RantMachine

I will reaffirm what I said at the start, I couldn't disagree more with the sentiment that: There is something far far worse than wasting your vote; using it to vote for something without actually understanding the implications of what you are voting for, and there are one hell of a lot of wildly uniformed people planning to vote in this referendum, on BOTH sides of the table. I don't aim this at anyone particular, inside of this conversation or out; I say it in a general sense. A huge portion of our population do not have enough of a grasp of the debate to be having a say in it. I respect Ricky and others like him for his stance in this, one heck of a lot more than I do anyone who is casting a vote while being oblivious of the consequence -, and I include uniformed people that are voting the same way as I intend to.

Not enough wrist excercises. Or too many. Heh, wanking jokes.

Haha it will don't worry. Any excuse to drink beer, ride a motorbike and sleep in a tent ...and draw cat faces on people.

Nice find, Chris!

My brother always manages to sneak between non-EU countries pretty effectively on his travels, even with all the additional border control going on around the refugee criss...

Yeah, Bogof is actually a remote controlled robot, it says so in his forum profile. Can't believe you didn't check, really!

Y'got me good with that one And ALL YOU WANTED TO DO was riddle a few Sinnis bikes with bullets. So goddamned unreasonable of them.

We're perhaps missing the most important point, here: Clearly the officers in question were on a mission of national importance. Poor old George Osbourne can't knock one off unless an innocent animal dies first, the police were only trying to help avoid any more terrible economic decisions made on the back of severe sexual frustration. tone:lowered

Who knows? Depends how ballsy they were feeling I saw horse vs rangerover once, that was daaaaamn messy. It skidded down the road on its side at a scary speed, like it was being run over a giant cheese grater - there was basically half a horse left at the end, still moving about. Like something in a Damien Hirst gallery!

You haven't said that, true. But nearly all of your posts (making exception for those that weren't even discussing this part of the issue) have been wilfully ignoring the facts that if we do have an "out" vote, that is what will almost certainly happen! And they certainly aren't going to give any guarantees that it won't happen, especially not before the referendum takes place. And no, we aren't arguing the same point. I am saying that I would not dream of casting a vote that had even the smallest scrap of a change of worsening the lives of other human beings, or making our world a less diverse place, or punishing people when they have done nothing but work hard. You are arguing... well, you've argued just about every angle possible short of admitting that maybe you just don't have a proper grasp of the implications of this referendum and need to go away and read more before arguing either side! But as we are at this moment in our little debate, far too many of your points have come back to jobs, or houses, or economy, for us to be arguing the same angle. Economy and quality of human life are immeasurably different issues, in my books they don't even deserve to be considered side by side. People come first and even suggesting that we should think about how we could have more money or more houses when social stability, culture, families, homes, careers and livelihoods are at stake is vile to me. Yes, I believe you're pretty much bang on; they can't make them sell up, but they would potentially have to bugger off and employ someone to run it for them.

Hit the nail right on the head! And as I keep saying, historic legal and diplomatic precedent does not lean towards granting amnesty to nearly 2 million people, and our diplomatic process does not have the capacity to process that much paperwork in a short span of time! And even if it did, can you imagine our government wanting to explain that kind of decision to the vocal "out" crowd, who would have just won a landmark vote and therefore can't really be ignored at that time? Has anyone tried applying for a new passport lately? Not quick, is it? Unless you're willing to pay a premium of course. But even if every single person could afford to pay extra to have their paperwork sped up, they wouldn't have the staff to fast track them all! Premium services only work on the premise that a limited number of people will pay for them Now add an application for indefinite leave, which takes 4 to 12 months to process under current levels of demand. Under current levels, roughly 100,000 applications are fully processed each year. So, 1.9 million applications is 19 times the usual volume. So the first 100,000 people will be reasonably ok, but unless the border agency makes a SIGNIFICANT increase in admin staffing, some of them could even be waiting for more than a decade before they hear back

If I'm honest about it... yes, I do have concerns about the potential economic implications of both "in" or "out" (although more on the "out" side of things, I must say). But not enough to swing me either way. In fact, most of the issues at stake leave me feeling that there is no perfect answer from an economic standpoint, or at least certainly not one that we can reasonably predict. Overall it seems preferable to stay in, but I do recognise that leaving might have a few benefits to it (distancing ourselves from TTIP, for example). But still, not enough for me to fairly say one way or another. BUT - having said all that, I don't feel that I need to have reached a decision on the economic ramifications in order to make an educated vote; human lives are infinitely more important to me than money, and with an "out" vote standing to turn nearly four million of them upside down, I know that it is right for me to vote "in".

