Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Zanza]

How do the Tories envision continued governance after the referendum? There can't be much mutual trust left in that cabinet.

[Sheilbh]

How do the Tories envision continued governance after the referendum? There can't be much mutual trust left in that cabinet.

No idea. It's all complicated by the fact that Cameron's already said he won't run again so there's lots of leadership posturing too (see: Boris). Who knows where we'll be in 2020. I thought this piece was good:

Cameron won't purge his Brexit rebels, but there will be a reckoning
Matthew d'Ancona

If he wins the EU vote, the prime minister will seek a united party. But he won't forgive – or forget – the likes of Boris Johnson

Sunday 22 May 2016 18.52 BST Last modified on Monday 23 May 2016 06.25 BST

A month tomorrow voters will decide whether this country is to remain in the European Union – a decision that, as the prime minister told Robert Peston this morning, "is more important than a general election". Whatever you think of Cameron, allow that this was a moment of authentic statesmanship. On 23 June we should play the ball, not the man.

How bizarre, then, that this national argument about our collective future has been conducted for months as little more than a Tory party board game, a psychodrama involving a comparatively tiny number of privately educated protagonists.

Labour has no cause for complaint, having barely decided whether it wants to play with the boot or the thimble before it passes "go". There have been honourable exceptions, notably Gordon Brown (responsible, let us never forget, for keeping us out of the euro) who directly addressed the UK's 9 million Labour voters at the Fabians' summer conference on Saturday with "Labour reasons" to back remain. But the party he once led is not yet fully engaged.

In unhealthy contrast, Conservatives cannot get enough of the EU row. If Toryland were an independent state, then "banging on about Europe" would be its national sport. Why so? As a proxy argument about the future trajectory of the party, it does not fit precisely. Not all Tories who want to leave the EU are reactionaries, followers of Ayn Rand or doctrinally hostile to public services: Michael Portillo, the godfather of Conservative social liberalism and modernisation, is also a spirited Brexiteer.

So the correspondence is not exact. But the split over the EU is still the biggest, boldest bifurcation of the inner Tory map, dividing one vision of the party's future from another. Put it this way: when one thinks of the many members of the Tory right who have opposed Cameron's reforms of the party and his campaign to make Conservatives shake hands with modernity – while enjoying the electoral benefits of this strategy, naturally – one struggles to think of even a handful now supporting him in the greatest trial of his 11 years as leader.

Cameron, at any rate, is in no doubt that he is engaged in a battle for the soul of the party. Last week's Queen's speech asserted his preoccupation with social reform as never before, explicitly reclaiming the "one nation" terrain that Ed Miliband tried to colonise but Jeremy Corbyn has so helpfully vacated. In his Peston interview, as in private, the PM made clear his intention to serve a full second term. When he first revealed this objective in an interview with me in January 2013, he insisted that the words "full term" were not euphemistic as they were in the case of Tony Blair – who left No 10 only two years after the 2005 election. Cameron will not quit voluntarily unless he is confident the party has put down deep roots in the centre ground.

In his book Free Speech, Timothy Garton Ash describes Europe as "the second biggest dog in the west ... not really a single dog but rather an intercanine league". For the electorate, this referendum is a decision that will shape the nation's prospects for decades. For the dissenting rump of the Tory party, it is a means of getting rid of Cameron. The Treasury's final estimates of the cost of Brexit, published this week, are an opportunity for thoughtful voters to assess the remain case. For Brexiteers, the document will be another chance to call George Osborne "Pinocchio", as Iain Duncan Smith did at the weekend.

Notice that attacks on Osborne are central to the leave strategy. In a recent Spectator interview Boris Johnson spoke thus of Osborne: "I am delighted to hear he's principled ... That is a major, major development." Do you remember the days when Boris and George were supposed to have sealed a great and durable friendship? Not so durable, it transpires. The Brexiteers have decided that Osborne should be destroyed, that this most resilient of politicians must be removed from Johnson's path for good: Georgius delendus est.

