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Comment by wsc981 | Hacker News Reader

This fear mongering has got to stop. It might just as likely boost the economy of the UK. And it certainly would assure the people of sovereignty, something the UK would lose if it would further integrate with the EU.

Just look at my country, Holland. Pretty much all important decisions are made by the EU. An example: we cannot control our own borders. We cannot decide how many immigrants we want to allow. The EU wants to force quotas on countries and if they don't accept the quotas, they want to give the countries fines.

The EU is undemocratic and if one values freedom, one should stay as far away from the EU as possible, even if it would be at some cost of the economy (though I'd say this is speculation).

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In todays world, Holland is tiny. It cannot make many meaningful decisions on an international level. How would Holland negotiate with the USA or Russia about trade issues? Well, they couldn't. They'd have to concede to any terms that are dictated from the outside. And like that, every European country on its own would be marginalized over the years.

Together, they at least have a chance. European countries are always debating and don't speak with a single voice yet. But at least there is a chance for survival.

   Just look at my country, Holland. Pretty much all important decisions are made by
   the EU. An example: we cannot control our own borders. We cannot decide how many
   immigrants we want to allow. The EU wants to force quotas on countries and if they
   don't accept the quotas, they want to give the countries fines.

Exactly. There are a million refugees in Europe. And you cannot just send back refugees from war zones as per international law. Somebody has to take them up. Europe has 500 million inhabitants. So there would be 0.2% refugees (i.e. "no problem") if they were properly distributed. Europe is community. Everybody profits from being a member. But every member has to carry some of the weight.

> In todays world, Holland is tiny

Yes, but there is no correlation between the size of a country and the standard of living of its inhabitants. The people of India, Brazil or Nigeria is not better off than the people of Norway, Singapore or Switzerland.

And standard of living doesn't correlate well to geopolitical/economic power which is what GP was talking about with being able to get good terms in trade negotiations.

Yeah, but India has more than a billion people and they have nukes. As the parent comment said, Holland is tiny and not only geographically or in population.

- It's barely in the top 40 military world powers: http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-det...

- It's 17th on GDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... (actually below India and Brazil and not so far from Nigeria)

As part of the EU, Dutch people live in the (arguably) world's biggest economy. Outside the EU, they're just 17th and far from most of their neighbours.

You punch above your weight in football though :)

The EU is far from perfect, but we're the ones building it.

Which is to compare with the listing on this page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

Edit: I'm not Dutch by the way

That's the thing: Monaco, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein are not even local players. Others in the top of the list are not global players: Norway, Qatar, etc

India and Brazil have very low GDP per capita, but they're absolute weight is so big that they're world players (more India than Brazil if you ask me), at least compared to rich countries like Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, etc

>How would Holland negotiate with the USA or Russia about trade issues?

I'd imagine having one of the largest ports in the world, which is Rotterdam, is a big leverage.

Not so sure about that. Having either of the two most important sea passages didn't do much good for Panama or Egypt in terms of international power.

Besides, being out of the EU, Rotterdam port wouldn't be as attractive as an European entry/exit port. Taxes and tariffs would make it less competitive.

If the Netherlands was no longer part of the EU, and thus lacked the low-friction connections to the European economies by rail and other transport that currently exist, Rotterdam would likely start to decline in size and be supplanted by a port that was within the EU.

I really doubt this would be the case.

The EEA said hai, also Norway and Switzerland say nice to meet ya'll.

The Netherlands have a higher GDP than Turkey, what coolaid have you drank that you think that all of a sudden the Netherlands which is still a maritime superpower as far as trading goes cannot some how negotiate a trading agreement with the US? What enemy is encroaching on European borders that some how countries in the top 20 most developed nations can no longer stand on their own? Some how Canada, South Korea, Turkey and Israel can manage their economies, borders, and trade just fine but France or the Netherlands can't?

