Brexit or Britin

[Worthy4England]

Anyone know much about polling? Why is there such a disparity between the results of the online vs phone polls for the referendum? Is one or the other more reliable? Phone Polls give big lead to remain - Online Polls are neck and neck.

All I know is that over the weekend I have spoken to around 20 friends and family and the subject of the vote came up, (not my doing I must hasten to add) and to my surprise actually, being they come from a wide political spectrum, to a person they all said they would be voting 'out'.
The main reason given, the fear, yes fear of what the EU is going to dump on us in future, Merkel and the Germans got many a mention.
Hardly scientific, but there you go, some of them were nailed on 'in' voters in my eyes.

You and I in nearly agreement.

I think, based on a similar level of science, that it's tending towards out.

[bobo the clown]

Anyone know much about polling? Why is there such a disparity between the results of the online vs phone polls for the referendum? Is one or the other more reliable? Phone Polls give big lead to remain - Online Polls are neck and neck.

Truth is I think even the experts who study polling don't know.

I've heard a theory that online polls skew towards the politically engaged somehow, which may make them less accurate. But look at the last election, the polling companies ended up with too many young, left leaning folk in their samples and failed to weight for the fact that many of those people don't vote compared to the old Tory gimmers.

... or put another way; if the pollsters rely on "modern" polling methods and only listen to the loud then their results are inevitably going to be skewed.

I still believe (instinct, no facts) the Remain group will win. But it'll be close. In which case the intent of this, to sort the issue out once & for all, will fail.

[BWFC_Insane]

Anyone know much about polling? Why is there such a disparity between the results of the online vs phone polls for the referendum? Is one or the other more reliable? Phone Polls give big lead to remain - Online Polls are neck and neck.

Truth is I think even the experts who study polling don't know.

I've heard a theory that online polls skew towards the politically engaged somehow, which may make them less accurate. But look at the last election, the polling companies ended up with too many young, left leaning folk in their samples and failed to weight for the fact that many of those people don't vote compared to the old Tory gimmers.

... or put another way; if the pollsters rely on "modern" polling methods and only listen to the loud then their results are inevitably going to be skewed.

I still believe (instinct, no facts) the Remain group will win. But it'll be close. In which case the intent of this, to sort the issue out once & for all, will fail.

Don't think it'll be resolved once and for all either way to be honest in terms of a public debate. Things change all the time to tweak the argument either way.

But the vote will give a mandate by majority one way or another.

[Rjs37]

meanwhile - Farridge - still miffed that he wasn't invited onto Boris blunder-Bus has been squawking on about there needing to be a second referendum if they lose this one narrowly - cos this one won't have been fair...

In that situation I wouldn't be surprised to see another one in 10-20 years. I can't see it happening any sooner, especially if Labour get in next time around. But I don't think the general distrust of the EU would just disappear over night after a remain win. Especially a tight win. It would be down to the UK government and the EU to secure further reforms, and if they don't or if the situation worsens, then I wouldn't be surprised to see calls and pressure for a second referendum.

On the flipside, if leave wins I think (as I mentioned in my first post in this thread) there would almost certainly be a second referendum. Either one of those repeat referendums because we made the wrong decision (if it's been done for EU treaties why not EU membership itself), or to give the UK the choice of which type of trade agreement we should be going for, similar to the Swiss referendum.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Anyone know much about polling? Why is there such a disparity between the results of the online vs phone polls for the referendum? Is one or the other more reliable? Phone Polls give big lead to remain - Online Polls are neck and neck.

All I know is that over the weekend I have spoken to around 20 friends and family and the subject of the vote came up, (not my doing I must hasten to add) and to my surprise actually, being they come from a wide political spectrum, to a person they all said they would be voting 'out'.
The main reason given, the fear, yes fear of what the EU is going to dump on us in future, Merkel and the Germans got many a mention.
Hardly scientific, but there you go, some of them were nailed on 'in' voters in my eyes.

