How will you vote in the EU referendum?

It is disturbing that the arguments in favour of staying in centre around what MIGHT happen if we leave. No-one seems to have the vaguest clue about the facts, and fear rules.

Welshwife - I SO agree with all you've said. I am afraid we have much to lose by leaving the EU, and once we have gone, we won't be welcomed back. Things will be very different for Brits in Europe once we are no longer part of it.

I think that we know what we get if we remain , but
Absolutely no idea if we leave.

Listening to Cameron though, a lot of what he claims as new we covered when looking at the EU last year, so it isn't new at all. Child benefit is new, but hardly earth shattering as we know that migrant workers give more to the economy than receive from it.
British tax payers have never been liable to bail out the member States.

I can't remember which treaty but we have always been ouside closer union

I think in making a decision it should be much bigger than that outlined by Cameron.

I think that in making

I am concerned about the timing of the referendum; as parent of 2 students I am aware that they are in 'limbo'. In June, DS will have moved out of his rented house where he studies, will likely not be time to get on the register at home. DD still on register at home as in halls of residence. Is this a coincidence that the majority of students wish to stay in? Their generation are the ones who will be effected by being in/out of EU. I have been wavering for weeks, balancing it all out, but the final decision to stay in is based on my opinions of those who wish to stay in ( not people on GN), people in the public eye, politicians. I am concerned that politicians such as IDS, Gove, Patel are keen to remove a layer of protection from working people. And, bottom line, I cannot support anything that is enthusiastically supported by Nigel Farage and George Galloway and the bloody Hamiltons.We could end up like USA with no maternity leave, no rights to return to work after having a child, and why do people mock Health and Safety rules for heavens sake? Why are they a bother? Surely it is everyone's right to go out to work and come back home in one piece? I hate the behemoth that is the EU administration, and I hate the bloated expensive administration, I hate the fact that unelected administrators can make decisions that may change my life, but I am prepared, on balance to put up with it to keep the protection that is there, protection from people like IDS who would have children up chimneys if he could.

Well Cameron has given us some idea if we leave.

2 years of negotiation after which we will leave with or without any results from those negotiations. We immediately lose all the trade deals with the rest of the world.

GillT57, over 800,000 voters missing off the register, many of them the young and students.

hopenothate.org.uk/vrdrive/

However, as many of them would vote to stay in, perhaps Cameron has shot himself in the foot here.

GillT57 I agree wholeheartedly.

Britain has been a global trading nation for hundreds of years longer than it has been part of the EU.

In (I think)

Blimey Galen unusual for you to pop up on a politics thread. Welcome though.

GillT57 and anyone else with a student in the family who will be changing their address around the time of the EU referendum - they can change it online at www.gov.uk/register-to-vote and it will be done in 5 minutes.

We're in the 21st Century now, though, bags.
The Us and the rest of the world have been discovered.
Europe is quite a large trading block now.

Maggiemaybe, yes I so much agree with you, even more so now that Bojo the Clown has agreed with him!

What I hope doesn't happen, whether we stay or leave, is that anyone thinks "Oh good, we are staying in the EU so our exports are secure with them" and sits back, or, "Oh good, we are leaving the EU, so now we can return to our trade with the rest of the world", and sits back.

No use claiming "British is best" - we are expected to prove it, time and time again, to tell them, in the language of the buyer, just why what we have to offer is the best in its field and the best value for money. If we can't, the contracts will go to Germany, to France, to a country in Eastern Europe, if we are still in the EU, to China or to India, if we are not.

Thatbags.....Being in the EU doesn't mean we can't trade with anyone else! However if we leave the EU the European nations will not be too keen on letting us have any decent deals....There will be a lot of bitterness....So a whole chunk of the closest trade areas will be 'difficult'. Consequently we'll have to trade further away....meaning our prices will have to reflect transport costs and therefore our competitiveness. We'll be huge losers. I vote to stay in.

