Labour MP Jo Cox shot in Birstall

I understand they were told at least a couple of days before Jen. The crossing is a couple of hours so they would not arrive in Calais till 7pm French time and would need to be back at the port checked in by 22-00. and 200 cars would maybe take longer .

I am staunchly pro-Europe (94% on that quiz) and I have also always (until the last election) been a Liberal then LibDem voter. The LibDems were always the most Europhile of the main political parties and if they hadn't disappeared into oblivion, I'm sure they would have been more prominent in the Remain debate. As it is, I'll have to vote the same way as Cameron and Osborne, but I see the referendum as more important than party politics anyway.

Did anyone else watch The Last Leg on Friday?
I was surprised it was on considering how irreverent it usually is, and I was ready to switch off.
However, it was excellent. They were angry but careful not to offend. At the end, they went by arrangement to Birstall Church where the community choir sang The Rose.

.I don,t know who most of my family and friends vote for,and would never think to ask them
I wouldn't normally ask friends and family, but this is not really party political and everyone seems to be volunteering their views amongst my friends and family.

If not, I have asked! And said 'if you don't want to tell me, please don't, fair enough'. However, I am very interested in their reasoning.

It has been quite astonishing and concerning to see so many people making assumptions about political affiliation if you are in remain camp!

That's ok .

Tegan....I have not considered who you may vote for and apologise if I inferred that in my response.I don,t know who most of my family and friends vote for,and would never think to ask them.I consider it to be a private matter for the individual unless they choose to divulge it.

It's been in the planning for a couple of months, though. They could have said so earlier? The aid could then have been taken over a few days. The convoy from outside parliament was the point, not the logistics in France.
The message I got was that it was the French authorities that stopped them getting on the ferry.
The ferry was arriving in Calais at 4 pm and they were leaving at 22.40

They could easily have bought those individually - it was the fact they were travelling as a convoy which was the problem . Could have been also if they had return tickets it was too short a time to unload when they got to the camp or more likely the warehouse . The volunteers said they couldn't cope with all that traffic at once - they are after all volunteers and not conscripts so had no way of drumming up more troops - many volunteers are actually from the UK and they give up holidays to go there. I have no idea about the politics etc - just what my friend said when the report came out.

How do you explain that they had ferry tickets and were not allowed on the ferry?

Jen there was more to that than was shown or talked about.
200 cars with a two hour turn around - it was too much for the volunteers in Calais to cope with - they knew that and some of the cars did not in fact have any aid in them they were just there to make a point. It was the number travelling in convoy which was the problem. Had they gone separately there would have been no problem. I am in contact with a friend who goes to the camps on a regular basis and she is in constant contact with the volunteers in Calais. That convoy was told at least two days before that they would not be allowed through as a convoy and neither could the volunteers empty it in the timescale.

The people's assembly sent a convoy of aid to Calais on Saturday. It was turned back at the border, which happens to be in Dover. Only half of the goods got through.

Jo Cox went to Calais with Yvette Cooper.
This is a petition to the French government to ask it to allow aid to get through to Calais.

www.thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/open_letter_convoy

@Tegan

Yes, I think that's what happened. There has always been quite a big group of Europhobics on the Conservative bank benches and Cameron was watching his own back.

It depends on the severity of the hardship a vote one way or the other would cause to other family members. If it is just about 'opinion' then families will get over it. If some family members lose their lively hood and their business, job or way of life due to the vote- it may be more difficult to get over.

Lucky, can anyone who is involved in Europe be non-partisan?
As a lawyer working in a university having a PHD on Europe, he is more of an expert than many people.
He lives here. He has a vote. Whatever he says he will be criticised from one side or another.

The people from www.fullfact.org are as non-partisan as you can get, too, doing factchecks on both sides. But they all have a single vote, too, assuming they are British. I do not see any partisanship in their reports. However, most people do not read them.

@Luckygirl

I agree Michael Dougan admits to not being entirely non-partisan. However, he's an academic and knows the facts better than almost anybody. Surely he's made his decision based on those facts. If he'd been making up facts, he would have been caught out by fellow academics.

He will still have a job, whichever way the vote goes. In fact, he will probably have more work than he can handle if the UK has to re-negotiate its laws, constitution and trading agreements.

We're a split family so in some ways it could feel like a modern civil war but thankfully we all respect eachothers wishes and there have been no arguments or heated debates.

Two of our grandsons, who are old enough to vote, are both studying politics. They are going to vote Brexit. I'm surprised but glad they have decided for themselves. One has parents who are going to vote Remain and the other one's mother is still undecided.

Whichever way it goes it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Isn't Dogger Bank a marine nature reserve now, so they are not allowed to fish there? Or was that just wishful thinking?

Like Isay, Gracesgran, soonto be over.

I've been told, therefore don't know how true it is, that it was Camerons back benchers that forced the issue of a referendum.

Lucky I think this has come up before and I have agreed with you. We should never have been put in this position; it feels like a modern civil war at times and the aftermath doesn't bear thinking about whatever the outcome.

Are there still herring on Dogger Bank? Just a question - I remember learning about that in Geography lessons many moons ago!

in allowing

Read something about fishers in Shetland earlier today. It was saying that Shetlanders are nearly 100% for voting Brexit because the EU law is unfair in other EU boats to fish in what were traditionally their waters thereby cutting what they feel are their quotas.

Hear Hear, Lucky

Whatever the result, on Friday we are going to have to start living with the aftermath.

Fishing is obviously an emotive issue on this island nation but is a very small employment sector (10k jobs in total I heard earlier on R4)
North atlantic and UK coastal waters have been heavily fished in the past. At one time vast cod used to be caught to meet the national desire for fish and chips. (they were the size of a pony) These were the big mammas of the breeding population. Only little ones are caught these days. There used to be massive herring stocks. Long before the EU was invented they were scooped out of fish traps near here, but the ton. I don't think there are any left in Liverpool Bay these days and the herring fisheries of the north sea have also disappeared. Most of those earning a living around here are after lobster and whelks (for Korea!) and we have a few mussel boats.
As an industry, pretty much dead in the water as they say.