Like any campaign or debate, cogent arguments from both sides will be drowned out by posturing, point-scoring, catcalling and hair-pulling.
I don’t think it’s as simple as the public-at-large being uninformed. Not when the people that are supposed to be persuading them either way do such a crap job of it.
We stitched NZ and Australia back in 1973 over Europe,lets get out and get a free trade agreement with them and many others, aren’t the US getting a free trade agreement with the EU?
As you know Barry, I have some sympathy for many of your arguments, but this one doesn’t make a great deal of sense. Australia are not only on the other side of the world, but they’re advanced economies. Apart from alcohol, most of our present trade with Australia is in high value commodities, such as gold and gems. The think they export the most generally is coal, helping to fuel the industrial blight in China.
New Zealand is essentially the same deal, but food takes the place of alcohol. Again, do we really want to cart food halfway across the world?
It doesn’t make sense to pull anything from those places that we’re not already getting.
Everytime I scroll through this thread and get down to this comment it makes me laugh :)))
To me Whelk, we have voted to join the EU already and that is it. Yes, many things about the EU suck and it is right and proper that all member states work together to make sure it is as good as it can be for all members - but I dont get this another bite of the cherry thing.
Interesting avatar by the way!
Why do Kippers* have such a fascination with Australia? But they always seem to go on about Oz or Canada and how weird it is that they are seen as different to Europe whilst totally ignoring geography.
**Not suggesting this is you, Barry, fyi.
Why are the US seeking a free trade agreement with Europe? Distance doesn’t really matter, we also fucked them over totally for this, people often forget that, they quite rightly don’t.
Originally posted by @Barry-Sanchez
Why are the US seeking a free trade agreement with Europe?
Because it’s a pretty sizable market, perhaps?
I am among the clueless myself!!! 
Whilst i would fight and die for people to have the right to vote I’m not sure a lot of them should.
I would include 98% of the people on Romney Marsh in that number.
and Rodney Marsh as well, he’s an idiot
I don’t know a great deal about the ins and outs. Economics is not my strong point and I don’t have the time to go directly to source to form an opinion so have to rely on the media. They spin and lie (regardless of hue).so I have to go on gut feeling ultimately…
I’ll be voting in because I believe that putting up barriers is not a positive step forward as a nation or as a species (ridiculous as it may sound). In the long run if we are to prosper we need to be open and forward thinking not myopic, fearful and insular. That’s the bottom line.
He is correct, what is there to deny?
It’s not us in denial bazza.
Millions of us must be then, millions.
One of the many reasons I retain a soft spot for George Galloway. Daily Politics totally tries to stitch him up, and in my view, he makes mincemeat of Jo Coburn thereafter.
The Land Down Under may represent a large landmass, but it’s really not a big market for our goods. Australia is 23 million. New Zealand is less than five.
As Barry likes to remind us when he’s talking about wage pressure, the EU has 500 million.
It’s pretty sizeable.
Well, up to a point. It was certainly an attempted stitch-up, which Galloway avoided rather easily; then again, he was almost certainly expecting it. But for someone to object to questions about himself, only to follow this with a mention of his “one million followers on social media”, does seem a bit rich.
Elsewhere on that interview, I’d say he’s wrong to share a platform with Farage or whoever else purely on the basis of opposition to the EU. Would he share a platform with Nick Griffin? Or the British Movement (assuming they still exist)? Or Combat 18 perhaps?
Galloway, to me, always seems to lack substance. I wouldn’t have said that of Tony Benn, I wouldn’t say it of Dennis Skinner. But I definitely would say it of Galloway.
Originally posted by @Fowllyd
Well, up to a point. It was certainly an attempted stitch-up, which Galloway avoided rather easily; then again, he was almost certainly expecting it. But for someone to object to questions about himself, only to follow this with a mention of his “one million followers on social media”, does seem a bit rich.
There’s no doubting he’s a self-promoting bastard, an opportunist one too.
Elsewhere on that interview, I’d say he’s wrong to share a platform with Farage or whoever else purely on the basis of opposition to the EU. Would he share a platform with Nick Griffin? Or the British Movement (assuming they still exist)? Or Combat 18 perhaps?
I don’t think that they have to share platforms, or as Coburn tried to put it, “link arms”.
Galloway rebutted this exact point very well. I’m seriously considering voting out, because I do think we can get a better deal from the EU by doing so and/or I can see opportunities that’ll exist for improving the country outside of that framework.
As Galloway says, it’s a binary choice that people are making for different reasons. If those people interviewed are truly staying in because Galloway wants out, they’ve no business voting in the first place.
In my view, all of those people leaving the Grassroots Out event because of Galloway are an example of a problem discussed before. People concentrating too much on what they disagree on, and not on the issue at hand. What were they scared of? Words? Tacit validation by staying around?
Galloway, to me, always seems to lack substance. I wouldn’t have said that of Tony Benn, I wouldn’t say it of Dennis Skinner. But I definitely would say it of Galloway.
See the opportunist comment above, but qualify it with the fact that I do think he holds, and has held many of his overall convictions for a long time.
I do admire his ability to fight his corner.