Will Cameron let them get away with treating his closest ally like that? He is a natural conciliator, a self-styled broker of agreements within his party, rather than a Thatcher, content to divide and rule. The joint announcement of prison reform by the PM and Michael Gove on the eve of the Queen's speech suggested powerfully that the lord chancellor, though a passionate Brexiteer, is safe in his job. Cameron's allies do not dismiss the possibility of a "reconciliation reshuffle" after the vote, though they emphasise that Cameron is not taking victory for granted – a wise position in these volatile times.

What has certainly not been decided is who gets what – the widely disseminated speculation that Gove will be made deputy prime minister and Johnson appointed home secretary being premature at best. Still: it frames a dilemma that Cameron should be thinking about. There is a difference between magnanimity and surrender. Where would the sense be in moving Theresa May, who has remained loyal, and replacing her at the Home Office with a politician who vacillated until the very last moment, accused the PM of "demented scaremongering", and then invoked the spectre of Hitler himself?

My conversations suggest that there is no consensus in Cameron's circle about what to do with the former London mayor if remain prevails. As one senior source puts it carefully: "There will have to be an extent to which people are held to account for what they've done." Another Cameron ally sees different priorities: "The quote about the rebel being better inside the tent rather than outside is such a cliche, but in Boris's case it may be depressingly true." This adviser, in fact, is angrier with Gove.

The correct answer to these questions will be found by doing what clubbable Tories like least: forgetting the ties of friendship and the blisters of resentment, and acting dispassionately. Assume for the sake of argument that Cameron wins on 23 June. If he wants to govern successfully for more than three years with only a small Commons majority, he must show an almost unleadable party that actions have consequences. No post-referendum purge, therefore. But no universal amnesty either. So, prime minister: who's for the chop?

[Zanza]

[celedhring]

So the Brexit lot is turning this into an episode of Dad's Army.

Who do you think you're kidding mrs. Merkel?

[Duque de Bragança]

Yeah but I speak no Portuguese - and find it quite a funny language - so I'll just booze-cruise there.

But for instance it'd be much easier to find English speakers in Portugal than in Spain.

Just FYI Sheilbh, Algarve, far from Galicia i.e Northern Portugal  , is a bit like Med Spain with lobster-faced Brits retirees, unwilling or not capable of learning the language. They're themselves not too popular since they drive housing prices up. I don't known much about Northern European retirees in NW Portugal (I don't seem them in the interior lands), so I guess it's a very new phenomenon so it can't be as bad as the Brits in Algarve.

[Admiral Yi]

Usually I don't have much patience with people who don't make an attempt at the local language, but I think an exemption should be granted for retirees.

[Martinus]

The inevitable in any British campaign has finally happened. Today it became all about class!

From one of Cameron and Osborne's cabinet colleagues:

For the millions of Britons who feel the consequences every day, this rate of growth cannot continue. But bureaucrats in Brussels and the leaders of the Remain campaign do not seem to mind – their lifestyles insulate them from this impact.

Indeed, for many of those arguing for Remain, the day-to-day consequences of this loss of control are pretty much all gain and no pain: inexpensive domestic help, willing tradesmen and convenient, cheap travel.

So when Remain campaigners talk about the economy, they don't think about working people's personal finances – the potential hit to their pay packets.

It is easy to see why. If you have private wealth or if you work for Goldman Sachs you'll be fine. But when public services are under pressure, it is those people who do not have the luxury of being able to afford the alternatives who are most vulnerable. Getting your child a place in your local school becomes more and more difficult; there is more competition for jobs; wages are held down.

It's shameful that those leading the pro-EU campaign fail to care for those who do not have their advantages. Their narrow self-interest fails to pay due regard to the interests of the wider public.

This is actually pretty true. 

[Duque de Bragança]

Usually I don't have much patience with people who don't make an attempt at the local language, but I think an exemption should be granted for retirees.

Brits of all ages are infamous for not making any attempts.

[Admiral Yi]

Brits of all ages are infamous for not making any attempts.

