23 June.

Comparing the vote with the millennium software update seems a tad spurious to me!

I shall certainly be voting to leave the EU, but have always thought that the numbers voting to stay in will be greater.Hey-ho, that's democracy, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I met a couple of Norwegians very recently while on holiday. Norway is not in the EU but they pointed out that to trade with EU countries they have to conform to EU regulations but Norway has no voice in framing them. So unless the Brexiters have a whole raft of new, non EU, markets in the wings I don't think cutting off one's nose to spite one's face is the brightest of ideas.

I voted to join; I'm not voting to leave.

I will vote to stay in.

A rant regarding the millenium bug "scaremongering" - My DH spent eighteen months working for a big company just before 2000. They used software to monitor and control the delivery of a utility to customers nationwide, and to measure their usage and bill them.

That software had been written for computers with far smaller memory and operational space than those in use now. To refer to the dates as 1975, 1989, 1994, would have needed a hundred times as much space as referring to them as 75, 89, 94, and so on, and that space just wasn't available. So to save valuable space the dates kept in the database were referred to by the shorter.

This was not just in one part of the software - it was all through it. As the software operated, it used the shorter dates in doing all the calculations needed to keep the whole country supplied and the correct amount billed. Every part of the software had to be at least one hundred times as big. If one date failed, the whole thing could have come to a halt. The same was true of software for home computers which had been written earlier for less powerful machines.

At intervals the software had been altered here and there, and it was hoped that all the references to the shortened dates had been removed, but until midnight on 12/12/1999 it was impossible to be absolutely sure without manually checking every line of code That is what took DH and several others eighteen months to make safe. Replacing the complete software package would have caused even more upheaval and expense.

Every utility had to do the same thing, to make sure that they would not fail. So they did - they spent time and money getting it right so that there were no problems They had no alternative, and it worked.

The result - a lot of people saying "What was all the fuss about - nothing went wrong!" Like saying "Why do we bother using safety devices on machinery - fatal accidents are just about non-existent"

I will vote to leave
But I don't think it will happen.
I wasn't old enough to vote first time. Those like myself or who have been born since, only know what its like to be in europe.
I think that quite a few of those will vote to stay in as they have not had the experience of total autonomy

I voted to join so did have experience of us being outside

What did you not like about being 'outside' Annibach?

We haven't got an empire anymore thank goodness. I want to stay. Linking 2 topics, I've just heard a junior doctor on the radio saying their employment conditions in the past improved because of the EU employment regulations. Wouldn't trust the likes of Gove, Farage , Galloway et al to organise a proverbial in a brewery

We voted on whether to join the Common Market, not the monstrous entity that the EU now is.

I voted to join the common market as I really thought it was the right thing to do, so did DH. This time I'm not so sure! If we had had a vote to join the euro, I would have voted yes!!!!! What a Big BIG mistake that would have been! Now I'm not sure of my own judgment, so will probably abstain. I think yes will win the day, but who knows?!!

I didn't get a vote about joining but I will be voting to leave. I suspect it won't happen but at least the size/proportion of the 'out' vote will be a wake up call to the powers-that-be. I am strongly of the opinion that you can't complain unless you take action for change so I'll always vote even if I feel my voice won't be heard.

I voted to join, as did my DH. He had his own business at the time and we both thought it was a good thing, making trading easier with our European neighbours. We were wrong! All the hoops we had to jump through to satisfy the EU eventually killed the business. We both wish that we had never joined. I am voting to leave.

I think this country can survive anything. Who are ( they) to think they can rule us. They are all as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.
Just take a good look at what's happening in Europe. The Euro is dropping, we have had to go cap in hand to the Turks because of the almighty cock up with migrants, and now we discover that the home of the EU, Brussels, doesn't have a clue as to what's going on with terrorists.
And some people are going to vote for this.

This country is already in a mess with a huge national debt. If there is a "leave" vote our economy will be thrown into disarray and confusion due to the uncertainty it will create. We will lose out and end up in a much, much bigger mess.
Some of you seem to be blaming the EU for recent terrorist attacks. Odd from the country that had several decades of home grown terrorism until the Good Friday agreement was reached.
The recent bombings are the work of ISIS - the very people who the poor refugees are fleeing.

I agree with everything you say, JessM.

What a sensible post jess

There was an article in the paper reporting on B Johnson. He was asked to attend a committee looking into the EU. He was asked a lot of questions and largely seemed to answer every question with a joke. The committee got extremely irritated with him. I have decided that far from an intelligent man hiding behind buffoonery I think it is the absolute opposite. He didn't seem to know anything sensible at all and the committee seemed no further forward.

What makes everyone think that the rest if the world will be rushing to trade with an independent UK? Lots of places do not like Britain due to the Colonial past and there is the fact that we did leave some of them in the lurch when we initially joined the EU - but on balance I thought then and I still think we are right to be in alignment with our close neighbours.
Yesterday evening on Newsnight Lord Falconer was explaining how if we leave it will take far longer to extradite criminals with no EU arrest warrant etc than in does now and in some cases the person would not be sent back at all.
People deciding not to vote because they think the vote will be to remain is very foolish as lack of action by many will result in a leaving vote and all the accompanying chaos. When I voted to join the Common Market it was done with much consideration of the facts and also with the knowledge that many countries wanted a closer union in the future. We cannot keep on thinking we can go back on deals done in the past - just as we cannot change the outcome of many other events.

I have spoken recently with a high-ranking police officer who told me that they are very worried about the effect a vote to leave would have on current agreements such as the EU arrest warrant. I caught an interview with a prominent scientist the other day, detailing the EU funding that has gone into British research projects and worrying that this won't be a UK government priority if we leave. My DH was in the forwarding business and knows how much more time, effort and paperwork is involved in getting goods out across various borders to non-EU markets rather than to those within the EU. I appreciate the fact that working conditions have improved for many as the result of EU law, and no, I don't trust our government to keep to them. And I want my grandchildren to have the same opportunities to live and work freely in Europe that I had, and to study there if they wish. I appreciate there are downsides to membership, but on balance believe they are outweighed by the advantages. I'm proud to be British, but proud to be European too. So I'll be voting to stay in.

It is very rare to get something for nothing - there is always give and take in any good relationship - we cannot expect to simply get our own way all the time and anyway that would not be healthy. We pay our taxes and depending on our personal situation we get more or less back in payments or kind - I have heard some childless people asking why they should pay for the education of other people's children - that is completely the wrong question - it should be asking who paid for my education - someone did - therefore I will happily pay for that of another child. I never heard my father complain about the tax he paid - he was a normal working man but taught me that some things you do for the good of others or the community - the EU is only a bigger version of this.

Why is it that the Brexits get noticed more in the media?

Going by these posts, ordinary people have much more of a sense of the enormity of the decision and are not going to be swayed by the short term.

I like the idea of the EU being just a larger version of the good of the community.

Why did we need another thread on the EU?

Because the media largely supports Brexit.