent poll shows around 25% of people want out, but don't know if that will stay that way if the decision actually is there.

 

[Z3K]

Was some talking about this before in this thread. Holland is more and more anti-EU also. Biggest party in the polls right now wants out. We had a referendum on the EU trade deal with Ukraine recently where about 60% of people voted against (only 32% showed up, but still).

All around Europe you see more and more anti-EU opinions popping up. People blame the EU for the loss of jobs (partly true for some sectors because of freedom of movement), the Euro mess with Greece, immigration issues and more.

If we had a vote on it today, I don't know how it goes. A recent poll shows around 25% of people want out, but don't know if that will stay that way if the decision actually is there.

How many EU migrants come to the Netherlands every year? Is this something that can be tracked accurately when you are part of Schengen or is it a bit of a free for all?

 

[Fernando Fernandez]

I've started getting Vote Leave ads on Gaf nooooo.

 

[PJV3]

I've started getting Vote Leave ads on Gaf nooooo.

It's always Brexit Branson for me.

 

[ClosingADoor]

How many EU migrants come to the Netherlands every year? Is this something that can be tracked accurately when you are part of Schengen or is it a bit of a free for all?

Official numbers are around 650.000 EU citizens coming here. That's for 2014, can't find more recent right now. Would be a bit higher, growth was supposed to be around 5.5% a year, so you'd come to 720.000 or so. That's on a population of about 17 million.

Most would be Polish, above 150.000 now. Next to that Germany with 130.000, Belgium with 56.000 and UK with 47.000. This should include seasonal workers also.

Around 60% have a job, 20% studying, 13% on some kind of welfare. Funny detail, the employment rate for Central and Eastern Europeans is actually 74% while those are painted as the guys coming here for welfare.

Our statistics agency has all those kind of numbers here and is openly accessible to all, but not in English: https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/201...derhalf-maal-zoveel-eu-migranten-in-nederland

People have trouble with the Bulgarians and Romanians coming in due to crime, although they are not part of Schengen yet they can come here to work. Don't know how many there are actually. We got the same thing when Poland entered but that seems to be over now and the opinions about them are better.

Most people have more problems with immigration of Northern African countries and such, and people from that background, due to their youth committing crimes far above the normal levels and creating trouble in the cities. Somehow this gets mixed up with anti-EU sentiment also. But that is a whole other discussion, one that also pops up in the refugee threads from time to time.

 

[Pandy]

This was their cover, it's one of the biggest newspapers here:



Newspapers taking stances in this is pretty strange to me. Certainly never seen something like that over here in Holland before I think.

Well the UK media is completely fubar, so we need to get balance from somewhere.

 

[Garjon]

How depressingly right wing would England be, I can imagine Churchill day already.

Ironically, it was Churchill who first called for a European Superstate. As well as a Human Rights Act.

 

[Z3K]

Official numbers are around 650.000 EU citizens coming here. That's for 2014, can't find more recent right now. Would be a bit higher, growth was supposed to be around 5.5% a year, so you'd come to 720.000 or so. That's on a population of about 17 million.

Most would be Polish, above 150.000 now. Next to that Germany with 130.000, Belgium with 56.000 and UK with 47.000. This should include seasonal workers also.

Around 60% have a job, 20% studying, 13% on some kind of welfare. Funny detail, the employment rate for Central and Eastern Europeans is actually 74% while those are painted as the guys coming here for welfare.

Our statistics agency has all those kind of numbers here and is openly accessible to all, but not in English: https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/201...derhalf-maal-zoveel-eu-migranten-in-nederland

People have trouble with the Bulgarians and Romanians coming in due to crime, although they are not part of Schengen yet they can come here to work. Don't know how many there are actually. We got the same thing when Poland entered but that seems to be over now and the opinions about them are better.

Most people have more problems with immigration of Northern African countries and such, and people from that background, due to their youth committing crimes far above the normal levels and creating trouble in the cities. Somehow this gets mixed up with anti-EU sentiment also. But that is a whole other discussion, one that also pops up in the refugee threads from time to time.

