The Gooner Forum

For what it is worth, I believe there are some really good ideas that have come into play from the eu over the past decade or so - I am a big supporter of the single currency and I really wish the uk had of signed up for it. Paying to convert money, trying to convert in your head how much an item would cost at home and generally not knowing if you are being screwed financially are all things we could do without. I also like the theory of free movement (without visa's) of eu citizens from one eu country to another - of course it isn't foolproof but if you think that re-introducing visa's will stop terrorists moving around, then you are deluding yourself

What I really despise is the fact that the eu feel that they have the right to interfere in the running of each country - each countries laws should be the ONLY laws in play to run that country UNLESS there are blatant human rights violations in play, and the eu should be told to fcuk off when they stick their nose in. I also hate the fact that the eu feels that the have the right to dictate what kind of tax breaks a country is allowed to offer corporations to get them to set up in their country - Ireland is a small country that is largely dependent on "foreign" companies like dell or apple to provide big employment to our people, and the eu feels that it has the right to tell us that we cannot offer these companies any better tax breaks than they can get elsewhere cos it is against the interests of fairness Bollox to that - I don't care if these companies are exempt from paying any tax on their profits cos they are providing employment to our citizens and we are getting taxes from all their wages, so the eu should be told to piss off

I know that it isn't a factor in whether the uk leave the eu or not, but I am curious to know what if any affect their departure would have on football - will it restrict the british players moving abroad and likewise will it affect the abilities of other European players coming over to the premier league ? Will the status of players from eu countries then be the same as a player from south America ? I know that years ago the implications would have been bigger in some ways because teams were restricted in how many players they could play from outside their own country, but these days I'm not really sure - I know that each club must have a minimum number of "homegrown" players, but after that does it matter where the rest of the players are from (in other words are clubs entitled to have the rest of the squad made up from south American players for example, or would it be deemed worse that the rest of the squad made up of Spanish players) ?

northbank123 wrote:Two major problems with the way the EU has developed:

1) Economic union has become an all-encompassing political union
2) Union of socially- and economically-aligned Northern/Western European states has allowed all and sundry in to the extent that we are now talking about letting in Turkey - a country of 75 million Muslims whose fans booed remembrance of the Paris attacks, which is closer aligned to Asia than Europe and borders Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Bonkers.

For me the issue of parliamentary sovereignty isn't a big one. Brussels passes down loads of regulations but the vast majority are not detrimental and/or have no practical effect. What I do take exception to is Germany lecturing the rest of Europe (short memories) about its humanitarian responsibilities, just because Germany's ageing and depleted workforce was in need of cheap young labour. Oh, and Germany trying to dictate everything to everyone.

Fundamentally completely unhindered freedom of movement plus such a disparity of welfare systems is never going to balance and makes a mockery of what was founded as an economic union.

The EU is going to unravel sooner or later and whatever concessions David Cameron can try and sell to the public the reality is in 10 years time it will be even more encroaching, even more demanding and even more of a mess. There will be short-term pain because the EU will want to blackball the UK to dissuade other countries from leaving but ultimately I'm not convinced we hold less sway out of the EU than in it. The economic arguments on both sides are just scaremongering at the moment but one undeniable point is that the industry which the EU is strangely least committed to breaking down barriers and protectionism is financial services/insurance, which happens to be by far our strongest export on a world scale.

I despise the European Union and it will take some pretty convincing economic arguments to change my mind.

I don't despise the European Union but I agree with the points 1 and 2 here and have been arguing them for years.

The EU, formerly the EEC, was a financial union based upon shared trading interests. The EU completely defrauded the European people by allowing countries to join despite coming nowhere near to meeting the criteria. And in allowing countries with very liberal attitudes to tax (yes, looking at you Southern Europe) and varying degrees of social welfare, the EU is on the way to destroying those successful working systems.

Merkel has dumped on Germany and while most people here are still sympathetic towards the refugees and their plight, come the time of Economic recession a different picture you will see. As NB123 has said, I suspect that the need for cheap, young labour is central to this liberal attitude towards open borders and the need to shore up a bloated welfare system (while working people do pay a hefty whack into the social system, even those on welfare at the lowest end get more than in the UK...and they've had protests about this!)