That looked suspiciously like squeezing in a final word after Bob said to drop it

I'm not theorising, I'm telling you the hard statistics and the way our immigration laws work so that you can maybe just maybe somehow have a more educated understanding of just what is at stake instead of basing all your opinions on a vastly important issue on speculation and half an hour on Google. Your theory is based on living in a goddamn fairy land where everything works out perfectly, against all historic precedent or established law

No, because I am stating widespread precedent and supporting facts rather than sheer speculation! You're expressing your thoughts on how you would hope it would be done... and our government do not have a good track record for making major decisions in a way that people hoped they would The Schengen Area was formed after we joined the EU. It's not even a question of whether or not the EU allow it, what makes you so sure that we would suddenly decide to backtrack and join it after leaving the EU? Can you see our politicians trying to explain to all of the "Out" voters that "yes, we're leaving the EU... but we're immediately going to ask to join this other thing that still lets people freely into our country". See Shorty's post, bang on the money. And one other really big thing... the Schengen Visa does not allow people to work in other Schengen countries. At most, it allows you to go on a business trip. Anything more requires a work visa or work permit, depending on the country you're visiting. So joining the Schengen area doesn't do anything to help the 1.9 million people from the mainland EU who are working in the UK, or the 1.6 million brits working elsewhere in the EU. So the summarise: We are NOT part of the agreement at present, our government would have to ask to join it. ...and 1.9 million employed people living in the UK becoming unemployed homeless tourists overnight.

I do try

As Darth Vader once said, "It is too late for me, son"

But this thread isn't about your proposed hypothetical ideal solution, it's about a vote - and while your suggested solution might have the potential to make a positive change, the vote isn't "do we want to stay in the EU or leave and do what Fozzie thinks would be best" - and as I've stated already, granting 1.9 million amnesties overnight is not something that any world government does! And even if they did decide to, there is an unholy amount of diplomatic and legal work that comes with granting indefinite leave to remain, so processing 1.9 million guaranteed cases would take years... so hey, let's grant them all Visas while they wait... oh wait, that also takes ages and costs money. So that leaves options of... leave them in the country as effectively illegal immigrants, or boot them out and invite them back once the paperwork is done, hoping they want to return. Your "out" argument is based on your idealised version of how it would pan out, not on any fact or precedent It's the voting equivalent of http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2015/6/2/lalala.gif An "out" vote stands to have a huge impact on the lives of nearly two million people living in this country and another 1.5 million on the mainland, if you do cast your vote that way then please do it because you understand what you're voting for, not because you're interested to see how it might unfold or because you can think of a single scenario where it all works out fine for them...

So... open borders allows an influx of hard working people who are willing to do the jobs that native Brits think they are "above" doing, and we should punish them for filling that hole in our infrastructure by kicking them out and not letting any more back in? Better hope that the willfully unemployed suddenly decide to step up to the plate! Because otherwise,we'd better hope that closing our borders and kicking out a huge chunk of the minimum wage workers destabilises the bottom end of our economy to such an extent that the welfare state collapses completely and the scroungers are forced to get jobs Going on your logic, wouldn't it be more fair to start deporting workshy Brits? Ooh, even better we could build workhouses and they could live in those!

As an IT guy i find this offensive. I don't socialise.. That's an IT manager The IT guy is the one they're burying

Depends if Stu was staying in a hotel behind the scenes while taking these photos

http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/slow_clap_citizen_kane.gif

Joeman and Rantmachine, post "OUT" vote:

My overall feeling on it is much the same as Shorty says; I'll vote in, but even if we do stay in, I figure it's only a matter of time. The EU will continue to be a scapegoat of choice, and sooner or later we'll burn our bridges. Big question is, who will we blame all our problems on after that?? My money is on Bandit owners I would argue that the 11% of the public who have no idea are better off just not voting, rather than voting without a reason or understanding! Imagine if you heard someone in a jury saying "well, we don't really know if he's guilty or not but we're going to say guilty just to see what difference him being in jail makes, because he's been free until now and that clearly didn't work out, regardless of whether he was to blame" - Doesn't sound quite right, does it?

Talk about backpedalling, you said you were in the "out" camp on page one Still, glad to see you're fleshing out your opinions a bit now.