Bish, I've said it before, the result is the result, I'll sit back, laugh and watch the faux outrage of those conned into 'vote stay' when the EU policies start to effect their mainly middleclass lives.
Encouraging the youth with little knowledge of history and somewhat naïve in out look to vote yes is akin to Turkey's voting for Christmas.
On the subject of Turkey one slightly deluded youth told me it would mean cheaper holidays there if we stayed in!

I'm genuinely torn on the issue and have no idea how I will vote. Long term I think we're better out, but short term I worry the consequences of Boris, Gove and his mates wreaking havoc in the aftermath of an out vote for 4/5 years, when inevitably Cameron is ousted. I'm no fan of Cameron, but he's preferable to Boris, Gove and IDS et al. I can't even see Labour getting their act together for 2020, so it could be Boris for nearly a decade

[bedwetter2]

Anyone know much about polling? Why is there such a disparity between the results of the online vs phone polls for the referendum? Is one or the other more reliable? Phone Polls give big lead to remain - Online Polls are neck and neck.

All I know is that over the weekend I have spoken to around 20 friends and family and the subject of the vote came up, (not my doing I must hasten to add) and to my surprise actually, being they come from a wide political spectrum, to a person they all said they would be voting 'out'.
The main reason given, the fear, yes fear of what the EU is going to dump on us in future, Merkel and the Germans got many a mention.
Hardly scientific, but there you go, some of them were nailed on 'in' voters in my eyes.

Bish, I've said it before, the result is the result, I'll sit back, laugh and watch the faux outrage of those conned into 'vote stay' when the EU policies start to effect their mainly middleclass lives.
Encouraging the youth with little knowledge of history and somewhat naïve in out look to vote yes is akin to Turkey's voting for Christmas.
On the subject of Turkey one slightly deluded youth told me it would mean cheaper holidays there if we stayed in!

I'm genuinely torn on the issue and have no idea how I will vote. Long term I think we're better out, but short term I worry the consequences of Boris, Gove and his mates wreaking havoc in the aftermath of an out vote for 4/5 years, when inevitably Cameron is ousted. I'm no fan of Cameron, but he's preferable to Boris, Gove and IDS et al. I can't even see Labour getting their act together for 2020, so it could be Boris for nearly a decade

If only Mystic Meg was still around. The truth is that no one knows and it's all guesswork. I still don't think the EU people know how unpopular they are and that also goes for many of the out campaigners. The electorate shouldn't vote on the basis of who they like/don't like, but in the absence of empirical data that is how many will decide.

I don't know if anyone else read the article in the Sunday Times giving the history of Cameron's views on the EU. Let's just say that he, together with Corbyn, has performed a massive backflip in his public support for Remains. Has someone got something on them both.....like photographs of an homoerotic tryst in the House of Commons lavatories?

[Montreal Wanderer]

Anyone know much about polling? Why is there such a disparity between the results of the online vs phone polls for the referendum? Is one or the other more reliable? Phone Polls give big lead to remain - Online Polls are neck and neck.

Over here phone polls only go to landlines not cell (mobile) phones. Therefore the demographic is quite different. People with landlines tend to be older and more conservative than cell phone users. The same older group is quite happy with email and web-surfing, but are not into texting and apps. So basically different poll methodologies reach different classes of people. Not sure about the UK situation with regard age and technologies.

[Beefheart]

Anyone know much about polling? Why is there such a disparity between the results of the online vs phone polls for the referendum? Is one or the other more reliable? Phone Polls give big lead to remain - Online Polls are neck and neck.

Over here phone polls only go to landlines not cell (mobile) phones. Therefore the demographic is quite different. People with landlines tend to be older and more conservative than cell phone users. The same older group is quite happy with email and web-surfing, but are not into texting and apps. So basically different poll methodologies reach different classes of people. Not sure about the UK situation with regard age and technologies.

Logical, but then you'd expect the phone polls to favour brexit, and the online polls remain, as there's a clear split in terms of the age demographic. Depends on the methodology as you say.

