Should the UK leave the EU?

[Raithe]

It does seem to be having that point of "Don't worry, we promise we'll keep you economically secure and happy. You just have to stop worrying your heads about democratic voting and trust the bureaucracy to handle everything."

[Zoraptor]

 

This is just the most pathetic political debate I've ever witnessed.

 

For a few months, maybe. There's still Hillary vs Donald to look forward to and I'm confident they can attain patheticness that will make Dave, Boris, Nigel et al look like they've been taking part in an Oxford Union Debate.

[BruceVC]

It does seem to be having that point of "Don't worry, we promise we'll keep you economically secure and happy. You just have to stop worrying your heads about democratic voting and trust the bureaucracy to handle everything."

Yes, this is exactly what the EU offers and it can only work if it is structured the way it is

 

I am surprised people object to this, was this not explained? So your economy will flourish and you will never be abandoned...guys do you have any idea how many African countries will gladly give up things like bureaucracy just to get out of poverty?

[Raithe]

 

Yes, this is exactly what the EU offers and it can only work if it is structured the way it is

 

 

I am surprised people object to this, was this not explained? So your economy will flourish and you will never be abandoned...guys do you have any idea how many African countries will gladly give up things like bureaucracy just to get out of poverty?

 

 

Uh, Dude, this is not giving up bureaucracy. This is increasing bureaucracy, this is giving up your DEMOCRATIC vote. You will have NO say in the laws. You will not get to vote for representatives who make laws. You will not get the right to vote representatives out of office who make laws you think are wrong. Once laws are made by the EU, there is NO process to have them repealed. The people who make the laws aren't voted for.

 

So, it's pretty much giving up any sense of having a say in how the government works. Just be a good little boy, give us the taxes, let us have our money, and trust us to do good by you. Be happy that you have a safe zone.

[BruceVC]

 

 

Yes, this is exactly what the EU offers and it can only work if it is structured the way it is

 

 

I am surprised people object to this, was this not explained? So your economy will flourish and you will never be abandoned...guys do you have any idea how many African countries will gladly give up things like bureaucracy just to get out of poverty?

 

 

Uh, Dude, this is not giving up bureaucracy. This is increasing bureaucracy, this is giving up your DEMOCRATIC vote. You will have NO say in the laws. You will not get to vote for representatives who make laws. You will not get the right to vote representatives out of office who make laws you think are wrong. Once laws are made by the EU, there is NO process to have them repealed. The people who make the laws aren't voted for.

 

So, it's pretty much giving up any sense of having a say in how the government works. Just be a good little boy, give us the taxes, let us have our money, and trust us to do good by you. Be happy that you have a safe zone.

 

Okay but surly the views of the UK would be at least considered ?

[Raithe]

 

Okay but surly the views of the UK would be at least considered ?

 

 

 

Bruce, I feel you're missing the key thrust of this. It's not a question of whether they'll be benign or not. The question is would you really, truly be perfectly happy to abandon your say in your government purely on the fuzzy promise that they'll look after you in the future. But if they don't.. you'll have given up your chance to argue with them or vote them out of office.

[BruceVC]

 

 

Okay but surly the views of the UK would be at least considered ?

 

 

 

Bruce, I feel you're missing the key thrust of this. It's not a question of whether they'll be benign or not. The question is would you really, truly be perfectly happy to abandon your say in your government purely on the fuzzy promise that they'll look after you in the future. But if they don't.. you'll have given up your chance to argue with them or vote them out of office.

 

You see to me that is  not an issue  because I currently have no say in government and my vote is irrelevant ...but thats because of our history so its not a big deal

 

Also let me not hide this, I am in a  very fortunate  position where I could get  a job in the UK and possibly the USA because of the work I do. So I never ever feel trapped not that I want to leave SA 

[213374U]

Especially since GB's contributions to the budget will fall away, and that money will have to come from somewhere. And it sure won't be coming from those nice Eastern European chaps...

I'm sure some more can be squeezed out of Greece.

 

Anyway. I don't know why y'all in such a hurry to leave. Wherever are you going to find a nicer evil overlord?

 

[JadedWolf]

 

 

 

Okay but surly the views of the UK would be at least considered ?

 

 

 

Bruce, I feel you're missing the key thrust of this. It's not a question of whether they'll be benign or not. The question is would you really, truly be perfectly happy to abandon your say in your government purely on the fuzzy promise that they'll look after you in the future. But if they don't.. you'll have given up your chance to argue with them or vote them out of office.

