I know, but was trying to prove a point - that the UK, at one point recently, were the most populated or second most populated country in the EU.
I really couldn't give two rats whether you lot stay in the EU or not. We are not in it and are still able to trade with any EU country we wish to (including the UK) and adopt the laws that we feel make sense, and ignore the bonkers ones.
There is no expectation on us whatsoever to comply with any EU rulings and we are not expected to.
On the flip side, we don't have free passage to any EU countries and don't benefit from some of the "perks" of being "in".
Gullscorer wrote:
So where would you draw the line? At what point would you say enough is enough? Would you be happy for the rest of the UK to be as densely populated as central London? It's not just about losing our open spaces and our traditional indigenous cultures. We are already no longer self-sufficient in food production. (That's the thing about our less populated areas: they're either needed for farming and water supplies, or they're places where it's impossible for anybody, not even much wild life, to live). And according to police statistics, the majority of crime in London is now committed by foreign nationals. But wait until we're actually bursting at the seams; I've a feeling you'll change your tune..
This is a bit of an extreme example, though. London itself skews our place on the list of most densely populated countries, the top 20 most densely populated districts in the UK are all in London. It's most likely that London will vote to stay in the EU. If so, that'll surely show that the people of London see immigration as a less important issue, won't it?
I don't necessarily object to the claim that we should have more control over our borders, but I question whether a "Leave" vote will actually result in that. Like Plainmoor87 pointed out in the EU thread, it isn't clear what will actually happen if we come out. We aren't getting vote on specific policies in the event of an exit. You, in the same thread, posted the Telegraph link (below) playing up an exit as a good thing economically, but it talks extensively about how we'd need to follow a Norway style model. I believe Norway is subject to the same freedom of movement as EU countries, so presumably we still would too.
The Daily Telegraph is not the paper it once was! The article does indeed focus on the Norway path, but that's not our only option. To my mind, leaving the EU will give us greater control, opportunities, and freedom, potentially, to trade and employ people (and footballers) worldwide. Remaining in will bring ever more restrictions, red tape, and further loss of self-determination.
Yeah, England's full, no more room at the inn. I went over Dartmoor last month, rammed full so it was. I saw six other cars and I was only out for an hour! I'll bet it's all them dirty foreigns, comin' over 'ere, takin' up all our room. Our good clean English room. The sorta room King George himself would have been proud of. Who could be proud now? Foreigns everywhere. Foreigns with their 'orrible food. I want good English food like curry, none of that foreign muck.
I suggest this "debate" is centred exclusively on immigration and I'm called an idiot. I'm called an idiot by a man who then goes on to make more posts in the thread. Posts focussed entirely on the issue of immigration.
The irony of a Devon resident complaining about ' the country being full' and immigration in general is staggering. Lived there 10 years, saw one black bloke and he was as English as I am.
The country isn't 'full'. We aren't 'bursting at the seams'. What, precisely, can't you people do because of immigrants? They're just people. Some of them dress differently from us. Some of them pray to a different imaginary friend. Some of them eat different food and speak in a different language, but honestly, what is it that any of that stops you doing? We still live in a nation whose freedoms are limited almost exclusively by our own inherent Britishness. Women can still drive. Homosexuals can still get married. I can still get bacon at Waitrose and 'er indoors can still get her tits out at the beach.
You know what else I can do? I can call Marek, by Polish plumber at 0300 on a Sunday if my boiler breaks and he'll come out straight away and charge me £25 and a cup of tea. I can see Abdul and Rahmeen at The Mogul's Palace takeaway and eat actual Indian food cooked the actual Indian way by actual Indian people. I can have a chat with Ana at work about her life growing up in Mexico. I can go to A&E on a Sunday afternoon with a mystery illness and be seen quickly and efficiently by Dr Whoever from Mumbai or wherever as opposed to 'sending the buggers back to where they came from' and waiting 6 weeks for an appointment with an English GP.
For every Daily Mail special criminal scrounger parent to 306 children sponger type, there are 1000s of decent people just looking to live their one and only life in better circumstances. And I, for one, am sufficiently confident in myself to not feel threatened by that.
It takes a deeply rooted insecurity for one to resort to creating distinctions along national, racial or religious lines. In short, it just doesn't matter that a few people who, by the grace of God, were born in a different place have chosen to reside in the UK. That certainly isn't a good enough argument to ask us to take a gamble of the magnitude that an 'out' vote represents.
Oh Fer Christ Sake! I almost forgot about this, but it absolutely requires a response. In all other respects, OFCS may be a fine upstanding and understanding fellow, but in this matter he/she is being completely idiotic, because he/she is wilfully sidetracking the issue.
Imagine you have a family member living for years in, say, South Africa and you wanted to pay them a visit, perhaps for a short holiday or to attend a wedding; and imagine you were, as a matter of course, refused entry. You wouldn’t like the unfairness of it!
Yet the UK, along with unlimited EU migration, makes it much harder for those from the Commonwealth and the rest of the world, who are often being refused entry to the UK to visit family members who are UK citizens. And Remainers accuse Brexiters of racism? Unbelievable!
To the hate-mongers of the Remain campaign, concerns about uncontrolled and unlimited immigration are equivalent to being “racistâ€. They cynically conflate, in the public mind, “anti-EU-immigration†with “anti-immigrantâ€, a confusion created and exploited over decades by the Left.
Contrary to what some Remainers claim, Nigel Farage did not say all migrants are rapists. He rightly pointed out that, if we remain in the EU, women in the UK, like those who were abused in Cologne, could be at risk of attacks because of open door immigration from the EU. This is realism, not racism.
Brexiters are not anti-immigration, nor anti-migrant, but if we cannot control immigration to the UK, how can we plan the levels of public services required, in education, health, transport, housing, the whole national infrastructure, which take years to put into effect? And we don't need free movement of labour, nor a political union, to be part of a free trade area. No other free trade association in the world requires these.
It should be obvious to all objective observers that Brexiters are not isolationists, nor xenophobes, nor racists. They want to engage, not only with Europe, but with the Commonwealth and the rest of the world. But more than that, they want the UK to be able to control its own destiny as an independent nation, just like most other countries in the world, and not be part of an undemocratic superstate (which was always the big EU plan).
Yet those who raise concerns about immigration are offensively labelled as racists and xenophobes?!
The problem is you can't demonise 50% (perhaps more) of the population. I saw a comment from the Remain camp ‘Not everyone that votes Leaves is a racist but every racist will vote Leave’.
Seriously, is this any way to conduct a referendum debate on whether Britain should be part of the EU?