And those that are young enough to learn a new language should be criticized for it. 

[Josquius]

For the millions of Britons who feel the consequences every day, this rate of growth cannot continue. But bureaucrats in Brussels and the leaders of the Remain campaign do not seem to mind – their lifestyles insulate them from this impact.

Indeed, for many of those arguing for Remain, the day-to-day consequences of this loss of control are pretty much all gain and no pain: inexpensive domestic help, willing tradesmen and convenient, cheap travel.

So when Remain campaigners talk about the economy, they don't think about working people's personal finances – the potential hit to their pay packets.

It is easy to see why. If you have private wealth or if you work for Goldman Sachs you'll be fine. But when public services are under pressure, it is those people who do not have the luxury of being able to afford the alternatives who are most vulnerable. Getting your child a place in your local school becomes more and more difficult; there is more competition for jobs; wages are held down.

It's shameful that those leading the pro-EU campaign fail to care for those who do not have their advantages. Their narrow self-interest fails to pay due regard to the interests of the wider public.

How utterly backwards.
Its leave where the rich will be fine but the poor will suffer and big money interests are tricking the poor into supporting them.
I wish they'd at least be honest with what we'd be voting for with leave. Who knows, maybe people will go in for their neo liberal vision.

So, where will you be moving to? 

Asturian coast. Somewhere like Cudillero or Luarca

Btw, apparently the PM of Gibraltar has said that if the UK votes for Brexit they'd consider asking to rejoin Spain. The sky is falling, pigs are flying.

Makes sense. Same for Northern Ireland (though Ireland would also be fucked if we left), I don't really care in either case. But it is odd that so many of the English people who are probably most unionist and fond of Gibraltar care so little about the effect this would have there.

Ireland would be an interesting one.
Short term they're of course screwed, they're heavily tied into the UK economy, we're their biggest trade partner.
Longer term though...some big money to be made in poaching those businesses wanting a bridge to Europe that would normally go to the UK.

[Zanza]

For the millions of Britons who feel the consequences every day, this rate of growth cannot continue. But bureaucrats in Brussels and the leaders of the Remain campaign do not seem to mind – their lifestyles insulate them from this impact.

Indeed, for many of those arguing for Remain, the day-to-day consequences of this loss of control are pretty much all gain and no pain: inexpensive domestic help, willing tradesmen and convenient, cheap travel.

So when Remain campaigners talk about the economy, they don't think about working people's personal finances – the potential hit to their pay packets.

It is easy to see why. If you have private wealth or if you work for Goldman Sachs you'll be fine. But when public services are under pressure, it is those people who do not have the luxury of being able to afford the alternatives who are most vulnerable. Getting your child a place in your local school becomes more and more difficult; there is more competition for jobs; wages are held down.

It's shameful that those leading the pro-EU campaign fail to care for those who do not have their advantages. Their narrow self-interest fails to pay due regard to the interests of the wider public.

How utterly backwards.
Its leave where the rich will be fine but the poor will suffer and big money interests are tricking the poor into supporting them.
I wish they'd at least be honest with what we'd be voting for with leave. Who knows, maybe people will go in for their neo liberal vision.

I find it much more likely that the well-off elites are well-off no matter what and the poor and weak are poor and weak no matter what. I doubt that Brexit or Bremain would have much of a consequence either way.

[Capetan Mihali]

Usually I don't have much patience with people who don't make an attempt at the local language, but I think an exemption should be granted for retirees.

I don't know; they might be 62 or 65, that doesn't make them mentally-deficient morons.  If they can manage to relocate a thousand miles from home, they can manage to learn some basic Portuguese or Spanish phrases.  Enough to order lunch or buy their groceries is mandatory and within the grasp of most 65 year olds; carrying on any kind of complex conversation that uses a bunch of different tenses and pronouns, I agree with you.