 

You see to me that is  not an issue  because I currently have no say in government and my vote is irrelevant ...but thats because of our history so its not a big deal

 

Also let me not hide this, I am in a  very fortunate  position where I could get  a job in the UK and possibly the USA because of the work I do. So I never ever feel trapped not that I want to leave SA 

 

 

That's great for you, but completely irrelevant to the situation at hand. You have to understand that most people, well, they're not you.

 

In fact, this bears repeating, because I feel it's something that you should really take to heart. Most people are not you, Bruce. Most people are not in your, dare I say it, privileged position. Now I am not saying you should be ashamed, but you could maybe try to see things through other people's eyes sometimes.

 

I am saying this without a trace of irony, by the way.

[BruceVC]

 

 

 

 

Okay but surly the views of the UK would be at least considered ?

 

 

 

Bruce, I feel you're missing the key thrust of this. It's not a question of whether they'll be benign or not. The question is would you really, truly be perfectly happy to abandon your say in your government purely on the fuzzy promise that they'll look after you in the future. But if they don't.. you'll have given up your chance to argue with them or vote them out of office.

 

You see to me that is  not an issue  because I currently have no say in government and my vote is irrelevant ...but thats because of our history so its not a big deal

 

Also let me not hide this, I am in a  very fortunate  position where I could get  a job in the UK and possibly the USA because of the work I do. So I never ever feel trapped not that I want to leave SA 

 

 

That's great for you, but completely irrelevant to the situation at hand. You have to understand that most people, well, they're not you.

 

In fact, this bears repeating, because I feel it's something that you should really take to heart. Most people are not you, Bruce. Most people are not in your, dare I say it, privileged position. Now I am not saying you should be ashamed, but you could maybe try to see things through other people's eyes sometimes.

 

I am saying this without a trace of irony, by the way.

 

I think it is  disingenuous to come to any forum and discuss social realities but deny your own reality or to now act like you have had a hard life but please be aware I have been working the last 15 years but yes I suppose I have always had a net to fall back on. So I wont deny that 

 

 

But this mustnt been seen as a way to dismiss my view on the EU and other topics because its exactly because of my exposure to certain  industries ....or rather for example in this case a view that is a combination of opinions. Two of my cousins work at HSBC in London in emerging markets. These guys are really clever at finance, much clever than me and yet they are in panic about this possible exit ..its weird they normally have a informed view or multiple opinions but this has unnerved them

[Oerwinde]

Bruce, the UK is the birthplace of parliamentary democracy, I'm sure they have some misgivings about giving it up. As for the UK having a say, my understanding is they objected in 72 instances to having certain EU laws pass, and lost 72 of those votes not much of a say

[BruceVC]

Bruce, the UK is the birthplace of parliamentary democracy, I'm sure they have some misgivings about giving it up. As for the UK having a say, my understanding is they objected in 72 instances to having certain EU laws pass, and lost 72 of those votes not much of a say

Yes but they dont need to feel that way, they choosing to say this " matters " 

 

But many people may say the EU is more important in the long term 

[Oerwinde]

Collectivists vs Individualists Bruce. Individualists built the west and the free market economy, collectivists built 3rd world hellholes.

[JadedWolf]

And some of us fall in between both, and would prefer to have the best of both worlds while avoiding the evils.

 

To be honest, that's the thing I generally like about Europe. We allow each other freedom, but we do also take care of each other when needed.

[Valsuelm]

Collectivists vs Individualists Bruce. Individualists built the west and the free market economy, collectivists built 3rd world hellholes.

 

Actually, collectivists built the second world hellholes.

 

The third world hellholes were built/made by both the first world and the second world together.

 

Nowadays there is little difference between the first and second worlds, and both are largely highwaying it to the third.

 

The nice individualists have allowed the more oft not so nice collectivists the stage for a bit too long. Also, both individualists and collectivists have allowed themselves to be fooled by evil MFers who adhere to neither general philosophy, but only to a philosophy of power. It's the latter folks who are driving the train all over, while employing conductors to make sure the passengers are so at odds with one another they don't look out the window to see where they're going nor realize who is driving.

[BruceVC]

And some of us fall in between both, and would prefer to have the best of both worlds while avoiding the evils.

 

To be honest, that's the thing I generally like about Europe. We allow each other freedom, but we do also take care of each other when needed.

