please empty your brain below
As for financial Armageddon - well we're still here after 2008, so like, whatever.
I do not see how voting leave will make the government build more affordable housing, perhaps you think that if all the "foreigners depart" demand will fall and prices of houses come down.
However as people will be worse off after an exit, the pound falls, prices of goods goes up, and interest rates and taxes will probably rise, people will not be able to pay the mortgage anyway.
Look at the names in Leave. Boris? He had a job until a few weeks ago where he could have pushed affordable housing - he did diddly squat.
Gove? When did he show the slightest interest in affordable housing?
Farago? Gorgeous George? I wouldn't trust them to run the village fete, let alone the country.
Vote leave is not a protest vote about how useless Cameron and crew are. I share your frustration with politicians, but why vote for an option supported by only the most mendacious politicians you could ever meet.
I dread the consequences if leave wins.
Anon. Brexiter with a mop for hair: "Vote Leave! Take back control!"
...
"So, then, if the we leave the European Union what will happen to our economy?"
Anon. Etonian with a fondness for pigs: "Well, all the countries will stop trading with us, well be forced to resort to cannibalism, and it'll be World War Three. And our children will be worse off. Think about Grace! (points to random planted child in audience)"
...
"What do you say to that?"
Anon Brexiter: "Project Fear! Scaremongering! Vote Leave, take back control!"
Then there's the Transatlantic Trade and Industry Partnership (TTIP), being conducted (largely in secret) between the EU and the USA. This would allow, for example, multinational companies to sue governments if they feel they are hard done by. In other parts of the world this is already happening. Tobacco companies have been suing governments because they don't like the wording they have to put on cigarette packets. Official information about TTIP comes with whole sections redacted because of 'commercial confidentiality'.
It all comes down to trust, and the EU can't be trusted.
Just a point on economics. If as you say the 'foreigners leave' or rather do not come, that in itself cuts pressure on the housing market and, all things being equal, price either fall or rise less. Then if interest rates and income tax rise making mortgages less affordable, prices fall further. The key point is that if the population is reduced in size relative to the housing stock, prices fall and it is easier to get on the housing ladder.
The reason I am voting 'out' is that in the EU only Belgium has a higher population density than England and there is a limit to how far one can comfortably accommodate people without wrecking the environment. Crowded housing leads to poorer health and poorer education achievement even forgetting that the north-south divide stuffs up labour movement.
I suggest you do a bit of research on what the EU and the current government have said on TTIP. Cameron loves TTIP more than the EU does, and is one of the driving forces pushing to strengthen it even as other european politicians are starting to get cold feet. Voting leave won't stop it, it will make it more likely.
What we really need is freedom of movement between North and South. Doh, we already have that!
But the reality (as with those other topics) is that all the weight of evidence sits with one side. Virtually everyone that has any reason to know about the impact the EU actually has on our lives thinks it would be insanity to leave. The Leave campaign is the extreme rightwing fringe of the Tory party, given credibility by an opportunist.
In the week that remains, voters need to see through the idea that this is a choice between two equal alternatives, and recognise that there's a status quo - and a lunatic Tory right-wing cult that want to try out a terrifying experiment with all our futures
Is UK going back to the days of private paid for health cover for EU, Green Card Insurance for car, dearer roaming charges for mobile telephone (EU plans to abolish roaming charges next year(.
No doubt the Border with Spain/Gibraltar will be closed or made harder to cross than it is now.
In Northern Ireland people there have enjoyed freedom to cross from North and South and they will not like having the frontier restrictions again. How peaceful Ireland and has been with the open border, will friction between North and South start again once the border controls come back?.
Sick of it now, can the 23rd just come and quickly go.
But it may never go.
People keep banging on about immigration but the fact is that 76% of net migration by non-British citizens over the past 25 years has come from non-EU countries.
You don't have to be in the EU to be a member of the EHIC scheme: the arrangements also work in Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
The UK also has reciprocal health insurance arrangements with many non-EU countries, including Australia and New Zealand. There is no reason to suppose that reciprocal arrangements with EU countries will not continue: they benefit EU nationals just as much as us.
And are you really saying that after we leave we'll no longer be able to travel in the EU?
These scare stories show just how desperate the 'Remainders' are, and are as daft as Gideon's 'Punishment Budget' or saying that we won't be able to phone EU countries after Brexit !
There are always trade-offs involved. At the moment we accept lack of control over EU immigration in exchange for the benefits those migrants bring to our economy and the wider benefit of being in the single market. Leave the EU and we lose those benefits without a guarantee that the numbers will be significantly reduced, and the negative economic impacts will make it more difficult to address issue like the housing shortage. There's also the possible impact on our own personal finances and we will lose freedom of movement for ourselves.
In the end it's up to people to weigh these benefits against the risks but they should be realistic about the likely outcomes.
Those countries are in the EHIC scheme because they have freedom of movement with the EU. We won't have that so would have to negotiate a separate agreement.
I suppose we may be able to do so, but it's another uncertainty and at best we'll have something which we have already.
I'm not in favour of scare stories but I'm not a fan of panglossian optimism either.
You talk about overcrowding and poor health and education.
Thanks to population growth in my part of London my nearest bus now runs every 10-12 minutes, when I moved here it was half hourly.
Thanks to the increase in people a new modern health centre has opened nearer to me than the old one. (built on a brownfield site).
I still have green belt areas and large parks to enjoy.
I get access to shops and frequent trains easily.
Schools have been enlarged and Academy's opened, education seems good.
I have only benefited from having more people about.
If conditions were so bad and unpleasant people would not want to come here.
As long as people keep having babies the worlds population will increase.