Oh wow that's quite a big number for a small country like Holland, we here in the UK get less than that and the people are going crazy.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Oh wow that's quite a big number for a small country like Holland, we here in the UK get less than that and the people are going crazy.

UK numbers should be higher. There are already about 800.000 people born in Poland in the UK according to Wikipedia.

But it all needs to be placed in perspective a bit. Nobody cares about the Germans or Belgiums here, or even the Spanish or Italians, even if they are large groups for example. It's just that people from Eastern Europe are willing to work a bit cheaper in some sectors taking over low wage jobs, but that is getting less and less over time once their economy rises due to the influx of money and investments because of their EU access. But that takes time and is a balancing act for the politicians to work out.

 

[Z3K]

UK numbers should be higher. There are already about 800.000 people born in Poland in the UK according to Wikipedia.

But it all needs to be placed in perspective a bit. Nobody cares about the Germans or Belgiums here, or even the Spanish or Italians, even if they are large groups for example. It's just that people from Eastern Europe are willing to work a bit cheaper in some sectors taking over low wage jobs, but that is getting less and less over time once their economy rises due to the influx of money and investments because of their EU access. But that takes time and is a balancing act for the politicians to work out.

The 650,000 you quoted was that per year or total?

In the UK we had about 180,000 EU migrants come in to the UK last year and about 180,000 others for total of 360,000 net migration into the UK.

 

[ClosingADoor]

The 650,000 you quoted was that per year or total?

In the UK we had about 180,000 EU migrants come in to the UK last year and about 180,000 others for total of 360,000 net migration into the UK.

Oh no, that's total. Per year net immigration is much, much lower. Last year was 57.000, but that includes people from outside the EU.

 

[danowat]

Locked behind the times paywall. :/

I can only C&P, so sorry it's a bit long....but it sums up a lot of my feelings quite well.