Once again so nice to see someone in the EU on this forum say something sincere and kind about how they feel about the EU

 

"But we do also take care of each other when needed " 

 

I have been on these forums for 4 years and I have a semi-photographic memory and thats the first time anyone has ever said anything personal and real about each other. Seriously, 4 years and not one person who lives in the EU out of all the members ever just said something like " I may have issues with the central government but I care about my fellow EU members "

 

Even people like Elerond who is positive would say " yes I like the EU but structural changes must happen " 

 

Normally I would say something because its not normal but I left it as my second home is the UK, after SA ,  and this was one of those rare times where I felt I am not going to try to convince people how lucky they are \

 

So I left it .....    But thanks for being honest 

[Raithe]

Cameron says he must do more to make the case for staying

 

 

David Cameron has said he has four days left to make a better case to keep Britain in the EU as many voters remain confused about the referendum that will decide the fate of his leadership.

 

The prime minister invoked the memory of Winston Churchill as he delivered an impassioned plea for Britain to be fighters, not quitters, when it comes to the EU.

During a special edition of the BBC’s Question Time, he urged voters to listen to him and economic experts on the dangers of leaving the EU and argued that it would be "crazy" if people voted to leave in the belief that Turkey will join. The UK would not support Turkish accession in the next few years and it was unlikely to happen for decades, Cameron said.

With the polls neck and neck, Cameron acknowledged that people have been finding the debate "perhaps quite confusing" and that the remain campaign needed to do more to convince them.

 

"I’ve got four days to go," he said. "I want to do better at getting this argument across.

"To me, it comes down to a simple point about the economy, but also what sort of country do we want to be? I want to be a country that does want to work with others. What I’ve learned in six years is there is no problem in the world that isn’t better addressed with your allies, your friends and your neighbours."

He insisted that the referendum was not a vote on his leadership and that people should not vote to leave in order to punish him, but it is widely expected that Cameron would not stay for long in Downing Street if there were an out vote.

 

Throughout the 45-minute session, Cameron was given a hard time by the audience over his failures to bring down immigration as he promised. At one point, he was accused by an audience member of being a "21st-century Neville Chamberlain, waving a piece of paper in the air [and] saying to the public: ‘This is what I have, I have this prize, but a dictatorship in Europe can overrule it’".

 

The prime minister appeared shaken and emotional as he replied, referencing Chamberlain’s wartime successor, Winston Churchill, saying: "I don’t think Britain at the end is a quitter, I think we stay and we fight.

"At my office, I sit two yards away from the cabinet room where Winston Churchill decided in May 1940 to fight on against Hitler, the greatest decision that anyone has ever made in our country.

 

"Now he didn’t want to be alone; he wanted to be fighting with the French and the Poles, but he didn’t quit, he didn’t quit on Europe, he didn’t quit on European democracy, he didn’t quit on European freedom. We want to fight for those things today. You can’t fight if you are not in the room. Britain doesn’t quit, we fight, and that is how we win."

The prime minister then sought to calm questions about immigration by hinting that he could seek future reform of free movement rules in Europe.

Cameron also made reference to Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was killed on Thursday, saying he wanted to make sure that the debate did not descend into "intolerance, hatred and division". Over the past 24 hours, he has sought to frame a clear choice in the EU debate between a tolerant Britain of Cox and an intolerant Britain of the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, that "divides rather than unites".

 

The campaign has now fully resumed after a two-day truce prompted by the death of Cox. Despite calls for a more respectful tone, hostilities flared up again between the two sides over the weekend.

 

Leave campaigners are furious that the remain camp has sought to emphasise the pro-EU views of Cox.

Andrew Murrison, a Conservative MP and former defence minister, said in a tweet that he later deleted: "Remain side spinning Jo Cox murder for partisan advantage in #EUReferendum shameful."

 

On the other side, a number of senior pro-EU politicians have argued that rhetoric from the Brexit campaign has gone too far in whipping up anti-immigrant feeling. As MPs prepared to honour Cox in the House of Commons on Monday, Stephen Kinnock, Labour MP and one of her close friends, wrote in the Guardian: "The hatred that killed Jo, the poison that has seeped into our politics in recent years, with increasing venom in the past weeks and months, must end.

