Farage unravels on LBC.

Lookyhere

nathancom wrote:

We don't have totally free movement of people, so what are you complaining at exactly? How has your life been affected? Or are you just another person who blames the difficulties of life on this unnamed mass of immigrants.

And finally, who is going to pay the taxes to keep this country running?

Many immigrants who work also claim working benefits for their dependants, negating their taxes, working tax credit, housing benefit etc can easily double take home pay - they have access to a flagging NHS and crumbling education system, by the time their taxes get to build up these institutions, a whole generation has suffered declining public services.
EU immigration is completely open door.. freedom of movement/labour is a founding principle of the EEC/EU

I think controlled immigration is great, leads to cultural diversity and as you say, influx of skilled labour and taxes but that's not what we ve got, we have a free for all and anyone who questions this, is branded a Nazi and/or a racist, that is is the really reason the right is on the rise across the EU, there is no debate and tolerance of differing opinions.

nathancom

madasahattersley wrote:

nathancom wrote:

And finally, who is going to pay the taxes to keep this country running?

Evidently the tax pot is plenty big enough, if we have enough money to put £400,000,000 into the EU every single day just to support a crazy idealistic vision.

I'm not an anti immigration nazi and I don't vote UKIP but I still think that the EU is a fundamentally flawed and impossible idea. I bet if we look back in 30 years time we'll wonder who ever though that stripping countries of as much political and economic sovereignty as possible was a good idea.

You just pulled that number out of your behind, sorry. We do not contribute over £150 billion a year to the EU, more like a tenth of that. Our economy benefits by a much larger amount from being part of EU, and all the other intangible effects, such as being able to deal with large economies like US and China as a block rather than as much smaller individuals, defence, harmonisation of data standards across industries aiding entry into European markets, protection from anti competitive practices etc etc. Business leaders clearly support our continued inclusion in the EU since the economic benefits are overwhelming.

In today's world the UK does not have the clout to do this alone and we need to get used to that idea, or we will be the ones losing out. We haven't been stripped of sovereignty, we have pooled it and we should be seeking as much influence in how that pooled sovereignty is operated.

As to the immigration question, Goo was clearly racist against Muslims earlier in the thread with his quotes about them out breeding whites. It is that sentiment that UKIP is appealing to amongst our population. It is remarkable the amount of unsubstantiated guff in this thread from anti immigration types, like the above assertion that immigrants are defrauding the benefits system en masse. We have systems for preventing fraud wherever the individual was born and 1) they work well, with fraud accounting for a very low % of benefit costs 2) the fraudulent claimants are much more likely to be UK nationals than immigrants.

All you hear is "down with this sort of thing" fulminations from your anti immigration brigade without a single reasonable alternative for how to run the country - apart from making cyclists dismount at roundabouts and reintroducing handguns of course.

Stevo_666

PBlakeney wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

If you count Labour as the left, 2005. When's the last time the Tories won an election all by themselves? 1992. Couldn't even get a majority when faced with Gordon Brown.

I would assume that was Stevo's point.
Labour have not been left for decades.

Good spot Mr. Blakeney

Fortunately for us Labour have to water down what a lot of them really want to make themselves vaguely electable. Even more fortunately the vast majority of the country wouldn't touch the sort of proper batshit crazy hard left views that people like finchy espouse, so the proper left quite rightly has never won anything in the UK for a long long time

Stevo_666

Rick Chasey wrote:

Not quite sure how the EU is the same as three centuries of imperial rule? That's fairly fundamental.

And suggesting the English within the EU are somehow foreigners is tenuous at best.

Britain already has self determination within the EU. It has full sovereignty and is recognised is a full blown state within the EU.

It's totally different.

You say we have self determination in the UK. Either you are being naive or deliberately playing down the level to which Brussels can dictate to us. If they couldn't then UKIP would be far less popular and the Tories would not be trying to renegotiate our terms of EU membership.

Fortunately the majority of people do not want the further leeching of powers and sovereignty from the UK to Brussels, which could eventually result in the UK relationship with the EU being more like Scotlands current relationship with the UK.

We need a bit more of the 'Up yours Delors' attitude in the UK to stop what people like you want and in that respect UKIP are fulfilling a useful function

finchy

Stevo 666 wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

If you count Labour as the left, 2005. When's the last time the Tories won an election all by themselves? 1992. Couldn't even get a majority when faced with Gordon Brown.