[Beefheart]

Anyone know much about polling? Why is there such a disparity between the results of the online vs phone polls for the referendum? Is one or the other more reliable? Phone Polls give big lead to remain - Online Polls are neck and neck.

All I know is that over the weekend I have spoken to around 20 friends and family and the subject of the vote came up, (not my doing I must hasten to add) and to my surprise actually, being they come from a wide political spectrum, to a person they all said they would be voting 'out'.
The main reason given, the fear, yes fear of what the EU is going to dump on us in future, Merkel and the Germans got many a mention.
Hardly scientific, but there you go, some of them were nailed on 'in' voters in my eyes.

Bish, I've said it before, the result is the result, I'll sit back, laugh and watch the faux outrage of those conned into 'vote stay' when the EU policies start to effect their mainly middleclass lives.
Encouraging the youth with little knowledge of history and somewhat naïve in out look to vote yes is akin to Turkey's voting for Christmas.
On the subject of Turkey one slightly deluded youth told me it would mean cheaper holidays there if we stayed in!

I'm genuinely torn on the issue and have no idea how I will vote. Long term I think we're better out, but short term I worry the consequences of Boris, Gove and his mates wreaking havoc in the aftermath of an out vote for 4/5 years, when inevitably Cameron is ousted. I'm no fan of Cameron, but he's preferable to Boris, Gove and IDS et al. I can't even see Labour getting their act together for 2020, so it could be Boris for nearly a decade

If only Mystic Meg was still around. The truth is that no one knows and it's all guesswork. I still don't think the EU people know how unpopular they are and that also goes for many of the out campaigners. The electorate shouldn't vote on the basis of who they like/don't like, but in the absence of empirical data that is how many will decide.

I don't know if anyone else read the article in the Sunday Times giving the history of Cameron's views on the EU. Let's just say that he, together with Corbyn, has performed a massive backflip in his public support for Remains. Has someone got something on them both.....like photographs of an homoerotic tryst in the House of Commons lavatories?

I can't seem them being into the same sort of stuff. Corbyn is a vegan. Cameron feck* dead pigs.

[Armchair Wanderer]

To correct myself... I think I was moaning on here before about the BBC being biased in favour of Brexit. There was a period of time when they were, maybe 2 or 3 days, then I think someone must've read this forum and sent a memo round.

My neighbour hands out leaflets for UKIP and he's sounding very chipper at the moment, so that's my main indicator of how things are here.

If leaving is really the best thing to do that would be awesome, I'm just saddened that it has to be tied up in nationalism, xenophobia and the British empire. I'd be much more likely to embrace Brexit if it had something to do with the way the seas are carved up that isn't good for British fishermen, or we could properly invest in renewables... or something that wasn't xenophobia.

Off to dust off the sandals.

[Rjs37]

If leaving is really the best thing to do that would be awesome, I'm just saddened that it has to be tied up in nationalism, xenophobia and the British empire. I'd be much more likely to embrace Brexit if it had something to do with the way the seas are carved up that isn't good for British fishermen, or we could properly invest in renewables... or something that wasn't xenophobia.

I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, I just roll my eyes whenever I hear people banging on about those terrible immigrants. And actually speaking of the fishing industry, the EU have finally been making some long overdue changes in the fishing industry in terms of the quotas, wasted fish etc.

Whilst they've been improving, waste has been, and probably always will be an issue within the EU. For example, over the past 30 years, the EU has handed over 96 billion euros of funding to Portugal (they put in about the same themselves). A quarter of that funding was spent on their roads, expanding their motorway network from 300km to 3,000km which isn't far from the total length of it's perimeter. Portugal is only 560km long and 220km wide. Due to tolls being introduced (due to the recession), a lot of these roads are now barely even being used.

There's quite a range of examples of waste within the EU, some which are well known (misshapen fruit/veg which was rectified some years ago), and others which may not be (the 300 mile monthly round trip from Brussels to Strasbourg costing £130m per year). I'm sure others can (and probably will) point out countless examples of the UK government also wasting large amounts of money, but at least we can hold the UK government accountable. The direction of the EU largely stays the same regardless of which MEPs we vote for.