Except, of course, that we have little steel manufacturing any more, and much of our manufacturing has closed down. Most of our GDP is now because of the service economy, not manufacturing.
Our trains, railway, utilities, etc., are mainly foreign owned. Our new nuclear power stations are going to be built by China and France, all encouraged by this government.

Can you give us a list of what is British now, Elegran?

Made in Britain

This article made me sit up and realise that we often ignore some rather important side issues affecting friends, colleagues and perhaps family members if the UK leaves the EU.

Expats are being frozen out on Europe | via @Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/12151896/Expats-are-being-frozen-out-on-Europe.html

Hmm, I don't think he is correct though. Everything I have read says that having lived here for longer than five years will give us the right to remain under accrued rights to residence, There may be a problem over health cover but we should still be able to obtain cover under the same conditions as the French (8% of income over a minimum amount). There will be a financial implication from falling exchange rates (this is already happening).
As I have said before, I am concerned about the short-term implications for us, but far more concerned about the impact of Brexit on the economic future of the UK and the fact that our children and grandchildren will not have the same rights to study, work and live in the EU that we have enjoyed.

My daughter works in France and has done so for nearly 8 years. Young people should continue to have the opportunity to do as she did thanks to EU funding. She began with help from the 'Leonardo Project' which finds and funds work placements and accommodation for young people wanting to work in the European community. It is so easy to say the EU does nothing for us whereas the opposite is true..... Opportunities to work in Europe helps our mutual understanding and improves our relationships...surely these are needed now more than ever before....
Mamie I agree with you.

su3ieQ, I'm not sure what you say in your 1709 post is inevitable. Various EU countries rely on trading with Britain just as much as Britain relies on trading with EU countries. My feeling is that, in the event of a Brexit vote, deals that are already in place will be quickly renegotiated to fit round the new arrangement.

And yes, half or more of our trading is done with non-EU countries. This could even increase if we are not forced by EU rules to deal with EU countries first. Other countries, such as India and China, have economies that are growing much faster than EU ones. I think they will be happy to continue making deals with Britain.

That's my take from what I've read so far anyway.

Brexit may not happen anyway but if it were too I'm not convinced at this stage that it need be particularly deleterious for British trade, not least because we have traded with countries all over the world for many years and we continue to do so right now.

You only have to watch the present stock market response to judge whether our exit would be good or not.....NATO would prefer we remain in Europe.... I vote in....'Stronger together' both in economic and security terms...

Badenkate, you're right about Nissan. My DS (as part of his Economics A level) recently attended a talk given by a Nissan exec. One of the questions asked was whether they would pull out of the UK if we leave. Understandably, the Nissan exec wouldn't commit himself. The Sunderland factory is very efficient, but the way the organisation works, Nissan swaps production from Sunderland to an EU factory to maximise capacity. At the moment, they can do that easily - almost at the drop of a hat, but any extra 'red tape' (which the UK being outside the EU would involve) is bound to affect long-term planning. The UK would have to become a low wage economy, so that labour costs would be significantly lower. The UK would become the sweat shop of Europe.

I also have a client who owns a medium-sized business with a £10m turnover and 60 employees. About 25% of the staff are directly involved in marketing and exporting to the EU. From her point of view, she's very nervous about the effect of leaving, because the extra paperwork could make exporting unprofitable, which could mean making 15 staff redundant. She also exports to the US and the Middle East, but this is far less profitable for her as a result of customs regulations and extra transport costs. The Middle East is, in any case, so volatile that she's considering pulling out.

su3ieQ, Good on your daughter! My daughter spent part of her degree in the EU as an Erasmus student. As a result, she has friends from all over Europe and is hoping to find a job in Germany or Eastern Europe over the next couple of years. For my daughter, they are all just young people. Their culture, history and language are important to them, but they are not nationalists. None them could even imagine going to war against each other - so different from Europe's history before 1939 and something my mother (in her 80s) just can't understand. The EU has done a lot for us.

Language students at least have always had to spend part of their degree study time abroad. This happened before the EU existed. My sister went to Leipzig as part of hers when it was still in East Germany.