[Sheilbh]

Just FYI Sheilbh, Algarve, far from Galicia i.e Northern Portugal  , is a bit like Med Spain with lobster-faced Brits retirees, unwilling or not capable of learning the language. They're themselves not too popular since they drive housing prices up. I don't known much about Northern European retirees in NW Portugal (I don't seem them in the interior lands), so I guess it's a very new phenomenon so it can't be as bad as the Brits in Algarve.

Yeah, the Algarve is famous for retirees - see One Foot in the Algarve specials. I have sympathy for areas where second home  owners are driving up prices and making it unaffordable for locals. But aside from that like Yi I don't really object to old people not learning a language and think people moving somewhere to spend their pension is a boon.

I don't know; they might be 62 or 65, that doesn't make them mentally-deficient morons.  If they can manage to relocate a thousand miles from home, they can manage to learn some basic Portuguese or Spanish phrases.  Enough to order lunch or buy their groceries is mandatory and within the grasp of most 65 year olds; carrying on any kind of complex conversation that uses a bunch of different tenses and pronouns, I agree with you.

Agreed. But they move to these areas because there's an infrastructure for English speakers. The entire point of these developments is that they're for English people, if they didn't exist I doubt you'd get many lobster retirees just moving to a Portuguese fishing village. The posher retirees who want to integrate and speak a bit of the language move to rural France or other, less working class areas of Spain and Portugal - like the North ( )

This is actually pretty true. 

Ish. There are good pragmatic reasons for voting to stay - eg. Scotland leaving the union if England votes to leave the EU. The social impact can be mitigated by vastly increasing spending in areas that have particularly high immigration so services aren't under strain. There is truth to the pressure on low wages. But again the Tory/Brexit solution to those issues is to leave the EU rather than, for example, increase spending and prosecute businesses that are breaking labour law and getting away with it because they're exploiting migrants. It's a bit like the '£350 million we spend on the EU could be spent on the NHS'. I never knew so many right-wing Tories and UKIPers were keen on spending more money on the NHS.

Though I think this piece from a couple of years ago is excellent and may appeal to you:

Local elections: The capital fails to see the heartache and pain beyond

'London' has become shorthand for faraway people with no grasp of the nation's problems
By Charles Moore8:30PM BST 23 May 2014 CommentsComment

"These results show London as an open, tolerant and diverse city," tweeted Tessa Jowell. Dame Tessa, Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, Minister for the Olympics under the last Labour government, is a liked and respected figure. Nevertheless, her tweet could have been precisely calculated to turn the stomach of anyone living more than 10 miles from Hyde Park Corner.

London, in her implication, is an open, tolerant and diverse city because so few of its voters went for Ukip in Thursday's local elections, whereas so many did so in the rest of England. Not only is she saying how wonderful London is: she is also saying how frightful the rest of the English are. Unintentionally, she expressed the metropolitan sense of moral superiority of which the electorate has now had more than enough.

The same point was put the other way round yesterday by Suzanne Evans, one of the articulate and seemingly sane spokesmen whom Ukip is at last managing to rustle up. The difference in the results, she said, was "because London is its own person – its own body, its own character – and it's very different for the rest of the country". She thought that London finds it hard to understand "the heartache and the pain" beyond.

Actually, this "London" of which they were speaking is mainly inner/middle London. The suburban bits – Havering, Bexley, the sort of places where Dame Tessa never goes to dinner – have moved towards Ukip like most other parts of England, and share their anxieties. It is surely no coincidence that Nigel Farage lives (and voted) at Cudham in Kent, just where the Greater London limits lie.

One reason Tessa Jowell and co can feel open, diverse and tolerant is that, like Harry Enfield's character, they are "considerably richer than yow". The average house price in London is now reported to be £593,763. This is well over 20 times more than the average wage (£26,000). It is highly unwise to borrow more than four times your annual earnings to buy property, so no new family paying the standard rate of income tax can remotely afford to join the property-owning democracy and live in Jowell's London unless they have private capital of their own.

On a day trip from Gillingham or Southend (which could easily cost them about £200 for four unless they take a packed lunch), these frustrated citizens can wander the silent and shuttered streets of Belgravia and Holland Park and admire the empty palaces where Russians or Arabs park their money but not their children. Such an average family would not be human if it did not sometimes ask itself how much all this openness, diversity and tolerance do for it. Hence the rise of Ukip.