The EU has been positive in many ways but it is horribly "dirty" and full of corruption and increasing it's size with countries where corruption is just a normal way of doing business will not lead to a better future.

Finally, where's the Unity in the Union? The biggest issue of current times, refugees, comes along and some EU countries can't wait to say "Fuck you, we'll take the subsidies but we're going ot do fuck all to help.....on you go to Germany".

Augie whilst being mildly convenient for holidaymakers the single currency is crazy when you think there is one set of rules and one fiscal policy for so many diverse economies of different strengths.

On that note, we have the Euro's biggest losers Greece currently threatening to veto ANY UK deal purely because they aren't getting what they wanted on another issue. Democracy at its finest. If you want to be watching the results of every European election nervously and be at the whim of radical Eastern/Southern European leaders then vote stay.

get out while you can boys

I couldn't care less if Britain leaving the EU meant the PL lost a chunk of the foreign players. It would actually help the home nations, given that the PL clubs would finally be forced to use home grown players.

Oh to have an Arsenal first team full of British/Irish lads again

No bastard traitor scaremongering politician will change my mind. I want Britain OUT of this Sovietised EU mess.

Francois Hollande repeatedly piping up about Britain making demands about financial services.

That's because for all this 'free trade' bollocks the EU has done as little as possible to increase cross-border competition in the financial services industry - which is very damaging to the UK as an incredibly strong exporter of financial services but great news for France as the major benefactor.

Hollande is understandably voting in his own interests. As are Poland, Czech Republic etc. Which underlines the problem that a union which was originally comprised of countries with similar/common interests is now far too diverse.

By the way, even the left-leaning BBC are reporting that there are some 22,000 children living in Poland which the UK taxpayer pays child benefit too. Sickening.

Sean wrote:I couldn't care less if Britain leaving the EU meant the PL lost a chunk of the foreign players. It would actually help the home nations, given that the PL clubs would finally be forced to use home grown players.

Oh to have an Arsenal first team full of British/Irish lads again

No bastard traitor scaremongering politician will change my mind. I want Britain OUT of this Sovietised EU mess.

So we can all expect to be winning world cups and European championships again then ??

The fact that Cameron had to work so hard to negotiate so little tells me why we need to leave Europe. We don't have much of a say in anything we do in this country. We have to adhere to laws dictated by Brussels, and I don't trust them not to change any deals Cameron has made as soon as Britain has decided to stay in the EU. A lot of countries are boosting their economies on the tax we pay and I'm sick of it.

casgooner wrote:Do you want to stay in or do you want to leave? Right now, I want to leave.

Yup! Me Too.

augie wrote:

Sean wrote:I couldn't care less if Britain leaving the EU meant the PL lost a chunk of the foreign players. It would actually help the home nations, given that the PL clubs would finally be forced to use home grown players.

Oh to have an Arsenal first team full of British/Irish lads again

No bastard traitor scaremongering politician will change my mind. I want Britain OUT of this Sovietised EU mess.

So we can all expect to be winning world cups and European championships again then ??

Absolutely!

I'll probably vote to leave. The idea of having freedom of movement with countries like Italy, Germany and France is canny but then you get loads of fairly crap places where we'd never want to move to but they'd all like to move here. Very long term that will only bring down our standard of living. I'm not at all opposed to immigration, we need it, I am opposed to unchecked immigration where there isn't a need and where we can't stop it.

I also just generally like the idea of us having 100% say in our own issues, not having to go along with our European "friends". I don't see the need for close union with the rest of euros. By all means trade with them (that will still happen if we leave) but don't be dictated to by them

Nigel Farage is a very persuasive speaker but having Boris on board is charismatic - the most charismatic and well-liked politician and this will be the first time he's really waded in since joining Parliament. Likewise with Gove and IDS the Leave campaign has got some big hitters.

Start of his PM bid methinks.

Yankee_Gooner_Dandee wrote:get out while you can boys

Exactly, as long as we have the states to back us up we will be fine

If you do leave it's going to make things dangerous around the Oirish / Norn Oirish border once again.

Considering most of our trade is with the UK we don't seem to be too worried from a commercial point of view as bilateral agreements will be made for trade.

Honestly I think the 4 key objectives from the BBC article below will be great for the UK as there seems to be an expectation of a worse slump in the world economy over the next 12-18 months that what happened in 2007/08.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32695399