 

"There are those who say we must ‘take our country’ back, who castigate those on one side of an argument as an ‘elite’, in the pay of an establishment, in it for themselves and detached from the real world. Those people have to realise that their aggressive words and dangerous rhetoric have consequences. If you try to light a fuse, you can’t be surprised when it catches."

 

Others have directed their criticism at Farage’s poster showing a snaking queue of non-white migrants, with the slogan "Breaking Point" and a plea to leave the EU.

The message of the poster also triggered a defection from leave to remain, as the former Conservative chairman Sayeeda Warsi told the Times that she could not continue to support the Brexit campaign when it was spreading "hate and xenophobia".

 

The chancellor, George Osborne, said the poster was "disgusting and vile" with echoes of 1930s propaganda, while the former shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper called on Vote Leave to do more to condemn the poster and withdraw its own advert about the threat of millions of Turkish people potentially moving to the UK. Cameron described the former as "wrong".

 

Farage was defiant in the face of the criticism, saying he was a "victim of hate" and claiming that the row might not have blown up were it not for the killing of Cox.

The Ukip leader also became the first politician to voice the opinion that Cox’s death may have cost the leave campaign some momentum after polls over the weekend suggested that the campaigns are once again tied.

 

As tensions ran high, Vote Leave appeared keen to tone down its rhetoric on immigration and took several opportunities to distance itself further from the Ukip poster. The justice secretary, Michael Gove, a leading Brexit campaigner, said the poster made him shudder, while the Labour MP John Mann said it was "unhelpful, inaccurate and irrelevant" and should be withdrawn.

 

At a rally in London, the former London mayor Boris Johnson spoke of his commitment to an amnesty for illegal immigrants who entered the country more than 12 years ago in an apparent attempt to detoxify the campaign’s image.

Johnson’s words on immigration prompted a handful of boos and shouts of "No" from people in the crowd, but he said the amnesty would help those trapped and "unable to contribute to this economy, unable to pay taxes, unable to take proper part in society".

Vote Leave also sought to highlight controversial remarks about immigration made by the remain camp, including Cameron’s reference to a "swarm" of migrants and the description by the foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, of migrants as "marauding".

 

Earlier, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said he blamed "several years of endless newspaper headlines" for the anti-immigration feeling in large parts of the country and argued there could not be a limit on numbers because of EU free movement rules.

 

With the vote fast approaching, the leave campaign has little choice but to continue stressing its point that exiting the EU would allow the UK to take back control of its borders. Immigration is regarded as leave’s strongest suit, while remain will want to turn the emphasis of the final few days back on to the economy.

After the Question Time debate, Matthew Elliott, the chief executive of Vote Leave, said: "David Cameron repeatedly refused to say that he would veto Turkey joining the EU ... Cameron had no answers to people’s legitimate concerns on immigration tonight and failed to set out how he would meet his manifesto pledge to bring the numbers back down to the tens of thousands, while remaining in the EU. He had no answer on how we would fund the NHS to cope with higher levels of immigration."

 

Vote Leave has focused heavily on immigration for several weeks, with a particular emphasis on the impact on the health service. That element of its campaign is now coming under attack from the British Medical Association, with the chair of its council, Dr Mark Porter, accusing leave campaigners of making "farcical and fatuous claims".

Porter will use his keynote speech at the group’s annual representative meeting on Monday to argue that the NHS would not exist in the form it did without the support of tens of thousands of workers from overseas. He will say that the BMA has not told its members how to vote.

 

"Where none of us can be neutral, however, is in condemning the farcical and fatuous claims that have been a by-product of the political campaigns. We’ve warned before about politicians playing games with the health service. Here we see game playing on a truly continental scale," he is expected to say.

"That promise of billions of pounds of extra NHS funding if we leave the European Union, it’s beyond irresponsible."

He will say that promise assumes the British economy will not be hit by Brexit and is therefore based on "fantasy figures".

[Oner]

[Meshugger]

 

Terrific. If i was briton, i would be more than ever convinced to leave the EU. It's like a textbook example on reverse psychology.

[Elerond]

 

Finally to our friends who are part of the EU dont think if the UK leaves this is the end of the EU dream, absolutely not. The EU will continue to be a successful  union but with less overall revenue which it will address

 

 

Yes, well, countries like the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Denmark may feel quite a bit more uncomfortable in an E.U. without GB to balance out Germany and France, so I wouldn't be too sure things will be business as usual. Especially since GB's contributions to the budget will fall away, and that money will have to come from somewhere. And it sure won't be coming from those nice Eastern European chaps...

