EU Referendum Vote - Poll

camf

Is there final numbers on the FB poll?

Heartfeltdawn

Leave 46%149 

Remain 48%155 

Undecided 6%19 323 total 

Unfortunately the results have been found to be fraudulent. 122 Remain voters were found to have all come from the same Chesham IP address. 

littlegreenman

So probably not too dissimilar to what we'll hear on Friday?

If it's that close then the % turnout will be very important.

Fretwired

ICBM said:

Fretwired said:

The system is rigged, but hey who cares. It looks like democracy so it must be.

Just like the British FPTP electoral system which usually rewards the largest minority with near-absolute power for five years, in which time they can come up with almost any wheeze they want to which the public never voted for or agreed to - even the minority who did actually vote them into office - and push it through parliament.

And the only guarantor of holding up or moderating any of this - not blocking it entirely - is an unelected higher chamber now composed only of the appointees of the last few governments who haven't died yet.

And the final guarantor of our freedoms - who has the power to refuse to sign any legislation, or dismiss the government, or choose whoever she wants to form the next one, if she really so chooses - and who has the personal sworn loyalty of the armed forces to back her up if it comes to it - is a woman who got the job because it was her father's, and his father before him, and so on via very circuitous route back to the Norman Conquest.

But it looks vaguely like democracy and we call it that, so it must be.

Maybe we should address some of these problems first, before criticising anyone else's system for not being democratic enough.

(And for what it's worth I am not unhappy about the Queen having that power.)

@ICBM .. I can't argue with you .. I'd prefer proper PR but at least you can throw the bastards out which is what I think will happen to the Tories in 2020. And with social media governments can be forced into u-turns - see disability benefits.

I know I few MEPs and they think the EU is undemocratic .. they don't really get much of a say and most legislation is passed without comment. There's a pretence of democracy, but basically the EU's run by a white middle-aged male elite - Ireland had a referendum - the EU rejected it and sent them off to have another. France had a referendum - the EU sent them off to think again. Reform is almost impossible to secure - there are red lines that cannot be crossed .. Euroscepticism is on the rise across Europe. People feel disconnected ...

Fretwired

fretmeister said:

The winner of the award for most disgraceful element of the entire campaign

http://metro.co.uk/2016/06/22/vote-leave-flew-a-plane-over-jo-cox-birthday-memorial-service-5960903/?ito=twitter

WTF ... I'm angry and speechless ... UK politics hits a new low.

Cirrus

Pleased I had lots to read having just got back from mixing a song for an Italian chap I'm producing an album for  

 Yes to PR, it makes perfect sense and I like coalition governments. For what it's worth iirc most post-war German governments have been coalitions, and they've done ok. 

As for immigration, I have strong views on that but I'll post what I put on my Facebook earlier; 

My take on immigration. I suspect it will offend some. Offence can be good though. If your ideas aren't ever challenged they can become pretty weak.

 If you're voting leave because of a fear of immigration, then you're voting not to make your life better, but to make someone else's life worse. Someone that you've never heard of or met, someone that you have no responsibility towards other than that they're a human being too and they live on the same planet as you.

 If you don't want immigrants coming here from poorer countries, then implicitly you want them to stay in worse places with lower standards of living. You want some of them to live in poverty, to be stuck in war zones. I'm voting tomorrow and immigration is one of the main reasons. 

I want to create a world where anyone is free to come to the UK. 

But I also want to create a world where *THEY DON'T NEED TO*. 

I want to create a world where labourers don't need to leave Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, or Turkey to travel to the UK to work. I want to create a world where a 55 year old man doesn't need to smuggle himself from Turkey to Leamington Spa to sell roses for £0.50 a piece at 2am outside a nightclub. That's fucking ludicrous economics, and I want to live in a world where it doesn't happen because it doesn't need to happen. 

I don't want to live in a world where it doesn't happen because we've decided to send the buggers back, and keep them out. Just because you don't feel like a racist or a xenophobe, doesn't mean you aren't one.

Drew_TNBD

^ What absolute claptrap, and I say that as someone who is directly involved in the lives of several immigrants to the UK!

There is nothing wrong with controlled immigration. And THAT is the request by the leave camp, and THAT is what is at contention here.