[Worthy4England]

You've clearly missed the linkage between the EU and Hitler. It's now so much easier to roll the Panzers across Portugal than it ever was. #Allpartofthebigplan.

Seriously though, the Portuguese road thingy - What many reporters are saying is that people would use them, were it not for the huge tolls (and they do seem to be huge - about the same price as the petrol for a journey) which aren't levied by the EU, but the country government. We start of with a headline figure of 96Bn of Euro funding - take a quarter €24bn divide by 30 and we get €0.8Bn per annum. The UK's current funding for roads is $30Bn over the next 5 years according to this article

http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/blog/ ... 30-billion" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's very easy to headline big numbers in national funding programmes.

[Rjs37]

Haha, it's so clear to me now!

Though that's still a sizeable sum coming out of the EU fund every year for the past 30 years just for Portugal's roads. But if you're going to compare to UK's road spending paid for by itself, then surely you should at least double the Portugal figure to take into account the amount they put in themselves? Besides, their motorway network is about as long as our own, though we're physically 2.5 times larger than it and have 6 times their population. So I would expect us to be paying out more on our roads.

I agree that the tolls are insanely high, but they're only charging that to help pay back their half of the funding, which it seems they borrowed a lot of money to pay for. Granted Portugal is a big boy and can make its own decisions - for better or for worse, but I do feel that the EU should be reassessing (if they've not already) how they hand out this funding. This "we'll match what you put in" arrangement just encourages countries to spend (or borrow) beyond their means to secure the funding.

Obviously this is all said with the benefit of foresight but the irony is, by doing what they've done, Portugal have presumably ended up increasing congestion on their minor roads. The complete opposite of their original intentions.

[Bijou Bob]

Anyone know much about polling? Why is there such a disparity between the results of the online vs phone polls for the referendum? Is one or the other more reliable? Phone Polls give big lead to remain - Online Polls are neck and neck.

All I know is that over the weekend I have spoken to around 20 friends and family and the subject of the vote came up, (not my doing I must hasten to add) and to my surprise actually, being they come from a wide political spectrum, to a person they all said they would be voting 'out'.
The main reason given, the fear, yes fear of what the EU is going to dump on us in future, Merkel and the Germans got many a mention.
Hardly scientific, but there you go, some of them were nailed on 'in' voters in my eyes.

Bish, I've said it before, the result is the result, I'll sit back, laugh and watch the faux outrage of those conned into 'vote stay' when the EU policies start to effect their mainly middleclass lives.
Encouraging the youth with little knowledge of history and somewhat naïve in out look to vote yes is akin to Turkey's voting for Christmas.
On the subject of Turkey one slightly deluded youth told me it would mean cheaper holidays there if we stayed in!

My experience has been the opposite Hoboh. I don't know anyone who is, or who will admit to voting for an exit. Perhaps that's a reflection of the circles we move in or familial mores? My impression is currently of a large 'In' lead which is growing, but again, that might just because my sample of people is self selecting.

Daily Politics earlier this week were suggesting that the turn out will be critical, as the 'out' campaign are likely to be supported by highly motivated voters, whereas those voting for the status quo are perhaps less likely to vote. It's going to be an interesting run in, but I still don't think the 'out' campaign are well organised or convincing enough to swing it.

[Hoboh]

If leaving is really the best thing to do that would be awesome, I'm just saddened that it has to be tied up in nationalism, xenophobia and the British empire. I'd be much more likely to embrace Brexit if it had something to do with the way the seas are carved up that isn't good for British fishermen, or we could properly invest in renewables... or something that wasn't xenophobia.

I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, I just roll my eyes whenever I hear people banging on about those terrible immigrants. And actually speaking of the fishing industry, the EU have finally been making some long overdue changes in the fishing industry in terms of the quotas, wasted fish etc.

