What were the advantages in being in the EU?

Caporegime
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Soldato
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I have three private pensions. 1 worth peanuts, I took it out when I was 17 because it was free, but I suppose its worth £1700 now! My second is formalised with Legal and General(who took a hit on Friday but recovered very fast), and is guaranteed to rise with inflation, it's in the bag basically as my company changed pension providers. Standard Life, also took a hit but my pension is safe as I've confirmed it. Pensions all have under writers.

The coming months I predict will be worse for EU countries than the UK, shout at me then if I'm wrong :)

The majority of pensions are defined contribution (you put in a defined amount each month) but the value of what you get at the end varies according to how the underlying assets perform, rather than defined benefit where there is a guaranteed amount you are paid upon retirement.

In the case of defined contribution, it is down to the individual at to how their investments are made and what their fund holds. Combination of equities, bonds, etc.

If you hold a large %age of equities and the market tanks, your fund is going to lose value. The brokerage or trust manager aren't in a position to guarantee anything, and how they themselves are performing is completely irrelevant.
 
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Caporegime
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Exactly, you probably will be able to.....if you fill a certain criteria. Which is his point.

Right now anyone has the opportunity to go and live and work in any of the EU countries.

^^ This.

My wife and I had access to Schengen via our British passports. Our children had that same privilege, and it opened up a future with great opportunities. I was looking forward to seeing them explore the EU unrestricted, living and working wherever they wanted, and gaining experience that people in other countries can only dream of.

Schengen access was their birthright as British citizens. Now that birthright has been torn away from them by the Little Britain mob, and they're restricted to the smaller, regressive world that the EU released us from 40 years ago.

The Leavers still don't understand what they've done. When you ask them about the implications of losing Schengen access all they can say is, 'Well at least it keeps the foreigners out.'
 
Soldato
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I think a big advantage was all the racist bigots in our country didn't have the balls pre-referendum to go around verbally and physically assaulting anyone who doesn't have deep roots in the country. I voted out for the potential economic future we could create by ourselves, if I had known that a very vocal minority of our population would abuse our citizens and create protests of 'send them back!' etc I would have voted in. This isn't what we should become.

Bigotry will not make Britain 'Great' again, I do not fear the economic backlash from the EU or a recession, I fear for what the oxygen wasters in our country will turn us into, both internally and our exterior image to the rest of the world. A country full of hate is such a depressing place to live.
 
Caporegime
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^^ This.

My wife and I had access to Schengen via our British passports. Our children had that same privilege, and it opened up a future with great opportunities. I was looking forward to seeing them explore the EU unrestricted, living and working wherever they wanted, and gaining experience that people in other countries can only dream of.

Schengen access was their birthright as British citizens. Now that birthright has been torn away from them by the Little Britain mob, and they're restricted to the smaller, regressive world that the EU released us from 40 years ago.

The Leavers still don't understand what they've done. When you ask them about the implications of losing Schengen access all they can say is, 'Well at least it keeps the foreigners out.'

Yet you don't even live here and the country you've chosen to live in doesn't offer any such free movement with its Asian neighbours.
 
Soldato
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maybe if you've got no skills/education but since you got yourself over here (I assume because of skills rather than marriage) then no not unlikely - very likely and probably easier than India to UK

the tourism thing is such a non-issue it isn't even worth considering

Assuming they implement a similar system to what the UK has currently for non-EU migrants like myself, then whilst it would be possible, it would no longer be as easy. If I need a work permit, then a company would need to sponsor one. Many companies would rather have someone local than go through the hassle of doing so. Indeed when I was searching for jobs years ago, it was a stumbling block for me in the UK and I was fortunate that I didn't need sponsorship for my internship and once it was completed, they liked me enough to sponsor the work permit. If I decided that I wanted to see what it was like to live and work in Germany for a year, or hell, even just live on my savings in Italy or Spain for a year, it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to do so without the free movement being in place since visit visas are far more time limited.

Of course this is somewhat guessing rather than based on facts, but you can't deny that it will be more difficult rather than less to do these things.
 
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Of course this is somewhat guessing rather than based on facts, but you can't deny that it will be more difficult rather than less to do these things.

I can deny that it will be rather less difficult... this isn't India to the UK... UK to EU and vice versa will very likely be much easier. Again remember the EU presses for free movement as part of free trade, the battle will be from the UK side in winning restrictions to it not the other way round.
 
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Now that we've decided to leave the EU I just want to get a grasp on what is angering the ex-remain camp.

The only thing that affects me is I'll probably have to apply for an updated passport/driving license once we cut ties.

How does it affect you?

The fact you ask this question sums up what's been wrong with the way this whole referendum has been argued about and subsequently voted upon, people who voted out only now seem to be asking what they've voted out of and, the campaign that promised so much if we leave now is back-pedalling furiously, it would be laughable were the implications for us all not so serious.
 
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I will now have to pay tax twice on my income, I lose the right to work here, I lose the right to live here and as I will no longer be able to use the EHIC card I will have to pay for private health insurance on top of paying UK national insurance. Oh and I will now be very difficult to hire here as a company will have to prove no one local or in the EU is suitable for the job before I can be considered.

The pound collapsing doesn't exactly help the situation either.

So I've not been affected too much :p

based on what exactly? Why does the company have to prove no one local can do your job?
 
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Do you really believe that is the only thing you will face?

To start you off, not sure we'd have nice things like the Working Time Directive without the EU (we were the only country to vote against it).

Not entirely true it's very likely all laws will remain and be addressed on a case by case basis. We can't undo 17,000 laws in 2 years. Common sense would suggest that only the most important laws will be addressed. Much more pressing issues are at hand

We have freedom to legislate moving forward see no benefit to anyone retrospectively removing existing laws just for the luls
 
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I work for an engineering SME that exports 40-50% of its product to other countries in the EU (high end, high tech medical and research hardware). Some of those products are financed by huge EU member government/research grants that could become more difficult for the company to bid for in future, so it could, ironically, cost a load of jobs that the brexiters were told they'd help create/protect by voting out.

So, that's quite a big advantage regarding manufacturing and export for which there is almost bugger all demand in the UK (think of major research facilities in the UK on the scale of the European Synchrotron, the LHC etc.). I'm not saying we'd lose our entire European market share, but potentially enough of a wedge that it could really hurt.

Much of our staff are from over the pond, some quite high-end, too.

I still can't believe that enough people thought the veiled crap they were fed was justification enough to change things, and I'm frankly even more flabbergasted that such a monumental decision was left to the public of this country to make, whatever the outcome. It's all been done on a hunch - 99% of voters either way were not in possession of enough objective, quantitative information to make a sound judgement by voting one way or the other.
 
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Which is what plenty of us don't want... as it works both ways and means uncontrolled migration here (which could potentially get worse if/when Spain etc.. decline further)

I understand that some people don't want that, but in my opinion that is a positive for the EU.

What I didn't like about the debate was that people couldn't differentiate opinion (this) and facts (such as the £350m being incorrect).
 
Caporegime
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I'm sure he has better things to do; most of the information can be researched online by anyone.

that makes no sense, he's making a claim about people in these threads not a wider point about the EU

someone else might as well say the same thing about remain posters... it contributes nothing at all to the discussion
 
Soldato
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that makes no sense, he's making a claim about people in these threads not a wider point about the EU

someone else might as well say the same thing about remain posters... it contributes nothing at all to the discussion

AN example was the poster who said something about the eu prohibiting sale of eggs in dozen. That was clearly an uneducated claim, because the first few hits if you search for it on Google, are sites denying such a claim. So, that poster clearly didn't know or didn't bother finding out the facts before posting.
 
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