How will you vote in the EU referendum?

Badenkate ,it is a valid point, if every voter in the three countries votes in it would make no difference, not if the majority of English voters vote out

The decision will not be made by the four countries of the U.K, it will be made by one country , are five million votes equal to nearly sixty million votes? No

I don't understand why you are thinking in those regional groups, ab. Where I live in the UK doesn't make any difference to me while ever it is the UK. I'm a UK citizen wherever I am, with UK voting rights.

In short, what are you on about?

I think you are making invalid assumptions about voters not nly in England but in the other UK countries as well. Why? What use are such assumptions?

One vote of one person is equal to one vote of any other person in the UK. Majority populations in various parts of the UK are irrelevant as far as I can see.

with reference to this referendum

I am not assuming how people will vote, I am saying the voting in a referendum is unfair , and they are not regional groups they are four countries

I used the term regional groups to mean the countries. I think that is clear. All four countries are regions of the whole.

How is each person in the four countries (i.e. the netire UK) having the same value vote unfair? That's what I don't understand of your argument. It is not logical.

It's the UK that is voting to remain in or to leave the EU, not the individual countries that make up the UK.

The assumption in your argument is that the majority of votes in England will be different from the majority of votes in the other three countries of UK.

That may turn out to be true but right now it's an assumption.

Funny old world. Whoever would have thought that I would be agreeing with Norman Tebbit on his views as to why we should leave.
He was on radio 4 yesterday evening.

No it is not, I have no idea how people will vote, I am saying three countries of the U.k do not have to same voting power as the fourth country , if the three countries voted out and the majority in England voted in we will be in

While we are all part of the UK, it is all in together or all out together.

Each county's vote might be to stay in or to leave, each town might come to its own conclusion, each individual might vote differently from the rest of their county, their town, their street. however, it is the UK as a whole which will reach a decision, not each separate part of it.

If one region doesn't want to be part of the whole, then they need to separate themselves and negotiate their own in/out. Four separate deals for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland. But wait! The North of England might not want the same deal as the South! The Home counties might want to negotiate separately from the West Country! We could have ten or twenty different deals.

The important word here is The United Kingdom.

The north if England is in the same country as the south if England , as north wales is in the same country as South Wales , four countries not four regions

A very divisionist nationalistic view, ab, which you are entitled to of course. I think it is a silly view though, especially as plenty of Scottish, Welsh and Irish people live in England and will vote there, and the other way round: English, Welsh and Irish in Scotland; Welsh, Scottish and English in Wales; English, Scottish and Welsh in Ireland.

That should be Irish, Scottish and English in Wales.

I'm sure you get the idea though, however many mistakes I've made.

I am speaking of countries and people living in these countries not individual votes, and I am silly

Four countries under one foreign policy government. Membership of the EU comes under foreign policy, I presume.

I think banging on about the four countries (which are also regions) of the UK on a UK issue is silly, yes. I didn't say you were silly, only the notion that the identity of the four countries matter on this issue.

Think of the Scotland vote on independence , they voted no, if this had be open to the rest of the U.k and judging by the many interviews in the media with the man in the street Scotland would not now be in the U.K , even the now PM used Attacks on Scotland to boost his election campaign

There are a huge number of people living in other countries eligible to vote too.

But the total votes are the sum of the individual votes.

ab, do you think, following logically from your comments about Scottish independence, that if there were to be a referendum on Cataluñan independence, all Spaniards living in Spain should have a vote as well as all Cataluñans because some people in Cataluña think of it as a different country from Spain and want it to be independent?

Or that all Chinese in China should have a vote about Tibetan independence?

I thought the idea of self-determination was that the people who want a different determination from their current one vote on a change, rather than that other people decide for them.

English people deciding to boot Scotland out of the UK would be an entirely different matter from Scotland wanting to opt out.

I thought one of the best personal comments I have heard so far came from Melanie Phillips on Sunday politics today.

The discussion was obviously about In or Out and what we commonly call Project Fear . She said this :-

"It may well work be cause fear has a very powerful effect. It's true that leaving the EU brings uncertainty but that is the price of freedom . If you want certainty by all means stay in the EU . What are we certain of? That we will never be able to control our immigration and we will never be able to control our own laws. That is the certainty of the Subservient."

My problem remains the same , both the In and Out brigade have some good points to make and it is looking like a leap of faith in both directions to be honest.