I do not want to see just ANYONE coming to the UK. And that doesn't mean I want these people to live in hovels and to suffer. That really is bloody offensive and utterly idiotic of you to infer such an idea. It's moronic and borderline retarded.

I want them to make THEIR home countries better, as good or better than what we've done with ours! I want them to grow their economies, I want them to educate their children, I want them to elect decent politicians who work for the will of the people.

I want to see warlords deposed. I want to see more Arab springs. I want to see enlightenment values spread throughout the world, and I want censorship and persecution to be a thing of the past.

You don't improve the world by filling up a few small places on it and leaving the rest to rot.

And at the moment you've got a situation where the best and brightest of shitty countries LEAVE those shitty countries. That isn't ideal. They need to be incentivised to STAY in their countries and make things so amazing that they rest of us are jealous.

PolarityMan

Thing is PR and decentralised authority aren't totally aligned. If you devolved more power to local councils elected by local majority then limited house of commons decisions to national issues like foreign policy etc it might work.

Really more issues should be free votes rather than everyone always towing the party line.

Cirrus

@Drew_fx, I suspect your position is more nuanced than a lot of the people I've come across who really do just not like immigrants, and are voting leave because they don't like immigrants. I've seen you post your position and opinion on the matter a lot over the last few years, and I'd like to give you a decent answer which i'll endeavour to do tomorrow - got ta get sleep now.

Drew_TNBD

Cirrus said:

@Drew_fx, I suspect your position is more nuanced than a lot of the people I've come across who really do just not like immigrants, and are voting leave because they don't like immigrants. I've seen you post your position and opinion on the matter a lot over the last few years, and I'd like to give you a decent answer which i'll endeavour to do tomorrow - got ta get sleep now.

Don't worry about it. I'm gonna be banned soon anyway fam.

Fretwired

Cirrus said:

As for immigration, I have strong views on that but I'll post what I put on my Facebook earlier; 

My take on immigration. I suspect it will offend some. Offence can be good though. If your ideas aren't ever challenged they can become pretty weak.

 If you're voting leave because of a fear of immigration, then you're voting not to make your life better, but to make someone else's life worse. Someone that you've never heard of or met, someone that you have no responsibility towards other than that they're a human being too and they live on the same planet as you.

 If you don't want immigrants coming here from poorer countries, then implicitly you want them to stay in worse places with lower standards of living. You want some of them to live in poverty, to be stuck in war zones. I'm voting tomorrow and immigration is one of the main reasons. 

I want to create a world where anyone is free to come to the UK. 

But I also want to create a world where *THEY DON'T NEED TO*. 

I want to create a world where labourers don't need to leave Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, or Turkey to travel to the UK to work. I want to create a world where a 55 year old man doesn't need to smuggle himself from Turkey to Leamington Spa to sell roses for £0.50 a piece at 2am outside a nightclub. That's fucking ludicrous economics, and I want to live in a world where it doesn't happen because it doesn't need to happen. 

I don't want to live in a world where it doesn't happen because we've decided to send the buggers back, and keep them out. Just because you don't feel like a racist or a xenophobe, doesn't mean you aren't one.

All Leave has asked for is for control - I think it will come in some form as other EU countries are asking for it. Will voting out stop immigration? No. Do we need immigrants? Yes. Has our country been enriched by them? Yes. I say this as someone who has just enjoyed a curry.

However you might want to go to the EU and ask why they impose tariffs and unfair trade barriers on third world countries. The EU should be promoting trade and helping poorer countries develop their international trade and wealth.

http://capx.co/how-the-eu-starves-africa-into-submission/

ToneControl

Cirrus said:

Pleased I had lots to read having just got back from mixing a song for an Italian chap I'm producing an album for  

 Yes to PR, it makes perfect sense and I like coalition governments. For what it's worth iirc most post-war German governments have been coalitions, and they've done ok. 

As for immigration, I have strong views on that but I'll post what I put on my Facebook earlier; 

My take on immigration. I suspect it will offend some. Offence can be good though. If your ideas aren't ever challenged they can become pretty weak.

