Quote ="Juan Cornetto"I am not doubting the number of bankers and fat cats that wish the status quo to remain as they and their 35,000 lobbyists in Brussels persude the unelected EU commissioners to fix the rules in their favour. This is at the heart of the problem. Vote Leave and claim back our soverienty before it is too late. You will live to regret it if you don't.'" Oh look. George Soros has just said exactly what I've been saying, albeit in more detail. Speculation? Yes. All predictions are to some degree speculation, even yours. But Soros has long been the world's best speculator, with peerless knowledge of current and historical market dynamics, while you're stuck on bogus arguments about sovereignty. He also explains his case: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... orge-soros Pesky experts, or is it celebrities? By the way, I notice that they're only 'fat cats' when they're disagreeing with you. The few on your side of the argument are 'businessmen'.

Quote ="Juan Cornetto"I am not doubting the number of bankers and fat cats that wish the status quo to remain as they and their 35,000 lobbyists in Brussels persude the unelected EU commissioners to fix the rules in their favour. This is at the heart of the problem. Vote Leave and claim back our soverienty before it is too late. You will live to regret it if you don't.'" Oh look. George Soros has just said exactly what I've been saying, albeit in more detail. Speculation? Yes. All predictions are to some degree speculation, even yours. But Soros has long been the world's best speculator, with peerless knowledge of current and historical market dynamics, while you're stuck on bogus arguments about sovereignty. He also explains his case: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... orge-soros Pesky experts, or is it celebrities? By the way, I notice that they're only 'fat cats' when they're disagreeing with you. The few on your side of the argument are 'businessmen'.

Quote ="craigizzard"Oh look. George Soros has just said exactly what I've been saying, albeit in more detail. Speculation? Yes. All predictions are to some degree speculation, even yours. But Soros has long been the world's best speculator, with peerless knowledge of current and historical market dynamics, while you're stuck on bogus arguments about sovereignty. He also explains his case: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... orge-soros Pesky experts, or is it celebrities? By the way, I notice that they're only 'fat cats' when they're disagreeing with you. The few on your side of the argument are 'businessmen'.'" Soros is a gambler and whatever he an your other non experts say is nothing more than speculation. The difference in the two sides is than only the remainiacs keep flooding the media with dire made up "facts" of economic disaster if we leave. The risks are equal if we remain in but the Leavers have not resorted to emergency budgets and Armageddon etc etc It is not bogus than the Supreme European Court can legally overturn any UK Act of Parliament as we stand or than 60% of what becomes law in our Parliament originates from the EU. We should be bold and take back control of our own destiny by leaving this corrupt club that favours those elite with clout who rig the rules against competition behind closed doors.

Quote ="craigizzard"Oh look. George Soros has just said exactly what I've been saying, albeit in more detail. Speculation? Yes. All predictions are to some degree speculation, even yours. But Soros has long been the world's best speculator, with peerless knowledge of current and historical market dynamics, while you're stuck on bogus arguments about sovereignty. He also explains his case: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... orge-soros Pesky experts, or is it celebrities? By the way, I notice that they're only 'fat cats' when they're disagreeing with you. The few on your side of the argument are 'businessmen'.'" Soros is a gambler and whatever he an your other non experts say is nothing more than speculation. The difference in the two sides is than only the remainiacs keep flooding the media with dire made up "facts" of economic disaster if we leave. The risks are equal if we remain in but the Leavers have not resorted to emergency budgets and Armageddon etc etc It is not bogus than the Supreme European Court can legally overturn any UK Act of Parliament as we stand or than 60% of what becomes law in our Parliament originates from the EU. We should be bold and take back control of our own destiny by leaving this corrupt club that favours those elite with clout who rig the rules against competition behind closed doors.

I am not surprised your wife doesn't want to listen to you with your views based on made up fear from the fat cats.

Soros is so powerful he can influence the market both by words and deed. If he decides he is going to sell short on a currency/company then the market/sheep will follow. It is all about his reputation and the laziness of his competitors.

Given the huge sums he is prepared to gamble you only need a small movement for him to make a fortune. You didn't need to be a genius to work out that tying the £ in the ERM would lead to a meltdown he just had access to more funds to prove the point that closer currency union with Europe is a disaster

bankers and fatcats like the TUC? GMB? Unison? CWU? NFU? Kofi Annan? Sir Stephen Hawking? Sir Tim Berners-lee?

There's only one person who's showing themselves to be a maniac on this thread, Re or otherwise.

Hahaha. Of all the blind bat things you've written in this thread, that one takes the cake. 'The risks are equal with the status quo'. Right. Nice use of 'flooding' linked to 'remainiacs' too. Sorry to mention Nigel again, but you make it unavoidable.

You'd better start hoping for a remain vote, and the maintenance of your EU reciprocal healthcare, because I think you need treatment, pal.

There are already people in The City poised to make a killing out of Brexit, if it happens. The *only* people in The City you talk to who are in favour of Brexit are the hedge fund managers who have established their positions and stand to make out like bandits. And those billions of capital leave the country via Zurich and the Caymans. Any of the actual wealth *creators* and Corporate Financiers in the City are firmly for Remain, because all their modelling, all their experience, all their highly paid experts with records in predicting the flow of capital are telling them what would happen both to the economy and the flow of money. And, like it or not, the international flow of money is a lot more impactful to our sovereignty and ability to make decisions than any number of EU laws.