Not too many years ago London was in decline with an ageing population and concerns were also raised nationally about no young people were coming along to work and keep the economy robust enough to pay pensions of the increasing older people.
Now we have a city that is doing well.
The fact that we have more older people shows how health has improved, not declined as you seem to think will/has happened.
dg mentions Turks, I think it highly unlikely that they will join the EU, only 10% of their country is in Europe anyway. Even Boris himself said they will not join!
However I have been to Turkey, and to both Istanbul and the capital Ankara and did own a property there for a short time at Altinoluk.
I know Turkish people who live in London, they have all opened businesses, and employ people, including British. They pay their taxes and contribute to the countries economy.
Turkey is not a bad place now, even if they did join do you really think they are all going to come to UK?
Of course we will still be able to travel to Europe if we leave but it will cost more and probably involve more documents than is needed now.
Tammy Wynette sang about something appropriate and is on my mind as I slog away on that mill.
You are dead right in pointing out that net non-EU immigration is very large but, unlike EU immigration, we still do have the right to manage the former even if Cameron is currently unwilling or unable. We are told that the referendum is a once in a generation matter. Over, say, 25 years if 2014/15 net levels continue, then another city the size of London will be needed for housing, and that ignores increases in population deriving from recent levels of immigration. I have already (postal) voted so any calm and considered comments will only impact my understanding not my vote. Where would another London or several Manchesters go? Do we really want to look like Hong Kong? I don't agree with much that Mr Farage says but I do agree with him that there is more to life than growth in GDP. GDP excludes the value we place on open spaces, beautiful countryside, avoidance of gridlock even in small villages etc. Life is not all about money even some people think it is. I have heard it said that Brexit would take us back to the economy of the 'noughties', was life so terrible in 2001 or 2009?
Other agreements do not always do this and only cover you for emergency treatment.
Older people often have pre-exiting conditions and find that private health cover becomes expensive.
Why start negotiating new deals when we already have one which works well.
Dominic Raab has spoken of requiring visas for EU citizens on short-term visits. If this transpires, expect the EU to adopt a similar approach.
@Anon at 08.13
If non-EU immigration hasn't been limited during a period in which it has been a focus of public attention, what chance it being limited with Brexit? Yes, EU citizens may be refused entry but in all likelihood they will be replaced by non-EU nationals. The fact will still be that very few "natives" want to do the menial jobs done by foreigners.
Not too many years ago lots of UK workers were heading to Germany to work.
How nice for a young person staring out on their life's career to be able to look at the European job market knowing they can work within the EU.
Two world wars started with European county's fighting each other.
How much better to be friends and in Union with our European neighbours.
Unless we move it our island we will still be only a few miles from mainland Europe.
Sir Winston Churchill spoke of a united Europe at a speech he gave in Zurich in 1946, "..... re-create the European family......we must build a United States of Europe...."
In 1949 he was at the Council of Europe.
"The UK also has reciprocal health insurance arrangements with many non-EU countries"
You need to look at the detail of what is covered, in most cases far less than the EHIC. Take NZ for example, only dental care for minors and "acute inpatient treatment", i.e. short-term treatment for minor conditions.
In addition, a number of those countries in that list are there because of reciprocal agreements with the EU, i.e. the Balkans states, which would fall away post-Brexit.
Your comment about immigration from non EU increasing if UK leaves.
On BBC TV London news last week a Bangladeshi restaurant owner was interviewed, he was voting leave because he hoped that then he could bring more easily Bangladeshi people here to work!
"Even Boris himself said [Turks] will not join!"
There is a significant Turkish community in the UK already, and has been for many years. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/01/turkish-immigration-possibilities-assessed
This article says there are about 150,000 Turkish nationals, and 500,000 people of Turkish descent, in the UK. The latter figure includes Boris's own family, as his great-grandfather came to England from Turkey as a refugee in 1903.
There is a much larger Turkish community in Germany, for example, (for similar historical reasons to the large south Asian community in the UK - a legacy of German influence in the Ottoman Empire)
Note also that many ethnic Turks in the UK come from Cyprus, which is both a Commonwealth and an EU country.
If the result is remain and if Cameron is replaced by a pro-leave person (eg. Johnson), then we will have another referendum.
"If Labour wins, they do not support leaving and so stop it going ahead."
Could they get away with ignoring a referendum?
It is little more than a massive, divisive, costly, opinion poll!
Whichever way the vote goes, there will have to be an Act of Parliament to make a Brexit happen, which will mean a majority vote from both the Lords and the Commons. Our voice on Thursday will be taken into account, but if it is as close as they say it will be, a Brexit win might still not result in an actual leave.
http://www.standard.co.uk/business/anthony-hilton-why-we-may-remain-even-if-we-vote-leave-a3272621.html
No more so, historically, than the formerly United Kingdom of Sweden and Norway, or the United Kingdom of Denmark and Iceland - both dissolved around the same time as Ireland left the UKoGB&I
More chance that NI will reassess its position, especially if Ireland benefits from Brexit (as it seems likely to do).
@Malcolm
Not as easy as that, both Sweden and Norway being in Schengen. Try googling "Agreement on systematic controls of EU external borders". Yes, there is a chance the EU will not want to harm the peace process, but it will need agreement on their side. There is also the question of how to deal with non-Irish EU nationals crossing the border to the UK.
It all has a hint of desperation about it. Given that I don't ever trust anything that politicians say or promise, I see no reason to believe what they are saying now. Unless there is anything major to change my mind in the next week, it looks like I'll be voting out.
Regarding light bulbs, the bog-standard filament 100w type bulbs are freely available in many places on the High St., people just need to shop around. The difference is that they're now 4 - 5 times dearer!
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