 If you're voting leave because of a fear of immigration, then you're voting not to make your life better, but to make someone else's life worse. Someone that you've never heard of or met, someone that you have no responsibility towards other than that they're a human being too and they live on the same planet as you.

 If you don't want immigrants coming here from poorer countries, then implicitly you want them to stay in worse places with lower standards of living. You want some of them to live in poverty, to be stuck in war zones. I'm voting tomorrow and immigration is one of the main reasons. 

I want to create a world where anyone is free to come to the UK. 

But I also want to create a world where *THEY DON'T NEED TO*. 

I want to create a world where labourers don't need to leave Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, or Turkey to travel to the UK to work. I want to create a world where a 55 year old man doesn't need to smuggle himself from Turkey to Leamington Spa to sell roses for £0.50 a piece at 2am outside a nightclub. That's fucking ludicrous economics, and I want to live in a world where it doesn't happen because it doesn't need to happen. 

I don't want to live in a world where it doesn't happen because we've decided to send the buggers back, and keep them out. Just because you don't feel like a racist or a xenophobe, doesn't mean you aren't one.

you're ignoring the effect of us effectively asset-stripping poor countries of all their most skilled professionals

Is it ethical to take all the doctors from small countries around the world. Yes, they can make more money here, but back there is one less doctor, even though their state paid to train them

Fretwired

Wis to @ToneControl


And my favourite anti-democratic EU institution - the ECJ:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/22/the-eus-court-is-picking-apart-our-laws/

Bidley

ICBM said:

Bidley said:

How do you propose we do that?

We could start by having a *proper* look at PR. Not a rigged referendum intentionally designed to preserve the status quo by giving the public the choice of a bad existing option or a worse one they didn't ask for or want, and effectively being told they were too stupid to understand the difference.

With the kind of system put in place by the Allies - led by Britain - in Germany after WWII, in Scotland and Wales for their devolved parliaments (I'm not certain how it's done in Northern Ireland), and in many or most of the other advanced democracies.

After that we could look at an elected Lords, probably - or at the same time, a Lords elected by true PR with real powers over Commons legislation would go a long way to address the problems of both FPTP or AV.

But this is probably getting into too much detail for this thread. Just pointing out that our system is hardly a paragon of democracy either...

Agreed with all that.

Which box do I cross tomorrow to make all that happen?

Rhetorical question... I don't think anyone is saying our hierarchy is perfect, fucking far from it. But this referendum isn't about that, unfortunately.

Bidley

Cirrus said:

Just because you don't feel like a racist or a xenophobe, doesn't mean you aren't one.

Can I just say, if you're trying to apply that to me because I'm voting leave, then I find that incredibly offensive and short-sighted.

Heartfeltdawn

ToneControl said:

you're ignoring the effect of us effectively asset-stripping poor countries of all their most skilled professionals

Is it ethical to take all the doctors from small countries around the world. Yes, they can make more money here, but back there is one less doctor, even though their state paid to train them

Do we take all the doctors? I'd like to see some stats on doctor nationalities. Would you want doctors to be restricted from practising overseas and, if so, would you be happy with that restraint in trade?

Bidley said:Agreed with all that. Which box do I cross tomorrow to make all that happen? Rhetorical question... I don't think anyone is saying our hierarchy is perfect, fucking far from it. But this referendum isn't about that, unfortunately.

No it isn't, which is another reason why this referendum isn't what British politics really needs. Stuart, IDS, and Gove all voted against PR and Boris debated Alan Johnston speaking against PR.

chillidoggy

Soon be time to cast your votes, gentlemen. Dunno about where you are but its thunderstorms and pissing down with rain here.

holnrew

I'm getting changed to head to the polling station

holnrew

Had to queue, good sign. And there was a gorgeous collie.

I just can't remember what each option said and where I put my cross.

koneguitarist

Still voting out for following reasons only.

I want someone that was elected by a majority in UK for to be in charge of the country.

If we don't like them or they are crap, we can vote them out. 

Immigration aspect is too difficult to sort whether in EU or out, the remedy is to offer them less to come here so they go and settle in EU. Too many have said they are fleeing war torn countries etc, but still go through most of EU and apparently still fleeing till they get to our shores, benefits couldn't possibly the reason!