I would assume that was Stevo's point.
Labour have not been left for decades.

Good spot Mr. Blakeney

Fortunately for us Labour have to water down what a lot of them really want to make themselves vaguely electable. Even more fortunately the vast majority of the country wouldn't touch the sort of proper batshit crazy hard left views that people like finchy espouse, so the proper left quite rightly has never won anything in the UK for a long long time

Well at least you're finally recognising that it wasn't the left that landed us with 500% of our GDP as debt. I see a bit of progress here.

DeVlaeminck

nathancom wrote:

with this sort of thing" fulminations from your anti immigration brigade without a single reasonable alternative for how to run the country - apart from making cyclists dismount at roundabouts and reintroducing handguns of course.

Well you refused to say whether you were in favour of an open door to all policy so are you part of that anti-immigration brigade ? I haven't seen anyone say they would ban immigration - so the people you are so caustic about in fact only differ by degree from your own views.

As for the reasonable alternative for the country - how do other countries that aren't in the EU manage ? I'm not actually fully in favour of leaving the EU - I actually think some of the policy coming from the EU is sensible even if it comes from a generally undemocratic process - but I don't see why you think leaving the EU and limiting immigration isn't a "reasonable alternative" for how to run the country.

Of course the other stuff about guns and cycling is lunacy but I don't think many that voted UKIP (again I didn't) support that and most voted for them as a protest vote - so those policies are an irrelevance to the debate.

nathancom

DeVlaeminck wrote:

nathancom wrote:

with this sort of thing" fulminations from your anti immigration brigade without a single reasonable alternative for how to run the country - apart from making cyclists dismount at roundabouts and reintroducing handguns of course.

Well you refused to say whether you were in favour of an open door to all policy so are you part of that anti-immigration brigade ? I haven't seen anyone say they would ban immigration - so the people you are so caustic about in fact only differ by degree from your own views.

As for the reasonable alternative for the country - how do other countries that aren't in the EU manage ? I'm not actually fully in favour of leaving the EU - I actually think some of the policy coming from the EU is sensible even if it comes from a generally undemocratic process - but I don't see why you think leaving the EU and limiting immigration isn't a "reasonable alternative" for how to run the country.

Of course the other stuff about guns and cycling is lunacy but I don't think many that voted UKIP (again I didn't) support that and most voted for them as a protest vote - so those policies are an irrelevance to the debate.

what is this open door policy and when did it ever exist? It is a straw man argument designed to stir up anger and create a sense of unease and fear.

DeVlaeminck

Ffs you are responding to things nobody has said ! I give up.

Stevo_666

johnfinch wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

If you count Labour as the left, 2005. When's the last time the Tories won an election all by themselves? 1992. Couldn't even get a majority when faced with Gordon Brown.

I would assume that was Stevo's point.
Labour have not been left for decades.

Good spot Mr. Blakeney

Fortunately for us Labour have to water down what a lot of them really want to make themselves vaguely electable. Even more fortunately the vast majority of the country wouldn't touch the sort of proper batshit crazy hard left views that people like finchy espouse, so the proper left quite rightly has never won anything in the UK for a long long time

Well at least you're finally recognising that it wasn't the left that landed us with 500% of our GDP as debt. I see a bit of progress here.

You're right finchy, it was the softer left New Labour that did that more recently. Imagine how much worse it would have been if the even more economically clueless hard left had been in charge. Thankfully the swivel eyed hard left will never get the chance, people are not stupid enough to vote for those sort of policies.

finchy

^^^ Thankfully the Tories weren't in power either, things would have been far worse then, especially with Gideon "Let's copy the Irish" Osborne in charge of the economy.

Anyway, how do you define hard left? The public are actually to the left of the Labour party on issues such as the nationalisation of public services, for example - polls even show that the majority of Tory voters would support placing railways back in public hands.

morstar

Stevo 666 wrote:

Fortunately for us Labour have to water down what a lot of them really want to make themselves vaguely electable. Even more fortunately the vast majority of the country wouldn't touch the sort of proper batshit crazy hard left views that people like finchy espouse, so the proper left quite rightly has never won anything in the UK for a long long time

And you don't think the Tories make exactly the same compromises????