P.S. While not trying to stir anything no international law actually compels the EU to take in anything close to those numbers of refugees, those who come from N. Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan et al. are considered "economic migrants", those who actually come from war zones like Syria are not protected by international law since they've went through multiple countries mainly Turkey before they've reached the EU. And while the EU can and should help the resettlement of refugees it's also untrue to say that some how international law mandates it, international law does not allow a refugees to pick and choose where they want to be settled, if they want the protection they must register and ask for asylum in the first country outside of the conflict zone that they've been assigned too.

However the refugees currently don't even want to settle in any EU country, they specifically refused registration until they reach the UK, Germany, or Sweden, they constantly fight the police in Greece, Italy, France and other locations when they attempt to register them.

> what coolaid have you drank

This breaks the HN guidelines, which ask you not to call names in arguments. It's particularly important not to do so on divisive topics like this one.

That's not name calling it's an idiom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid

It implies mindless cultism, which (when applied to someone else's view) is certainly name-calling.

Who do you think the EU is exactly? Some abstract group of extra-terrestrial aliens? An AI? It's made of European people, like you and me. They're actually politicians from our countries.

In your example you've said the EU "wants to" impose immigration quotas and "fine the countries that don't accept". How is that different from e.g. Germany imposing an immigration quota on your country? In exchange of e.g. not leaving you out of a trade agreement.

What's stopping your politicians from negotiating those quotas? Nothing, because that's what they're actually doing, but they know part of their voters are xenophobic, so they have to save face by saying "the EU told me to do it". It's politics 101.

Finally, please point me to where the EU is not a democratic entity, because I think I've missed the memo.

The so-called EU "Parliament" cannot inititiate legislation - it is told what to do by the UNELECTED EU Commission.

The EU is not a democratic entity by any stretch of the imagination, it is anti-democratic, over-ruling elected members and overriding the wishes of the people.

Yes - your point is absolutely unanswerable! For anyone with doubts should see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTMxfAkxfQ0

(Brexit - the movie). Sure, it's supporting Leave but the factual evidence is, well, just fact.

Thank you for sharing that documentary, it's convinced me to change my mind, I'll be voting to leave. Please keep spreading the documentary, I'll be sharing it also.

The EU commission is unelected in the same way the prime minister is unelected (directly), that does not mean it's undemocratic. There is 1 commissioner proposed by each EU country.

This is nonsense: the commissioners are not a self-appointed oligarchy. They are appointed by the European Council, that is to say by the head of all EU states. It is called indirect democracy, and is certainly not anti-democratic by any stretch of the imagination. If you don't like the EU commissioners, the fault resides solely on whoever we (European citizens) collectively picked as a our respective head of states (in my case that would be François Hollande, the French president).

Don't get me wrong: I would prefer for the EU commission to be elected more directly by the European citizens. And I certainly wish that the European parliament had more power. But keep in mind that the only reason it's not happening is because the various EU governments don't want to give up too much power: they have full control of the EU commission, but not of the EU parliament / EU citizens...

TL;DR: power in the EU is held by the European Council, that is to say by the head of states.

EDIT: typo

> the fault resides solely on whoever we (European citizens) collectively picked as a our respective head of states

And how exactly are we going to hold the head of states accountable, so one could say we control him/her?

> It might just as likely boost the economy of the UK.

Pure assumption on your side or can you support this with sources ?

> We cannot control our own borders. We cannot decide how many immigrants we want to allow.

Seems to me much of this sentiment about leaving the EU is merely fear for being overrun by non-natives.

Talking about 'This fear mongering has got to stop'...

We don't have the housing or infrastructure to support the vast number of immigrants. Hundreds of thousands a year. For most people it isn't a racist knee jerk, it's watching our schools and hospitals and housing buckle under the pressure.

Incompetent government unable to do its fucking job and get houses built is the reason for the lack of housing. Extra people do exacerbate the problem, but the largest culprit is our incompetent, small-minded government refusing to do their job.

