Have you made your mind up about the referendum?

I've been dithering for ages but I think I will vote OUT. I try to ignore the fact that Boris, Gove and UKIP are heading the campaign just as I dislike the scare tactics from the remainers and being 'nudged' by Obama.

But Jane, the EU evolved from the Common Market but now it's become more of a power base, a political party, a power bloc even. The dominant figure has been Angela Merkel, whom I admire as a strong woman, but not as the person who seems to be determining our future.

We are not leaving Europe. We will always be Europeans, but I don't see that we've ever been joined by a cultural, or economical umbilical cord to say Greece, or Slovenia. We aren't in charge of it either. The democracy of the EU, a vast area, seems bewildering to me. I am not sure much of what is going on is in our interests. And the cost of membership is ludicrous.

Out, and Europe will miss us more, Fed up with being controlled by Europe.

I was an 'stayer' however, the more I hear of people who have no real 'interest' in our country predicting doom and gloom - I am changing my views. I listened to IDS on the radio this morning: he's not a member of a political party I support but I totally agreed with what he said regarding our exit of the EU!

Think of the future generations and vote OUT let's make Britain GREAT again.

I think the EU is on it's way out anyway.They are inviting more poorer countries to join.I think it will become unstable and fall apart taking us with it.As some one has already said I joined the Common Market not this lot.I am OUT.

Dithered until very recently. Now think I will vote out. I cannot help but feel that those urging us to stay in have vested interests, it's their cushy jobs etc will be at risk. David Cameron did NOT come back with a good deal for us in my opinion, he didn't get half of what he set out to get, and urging us to stay in is again "vested interests" at it is a face saving for him. The Brexit people at least have no more idea of what it will be like and who will be doing what if we come out than the majority of the public do. No doubt they also have their vested interests, with their eyes on leadership positions, but this bit in my paper cought my eye.

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/17/undecided-on-the-eu-referendum-here-is-a-simple-solution/?WT.mc_id=e_DM120078&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FPM_New_AEM_Recipient&utm_source=email&utm_medium=Edi_FPM_New_AEM_Recipient_2016_05_18&utm_campaign=DM120078

I don't know if I am allowed to post this, no doubt it will vanish if not, but at least he seemed to be coming from an unbiased view point. From a personal view I am sick of people taking the Great out of Great Britain. We managed quite well on our own without continental interference before, and I ask myself who the D***l they think they are, to be telling us what we can and can't do. There is a proverb springs to mind............motes and beams in eyes came into it! We are the 5th richest nation, not bad for a tiddly little island whom some seem to think stands in need of outside interference.

Thats badly put but I haven't had my coffee yet!

Don't underestimate Boris, he is not such a buffoon as he appears, but a very astute man.

I could go on but will get off soap box now in case I fall!
Margaret

DH uses your argument to say we should remain starstella on the basis that we would be in a better position if/ when it falls apart ifwe are in it.

day6 Winston Churchill was one of the first to promote the idea of a United States of Europe. He discussed it with Franklin D Roosevelt before Roosevelt died in 1945. They both wanted to prevent war, promote democracy and bring an end to the divisive nationalist movements that had brought Europe to war twice within half a century.
The Common Market was but the first step in that process.

Leave!

No, to be honest. I thought I had but now I am back in the undecided camp, with my head telling me to do one thing and my heart telling me to do the other! . I do wish they would stop bringing in outsiders, like Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, to put their two penn'orth in. I know he has business interests here, but I don't think that entitles him to muddy the waters. I've stopped reading about it now and DH is so intense in his opinions that I have to leave the room.

Autonomy for Great Britain

Yes, never had any other opinion, STAY. Britain will be a poorer country in so many ways if we leave.
Anyone who thinks we can re-negotiate our old trade deals is in dreamland.

The EU is far from a peace-keeping nation it would seem janeainsworth. The Syrian refugee crisis made us all perfectly aware that as a Union we are in disarray and not pulling in the same direction.

We will always have allies...in Europe and elsewhere. If the EU is a peace-keeping force mainly because it is absorbing very poor and culturally different Eastern European nations, Heaven help us all!

We are having to prop up most of it with the millions we pay in every single week.

Do you honestly believe people will attack us physically if we leave? The USA is our biggest ally remember. Do we really need to bail out very poor Eastern European countries and take in their population to keep them onside? I think not. Peace-keeping doesn't come into the in or out equation. We are not going to war against our European neighbours if we leave the EU.