Whilst they've been improving, waste has been, and probably always will be an issue within the EU. For example, over the past 30 years, the EU has handed over 96 billion euros of funding to Portugal (they put in about the same themselves). A quarter of that funding was spent on their roads, expanding their motorway network from 300km to 3,000km which isn't far from the total length of it's perimeter. Portugal is only 560km long and 220km wide. Due to tolls being introduced (due to the recession), a lot of these roads are now barely even being used.

There's quite a range of examples of waste within the EU, some which are well known (misshapen fruit/veg which was rectified some years ago), and others which may not be (the 300 mile monthly round trip from Brussels to Strasbourg costing £130m per year). I'm sure others can (and probably will) point out countless examples of the UK government also wasting large amounts of money, but at least we can hold the UK government accountable. The direction of the EU largely stays the same regardless of which MEPs we vote for.

Sorry to disappoint you but those 'nasty immigrants' are going to pile billions on the EU/member budgets over the next decade, money we can hardly afford to give to our sick and disabled already.
Future New member states like Macedonia, Albania etc. are hardly going to be net contributors to the EU budget, just a further drain and then there's the Turks!
Where is all the 'extra' money going to come from given that most of the EU states economies are in stagnation, easy, your services and pocket.

[Hoboh]

Anyone know much about polling? Why is there such a disparity between the results of the online vs phone polls for the referendum? Is one or the other more reliable? Phone Polls give big lead to remain - Online Polls are neck and neck.

All I know is that over the weekend I have spoken to around 20 friends and family and the subject of the vote came up, (not my doing I must hasten to add) and to my surprise actually, being they come from a wide political spectrum, to a person they all said they would be voting 'out'.
The main reason given, the fear, yes fear of what the EU is going to dump on us in future, Merkel and the Germans got many a mention.
Hardly scientific, but there you go, some of them were nailed on 'in' voters in my eyes.

Bish, I've said it before, the result is the result, I'll sit back, laugh and watch the faux outrage of those conned into 'vote stay' when the EU policies start to effect their mainly middleclass lives.
Encouraging the youth with little knowledge of history and somewhat naïve in out look to vote yes is akin to Turkey's voting for Christmas.
On the subject of Turkey one slightly deluded youth told me it would mean cheaper holidays there if we stayed in!

My experience has been the opposite Hoboh. I don't know anyone who is, or who will admit to voting for an exit. Perhaps that's a reflection of the circles we move in or familial mores? My impression is currently of a large 'In' lead which is growing, but again, that might just because my sample of people is self selecting.

Daily Politics earlier this week were suggesting that the turn out will be critical, as the 'out' campaign are likely to be supported by highly motivated voters, whereas those voting for the status quo are perhaps less likely to vote. It's going to be an interesting run in, but I still don't think the 'out' campaign are well organised or convincing enough to swing it.

I guess it depends on the area/people you talk to, most of those I did take pride in declaring their self's members of the working class and have no inhibition, those who consider middleclass to be their genre maybe fearful of the racist tag with the out linked to migration.
Easily browbeaten that group of people

[Hoboh]

Does not affect the UK,

Really?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/m ... cord-level" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

More jobs stolen.

[Bruce Rioja]

Does not affect the UK,

Really?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/m ... cord-level" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

More jobs stolen.

Stolen from those unemployed who are actively seeking jobs picking fruit?

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Sorry to disappoint you but those 'nasty immigrants' are going to pile billions on the EU/member budgets over the next decade, money we can hardly afford to give to our sick and disabled already.
Future New member states like Macedonia, Albania etc. are hardly going to be net contributors to the EU budget, just a further drain and then there's the Turks!
Where is all the 'extra' money going to come from given that most of the EU states economies are in stagnation, easy, your services and pocket.

I take issue with this. As a country we can afford to put more money into health or whatever else we want to. It's a matter of choice and priority, and our government is choosing to cut services and certain taxes. We can debate about the choices being made, but to believe we can't afford something is merely believing George Osborne and his cronies - I didn't have you down for blindly accepting anything he says!

[Beefheart]

Does not affect the UK,

Really?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/m ... cord-level" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

More jobs stolen.

You can't really steal a job, though. Even if you take arbitrary national borders into consideration.