Our schools, hospitals and housing have been under pressure since time immemorial, perhaps if the countries earnings from oil and other resources had been managed better, investment in social housing had been maintained at previous levels, if the lack of investment from the business world in the form of apprenticeships and on the job training had been addressed more pertinently, and if the earnings of the managing and owning class not risen at a faster rate than working class, then this would not be an issue.

Blaming a lacking in public services on migrants is not fair, while it's true to say that we have experienced a rise in immigration levels over the last decade, we are talking about a rise from 4 million in 1993 to 8 million in 2014, out of a population of 64 million, well under 10%.

To blame all the failings of our state on that small section of society, migrants who are more likely to be of working age than our recumbent ageing population, and hence more likely to be adding to our GDP over the long term, is not only unfair, it's bad economic policy too, without immigration our country will fall to it's knees supporting legions of pensioners...

Where I live there isn't much space left for new houses. I guess we could build up, but it doesn't seem desirable. Give the local people the choice of building low cost high rise accommodation or voting out of the EU... well, that's the decision we're all making at the moment.

While your area may of course be quite dense, England (the most densely inhabited part of the UK) is about 2.3% built on.

The problem is not immigrants.

In 2014, 4 out of every 10 persons in the EU-28 lived in flats, just over one quarter (25.6 %) in semi-detached houses and just over one third (33.7 %) in detached houses (see Figure 1). The proportion of people living in flats was highest, among the EU Member States, in Spain (66.5 %), Latvia (65.1 %) and Estonia (63.8 %; 2013 data), while the highest proportions of people living in semi-detached houses were reported in the Netherlands (61.2 %), the United Kingdom (60.0 %) and Ireland (58.3 %; 2013 data).The share of people living in detached houses peaked in Croatia (72.6 %), Slovenia (65.4 %) and Hungary (63.0 %); Norway (62.4 %) and Serbia (60.5 %; 2013 data) also reported high shares of their populations living in detached houses.

Seems like the rest of Europe 'copes' with going up, as the other poster pointed out, it's not really about land, for example, take Surrey, an area with very high demand for housing, 2.6% of the total land area is golf course...

See those sorts of data do not help. What would you do? Just go to golf courses and demand they build houses? If your answer is no, then why use that as a fact?

People don't want more buildings near them (nimby) ... what do you do then? They are the ones you need to convince to vote IN, not me.

It was meant to be representative of the choices that are made in land distribution, there is a lot of land in the UK that could be built on, building more housing will of course reduce the value of existing housing by increasing supply, protection of the value of houses is part of a conservative / capitalist remit, perhaps it's that factor that is more influential than just a resource issue ? It's going to be hard to persuade anyone to vote IN, it's hard to 'sell' the status quo when people are dissatisfied, it's much easier to sell 'change', fairly terrifying, I really would rather stay in.

Just go to golf courses and demand they build houses?

Basingstoke golf course is being replaced with houses.

Would you disagree that countries should have a mechanism under their control under which they have a say as to who gets to settle, work or study in their country?

Are customs and border control not useful any longer? Have we decided they aren't something countries should have control over?

Wanting to be able to control ingress is not the same as blocking all ingress. In this case I believe some in the UK, more than anything, resent having their migration policies promulgated in Brussels.

How about counties? Cities? Towns? Neighbours? Federations?

What makes "Holland" so special that it should have the ability to bar people from settling instead of "European Union", "Utrecht" or old grandma from the house across the street?

That would be something "Holland's" electorate can decide upon, governed by their laws and regulations, rather than policymakers in Brussels.

It's like wanting to dictate to China to abolish the Hukou system. I see it as unfair, but that's their own internal problem to solve.

Nobody is dictating anything. Holland joined the EU of its own accord.

The question is not whether the people of Holland should be stripped of that decision, but whether they should partially delegate it. And why shouldn't they?

Why delegate? And what if they want to bring that decision making back home?

