European Union in or out

I even said something along the lines of "I dispute the assumption that...". Could hardly have been clearer.

Have you ever considered that if the murderer had been convicted then he would be in prison ? he would not be there to rescue you if you were drowning unless of course you were in the prison swimming pool. Sorry, digressing.

"If you were drowning and a convicted murderer could rescue you, would you refuse because of either his credentials or his personality?"

Did you read Elegran's question, harrigran?

Nope dj I have chemo brain fog at the moment and sometimes can't even spell my own name.

Sorry, harrigran.
That's the question I was answering. I thought you must have missed it.

How much more chemo do you have to have?

whitewave wrote: "This week a beaver was spotted in Kent. This would simply not have happened if EU legislation had not ensured the clean up of so much of our environment. The rivers are now teaming and sparkling with life.

Brexiters are keen to relax this legislation to allow businesses including farmers the ability to once more pollute both rivers and environment as they used to do."

So, everything will regress if we leave the EU? Our environmentalists will vanish from the face of the Earth will they? It will be OK to pollute rivers?

More doom and gloom. The remain camp really is desperate!
Many, many years ago, long before the EU, when I lived in London back in the '70s, there was talk of the polluted Thames and very little being able to survive in it's waters....it was a cause for concern. Fish swim in it now, and have done for years...not because someone in Brussels was concerned!

We didn't need the EU to create environmentalists to tell us it had to be cleaned up! Ecological awareness, and increased communication was the driving force for the clean up, not the EU. We were all into saving the whale when I was young. I don't think a person from 'abroad' INSISTED we care about the planet.Legislation followed awareness.

Of course if we leave the EU we'll just chuck all our rubbish back in the rivers....and anyone interested in the environment will throw themselves into the murky waters to end it all because well, without people on the continent advising us, we are going to become complete philistines!

It's actually quite funny the ends the pro-Europe camp are going to, basing their campaign on fear.

I wonder when we get the plague of locusts?

So what are your credentials for knowing about the environment, Day6?

You missed this bit out when you quoted whitewave.

"welshwife I am very aware of the good the EU has done. My son works for the environment agency and it is astounding the difference EU legislation has made to our rivers etc. "

You know more about the Environment Agency than whitewave's son, I hope.

One example of how the EU has forced the UK to clean up the Thames:

www.ibtimes.co.uk/thames-sewage-uk-faces-prospect-multimillion-pound-eu-fines-1532945

There are others, but people don't seem to like links and I can't be bothered to type out all the info.

Day6, You sound like the one who's becoming increasingly paranoid. What exactly is your problem with the EU? So far you've come up with arguments which can be knocked down with a feather.

day6 before the EU legislation the Thames was void of life and really a dirty sewer. Many of our rivers were in a similar state from nitrates poured into them by farmers. Our beaches and inland coastal waters were in a similar state with raw sewage on the beaches and sea. We now have a blue flag system run by the EU and so people know that their tinies can play safely. Our air quality has got better but it still kills thousands of people a year - and the EU is putting pressure on the UK government to ckean up. Would you rsther they didnt? Clearly the UK government is dragging its feet and would presumably simply ignore the problem if there wasn't someone on their backs.
And as I said Brexit want rid of all this so called bureacracy.

As its David Attenboroughs birthday today I would also like to mention the sort of legislation the EU has enacted to protect our wildlife in all its variety and glory.

One area is habitat protection. Many of our most precious species survive in particular types of habitation, like salt marsh, clean rivers, unploughed fields where no chemicals are used. We know there is pressure on many of these habitats from development of all sorts like housing, roads or flood defence.

EU legislation ensures that firstly these precious areas are protected as far as possible, but if it isn't possible then other areas are found and developed for the wild life as compensation. So species such as the red squirrel, otters, water voles, various fish and birds, and butterfly and reptiles survive simply because of this legislation, without it we would have some species for ever.

You want positive? This is positive.

We get money from the EU for all these projects.

That should have read "lost some species for ever"

In 2015 the UK government paid £13 billion to the EU budget and the EU spending on Britain was £4.5 billion. So the UK's net contribution was £8.5 billion. Vote OUT.

My daughter works for a large drug company and often mentions the level of economic support given to scientific research in the UK by the EU. In fact the UK gets more than any other EU country.

I note with interest that all the big drug companies want the UK to remain.

firecracker those figures are not correct. I will get back or perhaps another gran would be kind enough if they have it to hand.

I think the UK gets more money for scientific research because it does more scientific research.

The EU introduced legislation on water quality in the 1970s (and continues to introduce more as needed) because it was not good across the whole of Europe, not just the UK. People's attitudes to environmental protection have changed phenomenally since then, which is why I think such measures would have happened anyway.

Currently EU monitors water cleanliness in Switzerland and Albania as well as in the EU, showing that not being an EU member doesn't matter.

Wish people'd stop talking about extinctions as if they wouldn't happen if it weren't for human beings. 90-odd% of all species that have ever existed are extinct. Massively fast rates of extinction have happened before, several times, before human beings existed.

Hmm! Re extinction. - the question you need to ask bags is would these species have become extinct without the distruction of their habitat by humans. You simply cannot know - but my vote is with the wild life.

Basically the recent arguments on this thread in favour of remaining in the EU seem to be based on the premise that the UK is no good and would be useless and incompetent without the EU encouraging it along. I'd call that a negative view.

No bags the UK gets more money because of the quality of our research not the quantity.

My vote is with wildlife too. You are not understanding me, ww. Sometimes, in order to improve the environment of people, who are animals just as important as any other kind, habitat destruction of other species by humans will happen. This is also true of other species destroying habitats. The only difference between us and other animals is that we've got to the stage of trying to limit the damage we cause. We still have a long way to go, but we are trying. No other species is. We are not horrible. We are animals trying to live the best lives we can, just like all the others.

No the UK isn't useless of course not!

But those in favour of out criticised the remainders for being so negative. I am putting forward the positive aspect of the EU. But that still doesn't satisfy it seems.

Quality not quantity suits me, ww. If UK research is of better quality than that from elsewhere, then I'd count that as 'more' in a different way.

I don't find your posts positive, ww, because they are based on thinking the UK can't or won't do certain things without being a member of the EU. A positive attitude would be that the UK can. Then, and only then, we come to the choice of membership of the EU.

Yes but we have the ability to reason you cannot excuse our behaviour by reducing us to another species without knowledge.

The EU is doing just that by limiting the damage we cause by legislation. Of course you could argue that the UK would have done the same, but where is the evidence before we joined the EU.

I would also like to point to various evidence to show that the UK government has threatened much of our wild life habitats since it took office. Remember the row over the sale of woodland? There are many more examples like this. And the threat to reduce bureaucracy tells you a lot more about the future.

"Yes but we have the ability to reason you cannot excuse our behaviour by reducing us to another species without knowledge."

Agreed. I did not imply any excuses. Nor did I suggest that we are better than other animals, which your use of the phrase "reducing us" does. We are able through our particular evolutionary trajectory to try and limit habitat destruction that affects other species. This does not mean we are better or than other animals are worse or somehow lower than us. It just means we are animals as well and more like other species rather than less.