Not sure what you’ve been hearing about this in the US so let’s start with the simple stuff and go from there.beantownbubba wrote:Can someone like, oh, say, dogstar explain the Brexit situation for us (well me at least)? I understand the choice is to stay or go from the EU but how does it feel on the ground? Is it causing a furor (or at least a loud buzz) at the pubs and around the water coolers? What are the major arguments on each side? What i read comes down to it's too close to call, the antis are all about them damn foreigners and the pros are all about it's the 21st century.
At the last general election the Conservatives put a promise in their manifesto to have a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU) during the next parliament. This was basically a way to fight off the right wing UKIP party’s challenge and also to placate the Eurosceptic wing of the Tory party. So in three weeks we have a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU with the Eurosceptic wing of the Tories, UKIP and a few others lined up against everyone else.
The campaign has been running for a few weeks now but seems to have picked up pace over the last week. The two sides are running neck and neck at the moment with the remain campaign slightly in the lead. People are definitely talking about this at work, in the pub and I get a lot of stuff coming through on my facebook feed. Interestingly most of the people posting on facebook seem to be in the leave camp, not sure why that is but there’s a definite bias.
The arguments can basically be boiled down to
Remain – it will be bad for the economy
Leave – we won’t have to put up with those nasty foreigners telling us what to do or coming to our country.
Another way of looking at this is to say that the remain campaign is looking forward and the leave campaign is looking back to past glories and hoping to regain them by leaving.
I'm pretty much a remain supporter because I' almost totally in agreement with the economic arguments against leaving and also the focus of the leave campaign on immigration makes me feel uneasy about what this says about our country.
I'll leave it at that.