 

 

UK has been more often against Finland in issues than on same side in EU politics. Although now that Finns Party (our anti EU - anti immigration - right wing nationalist party ) is in government and they are allies with Conservatives in EU parliament I would guess that our countries start to be more often on same page.

[Raithe]

One of the interesting quirks I've noted of late, is the push to say that the Leave campaign is anti-globalisation. Now, while a chunk of the Leave do seem to contain a bunch of xenophobic isolationists, a whole batch of the Leave campaign has been pushing on the idea that once we're out of the EU we'll be able to have better trade relations and connections with the world at large outside of Europe. Now, is it me, but isn't that actually kind of pro-globalisation?

[JadedWolf]

 

And some of us fall in between both, and would prefer to have the best of both worlds while avoiding the evils.

 

To be honest, that's the thing I generally like about Europe. We allow each other freedom, but we do also take care of each other when needed.

Once again so nice to see someone in the EU on this forum say something sincere and kind about how they feel about the EU

 

"But we do also take care of each other when needed " 

 

I have been on these forums for 4 years and I have a semi-photographic memory and thats the first time anyone has ever said anything personal and real about each other. Seriously, 4 years and not one person who lives in the EU out of all the members ever just said something like " I may have issues with the central government but I care about my fellow EU members "

 

Even people like Elerond who is positive would say " yes I like the EU but structural changes must happen " 

 

Normally I would say something because its not normal but I left it as my second home is the UK, after SA ,  and this was one of those rare times where I felt I am not going to try to convince people how lucky they are \

 

So I left it .....    But thanks for being honest 

 

 

Yeah, I am afraid you are taking it the wrong way. What I mean is that a lot of European states have a model that allows freedom while people still take care of each other, and this is something I like about Europe in general. But this taking care of each other is mostly only for people of our own nationality. We simply don't have the same connection with other Europeans as we have with people of our own nationality. And why should we?

 

I mean, I have to be honest here, if I compare myself to the average French person for example... Well, it makes me glad to be Dutch.

 

Apologies to any French person reading this.

[Meshugger]

 

PETER HITCHENS: There's a faint chance we may get our nation back one day...

 

The part of the referendum campaign that has angered me most is this: the suggestion, repeatedly made by pro-EU persons, that there is something narrow, mean and small-minded about wanting to live in an independent country that makes its own laws and controls its own borders.

 

I can think of no other country where the elite are so hostile to their own nation, and so contemptuous of it.

I have spent many years trying to work out why this is. I think it is because Britain – the great, free, gentle country it once was and might be again – disproves all their theories.

Most of our governing class, especially in the media, politics and the law, is still enslaved by 1960s ideals that have been discredited everywhere they have been tried.

These are themselves modified versions of the communist notions that first took hold here in the 1930s. But the things they claim to want – personal liberty, freedom of conscience, clean government, equality of opportunity, equality before the law, a compassionate state, a safety net through which none can fall, and a ladder that all can climb – existed here without any of these airy dogmas.

How annoying that an ancient monarchy, encrusted with tradition, Christian in nature, enforced by hanging judges in red robes, had come so much closer to an ideal society than Trotsky or Castro ever did or ever could.

The contradiction made the radicals’ brains fizz and sputter. How could this be? If it was so, they were wrong. Utopians, as George Orwell demonstrated, prefer their visions to reality or truth. Two and two must be made to make five, if it suits them. 

So, rather than allow their hearts to lift at the sight of such a success as Britain was, and ashamed to be patriots, they set out to destroy the living proof that they were wrong.

They took a hammer to our intricate constitution. They dissolved the best state secondary schools in the world and then attacked the best universities in the world for refusing to lower their standards too.

They dismantled the most relaxed and generous union of neighbouring nations ever seen in the history of the world.

And while they did this, they moved our landmarks, such as our unique coinage and a human, poetic system of weights and measures, polished in use. They replaced the advanced world’s only unarmed police force with a baseball-capped, scowling gendarmerie festooned with guns, clubs and gas canisters.

They presided over a systematic forgetting of our national literature, so that a land where every ploughboy once knew the King James Bible is now full of people to whom the works of Shakespeare, Bunyan, Dickens, Wordsworth and Tennyson may as well be written in Martian.

