-
I'd really like to agree but since the EU has existed these things have increased so why should we believe that will change?
deleted-
They have also increased outside the EU. So leaving will make little/no difference.
-
It's increased during the same time the EU existed because that's also the same time Microsoft Excel was invented, and computing went from niche to saturation, global communications speed went down to milliseconds for huge volumes of data.
We're witnessing, and living through, not the effect of the EU, but the effect of a technological revolution.
We're seeing changes in industry from manufacturing, to services, to redundancies... not because of the EU, but because technology automates and is crawling up the chain of work from manual to intellectual.
This enormous thing is huge, it's impact is across our lifetime and it is hard to see just like it's hard to sit back and watch an oak tree grow. But it is growing, and it really is now huge and overshadowing everything else.
The EU would be where they are regardless, but the things that people are voting on are mostly the direct impact of a technological revolution. You only have to look at the largest multinationals, the list of the top companies is dominated by companies that mostly did not exist several decades ago. All of whom are so efficient at making cash that they have reserves larger than the GDP of countries. All of whom are so efficient that they pay real rates of barely 1-2% globally, and are happy to just leave cash in banks waiting for the next takeover target (when they become more efficient).
Immigration as the single topic of focus is crazy, the 0.5% influx is smaller than a baby boom generation.
The issue is tax, money, how and why the rich and the multinationals get to not be taxed, how countries make that up by taxing their population more or cutting services... it's the economy. It always has been.
-
The EU tends to be more egalitarian and socialist in scope, if only because most of the member states are.
In any case, that certainly won't change if we leave (under present Conservative managed circumstances) but excesses may be curbed if we remain.I have a friend who works in the financial sector who reckons that when the Liberal Democrats shared power with the Tories, they restrained greatly what the Tories actually would have implemented had they ruled with a majority.
c00ps
Velocio
The_Kindness_of_Trees
Tax avoidance is the reason I voted remain.
It was the single issue for me. The whole referendum was too complex and none of the real issues were discussed, but I went through a process of prioritising what I felt was important until I reduced it to tax.
The UK is wealthy, the EU is wealthy. The class divides are entrenched, the rich get richer and the poor poorer, and even the middle class is dramatically reduced. There is finite wealth at any time, and it is distributed badly and the distribution gets worse each yeah... the rough conclusion I reached was that the technological revolution, has delivered efficiencies over the past 30 years to identify not just where to save cash and how to profit better, but also enormous automation of accounting and law... the rich, their companies, have never ever been more efficient machines of moving wealth from the lower echelons of society to the upper.
In my view, this whole referendum is only occurring because that efficiency finally hit the middle class who are outraged that they are not as wealthy as they once were. They've mistakenly blamed immigrants, whereas they should blame government for rimming banks and multi-nationals for so long that they'd rather do that than serve their people.
The EU, it's a mess. But they do have both the power and will to do something the UK government never would... to take on the multinationals and banks. It may be slow and archaic, but they do get there eventually. Herding cats, but you still would not want to be in the way once the herd arrives.
If anyone in this country thinks things are bad now, things are not as bad as when you remove the EU from the equation.
Tax avoidance/evasion by multinationals and banks, tax havens (mostly run by the City of London)... this was the single issue for me.
It's always about the economy.