If London is, in Suzanne Evans's phrase, its own body, it has a very rich head. As well as the numerous multi-millionaires from the financial services, many of whom are not British citizens and therefore cannot vote, the head consists of top lawyers, media and advertising executives, lobbyists, civil servants and those industries and quangos that prosper from government contracts. It also consists of those who formally rule us. If you look at the present Cabinet, I can find only two English members – Patrick McLoughlin (a former Derbyshire miner) and Owen Paterson (a former Merseyside leather manufacturer) – with private-sector careers pursued completely out of London.

This head forms a collective view without even realising it. By polling day, BBC producers had sent out so many anti-Ukip tweets and emails that the corporation's newsroom was forced to issue a belated instruction telling them not to. Their unthinking hostility was perfect propaganda for Mr Farage.

That is the head of the London body. Its hands, however, are often those of immigrants, many of whom serve – as nannies, cleaners, drivers, doormen and waiters – those at the head. Most of these probably can't or won't vote, but those who do tend not to share the resentments of the wider population because they feel happier to be here than in, say, Somalia. They tend to live in public or rented housing, often subsidised, rather than trying to buy.

They may also be corralled into the divisive ethno-religious politics of the modern inner city. In Thursday's elections, to take a preposterous example, a group of Muslim councillors in Newham, who had defected from Respect, were permitted to campaign for an Islamic state under the banner of the Conservatives. But for the most part, the immigrant vote is Labour's. It is almost a deference vote: people like Dame Tessa are the benevolent feudal lords giving handouts to the ethnic serfs. It is easy to be "tolerant" of people whose presence reinforces your economic advantage rather than challenging it.

Yesterday I heard a BBC reporter, in a comical but telling slip of the tongue, describing London as "ethically diverse". This is true. A strange coalition, first forged by Ken Livingstone, somehow knits together gay-rights activists with Islamist fanatics who want homosexuals thrown off cliffs, the more right-on sort of cosmopolitan entrepreneur with the most bloody-minded public-sector trade unionist. As long ago as 2010, Labour's national membership was revealed to be more than a fifth drawn from London (though London is only 12.5 per cent of the national population), with five times as many members in Hampstead as in Hartlepool. This trend has strengthened, and Ukip's incursions into Labour's northern territory on Thursday are a reaction against it. Ed Miliband sits for a seat in Doncaster (where Labour just lost two council seats), but his heart, and his house, are in Primrose Hill.

It is true that Ukip supporters are very concerned about immigration, but for the most part their animus is not against immigrants themselves, but against this occupying army of the powerful in central London. In particular, voters have come to see all the three main parties as no more than different brigades in the same force. When David Cameron made his Conservatives go big for single-sex marriage, for instance, lots of people from out of town were outraged, but even greater numbers were simply perplexed. Was this the issue that mattered for the life of a nation in hard times? That view was shared by more than half the population, but none of the three established parties expressed it.

Another example is petrol prices. Large numbers of Londoners do not drive and so give little thought to the cost at the pumps. Outside big city centres, however, the car is a virtual necessity for work and family. It took the reaction to the "omnishambles" Budget of 2012 to get the Coalition to see that this might be a more salient political issue than leading the world in carbon reduction. Even today, public figures play with wind turbines on our utility bills as gaily as Marie-Antoinette pretending to run a peasant dairy in the gardens of Versailles. They seem puzzled at the hostility this generates.

This separation between capital and country is a fairly new thing for Britain, and a dangerous one. Hitler is said to have been envious of the British phrase "the Home Counties" because it showed that we regarded London as our heart. Today, the word "London" in political rhetoric has become rather like "Washington" in America – shorthand for faraway people who do not understand the rest of the nation. Link it with "Brussels" – as Ukip unhesitatingly does, and will again as the Euro-results come in – and you have a place apart from its hinterland. That is not a clever idea in a parliamentary democracy.