They declared themselves ‘Europeans’. They regarded this as superior to their own country. ‘How modern! How efficient!’ they trilled. I have heard them do it. They did not notice that the EU was also a secretive, distant and unresponsive monolith, hostile or indifferent to the freedoms we had so carefully created and so doggedly preserved.

They failed to see that its ‘parliament’ does not even have an opposition, that its executive is accountable to nobody. They inherited jury trial, habeas corpus and the Bill of Rights – the greatest guarantees of human freedom on the planet – and they traded in this solid gold for the worthless paper currency of human rights.

If they win on Thursday, the process of abolishing Britain will be complete. If they lose, as I hope they do and still think they will, there is a faint, slender chance that we may get our country back one day.

 

Random horror of mental illness

 

I would not dream of exploiting the untimely death of a young mother for political purposes. I am grieved for all those who loved Jo Cox, and are desolated by her death. I extend my sympathy to them.

But I have the strong sense that others do seek to turn this event into propaganda for a cause. It has happened very swiftly. It needs to cease. And to counter it I shall need to say some things I would normally have waited some time to say, as I would prefer to have more evidence than I now have. This consideration does not seem to bother those whom I criticise.

The suggestion has been made that Mrs Cox died because of her views on the EU. The implication is that those with different views are in some way to blame for her death. We should scornfully reject this insinuation. Nobody on any side in the EU debate wishes any opponent dead. 

In this country, no cause is served by violence and no rational person believes that it is. Political murder is not common here, and in modern times has usually been the calculated and vengeful work of Irish criminal terror gangs.

What is regrettably common is the random killing of innocent people by the mentally ill. Numbers vary and can be calculated in many different ways, but even The Guardian accepts that in 2010 there were 40 such killings across the UK, carried out by patients with mental-health problems. In 2005, there were 92. In the decade 2001-2010 there were 738 by one calculation, or 1,216 by another. 

People going about their daily business are pushed under trains, stabbed, kicked to death, even beheaded by unhinged assailants, who have suddenly and unpredictably become violent. 

Many of these killers are known by the authorities to be ill but still allowed to walk the streets, because dozens of mental hospitals have been shut to save money. Some of them have become ill following long-term use of cannabis, now decriminalised in all but name. A long-overdue reversal of these foolish policies would be a better cause than trying to take partisan advantage of a human tragedy.

Disturbed people do sometimes embrace the wilder political and religious creeds. But it is their mental illness, not these barely understood ‘opinions’, that makes them capable of the dreadful act of killing – an act which separates them from the rest of humanity.

 

The alleged killer, Thomas Mair, is said by neighbours to have a history of mental illness. By his own account it seems likely that he has taken some sort of medication at some stage. He is said by his family to have had no interest in politics. Let us leave Jo Cox’s family and friends to mourn. And let us all listen carefully to the evidence when it is, eventually, placed before the courts.

 

 

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column

[Raithe]

BBC - UK and the EU: Better off out or in?

 

A look at the issues and what both sides have to say.

[BruceVC]

 

 

And some of us fall in between both, and would prefer to have the best of both worlds while avoiding the evils.

 

To be honest, that's the thing I generally like about Europe. We allow each other freedom, but we do also take care of each other when needed.

Once again so nice to see someone in the EU on this forum say something sincere and kind about how they feel about the EU

 

"But we do also take care of each other when needed " 

 

I have been on these forums for 4 years and I have a semi-photographic memory and thats the first time anyone has ever said anything personal and real about each other. Seriously, 4 years and not one person who lives in the EU out of all the members ever just said something like " I may have issues with the central government but I care about my fellow EU members "

 

Even people like Elerond who is positive would say " yes I like the EU but structural changes must happen " 

 

Normally I would say something because its not normal but I left it as my second home is the UK, after SA ,  and this was one of those rare times where I felt I am not going to try to convince people how lucky they are \

 

So I left it .....    But thanks for being honest 

 

 

Yeah, I am afraid you are taking it the wrong way. What I mean is that a lot of European states have a model that allows freedom while people still take care of each other, and this is something I like about Europe in general. But this taking care of each other is mostly only for people of our own nationality. We simply don't have the same connection with other Europeans as we have with people of our own nationality. And why should we?

 

I mean, I have to be honest here, if I compare myself to the average French person for example... Well, it makes me glad to be Dutch.

 

Apologies to any French person reading this.

 

 

You right I did completely misunderstand it....so you meant EU states generally only care for themselves,  okay back to my silence on how close you guys all are