UK To vote on Staying in the EU "Bonjour/Auf Wiedersehen! delete as appropriate"

[Badnik Mechanic]

Well we might as well have a topic on this since the thing has become official and we now have a date. 

Okay so for those who don't live in the UK here is the story.

Back in... I think it was the 1970's, the UK voted to stay in the EU, so for the last 40ish years or so the UK has been a member of the European Union, since then the EU has grown in power and influence and has started to impact the way it's members govern themselves, such as the freedom of movement of people and who has the right to work where and in how many numbers (this depends on their citizenship).

So up until around the mid 2000's, nobody really seemed to care about this.

Then something funny started to happen, various newspapers and media outlets stared to give more and more attention to people who wanted to leave the EU. And in a very short time frame they went from a party of a few, to having lots of supporters, despite having some really dodgy policies and some amazingly bad people working for them (see the last UK voting topic, specifically posts about UKIP).

Skip ahead to recent years, there have been numerous promises that people in the UK will get a referendum vote, this is despite the fact that most of the people who say we want a vote on it are from groups who are... well how should I put this... one was named the 'I want a referendum group.'  

In fact it's really odd because pretty much all the political parties say they want to stay in the EU, Labour, Lib Dems, Scottish Parties, Tory... well most of them at least. Oh yeah and even Obama has said it would be best if the UK stays in...

So it makes sense that we're getting a vote to stay in or not right? 

On June 23rd there will be a referendum to stay in the EU or not. Because? Urm... yeah I got nothing.

[Tornado]

Seems like far to big of a decision to boil it down to a Yes/No vote like that, but with the shit the EU has been going through for the past decade-ish it is sorta understandable.

[ImPantsAtThis]

What worries me is the potential for current events to colour the debate around the issue. A decision on the EU is about immigration, true, but more important aspects of the topic are how the decision will affect the UK's relationship with international businesses in London and our trade with EU member states, as well as diminishing/maintaining our usefulness in the eyes of the US (along with other issues, like autonomy from the European Courts and such).

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that the refugee crisis will do nothing but shore up the anti-immigration crowd to blame everything on the EU "forcing us to take in refugees who are living off benefits over here"*, blinding people to the more significant impacts the vote will have.

*That's obviously not a real quote, but I guarantee someone will try to spin the whole thing that way.

[The Tenth Doctor]

Another bad thing about this vote is that if it doesn't make Ms Sturgeon happy, the SNP will try as hard as they can to get another Scottish Independence vote. Considering how much that tore us apart last time, it's not going to do us any good with a second one.

[shdowhunt60]

I haven't heard much positive coming from the EU. It seems like the same sort of spiel as the UN, and I'm not honestly a big fan of that either. I'm not anywhere near an authority on UK policy (I'm from Texas, for fuck's sake), so I won't really comment beyond "let the people choose".

[Patticus]

This probably sounds like purest hyperbole, but I can see the UK leaving the EU as being a primary driver behind the eventual break-up of the EU, and certainly more than one economic collapse. I just can't see it doing anybody any economic good at all - hell, it risks driving us full force back to the Great Recession we've just dragged ourselves out of.

The British people are a bit of a xenophobic lot when it comes to the EU, given our geographical isolation from mainland Europe, and the cultural views that tend to accumulate with said isolation. That's why I'd never trust the British public with deciding our country's fate as far as EU membership goes - but I suppose we'll have to let democracy take its course and reap whatever we sow,

It'd sure be nice if the pro-EU campaign were anything like as organized and well run as the anti-EU campaign though. That'll be a deciding factor in the outcome.

[Ripe]

7 hours ago, Patticus said:

This probably sounds like purest hyperbole, but I can see the UK leaving the EU as being a primary driver behind the eventual break-up of the EU, and certainly more than one economic collapse. I just can't see it doing anybody any economic good at all - hell, it risks driving us full force back to the Great Recession we've just dragged ourselves out of.

Agree. EU doesn't have that good rep in many of the European countries (for example mine) so if UK leaves I can easily see that in many other countries people would start demanding a voting for the membership more

Yeah, the economy is so integrated in the area of EU that it's full collaps would definitely have negative affects to the economies of both the countries and global. Not to mention in the eurozone that would mean having to return to the old currencies which will definitely cause problems at start.

[Tornado]

10 hours ago, Patticus said:

This probably sounds like purest hyperbole, but I can see the UK leaving the EU as being a primary driver behind the eventual break-up of the EU, and certainly more than one economic collapse

That's kind of why I find the timing of this odd. The UK leaving the EU would certainly ultimately doom the EU in general, and if the vote was held off for a year or so I would think the UK would be less likely to be scapegoated for it.

[Candescence]

While both leaving and staying have their own problems, the EU is absolutely fucked up beyond repair, partly because of the European Commission, which is a fundamentally undemocratic body of technocrats who are happy to push austerity onto everyone, consequences be damned, and are desperately trying to push the TAFTA/TTIP agreement despite being completely unable to just drop the biggest sticking point, that being ISDS provisions, and their desperate attempt to put lipstick on that pig in terms of trying to create a dedicated 'impartial' court for it is something the US won't accept anyway.

Honestly, seeing the EU collapse and reform as a more democratic and less shitty institution might be better in the long run anyway, and Britain's exit might very well get that ball rolling. But that's for the people of the UK to decide.

[Patticus]

There is no guarantee that the collapse of the EU would result in the formation of any kind of successor body, though. Even if it did, who's to say it wouldn't just be more of the same?

[Tornado]

If nothing else I'd assume that any EU successor organization would make sure the member countries had a better credit rating before they applied for a gold card.

[Patticus]

6 hours ago, Tornado said:

If nothing else I'd assume that any EU successor organization would make sure the member countries had a better credit rating before they applied for a gold card.

Tiered membership levels, tied to credit ratings, perhaps?

[Tornado]

Or they just don't let perpetually bankrupt former Soviet states or fuckup countries like Greece in in the first place.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Well, to be fair on that last part, how the hell were they suppose to know Greece was a fuckup considering they lied about their financial goals to use the Euro and led one of the EU's biggest problems?