Extreme right or left politics are repugnant idealist b*llocks. Both parties have moved significantly to the centre ground as this is where most Britons exist idealogically. The majority want freedom to be rewarded for our efforts but without abandoning our social conscience. Some of us lean to the opposite ends of that distribution curve but to be electable you need to sit pretty safely near the middle.

When in power, the two major parties will try to shift the balance their way as much as possible. Too radical and you're quickly out of power. In power for too long and the balance shifts too far resulting in a need for redress.

The Tories have plenty of idealist nut jobs within their ranks who have to be kept in check in exactly the same way labour do.

morstar

Stevo 666 wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

If you count Labour as the left, 2005. When's the last time the Tories won an election all by themselves? 1992. Couldn't even get a majority when faced with Gordon Brown.

I would assume that was Stevo's point.
Labour have not been left for decades.

Good spot Mr. Blakeney

Fortunately for us Labour have to water down what a lot of them really want to make themselves vaguely electable. Even more fortunately the vast majority of the country wouldn't touch the sort of proper batshit crazy hard left views that people like finchy espouse, so the proper left quite rightly has never won anything in the UK for a long long time

Well at least you're finally recognising that it wasn't the left that landed us with 500% of our GDP as debt. I see a bit of progress here.

You're right finchy, it was the softer left New Labour that did that more recently. Imagine how much worse it would have been if the even more economically clueless hard left had been in charge. Thankfully the swivel eyed hard left will never get the chance, people are not stupid enough to vote for those sort of policies.

But the Tories would have had an equally big mess in 2008. Nobody in the upper echelons of either party foresaw the credit crunch. Yes labour invested / squandered the money depending on your politics but the Tories would have given away just as much in tax breaks. ergo, same mess!

finchy

morstar wrote:

But the Tories would have had an equally big mess in 2008.

I keep saying the same thing, but they keep ignoring it.

rick_chasey

johnfinch wrote:

morstar wrote:

But the Tories would have had an equally big mess in 2008.

I keep saying the same thing, but they keep ignoring it.

indeed. They supported the same financial deregulation. Not quite sure what the Tories would have done differently during a global financial crisis which stemmed from a US sub-prime mortgage crisis.

finchy

Rick Chasey wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

morstar wrote:

But the Tories would have had an equally big mess in 2008.

I keep saying the same thing, but they keep ignoring it.

indeed. They supported the same financial deregulation. Not quite sure what the Tories would have done differently during a global financial crisis which stemmed from a US sub-prime mortgage crisis.

The frustrating thing is that they now seem quite happy to sit back and watch Housing Bubble Mark 2. Before the 20I0, I genuinely thought that whoever gets into power in would have learnt from the mistakes of the past 20-30 years and try to put our economy on a sounder footing. It looks like I was wrong. Very, very wrong. :roll:

EDIT: Maybe it's not so surprising.

pinno

michael_roadie wrote:

florerider wrote:

michael_roadie wrote:

Or... because I don't believe in being dictated to from a foreign land .

Is that the foreign land we just held elections for?

The foreign land we just held elections for, for a few representatives whose wishes can easily be ignored by the foreign majority who should have no say whatsoever in UK matters, yes.

pinarello001 wrote:

Bureaucrats that uphold human rights. Bureaucrats who uphold the employment rights eroded by Thatcher in the 80's. Bureaucrats who approved money so that 3 villages on the A75 ruined by continual traffic could get a bypass. Bureaucrats who approved the monies so that the Tin mines in Cornwall that overflowed with toxic leachate spewing into rivers and lakes could be cleaned up way ahead of expectations. Bureaucrats who allow us the freedom to travel freely in Europe. Bureaucrats who allow free trade within Europe that makes our goods much more affordable. Bureaucrats who support agriculture, set aside land and minimum standards of animal welfare. Bureaucrats who have allowed me to work in a European country and have free health care. Bureaucrats who allowed me to have 27 units of blood (all from France) that saved my life under a cross Europe exchange system. Bureaucrats who defend minimum standards of welfare and health care that the Tories are hell bent on dismantling. Bureaucrats who prevent the importing of genetically modified foodstuffs. Bureaucrats who bail out struggling economies for the benefit of all. Bureaucrats who expect that each country in Europe has a minimum wage...

Better than the Bureaucrats that run this sorry country.