Edit: I would add I also think it's wrong on some key points, but a lot is difficult to answer.

So the Brexit lot is turning this into an episode of Dad's Army.

In fairness to them, Vote Leave have said it's not actually one of their posters and asked for it to be taken down.

I wish they'd at least be honest with what we'd be voting for with leave. Who knows, maybe people will go in for their neo liberal vision.

Hold on, the EU with the democratic legitimacy of the Lord Mayor of London, whose greatest achievement has been liberalising the movement of goods, capital and cheap labour while pushing austerity is the non neo-liberal option?

I wish it weren't but Delors' Europe is dead. We're living in Thatcher's.

Ireland would be an interesting one.
Short term they're of course screwed, they're heavily tied into the UK economy, we're their biggest trade partner.
Longer term though...some big money to be made in poaching those businesses wanting a bridge to Europe that would normally go to the UK.

Yeah but Ireland's been doing that for ages with their low tax rates and all the rest. I don't think it's a viable model when about 50% of your trade is done with the UK. They coordinated joining the EEC with the UK, beyond getting possibly getting the poisoned chalice of a united Ireland I don't know how well they'd be able to stay in the EU if we left.

[Josquius]

John Major of all people is proving the voice of reason. I almost suspect he's read my blog so aligned are his points.

We have less than one month to go before casting possibly the most important vote of our lifetime. The arguments upon whether to remain in or leave the EU are complex. The very least the British public should expect from our politicians is that they be accurate and truthful and focus on our long-term wellbeing.



The Remain campaign has doggedly tried to do this. Vote Leave consistently fails to do so: instead they offer a mixture of confused or distorted facts that mislead rather than inform.

Those who challenge statements that are flimsy or demonstrably untrue are either personally disparaged, or accused of being part of a mythical 'Establishment plot'.

International bodies, such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, are told they are 'wrong', or stooges of the Prime Minister. The highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies is told that it is a 'paid-up propaganda arm' of the EU. Friendly overseas governments are criticised for 'interfering'.

Overseas investors in the UK receive the same crass response – even though they provide jobs for our people and taxes that pay for our public services.

The Governor of the Bank of England is castigated for warning of risks to the UK economy even though – if he failed to do so and the risks materialised – he would be accused of gross negligence.

So, too, would the Prime Minister and Chancellor, who are continually in the line of fire for presenting Government reports that warn of the risks of leaving Europe.

They have a responsibility to the British people to ensure all facts are before them, yet their statements are denounced with boorish monotony by Vote Leave, and with sneering asides from their acolytes, who taunt that those occupying No 10 'won't be there for long'.

When Michael Heseltine voiced dismay over foolish and inflammatory references to Hitler, he was dismissed as being 'from another era', the clear implication being that, because of his age, his views don't matter. On that basis, one can only assume that Vote Leave believes the arguments put forward by Michael's contemporary, Nigel Lawson, don't matter either.

Such playground name-calling is not only irrelevant but is offensive to millions of elderly voters who – although born in 'another era' – still have opinions, hopes and ambitions that matter very much indeed.

The tactics of Vote Leave are clear: to ignore the arguments and abuse their critics. But the British people deserve better than that as they search for the facts required to reach a balanced judgment before June 23.

I suspect the silent majority is irritated by, even contemptuous of, such evasion and political trickery. A couple of weeks ago, in a speech in Oxford, I sought to bring clarity to a number of issues where I believed the British people were being misled: notably, the cost of the EU, immigration and sovereignty. True to form, instead of addressing the argument, Vote Leave's only response was that I have 'always been wrong about Europe'.

This was an odd reply – especially since I kept the UK out of the euro and refused to sign up to the Schengen Agreement on open borders. Nonetheless, their evasion met its purpose and, once again, diverted the debate from their own misinformation.

So now, as the referendum vote comes nearer, I again ask the senior figures of Vote Leave to correct the inaccuracies and falsehoods they are peddling to the British people.

