EU Referendum - How will you vote?

[L00b 441]

Well at least Mann & Skinner have had the courage to go with their beliefs.

Mann is more worried about his fast-eroding voting base in Bassetlaw (replete with Eastern European migrants as it has become), than a belief in any democratic or sovereign deficit at the hands of the EU. Exactly as the quote reflects. And that's just political opportunism in action.

 

He's fallen a fair way down in my esteem these past few weeks, after repeatedly engaging in political testiculating. This is just more of the same, chasing votes.

 

It's telling enough that he's decided to vote Leave because "the party had not planned any response to voters’ worries about immigration", when the EU is entirely unconcerned with the "position" of the UK's Labour party, now or at time before, and when the Labour party had since 1997 at the helm and tons of opportunities to do something about EU immigration:

EU enlargement: Transitional provisions

 

As new countries join the EU, new EU citizens are created. Provisions phasing in free movement rights were initially introduced in response to fears of mass immigration to other Member States, following the accession of Greece (1981) and Portugal and Spain (1986) (Maas 2007). Transitional provisions now appear a feature of accession treaties, at least for some states. They were implemented as regards eight of the ten Member States that joined the EU in 2004 (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia or Slovenia – the so-called ‘A8 countries’; but not Cyprus and Malta); in 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania – ‘A2 countries’); and for the 2013 accession of Croatia.

 

Only the UK, Ireland and Sweden decided not to apply restrictions on A8 nationals from the outset thereby allowing them immediate access to the UK labour market, albeit subject to a registration requirement (the Workers Registration Scheme) and limitations on access to benefits. While that scheme is no longer in force, it is noteworthy that it seems to have created a 'sense of illegality' for some EU citizens, making them vulnerable to labour exploitation and, in some instances, forced labour (Dwyer et al 2011).

source

 

As Mann has been a Labour MP uninterruptedly since 2001, it'd be interesting to see whether he supported or opposed the UK opting out of transitional arrangements for immigration from the EU (A8 ) accession states at the time (sometime in 2003 I expect) and, later, from the EU (A2 ) accession states (sometime in 2005 I expect).

 

This is all I can find for now..."John Mann generally voted for more EU integration"

Edited June 20, 2016 by L00b

[mediumfast 10]

Sometimes when I go to meetings in the morning at the break I am often asked if I would prefer a sausage or bacon sandwhich when I explain to them as a vegetarian I will have to go hungry it is met with a look of bemusement,going hungry is how the referendum is for me.

[MobileB 10]

Sometimes when I go to meetings in the morning at the break I am often asked if I would prefer a sausage or bacon sandwhich when I explain to them as a vegetarian I will have to go hungry it is met with a look of bemusement,going hungry is how the referendum is for me.

 

I prefer my tea cakes toasted with butter on.

[Eater Sundae 12]

Sometimes when I go to meetings in the morning at the break I am often asked if I would prefer a sausage or bacon sandwhich when I explain to them as a vegetarian I will have to go hungry it is met with a look of bemusement,going hungry is how the referendum is for me.

 

When it comes to breakfasts, you've plenty of choice - bacon, sausage, one of MobileB's teacakes, nothing etc etc. In the case of this referendum, there is only a choice between two. Nothing is not an option. It may not matter to you which you get, and you may not like either, but you will get one of them. political vegetarianism is not an option. You cannot abstain from the result.

[L00b 441]

When it comes to breakfasts, you've plenty of choice - bacon, sausage, one of MobileB's teacakes, nothing etc etc. In the case of this referendum, there is only a choice between two. Nothing is not an option. It may not matter to you which you get, and you may not like either, but you will get one of them. political vegetarianism is not an option. You cannot abstain from the result.

Doing nothing (abstaining) is always a decision, regardless of whether mediumfast agrees with the subject, the context, the process or the outcome - or not at all.

 

It's a decision to do nothing. And so there's a can to carry at the end, just the same

[crazybaby 10]

Loob, Mann says its the poorest in society who are the ones who have been hit by agency workers and zero hours contracts and who have been hit by labour flexibility with so many workers coming into the country, is he wrong ?

[tzijlstra 11]

Actually no we aren't. We are voting on the ability to change the laws that govern our lives.

 

Assorted belters (on both sides) are claiming we are voting on immigration.

 

Uhmmm... this was your last post before the above;

 

I'm not suggesting we do not put the unemployed to work. I'm saying in such circumstances where a British worker cannot be found the foreigners total cost is borne by their employer for the duration of their work in Britain. So the admin costs etc are billed to the employer not the taxpayer and certainly no tax credits or child benefit or free NHS. Price 'cheap' foreigners at actual cost rather than subsidise them our taxes as we do now.

 

That isn't the first time you talked about immigration as being an issue, leading to the conclusion that for you immigration is incredibly important.

 

By the way, I don't disagree with your point about the cost being put on the employers, but that is an issue that can be resolved by the UK government, it isn't an EU issue, so how would leaving the EU fix it?