Detest all the scaremongering and dislike the way David Cameron has co-erced big names to help him and Osborne out by attempting to scare us to stay in. All their arguments are an attempt to prevent the destabilisation of the money markets and big business. Obama only spoke up for America's interests. Mark Carney, Christine leGard and other notables have acted as puppets for the remainers. No thought as to whether it would benefit us - the bread and butter of this country.

PS to my rant. In an effort to keep to the subject - as you will have guessed - I'm OUT OUT OUT

I will be voting for us leaving, there is no point in being dictated to by bureaucrats who just drain us of money which in turn goes to profit the French and other countries in the EU. When you go across to France you will see roads without a single pothole, Farmers with huge farm equipment, tractors, combine harvesters which would make our poor farmers GREEN with envy. It is just not fair at all, so out, out, out we must go. (All of the above is just my opinion!)

The EU was supposed to be as free trade agreement. I shall never forget the wine lakes and butter mountains it developed at the start. However it has grown in bureaucracy and though some very good things like clean beaches and rivers and proper working conditions have come out of it there is an enormous set of overheads involved. I am very unhappy about the way Greece has been treated. I don't think Europe should keep on growing in the form it takes at present. We do not need MEP's. We need an efficient European gathering of MP's from time to time to work towards increasing common ground.

Once we are out we can evolve a more logical less heavy handed approach which takes regard of each nationalities characteristics whilst promoting harmony of action.

Boris is beginning to look like a British Trump.

Definitely out. We both voted for out the last time. The accounts have never been signed off. We did not vote for any of those who run it. I have a feeling the MPs here who are voting IN are looking for jobs in the EU later just like Neil Kinnock and his family! We can rule ourselves.

Margaret, that article by was VERY interesting.

One of the most salient points was that Cameron's reforms didn't happen, so his influence on the EU powers that be is negligible yet he STILL wants to remain. Why, one wonders? Is he thinking of the country, or himself? Interesting too, noting the big businesses that want to stay....self interest and profit is their reason.

"By contrast, the Prime Minister and the Remain campaign prefers the company of bureaucrats and technocrats who depend upon the continuation of the eurozone and its further integration for their position and power, their pay and pensions."

I think this is at the root of much of the remain camp's philosophy. They are looking after their own interests. A family member remarked yesterday that his firm depends on a very cheap foreign workforce to make them better profits. This drives down the wages paid throughout the UK. Workers become poorer, bosses become richer. Of course they want to remain in the EU. So many big Unions representing workers want us out of the EU.

I fully agree with this bit.

"Perhaps we should listen to the US banks who are funding the Remain campaign. The same banks who brought us the Great Recession and then the credit default swaps that bet against the financial system and the survival of Greece.

My strong advice to the undecided is that if you cannot discern the truth from the facts, instead apply the old adage of “judging a person by the company they keep”.

People of good faith who are not beholden to anybody and have only the interests of Britain at heart - OR the self-serving vested interests who want us to remain locked into the EU. And then vote accordingly on June 23."

I am still undecided, each account you listen to seems plausible, what annoys me is the scaremongering about hypothetical situations which are really just guess work, am waiting to hear that leaving will invite aliens from space to invade us - oh no that had already happened forgot about Trump he he.

Gangy, well said.

I feel as passionately about leaving as you do. I cannot understand why anyone who cares for this country would want to remain in the EU. As you mentioned, Cameron and Osbourne and co want to remain because their own personal wealth and position depends on the money markets.

That they are using scare tactics and recruiting others with vested (monetary) interests to back them, is despicable, and pretty traitorous to the majority of people who live in the UK.

Why anyone with a even a drop of socialist blood would go along with this destruction of our country and back the money men is beyond me, when we are in desperate need of decent health care, housing, transport, schools etc, all of which benefit those at grass roots level here in the UK.

Out, out, out.

Have you seen this speech bu Churchill janeainsworth.
We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe but not of it.
“We are linked but not combined.
“We are interested 
and associated but not absorbed.
“If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always chose the open sea.”

Also, I have only heard business leaders saying we should stay and how our economy would suffer if we leave. The following web address is a speech from John Longworth, Director General of the British Chamber of Commerce. Copy and paste into your search engine.
www.cityam.com/235844/eu-referendum-british-chambers-of-commerce-bcc-john-longworth
Hopefully it will work.

Me too! It's been the biggest con EVER. How did we manage to govern our own country before the advent of this undemocratic institution? Let's get back to being a member of a TRADING ORGANISATION, which is what I voted for all those years ago.

No need to copy and paste turned into something you can just click on. Didn't realise it would do that.