First, we do not – I repeat not – pay £350 million a week (the equivalent of £18 billion a year) to the EU. Vote Leave knows this. Yet, despite being urged to stop repeating such an obvious untruth – not least by the UK Statistics Authority – they continue to do so.

The facts are simple and clear: during the past five years – after taking account of our rebate and money returned to the UK – our average net payment to the EU was £7.1 billion.

Last year, the figure fell to just over £6 billion after payments to our farmers, businesses, scientific research and for regional aid such as flood defences.

But there is a much bigger point: the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that even if we stopped paying anything into the EU, the economic damage caused by leaving it would blow a £40 billion black hole in the nation's budget.

So, far from saving money if we left Europe, it would, in fact, cost us a very great deal more.

Even at this late stage, I hope Vote Leave will end their shameless distortion of the truth and admit, publicly and clearly, that the figures they use – on every piece of literature and every lick of paint on their battle bus – are wholly false. Their refusal to do so is simply breathtaking.

On the issue of immigration from Europe, again Vote Leave seems more focused on raising fears than setting out facts.

Their cavalier exaggeration of likely immigration flows has been the most distasteful aspect of this referendum campaign.

I understand very well the concern felt by many people about the current scale of immigration. This is an important issue. So let me turn again to it, in the hope of flushing out what Vote Leave's plans for border control may mean for present and future migrants.

First, a statement of fact: we are not, as they warn, facing the risk of 88 million migrants from Turkey and the western Balkans: this fear-mongering is the worst sort of 'dog whistle' politics.

It is highly unlikely that Turkey will join the EU for many, many years (if ever). And Vote Leave knows this. As Boris Johnson himself said: 'It is not remotely on the cards.' Quite so. Yet Vote Leave persist in raising more scare stories. Even if – at some far distant date – Turkey did join, are we really to believe that every one of her citizens would up sticks and head for the United Kingdom? Of course not.

Vote Leave's irresponsible and provocative oratory is intended purely to plant an entirely false image in people's minds. It is fear over fact. Responsible politicians should know better.

The entry of any country to the EU is in our hands. We can say No. We – the British – have an absolute veto on the entry of any country to the EU if we wish to use it. Vote Leave knows this, so what were they thinking of last weekend when they stated the opposite?

As one migrant scare story falls apart, Vote Leave raises another. And, to add emotion to their mischief, they warn that European migrants will have a negative impact on the NHS. This is spectacular misdirection, for without the skills of European migrants, the NHS would be heavily understaffed.

There are 54,000 EU citizens working in our Health Service as doctors, nurses and ancillaries, and a further 80,000 caring for the sick in Social Welfare. How many of us have been cared for in hospital by European doctors and nurses?

Who keeps our public transport running? Who keeps our hotel industry staffed? Who greets us each morning across the counter in coffee shops up and down the country? Collectively, these and other workers contribute far more in taxes than they take in benefit or care costs. Of course, there is a temporary problem of numbers of migrants. I totally accept this. But please note the word 'temporary'.

The growth of the eurozone economy – now clearly under way – will create more jobs across Europe which, in turn, should cut demand to come to the UK. But, in any event, a short-term migrancy flow from Europe should not be the issue that drives the UK out of an economic union that benefits our country immensely, and will continue to do so in the much longer term.

'Let's keep people out' is an easy slogan with a murky history – but Vote Leave needs to explain who their policy would affect, and how they will implement it.

Specifically, I would welcome their responses to the following points:

- Have they considered how their plans to cut EU migrancy would affect the immigration status of EU citizens now working in the UK – more than 110,000 of them in the NHS and social care system?

- What would be the effect of their policy on our caring services, transport, commerce and industry?

- How would their policy on leaving the EU affect British citizens living or working in Europe?

When Vote Leave turns its attention to the Single Market, their disregard for truth turns into utter confusion. Not only have they failed to dent the economic case for remaining in the EU, they can't even agree on their own case if we were to leave. Their heads are all over the place on this issue, and yet it is central to the quality of life for every individual and family in the UK.