You can paint whatever rosy picture of them you like (you think we wouldn't be capable of most of that on our own? - and I happen to disagree with your/their stance on a lot of the things you posted, for example human rights/minimum wage/state welfare/preventing importing genetically modified foods/etc.), it doesn't change the fact that we're being dictated to - even if you think they're benevolent dictators. And that is what I object to.

List the negative things that we are being dictated about, be my guest. Say how those policies directly affect you in a negative way.

owenlars

pinarello001 wrote:

Why get out of the EU?

Because EU Commissioners are unelected and they are the ones that run the show, because the logical endpoint of Monetary Unification is Political Unification and I don't want to live in the United States of Europe.

In short the Euro can't work without political unification of the territory within which it works and why the hell do we want to be politically united in a Federal state with the rest of Europe ( and indeed why would they want to be united with each other and us?)

pinno

owenlars wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

Why get out of the EU?

Because EU Commissioners are unelected and they are the ones that run the show, because the logical endpoint of Monetary Unification is Political Unification and I don't want to live in the United States of Europe.

In short the Euro can't work without political unification of the territory within which it works and why the hell do we want to be politically united in a Federal state with the rest of Europe ( and indeed why would they want to be united with each other and us?)

Why? Because we all benefit. The standard of living, healthcare and education across Europe is very high. Ever wondered why?

owenlars

pinarello001 wrote:

owenlars wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

Why get out of the EU?

Because EU Commissioners are unelected and they are the ones that run the show, because the logical endpoint of Monetary Unification is Political Unification and I don't want to live in the United States of Europe.

In short the Euro can't work without political unification of the territory within which it works and why the hell do we want to be politically united in a Federal state with the rest of Europe ( and indeed why would they want to be united with each other and us?)

Why? Because we all benefit. The standard of living, healthcare and education across Europe is very high. Ever wondered why?

Have you been to Greece, Spain, Portugal or even Ireland during the recession?

finchy

madasahattersley wrote:

I personally believe that even monetary union is a poor idea, having visited Portugal, Italy and Germany within the same week it's frankly like walking from the 3rd world to the developed world, yet they're all using the same currency and are under the same monetary policy. Prices in Portugal are about 25% what they are in Germany, GDP per capita is less than half and poverty is much, much higher. Madness to me, and I'm wholly glad that we kept our own currency.

Is the difference between countries like Portugal, Spain and Italy on the one hand and Germany, Netherlands and Austria on the other greater than the difference between the richest and poorest regions of the USA, for example? Would you say that the USA should not use the same currency and monetary policy? You might be right, the Euro might be dragging the whole continent down, but if that's the case, then maybe very large countries should think about splitting up into smaller ones as well.

nathancom

madasahattersley wrote:

From a purely selfish point of view no, the standard of living, healthcare or education in Britain are not higher because of the EU. In fact probably worse because of the vast amount of money we can't spend on those things because it's going to the EU instead. With the money saved from not giving money to the EU for 1 day we could build several schools or hospitals or affordable housing developments.

I really think some citation for these claims would be useful as I have never heard anything of the sort. Our payments to the EU are something of the order of £15billion. There is a clearly positive ROI on this sum, so even in purely financial terms it is a good deal for UK.

MountainMonster

Let's put this in terms that everyone on here will understand. Without the EU your bikes and kit from Europe would cost a hefty chunk more due to companies having to pay customs brokers, more tax on the products and more fees for importing.

Things work out in our favour financially by being in the EU. The general consensus in the business community is that quite a few businesses would be worse off without the EU being in place, as exporting to some of their largest markets in Europe would cost a lot more in terms of pounds spent and time spent dealing with extra paperwork and clearing arrangements.

Business does not back leaving the EU, and if you have the business people of the UK who in effect are the economy saying that it would be bad to leave the EU, why do non-business people think they know best?

MountainMonster

Also, research institutions and universities developing cutting edge things rely heavily on EU funding through their framework programmes (FP7 being the recent closing round) and ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) which bring in huge amounts of necessary funding to help them solve some of life's greatest problems. This funding stream would be cut off, and made much smaller, if we were to leave the EU. The building I work in is part-funded by ERDF, and would not exist if it wasn't for these programmes.