Brexit: AA Gill argues for ‘In’
We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of that most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia
It was the woman on Question Time that really did it for me. She was so familiar. There is someone like her in every queue, every coffee shop, outside every school in every parish council in the country. Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow, over-made-up, with her National Health face and weatherproof English expression of hurt righteousness, she’s Britannia’s mother-in-law. The camera closed in on her and she shouted: “All I want is my country back. Give me my country back.”
It was a heartfelt cry of real distress and the rest of the audience erupted in sympathetic applause, but I thought: “Back from what? Back from where?”
Wanting the country back is the constant mantra of all the outies. Farage slurs it, Gove insinuates it. Of course I know what they mean. We all know what they mean. They mean back from Johnny Foreigner, back from the brink, back from the future, back-to-back, back to bosky hedges and dry stone walls and country lanes and church bells and warm beer and skittles and football rattles and cheery banter and clogs on cobbles. Back to vicars-and-tarts parties and Carry On fart jokes, back to Elgar and fudge and proper weather and herbaceous borders and cars called Morris. Back to victoria sponge and 22 yards to a wicket and 15 hands to a horse and 3ft to a yard and four fingers in a Kit Kat, back to gooseberries not avocados, back to deference and respect, to make do and mend and smiling bravely and biting your lip and suffering in silence and patronising foreigners with pity.
We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of the most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia. The warm, crumbly, honey-coloured, collective “yesterday” with its fond belief that everything was better back then, that Britain (England, really) is a worse place now than it was at some foggy point in the past where we achieved peak Blighty. It’s the knowledge that the best of us have been and gone, that nothing we can build will be as lovely as a National Trust Georgian country house, no art will be as good as a Turner, no poem as wonderful as If, no writer a touch on Shakespeare or Dickens, nothing will grow as lovely as a cottage garden, no hero greater than Nelson, no politician better than Churchill, no view more throat-catching than the White Cliffs and that we will never manufacture anything as great as a Rolls-Royce or Flying Scotsman again.
The dream of Brexit isn’t that we might be able to make a brighter, new, energetic tomorrow, it’s a desire to shuffle back to a regret-curdled inward-looking yesterday. In the Brexit fantasy, the best we can hope for is to kick out all the work-all-hours foreigners and become caretakers to our own past in this self-congratulatory island of moaning and pomposity.
And if you think that’s an exaggeration of the Brexit position, then just listen to the language they use: “We are a nation of inventors and entrepreneurs, we want to put the great back in Britain, the great engineers, the great manufacturers.” This is all the expression of a sentimental nostalgia. In the Brexiteer’s mind’s eye is the old Pathé newsreel of Donald Campbell, of John Logie Baird with his television, Barnes Wallis and his bouncing bomb, and Robert Baden-Powell inventing boy scouts in his shed.
All we need, their argument goes, is to be free of the humourless Germans and spoilsport French and all their collective liberalism and reality. There is a concomitant hope that if we manage to back out of Europe, then we’ll get back to the bowler-hatted 1950s and the Commonwealth will hold pageants, fireworks displays and beg to be back in the Queen Empress’s good books again. Then New Zealand will sacrifice a thousand lambs, Ghana will ask if it can go back to being called the Gold Coast and Britain will resume hand-making Land Rovers and top hats and Sheffield plate teapots.
There is a reason that most of the people who want to leave the EU are old while those who want to remain are young: it’s because the young aren’t infected with Bisto nostalgia. They don’t recognise half the stuff I’ve mentioned here. They’ve grown up in the EU and at worst it’s been neutral for them.
The under-thirties want to be part of things, not aloof from them. They’re about being joined-up and counted. I imagine a phrase most outies identify with is “women’s liberation has gone too far”. Everything has gone too far for them, from political correctness — well, that’s gone mad, hasn’t it? — to health and safety and gender-neutral lavatories. Those oldies, they don’t know if they’re coming or going, what with those newfangled mobile phones and kids on Tinder and Grindr. What happened to meeting Miss Joan Hunter Dunn at the tennis club? And don’t get them started on electric hand dryers, or something unrecognised in the bagging area, or Indian call centres , or the impertinent computer asking for a password that has both capitals and little letters and numbers and more than eight digits.
Brexit is the fond belief that Britain is worse now than at some point in the foggy past where we achieved peak Blighty
We listen to the Brexit lot talk about the trade deals they’re going to make with Europe after we leave, and the blithe insouciance that what they’re offering instead of EU membership is a divorce where you can still have sex with your ex. They reckon they can get out of the marriage, keep the house, not pay alimony, take the kids out of school, stop the in-laws going to the doctor, get strict with the visiting rights, but, you know, still get a shag at the weekend and, obviously, see other people on the side.
