It's not my economic model - but it's the one the Chancellor uses when he tells us how well we are doing. If he tried to sell his performance based on per capita growth I suspect the story would be very different.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/...ade-zero-growth

I'm with Blackdog. The EU is far from perfect - its agricultural subsidies, barriers to trade with developing countries and distinctly dodgy development funding systems are all in need of reform - but it at least provides a check on a UK government which is already far to the right of Margaret Thatcher and would, out of the EU, swing even further in that direction.

The main reasons that Gove and co want to leave are that the EU involves government, and they're generally against the idea of government, and that it stops them from demolishing even further worker and consumer protections and letting the free market decide everything.

This has little to do with 'democracy'. So far as that is concerned, even nice guy Cameron is reducing funding to opposition parties, expunging (mostly) potential Labour supporters from the electoral register and changing boundaries all in ways that help him stay in power. He also told his chief spin doctor to 'destroy the Labour party'. He's the most anti-democratic Prime Minister we've seen for years.

If we leave the the SNP is certain to push through another referendum and - even if the economic consequences for Scotland are negative - vote to break up the UK. England would be stuck with egomaniac Prime Minister Johnson and his successors for generations, declining in power and influence year by year.

Finally, I suppose the Little Englanders might get their wish of reducing legal immigration but with zero cooperation from the rest of Europe that's unlikely and illegal immigration would, I think, go through the roof as the remaining EU countries would push all migrants in our direction.

So, all in all, I'm on the fence.

Has anyone else noticed the deafening silence from our Euro MPs, or am I just not noticing? I really can't believe there is a media blackout. We pay enough for these people after all.

Not total silence, sadly. Nigel Farage is still speaking.

Where are you looking?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sllcexlb8TY...eature=youtu.be

No matter which way you intend to vote, you have to hand it to him, he has stamina and conviction to his principles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sllcexlb8TY...eature=youtu.be

Just look at the smug face on that woman to the right of Casa, who got a great slap down.

Was that a deliberate omission to provide a link?

Blah blah swivel eyed loon blah blah Daily Wail blah blah little Englander blah blah Torygraph blah blah, and so on and so on. Boring!

So here's your chance, the floor is your, make a reasoned evidence-based argument for leaving.

?

Not quite sure what the question means.

But I had no thought of providing a link - so it can hardly be said that I deliberately omitted one.

I was merely noting that the best known British MEP was not staying silent.

Yes, give him his due, he is still making news. However, he's just one of how many? Can we take it, as our masters at WBC often do, that silence means they are accepting what he says?

Or are burying their heads in the sand in the face of some home truths?

They would have to be pretty stupid to achieve that goal

Exactly my point.

We so need to leave.

I resent the way the in campaign reduces the discourse to essentially that of it being bad for business and our trade to leave.

Anyone who knows anything about the EU knows that it has long since ceased to be merely a free trade area (which I would have no opposition to and would welcome).

The most worrying thing about the EU and especially the European Commission is that it has awful tendency to act like a monster steamroller that pushes aside the wishes of the electorate, implements endless red tape whilst reducing effective democratic control and accountability.

There have been a series of grotesque episodes of serial ineptitude: antagonising the Russians over Ukraine, then failing to effectively support a nascent movement for democracy, cooking the books to allow basket case economies to join the single currency with disastrous consequences, and, allowing a huge flood of immigrants into Europe, the number of which we have no hope of accommodating. Add to this quotas, fraud and "subsidies" to persuade certain members to do what the Commission wants and it all adds up to a shameful portfolio of bungling and ineptitude.

In recent decades, we have come to realise that in fact Britain has surrendered so much of its sovereignty to the EU that very key areas of our essential national interests have been signed away and are now wholly beyond our control. Having lost control of them, we seem unsure who now holds those reigns. Even if we did, would they in fact listen?

I for one find that very alarming and I want Britain to regain its independence and autonomy. I think if we do not leave soon, the future of our ability to self govern and thus act as a democratic and representative country will be severely compromised.

Wot he said.

The European Union is run by unelected, unaccountable elites whose power is vast. They often bring in legislation that has not been voted on in our national parliament, yet supercedes our own laws that do pass through such democratic processes.

"The common denominator between national and multi-level governing procedures is that each is tasked with coordinating opinion, and ultimately policy and resources, into a common pool. Power and influence within the European Union structures are divided, although somewhat disparately, between the European Parliament (EP), the Council of Ministers and the Commission. These bodies are designed to check and balance one another. In member states, citizens have the opportunity to influence national policy making through their elected officials. In the EU’s multi-tiered system, the closest a citizen comes to impacting a policy decision is through their elected representative to the European Parliament."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23488006

The EU is work in progress; because something is wrong doesn't necessarily mean the best thing to do is abandon it.

What legislation that has been brought from the EU in do you object to?

As this campaign progresses, I'm becoming less and less convinced about leaving. In a nutshell, its pretty evident that we no longer have the capability or the skills to be on our own; even if we changed our economic system and even if we had some effective leadership. So, staying in; t does that mean; more of the same? Just twittering endlessly about iniquities and wrongs? Or could it mean that we'll roll our sleeves up and this time actually work with our European peers (and yes, a good number exist) to improve the thing? Sadly, I suspect I know the answer!

We keep on about democracy, again I'd ask, where are our MEP's? What have they been doing? The present situation is really an indictment on them surely? One lesson worth learning from this is that this 'party list PR system' simply isn't effective and doesn't produce good government.

I don't necessarily disagree but your objection is vague and general, I would really like to hear specifically what the objection is, most particularly on the question of sovereignty, as I've seen this point made before and when pushed I'm not finding that it's a well-founded objection. So can you expand on that for me please.

Well, most conspicuously, we have lost control of who we can and can't let in.
We have lost the ability to conduct bilateral trade agreements that better suit British interests.
We can no longer control certain taxes.

And that's just a start.

We in Britain stand for the roll back of the state. By contrast, the EU cannot get enough.