Ka-pi96 said:
I never said that I thought I was qualified to vote (not that I plan to either)... The only thing the general public know about the EU is the media hate campaign it gets that blames everything on the EU and immigrants. The actual benefits of the EU aren't known or even cared about by those people. For business and the economy however the EU is of huge importance. Sure there are some problems with the EU at the moment, but they weren't there before and they can be fixed. Having that economic co-operation however is very important for the future of the country. The UK is just too small and weak to do much by itself, some resource countries can get away with that but the UK isn't particularly resource rich. Only together with the EU can the UK hope to be an economic and political powerhouse again. |
This x1000. Most Brits don't even know what the EU does and that's due to 2 things: 1) the EU is really difficult to comprehend and the way it works doesn't help either and 2) British media coverage around the EU is Bullshit with a capital B, the hate and misinformation is unbelieveable. Leaving the EU would be a really bad thing for the UK economy, and most UK leaders know that they are just under huge pressure to distance themselves because of wrong public opinion. A oversimplified summary why it would be bad: Between 60-80% of British trade comes from the EU, now because the UK is a member of the EU they have access to the European Free Trade zone and aren't restricted by tolls and tariffs. In return they need to pay a share for the EU budget ( which is way smaller than the gains from the FTA) and get a vote on EU politics. Now if the UK decides to leave the EU, they also leave the FTA and again get tolls/tariffs and taxes for 60-80% of their trade, this would murder the British economy so they would ask access to the FTA again ( just like Switzerland has access to the EU FTA). To get this access they would again need to pay a share in the European budget ( so on the costs nothing would have changed) but they won't have a vote anymore on the politics. So in leaving the EU, Britain would have less autonomy than before because in the EU they can block what they don't want outside they would need to accept all policies for access of the FTA. Ofcourse this has nothing to do with the immigration and other problems that have better ways of solving it instead of just leaving the EU. Is the EU perfect? NO, but is has made all of our lives better.People who think leaving the EUis a good thing should really do a bit more research instead of just blindly believing mainstream media that jjust reflects public opinion. I'd even dare to say we need more EU, most problems would be gone with a stronger political union. There is just a huge perception problem ( and that's mainly thanks to the EU itself).