Really, that’s their best offer? That’s the plan? To swagger into Brussels with Union Jack pants on and say: “ ’Ello luv, you’re looking nice today. Would you like some?”
When the rest of us ask how that’s really going to work, leavers reply, with Terry-Thomas smirks, that “they’re going to still really fancy us, honest, they’re gagging for us. Possibly not Merkel, but the bosses of Mercedes and those French vintners and cheesemakers, they can’t get enough of old John Bull. Of course they’re going to want to go on making the free market with two backs after we’ve got the decree nisi. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Have no doubt, this is a divorce. It’s not just business, it’s not going to be all reason and goodwill. Like all divorces, leaving Europe would be ugly and mean and hurtful, and it would lead to a great deal of poisonous xenophobia and racism, all the niggling personal prejudice that dumped, betrayed and thwarted people are prey to. And the racism and prejudice are, of course, weak points for us. The tortuous renegotiation with lawyers and courts will be bitter and vengeful, because divorces always are and, just in passing, this sovereignty thing we’re supposed to want back so badly, like Frodo’s ring, has nothing to do with you or me. We won’t notice it coming back, because we didn’t notice not having it in the first place.
Nine out of 10 economists say ‘remain in the EU’
You won’t wake up on June 24 and think: “Oh my word, my arthritis has gone! My teeth are suddenly whiter! Magically, I seem to know how to make a soufflé and I’m buff with the power of sovereignty.” This is something only politicians care about; it makes not a jot of difference to you or me if the Supreme Court is a bunch of strangely out-of-touch old gits in wigs in Westminster or a load of strangely out-of-touch old gits without wigs in Luxembourg. What matters is that we have as many judges as possible on the side of personal freedom.
Personally, I see nothing about our legislators in the UK that makes me feel I can confidently give them more power. The more checks and balances politicians have, the better for the rest of us. You can’t have too many wise heads and different opinions. If you’re really worried about red tape, by the way, it’s not just a European problem. We’re perfectly capable of coming up with our own rules and regulations and we have no shortage of jobsworths. Red tape may be annoying, but it is also there to protect your and my family from being lied to, poisoned and cheated.
The first “X” I ever put on a voting slip was to say yes to the EU. The first referendum was when I was 20 years old. This one will be in the week of my 62nd birthday. For nearly all my adult life, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t been pleased and proud to be part of this great collective. If you ask me for my nationality, the truth is I feel more European than anything else. I am part of this culture, this European civilisation. I can walk into any gallery on our continent and completely understand the images and the stories on the walls. These people are my people and they have been for thousands of years. I can read books on subjects from Ancient Greece to Dark Ages Scandinavia, from Renaissance Italy to 19th-century France, and I don’t need the context or the landscape explained to me. The music of Europe, from its scales and its instruments to its rhythms and religion, is my music. The Renaissance, the rococo, the Romantics, the impressionists, gothic, baroque, neoclassicism, realism, expressionism, futurism, fauvism, cubism, dada, surrealism, postmodernism and kitsch were all European movements and none of them belongs to a single nation.
There is a reason why the Chinese are making fake Italian handbags and the Italians aren’t making fake Chinese ones. This European culture, without question or argument, is the greatest, most inventive, subtle, profound, beautiful and powerful genius that was ever contrived anywhere by anyone and it belongs to us. Just look at my day job — food. The change in food culture and pleasure has been enormous since we joined the EU, and that’s no coincidence. What we eat, the ingredients, the recipes, may come from around the world, but it is the collective to and fro of European interests, expertise and imagination that has made it all so very appetising and exciting.
The restaurant was a European invention, naturally. The first one in Paris was called The London Bridge.
Culture works and grows through the constant warp and weft of creators, producers, consumers, intellectuals and instinctive lovers. You can’t dictate or legislate for it, you can just make a place that encourages it and you can truncate it. You can make it harder and more grudging, you can put up barriers and you can build walls, but why on earth would you? This collective culture, this golden civilisation grown on this continent over thousands of years, has made everything we have and everything we are, why would you not want to be part of it?
I understand that if we leave we don’t have to hand back our library ticket for European civilisation, but why would we even think about it? In fact, the only ones who would are those old, philistine scared gits. Look at them, too frightened to join in.