Some in Vote Leave say the UK should leave the Single Market, lose all preferential access to it, and rely on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules in future trade with Europe. It is hard to imagine any single event that would do more harm to our country's wellbeing.

Outside the EU, we would have to renegotiate more than 50 free trade agreements, which could take many years to complete and, as the Director-General of the WTO has said, 'leaving the EU would cost the UK many billions in trade tariffs'. The damage to our economic interests would be self-inflicted – and severe. Other Brexiteers disagree about leaving the Single Market. They say they would negotiate a different arrangement with the EU. Some want a Swiss arrangement; others a Norwegian arrangement; yet others an Albanian arrangement.

In the first two circumstances we would have to continue to pay into the EU budget and accept free movement of people. Not only that, but such a proposal would mean we would have to accept European rules and regulations, while having no say whatsoever in making them. In the third, we would have no access to the Single Market, which would do profound and long-lasting damage to our economy.

It's an absolute mess. No wonder the British people are left baffled, bewildered and confused. They need to know what all this would mean for their future, but Vote Leave are in such a muddle themselves that none of them seems willing or able to explain it to others.

Moreover, for the UK to have to obey rules and regulations without any influence over them would be an absurd and undignified position for a nation like Britain. It would be an absolute negation of sovereignty on trade rules. Instead of sharing sovereignty (as we do now), we would be surrendering it. Far from 'taking back control' as the Brexiteers trumpet they wish to do, we would be throwing it away.

Vote Leave has consistently failed to tell us how they see the UK outside Europe. They have glib slogans, but no solid detail. They know what they are against, but have no agreed position on what they are for. Some of the leaders of Vote Leave are my fellow Conservatives. Others are experienced parliamentarians. I don't doubt their patriotism, nor their commitment to their cause. But I am dismayed by the way in which they have conducted this campaign, which I believe to have been a fraud on the British people.

They have, knowingly, told untruths about the cost of Europe. They have promised negotiating gains that cannot – and will not – be delivered. They have hailed alleged advantages of leaving Europe, while ignoring even the most obvious obstacles and drawbacks. They have raised phantom fears that cannot be justified, puffing up their case with false statistics, unlikely scenarios and downright untruths. To mislead the British nation in this fashion – when its very future is at stake – is unforgivable.

We British are an open-hearted, open-minded, generous-spirited, compassionate people. The majority of us are decent and hard-working, wishing to do the right thing for our families, friends and communities. We have been an outward-looking, internationalist nation for centuries: Great Britons, not Little Englanders. We need to embrace Europe and the wider world, not exclude ourselves from it.

There will not be another referendum on Europe. This is it. The decision we take on June 23 will shape our country, our people and our livelihoods for generations to come. I have no doubt that the long-term positives of our country's membership of the EU far outweigh the short-term frustrations of it.

That is why each and every vote is crucial, for our children and grandchildren will not easily forgive us if we get it wrong

http://www.strongerin.co.uk/john_major_vote_leave_s_campaign_is_an_unforgivable_fraud_on_british_people

[Martinus]

Ish. There are good pragmatic reasons for voting to stay - eg. Scotland leaving the union if England votes to leave the EU. The social impact can be mitigated by vastly increasing spending in areas that have particularly high immigration so services aren't under strain. There is truth to the pressure on low wages. But again the Tory/Brexit solution to those issues is to leave the EU rather than, for example, increase spending and prosecute businesses that are breaking labour law and getting away with it because they're exploiting migrants. It's a bit like the '£350 million we spend on the EU could be spent on the NHS'. I never knew so many right-wing Tories and UKIPers were keen on spending more money on the NHS.

Just to be clear, I am anti-Brexit. I think the EU membership is good for Britain overall and it is good for Europe, obviously. But the UK government has done a lousy job making sure the benefits (and pains) of EU membership are shared more or less equally by the populace. So (similarly to the situation with Trump and US trade deals), I have some sympathy for the "populist" side - they are popular because the "mainstream elites" failed so badly.