Lookyhere

Why was the EEC formed? to try and stop centuries of wars and revolutions, ww1 and 2 killed 10's of millions and bought us the holocaust.
The EU is a great institution and yes there are vast differences in wealth between the euro states but equally there are between London and the rest of the uk.

what is needed is reform of the EU, address peoples concerns over uncontrolled EU immigration and parties like ukip will disappear, unrestrained free movement of people may have been fine with a few rich founder states but with 25? many of whom have 3rd world economies, its not going to work.

owenlars

Lookyhere wrote:

what is needed is reform of the EU, address peoples concerns over uncontrolled EU immigration and parties like ukip will disappear, unrestrained free movement of people may have been fine with a few rich founder states but with 25? many of whom have 3rd world economies, its not going to work.

Spot on, and if reform is impossible then................

michael_roadie

pinarello001 wrote:

List the negative things that we are being dictated about, be my guest. Say how those policies directly affect you in a negative way.

It's not about that, it's about the fact that laws and regulations (whether good or bad) are being made elsewhere by people we didn't elect, but we have to abide by/implement them.

MountainMonster

michael_roadie wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

List the negative things that we are being dictated about, be my guest. Say how those policies directly affect you in a negative way.

It's not about that, it's about the fact that laws and regulations (whether good or bad) are being made elsewhere by people we didn't elect, but we have to abide by/implement them.

OK, so even if these laws are giving you a better quality of life and more stability in work you still don't think it is a good thing? Simply based on the fact they are not British or elected by us?

You have to be joking not to like things that make your life better based on the simple fact it is not done by someone you voted for.

DeVlaeminck

MountainMonster wrote:

michael_roadie wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

List the negative things that we are being dictated about, be my guest. Say how those policies directly affect you in a negative way.

It's not about that, it's about the fact that laws and regulations (whether good or bad) are being made elsewhere by people we didn't elect, but we have to abide by/implement them.

OK, so even if these laws are giving you a better quality of life and more stability in work you still don't think it is a good thing? Simply based on the fact they are not British or elected by us?

You have to be joking not to like things that make your life better based on the simple fact it is not done by someone you voted for.

I don't think he has to be joking to want the people who govern us to be democratically accountable ! I've noticed a lot of people portraying scepticism about the EU as some kind of right wing lunacy but in fact many prominent left wing Labour figures have questioned the undemocratic nature of the EU.

As far as your earlier point about them funding stuff - they are funding it with money we give them so let's not pretend we are gaining anything through that.

You may be right about it being an effective trading block - but it has become far more than that and other countries seem to trade effectively without being part of the EU.

Stevo_666

Rick Chasey wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

morstar wrote:

But the Tories would have had an equally big mess in 2008.

I keep saying the same thing, but they keep ignoring it.

indeed. They supported the same financial deregulation. Not quite sure what the Tories would have done differently during a global financial crisis which stemmed from a US sub-prime mortgage crisis.

You and a couple of others above are assuming that the Tories would have been in the same position. Whereas it is a fact that the last labour govt left us in a massive financial mess - as did the previous one in the late 70's when we were bailed out by the IMF. So in my living memory Labour have a 100% strike rate on ****ing the country's economy. Unfortunately socialism doesn't seem to learn from its mistakes.

The other point several of you are missing is that a large part of the mess from the Blair/Brown era was caused by them trying spend beyond our means as a country. Even before the financial crisis the dent was mounting.

Stevo_666

DeVlaeminck wrote:

MountainMonster wrote:

michael_roadie wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

List the negative things that we are being dictated about, be my guest. Say how those policies directly affect you in a negative way.

It's not about that, it's about the fact that laws and regulations (whether good or bad) are being made elsewhere by people we didn't elect, but we have to abide by/implement them.

OK, so even if these laws are giving you a better quality of life and more stability in work you still don't think it is a good thing? Simply based on the fact they are not British or elected by us?

You have to be joking not to like things that make your life better based on the simple fact it is not done by someone you voted for.

I don't think he has to be joking to want the people who govern us to be democratically accountable ! I've noticed a lot of people portraying scepticism about the EU as some kind of right wing lunacy but in fact many prominent left wing Labour figures have questioned the undemocratic nature of the EU.

As far as your earlier point about them funding stuff - they are funding it with money we give them so let's not pretend we are gaining anything through that.

You may be right about it being an effective trading block - but it has become far more than that and other countries seem to trade effectively without being part of the EU.

Spot on really.

We signed up for free trade etc and are being dragged into a political union we don't want by people who are not properly accountable to us.