 

[anonymous_abc]

Not really. Basically Micronesia and Palau.

I know so many Americans here in Germany, and they all agree it is pretty much just a formality to get a working permit for Europe. And these people are at all skill/education levels.

 

[Acorn]

Ironically, it was Churchill who first called for a European Superstate. As well as a Human Rights Act.

Shhh we're supposed to think Boris is acting like Churchill or some b.s.

 

[QuicheFontaine]

Would Britain leaving the EU theoretically make it easier for Americans who want to move there because we'd be on an equal playing field with EU nationals?

Not a chance.

You seem very sure of that! I would say "theoretically" yes.

 

[ClivePwned]

Would Britain leaving the EU theoretically make it easier for Americans who want to move there because we'd be on an equal playing field with EU nationals?

RIght now, Americans would be competing for visas with people from Canada, Australia, NZ, India, China, Pakistan, African counties, etc.

In the event of Brexit, you can add Europeans to the list of people you'd be competing against for visas. Not competing for jobs, competing for work visas. So Computer programmer or a doctor, probably. Almost everyone else, nope.

Since the issue for many Brexiters is the numbers of migrants, I really don't see them offsetting the removal of freedom of movement with an increase in the number of work visas.

 

[dno_1966]

They were just saying on the BBC that if we vote to remain but it's very close that we'll have to have another referendum straight away, not sure i could take that...

 

[Hasney]

They were just saying on the BBC that if we vote to remain but it's very close that we'll have to have another referendum straight away, not sure i could take that...

Why would we and who said that? Surely if it's close the other way, we have got to have another straight away too?

 

[Tak3n]

They were just saying on the BBC that if we vote to remain but it's very close that we'll have to have another referendum straight away, not sure i could take that...

do you mean that article where it is 50-50? that is incredibly unlikely

 

[Kathian]

The point I believe is that rebels could prevent governance whilst Labour are not in a winning state either. Forcing another vote.

I don't think anti EU folk have enough seat in the commons to do this and likely the Tories would get over it as their constituents demand governance.

 

[Chinner]

So once we're out of the EU how long until we can get rid of all the immigrants?

 

[Undead]

So my uncle went to France to watch the Euros, I had been questioning him about it because he's not exactly much of a football fan.
Turns out under much questioning, he's actually in Poland scouting out locations for his company to move to if we vote leave.

His bosses are planning to move the entire business over there within 12 months and taking maybe 5% of their original staff, depending on whether they want to relocate to Poland or not.

 

[QuicheFontaine]

They were just saying on the BBC that if we vote to remain but it's very close that we'll have to have another referendum straight away, not sure i could take that...

Ehh, that's really not how referendums are supposed to work. For better or worse the winning threshold is 50%+1 votes. I think the result needs to be respected either way.

 

[Acorn]

Ehh, that's really not how referendums are supposed to work. For better or worse the winning threshold is 50%+1 votes. I think the result needs to be respected either way.

In theory yes but the closer it is the less the issue is actually settled. Both sides (whomever lost) would push that angle if it was within a few pts.

 

[Mr Nash]

Ehh, that's really not how referendums are supposed to work. For better or worse the winning threshold is 50%+1 votes. I think the result needs to be respected either way.

In Canada, the 1995 referendum for whether Quebec would leave was a squeeker at less than 1% voting to stay in Canada. From what I remember, it was agreed that if there were to be another referendum in the future (entirely possible since this was already the second one on the matter) it would have to be by a greater margin than 50%+1. I think they agreed upon 55% or 60% in favor of leaving in a possible future referendum iirc, since it was deemed such an important matter that keeping it at 50%+1 was cutting it way to close.

 

[Undead]

In Canada, the 1995 referendum for whether Quebec would leave was a squeeker at less than 1% voting to stay in Canada. From what I remember, it was agreed that if there were to be another referendum in the future (entirely possible since this was already the second one on the matter) it would have to be by a greater margin than 50%+1. I think they agreed upon 55% or 60% in favor of leaving in a possible future referendum iirc, since it was deemed such an important matter that keeping it at 50%+1 was cutting it way to close.

I really hope it's not too close, the currency markets have been fluctuating too wildly for me, I want this issue settled and some growth back in the £

 

[Ashes]

You seem very sure of that! I would say "theoretically" yes.

Migration is a political minefield. You think any policy would allow more immigrants in?

We actually might need more nurses from elsewhere, as we're removing incentives to train to become a nurse in this country, in the middle of a nurse shortage. But I don't see those coming from the US.

 

[Goodlife]

The point I believe is that rebels could prevent governance whilst Labour are not in a winning state either. Forcing another vote.

I don't think anti EU folk have enough seat in the commons to do this and likely the Tories would get over it as their constituents demand governance.

Yeah, that wouldn't happen.
There's more than enough Tory "rebels" to defeat that, along with Labour, SNP etc etc

 

[Ashes]

So once we're out of the EU how long until we can get rid of all the immigrants?

All? We'd have an economic collapse if we did.

 

[Spookie]

All? We'd have an economic collapse if we did.

It's Chinner he's being facetious, though I wouldn't be suprised if some in the north expected us to just start turning them out come Friday.

#madebritaingreatagain or some such shit.

