The EU - we are on the home straight folks!

"The Southern English regions and the North West export most goods in absolute terms to the EU. Yet regions that export fewer goods, such as the North East, South West and Northern Ireland, are more reliant on the EU insofar as EU countries are the destination of a greater proportion of their goods exports.

The North East is the only English regions with a goods trade surplus with the EU in recent years. For most Southern English regions, imports from the EU dwarf exports. Overall Northern regions and the devolved nations have a more balanced trade relationship with the EU.

The North East overwhelmingly exports chemicals and vehicles. These sectors are amongst those with the highest tariffs for imports into the EU. If trade with the EU becomes more restrictive the region could be very negatively affected.

A more restrictive trading relationship with the EU would have implications for the government’s Northern Powerhouse policy agenda, which is in part reliant on a resurgence of manufacturing and increasing exports, as well as on local and regional economic growth plans."

From Sheffield University research.

Dj, yes I saw JM om AM's show. He was the first genuine voice I have heard so far. Takes a lot to get JM agitated.

DJ, I am given to understand there is/was to be major EU investment in North Lincolnshire by green energy companies manufacturing turbines.

I think it's the whole of Humberside, GandTea, to manufacture wind turbines helped by EU money. But that was before the government decided to cut subsidies, so I do not know what is happening now. It was Siemens doing the manufacturing, and they had started at Saltend east of Hull.

Anyone else watching freeview 131, the whole night about 1975?
Some good footage about the Common Market. Tony Benn and Roy Jenkins on now with a very young Dimbleby.

It's amazing. They are just so polite to each other.

They were still smiling at each other at the end. It was a Panorama programme. Dimbleby actually quoted Tony Benn at the end. By the way, Tony Benn had wanted to be in five years earlier. Having thought about jobs, etc., he changed his mind. But that was when he could trust the government to care about the workers whether we were in or out.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/04/bertie-ahern-uk-reimpose-irish-border-after-brexit-eu-northern-ireland

Someone else who is going to vote to stay in. From the article.

With regards trade, Ahern questioned the leave campaign’s assertion that Britain could easily seek out new markets in China, India and Brazil after Brexit.

“Here is something the people in the UK should remember. It is a fact that annual trade between Ireland and Britain is greater than the UK’s business with China and Brazil put together. Trading relations between Ireland and Britain are running at about €1bn a week. That is how important it is for both our countries to remain within the EU.”

The rest of the world is still turning. Even the rest of Europe.

"European parliament members will rubber-stamp the mandate of an inquiry into the Panama Papers this week. They fully intend to call George Osborne and HM Revenue and Customs bosses as witnesses, to explain why London now rivals Zurich as a money-laundering hub."

"Research on the referenda which took place following the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 showed that voters tended to mix up the performance of their own governments with that of the European Union. Thus the unpopularity of the governments in Denmark and France at that time helped to ensure a rejection of the treaty in the former country and near rejection in the latter. This was in sharp contrast to Ireland, which had a popular government and where the referendum passed easily."

Not sure if I like this or not. What happens with a split government? Is Boris more popular than Cameron?

Then we are doomed.
Only a quarter of the population voted them in and their popularity has plummeted.

Got ours this morning- done and dusted and returned.

ukandeu.ac.uk/making-you-mind-up/

An analysis of the vote. If those who can't make their minds up vote as their age group we will remain.

ukandeu.ac.uk/dont-forget-the-deal-how-camerons-uk-eu-settlement-could-herald-a-more-flexible-eu/

Apparently however we vote, the EU will change because of Cameron's settlement. However, if we vote out it will have nothing to do with him. That's why he's peeved now.

ukandeu.ac.uk/event/

There are some Ask the Experts meetings in various places, just in case any of you live near them.
Oxford and London today.

Should we vote out the process of leaving will start the weekend after the referendum. There will be a special committee set up in Europe to decide the actual process and the UK will be barred from this committee and have no say whatsoever - we will be told the outcome and what will happen. After exactly two years the UK will be out whether the negotiations are completed or not.
That was decided by the EU just after the referendum was declared. They are not going to look kindly on the UK and we will not be able to just walk into the sort of agreement with them that the leavers are banking on.

That's fair enough, Welshwife. We can't expect to have some say in the process if we do not want to be part of it.

This is about the difference between the single market and free trade agreements.

ukandeu.ac.uk/boiling-the-referendum-down-the-single-market/

Remember that Gove wants out of both.

The bit about selling services is a bit of an eye-opener.

"But how do we sell services? We can sell them from one foreign country to another but, more often than not, we have to actually be located in that country to do the selling or they have to come to our country to do the buying.

Now a level playing field means that we have the same right of establishment anywhere in the EU and they have the right of establishment in the UK. This is how we trade our services.

The next issue is whether we really have to be concerned about any of this. Are services a big deal? They are. The latest figures show 83% of in jobs in the UK are in the service sector: from advertising, broadcasting, computing, designing, education, finance, GPs, health services and the list goes on and on to zoo keepers.

We may not put them on a ship but we can and do sell each one of those services to 27 other nations in the EU. In fact, we’re rather good at this. We have a surplus in our balance of trade with the rest of the EU of £21bn – which has doubled in the last seven years."

But an £89 billion goods deficit.

J Major seems to me to be the only politician so far who has put forward an impassioned argument for staying in. I have a recurrent nightmare of waking up on 24th to find the three headed Python of Johnson, Gove & IDS running the country. There seems to be huge disinterest about the debate, according to the interviews I have heard with members of the public. It is concerning that our future will be decided by an small and unrepresentative group of voters if there is a low turnout.

Here's another ex PM making an impassioned plea for us to Remain.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gordon-brown-launches-eu-referendum-8116507

Goborid, the three headed dog.

Gordon Brown says he'll take on Johnson. That would really be something worth watching. Has Boris accepted?

Listen to Hilary now- he is very convincing.

I wish Andrew Neil would let him talk instead of interrupting all the time.

Wow yes, and sooo agressive too.