 

---------- Post added 20-06-2016 at 12:46 ----------

 

Loob, Mann says its the poorest in society who are the ones who have been hit by agency workers and zero hours contracts and who have been hit by labour flexibility with so many workers coming into the country, is he wrong ?

 

Yes, simple fact - more people in the UK are in work now than there were under most of Blair's years. In the meantime the minimum wage has gone up, the tax-foot has gone up, the economy is growing.

[MobileB 10]

Loob, Mann says its the poorest in society who are the ones who have been hit by agency workers and zero hours contracts and who have been hit by labour flexibility with so many workers coming into the country, is he wrong ?

 

Mann wishes for many things most of which will never happen in his lifetime. I wish for a few nights with Kelly Brook. We share many things me and him.

[BoroB 10]

Uhmmm... this was your last post before the above;

 

 

 

That isn't the first time you talked about immigration as being an issue, leading to the conclusion that for you immigration is incredibly important.

 

By the way, I don't disagree with your point about the cost being put on the employers, but that is an issue that can be resolved by the UK government, it isn't an EU issue, so how would leaving the EU fix it?

 

---------- Post added 20-06-2016 at 12:46 ----------

 

 

 

Yes, simple fact - more people in the UK are in work now than there were under most of Blair's years. In the meantime the minimum wage has gone up, the tax-foot has gone up, the economy is growing.

 

And the country's debt is bigger, trade deficit is larger, schools are overcrowded, roads are busier, GP surgery appointments take weeks to get, affordable housing is non-existent and the states welfare bill is out of control.

 

Simple fact - our small Island is getting fuller by the day with repercussions.

[L00b 441]

Loob, Mann says its the poorest in society who are the ones who have been hit by agency workers and zero hours contracts and who have been hit by labour flexibility with so many workers coming into the country, is he wrong?

As a simplistic take on the matter, no.

 

But he's just being very economical with the truths that underpin the issue, because they hurt (-him at the ballot box, and anyone else that mentions them regardless of the rosette): he doesn't explain why the above has happened, is continuing to happen now, and would in all likelihood worsen significantly after a Brexit.

 

These issues stem more from globalisation (global competition) than the EU as such (wherein the EU has promulgated minimum standards in terms of employment rights to mitigate these issues at least insofar the EU is concerned - and which is what is really hampering the EU in competitive terms, relative to the BRICs which have no such protection in place and wherein the manpower cost per hour is, in direct relation to this absence of rights and significantly lower standards of living, a tiny fraction of the UK's/the EU's).

 

To say nothing of the altogether changing nature of the British economy, from a manufacturing, goods-led economy to a knowledge, service-led economy (within which workers with little 'knowledge work' aptitude are slowly driven to ever more menial and precarious roles). This is just as true for much of the developed world's economies (it is equally relevant to the poorest in society in France, Germany, Spain, the US <etc.>).

 

These issues will be exacerbated by a withdrawal from the EU: the poorest in society will be still harder-hit once UK employers are removed from such EU minimum standards, and are driven to cost-match for competing head to head with China and the like (...in the Brexiters' proposed free-for-all ultra-liberalist trading environment).

 

At least for so long as until the UK gets back to a level of trading -and associated tax income for No.11- that allows it to dispense the same level of in-work benefits as currently (...if it ever does at all, and does not instead use the opportunity of the predicted 'rumbles' to do away with in-work benefits and others through lack of tax income, never to bring them back until Labour eventually gets back in).

Edited June 20, 2016 by L00b

[mediumfast 10]

Obviously I can't abstain from the result the best I can hope for is that neither side get a huge mandate and imagine the victor arguing that two well thought out coherent offers were on the ballot and the voters overwhelmingly went with the best one.The many people I have shared opinions with who are voting are either going to vote Brexit out of a hatred of immigrants wether they are actually affected by immigration or not and somehow imagine that we can start trading with The Colonies by the next twelve months and they bizarrely believe the ideologues running the Brexit campaign are going to start putting the supposed saved billions into institutions they would rather see abolished.The remainers I know whilst tending to be better educated and perhaps more politically aware come across as equally deluded about the merits of The EU in its current form.I can't side with any of them.

[tzijlstra 11]

And the country's debt is bigger, trade deficit is larger, schools are overcrowded, roads are busier, GP surgery appointments take weeks to get, affordable housing is non-existent and the states welfare bill is out of control.

 

Simple fact - our small Island is getting fuller by the day with repercussions.

 

The country's debt is bigger because the banks crashed. The trade deficit has only recently become on par with the level it was at in 2008. The government has not been funding the NHS appropriately and there are plenty available affordable houses in Sheffield. The states welfare bill is out of control due to the markets crashing - pension pots disappearing and poor control of finance in general.

 

These are all things that the national government is responsible for. On top of that, voting to leave the EU is not going to lower migration to the UK unless there is an economic crash. It is that simple. The economy and migration are intertwined in the UK.