I'm sorry but you're obviously a Remainer from the school of superiority who thinks that you know better than the stupid 52% who wanted out....how can you say the 48% knew exactly what that would mean...and yet others didn't?[/QUOTE] The 48% did NOT know what remain would mean. As Geisla Stewart said in the election - we are not voting for the status quo !!! Germany, France and other EU countries are forging greater ties to form a central US of E. So if we had voted in or out - we were always going to be on the outside and periphery of the EU.
I do not want to sound offensive , but as I said in a previous post I do not get in to political debate , I do not impose my views on others & likewise I do not welcome people trying to impose their views on me , I make my own mind up about things & doing that way has served me well .
All of Europe isn’t in the EU. But of those that are in the EU, we’re not suddenly going to fall behind Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia or Slovenia.
North of Derby it might if people keep voting T***. I find the idea of leaving the EU with this lot in charge too frightening to contemplate.
People are not trying to impose their views on you. They're asking what you base your views on. Put an opinion in the public domain and expect to be questioned.
What was the title of the thread ?, it posed a question thats all & when people ask me my views & I give them, then they will respond & try & tell me that I am wrong etc, etc etc & so by that very fact , they will be imposing their views on me & a political argument begins & that is why I choose not to get involved in any political debate , its a powder keg .
The only countries that we will be worse off than are the ones we're already behind. Perhaps France and Belgium will catch up. We'll still have a much higher HDI than places like Portugal, Spain and Italy.
[QUOTE="Jimmy cricket, People believed it was an advisory referendum because U.K. constitutional law dictates that all referendums must be just that.[/QUOTE] I doubt many people even considered it before or during the campaign...both the Govt and the Remain campaign made it clear it was binding. I quote from the 'Stronger in' Campaign If Britain opts to leave Europe we will immediately begin negotiations with the European Commission about our exit from the European Union. This vote is irreversible Read more at https://www.strongerin.co.uk/the_referendum#LS0PrFMY2RhTH1iS.99 Or LEAVING the EU is an 'irreversible decision' that would do lasting damage to the UK economy, David Cameron has warned. "Quitting Europe is a risk to your family's future because a vote to leave on Thursday means there is no going back on Friday. Vote Remain." Tony Blair said: “Britain faces a historic choice between prosperity, influence and security as part of Europe, or a reckless leap in the dark and years of damaging uncertainty. “If we vote to leave, there is no going back. Tim Farron.. "Tomorrow is about the future of Britain as an outstanding, outward-looking and tolerant nation."This is the biggest decision of a generation. "Our children and grandchildren will have to live with the consequences" Alistair Darling for Britain Stronger in Europe Campaign The decision we make will affect generations to come. And remember this: the decision is final. If we’re out, we’re out. That’s it. So how anyone could have thought at the time that it was purely advisory when the whole Remain campaign were telling us it was irreversible I fail to see. The first mention I remember of "Advisory" was in the days after Remain lost.
On IMF 2017 figures, GDP per capita, the U.K. is ranked 22 in Europe with the Czech Republic ranked 37. Portugal are 35. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
I have no sense of superiority at all. The meaning of that part of my post was that those who voted to remain - and those who didn’t - knew what being in, and continuing in the eu looked like. What it would cost, what we get, the benefits and the detriments. Remaining as we were, no massive change. Staying in would mean continuing as things were. Nothing as such would be undecided or to be agreed. Leave - not so much. What did and does ‘leave’ mean? Those who voted to leave number among them those who want what is now known as ‘hard brexit’, some wanted to leave the eu but remain in the eea, some wanted to leave but to retain interest and so pay into it at a reduced level. Various other permutations perhaps. They all had their own reasons for voting out - but out didn’t mean the same to all of them. I’m not sure you can argue against me saying that people didn’t know what leave would look like when we still don’t know now, two years later? Of the 52% who voted leave, a good proportion will have sound reasons for doing so and so made the correct decision for them. No argument there. I do think many people, though, particularly in the parts of the country that have heavily lent on the eu over the last 20 or 30 years for any kind of development, were misguided in voting out - be that due to immigration or lies on a bus about nhs funding or ‘taking back control’ or whatever other reason - as I fear for the future in these areas, for me short term, my kids as they grow up, and theirs assuming they have them. I may be wrong, I’m not trying to get a moral high ground. But I still think this is a disaster in the making for most of the areas like this, particularly in the north.
I voted to leave for two reasons: We cannot improve the quality of life if we have an open door immigration policy. We can’t build better roads, hospitals, schools and have a better police force etc etc if all it does is continually make the country more attractive to more and more people coming in. In effect - running to stand still. Secondly - Common Agricultural Policy - we can’t keep giving £3.5 BILLION per year of tax payers money to individual farmers in Britain - some of them very wealthy- so they can squeeze every last penny out of the countryside and in doing so they have destroyed large parts of our countryside. Farmers are spraying away our countryside. And the EU are paying them to do it.