I don't know very much at all about anything, but I found this article interesting

practical - if you want to learn more about the power of language to inspire good or bad reactions in others I recommend that you put down your copy of The Express, stop googling hate sites and spend an hour watching and listening to the tributes paid to the late Jo Cox by members of all parties in the House of Commons.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07jnfpt/house-of-commons-20062016rs

The Financial Times is Remain isn't it?

Oh yes! I like the i.

I copied and pasted the list from somewhere.

I would think the Financial Times would be Remain - money!

I think that's the two issues it will come down to, immigration and personal finance. I'm not sure anyone really cares much about anything else.

Yes Practical your posts are getting more and more frantic. Maybe time to take a break and watch the footie? Or try reading #CatsagainstBrexit on twitter which is highly amusing.
Most sensible people know perfectly well that the EU is not an evil plot. In my opinion it has been a very useful control on some of the excesses that some businesses would resort to. It prevents them from exploiting workers, polluting the environment and lying on their food packaging. These protections are important. The politicians of the Leave campaign are keen to "lift the burden on business" by scrapping a lot of these protections. They are clearly and repeatedly on record as saying this is what they want to do. In other words they want more exploitation of workers, less legislation to protect us and the environment from pollution and lighter regulation of the food industry. This is not scaremongering - it is exactly what Johnson, Gove and Patel are preaching.

Someone who had held quite a high position at Boots said that a brexit win would cause problems with 'regulating medicine' [or something]. I need to ask the S.O. of the exact term he used.[I was talking to his colleague at the time so didn't hear exactly what he said]

The EU Medicines Directive (whose agency is located in London) is responsible for regulating clinical trials and the safety of all medicines in the EU. Ben Goldacre (Bad Pharma, etc) has had a hand in the formulation of its standards.

NICE and the NHS have the ultimate say in which drugs are prescribed, but the Directive means that medical research companies have to follow strict guidelines.

Withdrawing from the EU would mean that the UK would have to set its own guidelines.

Critics of the Directive claim that the big pharma companies can afford lobbyists, which is true, but the new guidelines mean that the companies (even the big ones) have to follow stricter guidelines, which means we all have safer drugs.

A few weeks ago, a certain poster on GN posted a link to a small company, which claimed that the EU was blocking an important cancer drug. It turned out that the company was completely unlicensed, was selling small phials of an untested drug for £500 to desperate people and the company was being investigated for financial fraud. The EU Directive tries to protect patients from such snake oil salespeople.

I care about other things, jingle, and always have.

I'm an idealist who would like World Union, but I can't see that happening any time soon. The fact that the major European countries co-operate after centuries of conflict is, to my mind, an achievement.

Freedom of movement is something we take for granted and many (particularly young) people take advantage of it.

The EU has provided hundreds of social and human protection measures, which I don't believe our own government would.

I so wish that the Remain campaign had focused more on the positive.

When all else fails to persuade, appeal to people's baser instincts, such as xenophobia.

Met a lot of people yesterday. The final one said - this referendum has come down to whether you are worried about immigration or worried about the economy.
I think those worried about the economy has a lot of evidence to support their thinking - a lot of impartial expert advice that we would be better off remaining in the EU.
Unfortunately those voting re. immigration have a more confused picture. When Cameron promised this referendum the flood of refugees from Syria into the EU was still a trickle (they were largely in camps). When the flood began I said I thought he should postpone as it might affect the result. This refugee crisis inevitably skewed the debate. Many voters are now taking a huge decision based on a confused position. The first man I ever canvassed said: "I'm voting out so we can stop the illegal immigrants".

Nobody has made me vote one way or other, so at the moment I shall go to the polling station undecided, I'm sure I can't be the only one.

To my mind, left wingers, pourposely mixed and muddled and muddied the situation from the start, for their own ends and agenda.
[And they are still doing it]

Eventually people worked that out, and it backfired big time.

Plus which, I think there is now a big divide between wealthier left wingers and poorer ones.
It is more the poorer ones who are living with the pressures of a sudden influx of people.

Can you elaborate on that? I don't quite understand who you mean by 'left wingers'. Can you tell me which issues they muddled and muddied?

At least half the sudden influx of people are from outside the EU. Remaining or leaving will make no difference to the numbers of those - in fact, if we leave they will arrive direct to Dover without being stopped at Calais.

The trains arriving through the tunnel would each have to be searched thoroughly inside and out and every passenger's papers checked before being allowed to continue. When you can't blame the EU for that delay, who will you blame then?

It would then become a matter for the Government of the day Elegran.
And the British electorate have a lot more say and sway over them.

obieone do watch that video - all of it. Sit with a cuppa and a packet of biscuits to stop you getting bored by hearing a few truths about life outside your armour-plated bubble.

Tegan. Politicians. Left wingers on gransnet. Political commentators.

The muddied and mixed up and muddled the whole immigration issue.
Jumping about between refugees and migrants and immigrants. Now it is trying to mix it up between migrants and immigrants from inside or outside of the EU.

They started off by trying to get them all called refugees. Then that didnt work, so they tried immigrants. That didnt work so they tried saying they are all economic migrants. Now, even up to today, they are trying to muddy up who comes form the EU and who doesnt.

When really, all along, the issue has been about sheer numbers. And lack of control of numbers. And where they are going to be housed in the UK, schooled etc.

Posters can throw insults all they like, but it doesnt stop me being right.

Left wing voters on gransnet do not include many poor ones. Or at least, many poor ones who are vocal, especially about their life and politics.

It would be great if they would say more. Sadly though, I think they would get ridiculed.

obieone while the blanket term "immigrants" may apply to anybody seeking to enter a country, there is all the difference in the world between refugees and economic migrants. I'm surprised you haven't mentioned "asylum seekers" too.
"They" called "them" refugees, did "they"?
They muddied and mixed up and muddled the whole immigration issue did "they"?
You are certainly muddled if you believe you can interchange the terms.

I think obieone is right in some things. It must be hard for some people living in the areas where there are a great number of immigrants, seeing those immigrants being treated in a way they feel is unfair. Mostly regarding housing I think.

Previous poster: "so at the moment I shall go to the polling station undecided"

Oh shite! (chews bottom lip nervously)

obi's right. The immigration issue has been muddied, probably deliberately, by referendum campaigners, not least by calling people who mention the problem racists or bigots. It's not either of those things to have and to mention worries about the sheer numbers of immigrants.

No-one, as far as I'm aware, either on gransnet or in the wider media has objected to genuine asylum seekers/refugees, but most migrants and potential immigrants do not fall into those categories.

I agree with the principle that migration and immigration are of overall benefit to societies. I also agree with those who say the current rate of migration in Europe is worryingly high. Adjustments to new population influxes take time and careful consideration, especially towards people already in a country who feel that their genuine non-racist concerns are being ignored or worse, metaphorically spat upon.

I have seen several examples of already UK established immigrants themselves complaining that the rate at the moment is too high.

Agree with that.

(I mean Bags' main post there)