We need to reclaim our democracy seems to be one of the brexit campaigns themes. Ironic when you consider we live in a country that has the House of Lords . Approximately 750 peers claiming £300 per day for just turning up.
None of these people elected by anyone. The leave campaigns assurance that coming out will not affect us too much is optimistic to say the least.
As someone remarked it's like divorcing your wife and thinking you can carry on having sex with her.
Whatever the outcome the Tory party will be fighting like hell over the next few years . Many working class people look like voting to leave. Chiefly on the basis of farages warnings on immigration , blissfully unaware he is one of the most right wing politicians in Britian.
Check out his plans for privatising the NHS , which he is currently backtracking on. Some good postings on this site from both sides of the argument . Better than some of the comments from people in the main broadsheet press.
Well done gentlemen and any female posters .
As for me i will be voting to remain , my main concern is the situation if the vote is extremely close. This would potentially cause a rift in the country for years to come.

I agree, and I particularly agree with the last part.

This is not directed at Juan or DHM or anyone else on this board, but elsewhere something ugly has been unleashed with this referendum and it's hard to see a certain portion of the Leave side accepting a Remain result quietly, and we've unfortunately seen the sort of thing that'll lead to. I also worry about who gets the blame and where the hate is directed in the event of a Leave victory and the promised milk and honey not materialising.

I fully expect a Remain victory (about 55%-45%?) come Friday. i just feel this will be a terrible waste of an opportunity to get some real reforms.

The EU has played a better game of "chicken" than anyone. They gave Cameron precisely zero in the way of concessions, because they didn't need to. But does anyone really believe that a Leave victory would have meant us exiting the EU? That is when the REAL negotiations would have started.

Does anyone truly believe the UK would be allowed to leave the EU? Germany would implode. Did the EU accept Ireland's vote in 2008? No, they renegotiated the Treaty of Lisbon & asked Ireland to have another go, & would have continued until they got the result they required (& this was Ireland - 43rd largest economy, not the world's 5th largest economy!).

The EU mandarins must be ing themselves at how easily manipulated we are. Job done.

Any of you Remainers up for a few hands of poker?

I agree with this.. If we had played hardball with them from the start I think we would have got some more reforms from them.. And at least enough to keep most voters happy..
As it is we seem to have divided the country. While I think remain will win I think it will be very close but the seeds of a more extreme Britian will be there for all to see in the future..
We really do have some idiots running this country and have for many many years.. Will we ever learn!!
Great debate on here from posters on both side of the argument .. Enjoyed reading it.. But will still vote leave on Thursday.

Not for one milisecond which is why I won't be wasting even five minutes of my day bothering to vote on Thursday. It'll make for some good late evening/through the night tele though for insomniacs, might even be better than Big Brother, love a bit of blue on blue.

Out of curiosity, what do you think will prevent the UK leaving the EU if that's the result of the referendum?

The UK Parliament, which would have to repeal the 1972 act? It's a brave MP who stands up after a referendum and says they are going to vote against the democratic decision of the people.

The EU itself? It's not that long since Cameron went - with the threat of a potential referendum in the background - to try and renegotiate the UK's position. The rest of the EU are hardly likely to be favourable to a further renegotiation. The UK is primarily a service economy, it's not like we manufacture and export goods that Europe cannot live without. An exit may not be what the rest of Europe wants, but I don't see it volunteering to worse its own position to stop one happening.

Once the UK is out, it's out. Forget the rubbish being spouted by Johnson et al about renegotiating to get back in. It would take years and require the agreement of every other member state, who by then would have realised that the world went on and trade wheels kept turning without the UK.

The most dangerous thing anyone can do on Thursday is vote "leave" as some sort of protest vote, without actually considering what it means. Once the damage is done, it's done.

Parliament is sovereign and is full of Politicians - the majority of which have declared for Britain to remain in the EU. The referendum is advisory so one way or another I expect the effective outcome will be to carry on as if nothing happened irrespective of the 'will of the people.'

That would be interesting to see. But would not surprise me. There are people on this thread who think that large portions of the working classes are too stupid to be allowed a referendum so you can only imagine what Westminster MP's think, let alone our EU overlords.

I don't think class has been mentioned on this thread at all. The notion that emotive referendums aren't the best way to govern is perfectly capable of bridging any class divide.

When I vote on Thursday I know my vote will count towards the result, which is more than can be said for when I voted in our general election, and I was hardly alone in that.
Nobody is talking about using referendums to "govern" that's rediculous any you know it, but for this single decision it is perfectly legitimate, and democratic to go to the people. And all decisions are emotive unless you are a machine.

Like most other intelligent people, they are probably dismayed and bemused at the apparent inability of a large section of the population to comprehend pretty straightforward information and deal with basic concepts of logic and reason.

You make my point much better than I ever could.

You're implying that people making backwards, hypocritical arguments, ignoring facts, dismissing expert opinion, dismissing reasoned arguments out of hand and generally spewing a whole heap of anti-intellectual, ill-informed bull are not deserving of scorn?

This isn't all the Leave voters BTW, just most of them.

Two really key positive arguments, set aside from the clear economics, and also set aside from the 'fear' and the 'speculation' from overwhelming numbers of 'experts' that seems to not make a blind bit of difference to some, in fact is, in a through the looking glass world, cited as further evidence to vote leave. Anyway:

-40 years of membership of the single market has led to a more outward-looking, more prosperous British nation. There is *nothing* to suggest this will not continue.

-The European Union's founding purpose was to ensure the absence of war. Throughout its existence, member states of the EU have never taken up arms against each other - a remarkable achievement of unity given European history. I'm from the first generation of my family that hasn't fought in a major European war, and I don't want to be from the last.

Keep going. You're doing great.

I knew there were some smart guys on here (more so than me) ....but my perceptions have been surpassed. A far better intelligent knowledgeable informed interesting and worthwhile arguments (on both sides) than anything I have heard or seen elsewhere in any of the media. Makes me feel proud to be a Southstander ...

Will leaving the EU limit the supply of midgets? Or cake?