Have you made your mind up about the referendum?

Despite the fact that a plunging share price on exit will affect my husband's pension pot negatively in the short term I will stick to my principles and vote 'out'. The federalising project, Eurozone disaster, immigration crisis, nonexistent autonomy, unwarrantable interference through 'death by regulation', corruption, inefficiency & waste, absurd and autocratic green policies and all the rest of the centralist nonsense need throwing into the English Channel.

OUT OUT OUT. Everyone I know of a similar age is saying OUT as well. We voted to join a Common Market...that is not what the European Union is. We have lost control of our own country...about time we got it back...

Like it, durhamjen! And the Underground wouldn't be the only service to suffer if immigrants (I'm one by the way, though I think I'm called an expat!) went back to their homelands.

I don't think sufficient information either way has helped me to make up my mind.

Definitely remain. I'm just about to post my vote so no going back. Not that I ever would as I've been of this opinion since the 60s.

I will vote to leave, far too many reasons to state here, but it's a no brainer for me and everyone else I have spoken to about it. Well done Boris for standing up for the ordinary person.

According to Yougov 80% of Britons under 25 want to remain in the EU. The problem is, is getting them to vote.

We could have the scenario where our age group decides the final outcome - 56% of us want out. We vote in our droves. Within the next20-30yrs we'll be gone.

To get a result which the future generation doesn't want seems perverse to me. What's to do?

Apparently the sum we pay to the EU each week is approx £160 million - this is taking into account all the deductions of what membership gives us. £640 million a month sounds pretty good to me or have I been brainwashed too?

Here's an interesting fact. About 95% of the London underground is cleaned by foreign born workers.

Jalima the normal state pension us not taxed simply because it is always below the personal alliance level. Govt pensions are NHS, Teaching, Local Govt, Civil Service. armed Services etc - these are all the people who have no choice but to pay UK tax

Yes, I know that about the State pension; I didn't know whether you meant state pension when you said government pension.
I would have no choice but to pay UK tax as well then, wherever I lived in the world; I didn't realise that.

Jalima the normal state pension us not taxed simply because it is always below the personal alliance level. Govt pensions are NHS, Teaching, Local Govt, Civil Service. armed Services etc - these are all the people who have no choice but to pay UK tax.

As to not looking kindly on UK trade - we send over 40% of our goods to the EU and import about 10% of theirs. What the French Minister said was that the EU was like a club and to get the benefits you paid the dues and abided by the rules. He explained that in practise this means that to have free trade you pay the money into the EU (Norway pays the same as other countries) and you abide by all the regulations before being able to trade with EU. If you do not wish to pay the dues then tariffs would be in place but the regulations would still need to be adhered to.
As to the country sportsmen can represent they need to have a parent or grandparent from that country but if a person is very good at a sport some very tenuous family links have been accepted!!

My 2 year old DGS is a contender for Eurovision circa 2034. He serenaded me so loudly today it literally made my ears ring. I thought I'd gone deaf for a minute. That's the sort of talent the country needs

My DGS is tone deaf according to his mother.
I haven't had the pleasure of hearing him sing

Even he laughs at his attempts to sing.
His sister has a beautiful voice, though. However she is young enough to have a British passport.

Yes, how on earth did they get invited to join - for a second year too? Someone's grasp of geography is not very good, obviously.

I don't think it would matter if the UK is in the EU or not, it depends on whether or not you have a passport for a particular country, if your parents were born there, or even your grandparents if they really needed your soccer or cricket skills.
Can he sing? He may be needed for the Eurovision, obviously you don't have to be in the EU to enter that.

Has Australia joined the EU, on the back of coming second in Eurovision?

or Scotland (sorry, Scots, depriving you of the excellent soccer skills of my DGS age 8).

I think if he was good enough he could play for any team, but if he has dual nationality he could play for either.
Now, what about my DGS? He could play for Australia or ??? he has a British passport so technically could he play for England, Wales and/or N Ireland?
Or all of the above? Who knows?

My grandson was asking that with regard to football. If he was a professional footballer, would he have to play for England, or could he play for Denmark?
Not much chance of either, but it's good that he's thinking about these things.

If we Brexit and other EU countries adopt similar laws to here, there could be many expats moving back who have been disenfranchised. My grandson's mum does not know if she has a vote any more in Denmark; she can only vote in council elections here. So free movement of people is okay providing you do not stay in the rest of the EU for too long. A bit like bank accounts that haven't been used for a few years.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/24/british-emigrants-harry-shindler-jacquelyn-maclennan-eu-referendum-vote-battle-supreme-court

Only emigrants who have lived abroad for more than 15 years will not have the right to vote in the referendum according to this article.
Living and perhaps working abroad for a few years probably means that a person would retain an interest in the political affairs of that person's native country in case he/she decides to return one day, but living abroad for over 15 years is surely classed as emigrating? If the emigrant should ever return surely they would have to be content with or at least accept the status quo?

What will probably happen with trade would be that tariffs would have to be negotiated with every separate country. The only non-EU countries that have general trade agreements with the EU are those countries which have accepted free movement of people.

they have already indicated they will not look kindly on trading with UK.
Welshwife that sounds like a lot of petulant hot air (not you, the powers that be). Our imports from the EU exceed our exports to the EU. Are they going to refuse to export to us because we are no longer part of the EU? And if they want to export to us they must accept our imports.
They would be stupid not to know on which side their bread is buttered so to speak. I put that in the category of scaremongering by the remain group.

The illegal migration which at the moment is mainly stopping at Calais will get through to Dover to start with and then spread to other places. That side of the migration will be far worse
Why? It is up to us to spend some of the money saved from being a member of the EU on better border controls. They are fairly lax at the moment.

I am not a Brexiter btw, I can see flaws in arguments from both sides.

And when you say ^Government pensions* do you mean the State Pension (which is non-taxable?) or public service pensions?

Grandtea I hold a British passport, I live elsewhere but I still pay income tax in the UK and DH is the same - the reason for this is because we both have what are considered to be Govt Pensions - you then have no choice. I stay in UK for 2-3 months a year and spend quite a lot of money in that time and I have family in UK. I think I am entitled to vote especially when the outcome is likely to affect me more than many people.

Yes! Thank you.

A name does not make you powerful harrigran.