 

[KingSnake]

Chinner is facetious, but what's the actual plan regarding existing EU immigrants in UK in terms of work permit/working rights? Is it assumed that they have a de facto working permit valid post Brexit?

 

[anonymous_abc]

So once we're out of the EU how long until we can get rid of all the immigrants?

Fom the Guardian

Any workable application of a Brexit vote would end up looking like a partial reconstruction of EU membership.Then each segment of the coalition for leave would feel betrayed, one by one. The Tory libertarians would complain that not enough regulation had been scrapped; the hard left would find corporate capitalism still rampant; Ukip nativists would see no sudden restoration of ethnic homogeneity to the streets.

 

[QuicheFontaine]

In Canada, the 1995 referendum for whether Quebec would leave was a squeeker at less than 1% voting to stay in Canada. From what I remember, it was agreed that if there were to be another referendum in the future (entirely possible since this was already the second one on the matter) it would have to be by a greater margin than 50%+1. I think they agreed upon 55% or 60% in favor of leaving in a possible future referendum iirc, since it was deemed such an important matter that keeping it at 50%+1 was cutting it way to close.

Funnily enough, I was saying pretty much the same thing in the Scottish Indyref thread a couple of years ago. I'm not going to dig the post up but it was along the lines of "This decision is so important, it should need to pass by a 2/3 majority or something".

So as not to be a hypocrite, I actually think the same thing should apply here. This is a big decision, and we need to be really sure if we're doing this. A 50%+1 majority of a ~65% turnout just doesn't feel like enough somehow.

But I understand why a greater percentage threshold wasn't set. People would point back to the Indyref and say "Well it was good enough then!". And so we are where we are.

A turnout threshold though, I think that would have very easily been politically palatable and I've no idea why Dave didn't throw one in just because.

Edit:

Migration is a political minefield. You think any policy would allow more immigrants in?

We actually might need more nurses from elsewhere, as we're removing incentives to train to become a nurse in this country, in the middle of a nurse shortage. But I don't see those coming from the US.

True, but I don't think the policy would need to allow more, and it would still theoretically benefit Americans. If we moved to a points system, yes Yanks would be competing with people from EU countries, but who would be more likely to satisfy the criteria for entry? Well that depends on what the points are.

 

[JonathanEx]

Just saw Ipsos MORI have a new phone poll with Remain six points behind.

I'm hoping the pollsters are wrong again and this is like IndyRef as it got tighter when it was close but I'm getting anxious that I'm on false hope.

 

[ferrasvansen]

Just saw Ipsos MORI have a new phone poll with Remain six points behind.

I'm hoping the pollsters are wrong again and this is like IndyRef as it got tighter when it was close but I'm getting anxious that I'm on false hope.

It will be a leave vote now of that i'm certain, and it will trigger an almighty mess which will only make things worse than now, government will fall apart, elections will follow asap and the UK will start to fragment over the next few years. Combined with a very nervous economy i suspect plenty of jobs will be at risk, worst thing for a steady strong economy is uncertainty and that will be a huge issue for at least the next ten years. Then again i am past caring, country is stuck in very negative paranoid state and in all honesty i could not care less what happens now.

 

[QuicheFontaine]

Just saw Ipsos MORI have a new phone poll with Remain six points behind.

I'm hoping the pollsters are wrong again and this is like IndyRef as it got tighter when it was close but I'm getting anxious that I'm on false hope.

Any individual poll could be wrong / an outlier, but every poll in the last two weeks? That doesn't seem very likely.

 

[ferrasvansen]

Any individual poll could be wrong / an outlier, but every poll in the last two weeks? That doesn't seem very likely.

nah it is over now, when my sister said to me last night "i dont want anymore foreigners here" and "it is time to send them home" and she used to be quite reasonable about such things, i knew then the rabid immigration focus of leave was working.

 

[Exterminieren]

I wouldn't put too much certainty in the polls just yet- many of them aren't taking undecideds into account, and there's a long and consistent history in referenda of undecided voters going for the conservative, status quo option when push comes to shove.

It's certainly not looking great, though.