I can delegate my finances, or I can make my own choices and maybe I feel like I'll get better served doing things myself.

So you want open borders?

> Would you disagree that countries should have a mechanism under their control under which they have a say as to who gets to settle, work or study in their country?

I would, actually. Why should the accidents of birth determine something like that?

> Wanting to be able to control ingress is not the same as blocking all ingress.

Realistically that's the only reason people who talk about controlling ingress want to control it though.

> In this case I believe some in the UK, more than anything, resent having their migration policies promulgated in Brussels.

Shrug. I've lived in the UK all my life, but I feel like I have more connection to Brussels than (say) Leeds. (Indeed it would take me less long to get a train there).

You're not wrong.

I've yet to hear any pro-exit talking point that isn't xenophobic, jingoistic, or at BEST just hopelessly misinformed economically.

The fact that the BNP and UKIP are solidly behind an exit should be a good indication that it's terrible. They are like a bellwether for awful ideas.

Pro-immigration person here. Considering brexit.

[0] http://www.adamsmith.org/the-liberal-case-for-leave

[1] http://www.adamsmith.org/evolution-not-revolution

That's a very smart summary of a lot of data but it's not supporting its conclusions very well - all it seems to be able to say is that increased globalization has had a massive economic impact worldwide.

Well... yes. The rest of it is a bunch of "well, we'd likely have had a bunch of the good ideas we were forced into by EU membership anyway" which is shockingly optimistic when looking at 80s Thatcherite Britain, verging on naive.

Throw in a couple more rather unconnected points that pretend to show significance (while just showing that the less-developed world is growing faster than the developed one. Which is... yeah, obvious, but also expected)

The rest of it then swerves into dodgy anti-immigration territory. Which is odd for a "liberal" case.

I agree with it that the Brexit plan is optimistic - but I think the article demonstrates exactly why that's a bad thing: because it's stupidly optimistic and convinces itself that everything will be perfectly awesome because they want it to be.

Whereas the reality is that this is rarely the case.

It's massive risk for little upside vs no real risk for a slightly reduced short-to-medium upside.

Then look out for some and test your notions. Decent arguments for leaving exist, and there are links on this page for the start of your search for good reasons.

Based on the "decent" arguments provided it appears I've already seen them. They aren't very good and verge on irresponsibly optimistic at best. Most are just - as I said - very poor and misunderstood economics.

The "good" reasons so far have been basically shown to be mostly wishful thinking with very little actual upside and a LOT of risk.

Personally I'd not like to play roulette with a country, I'll take slightly slower growth and stability, thanks.

> The fact that the BNP and UKIP are solidly behind an exit should be a good indication that it's terrible.

While I'm absolutely not a supporter of the BNP or UKIP in any way, their endorsement of something doesn't automatically make it a bad idea.

If it does, then what does it mean when both the Conservative party, as well as many high level US officials (the President, military generals, intelligence chiefs) all come out in favour of the UK staying in the EU? Does that not ring any alarm bells?

EDIT: note, I am deliberately cherry picking the supporters to make the point. I'm aware they're not the only people in support of staying in the EU. Much like I'm sure the person I'm replying to is aware that the BNP and UKIP aren't the only people in favour of leaving, and has chosen them to make his point.

> their endorsement of something doesn't automatically make it a bad idea

True, but it does heavily cast a massive amount of doubt upon it. At least adds evidence that a lot of the Pro reasons may be based on... less than sensible ideas.

Doesn't sound like you're getting a fair balance of the politics if its from the misinformed. I'd like to point out Boris is also behind the exit too.

Well.. yes, and if Boris is behind it then I'm quite happy to call it awful as well. The man is a tit.

>> It might just as likely boost the economy of the UK.

> Pure assumption on your side or can you support this with sources ?

That's the point. It is all speculation.

Controlling borders is fundamental to sovereignty, the point being that a sovereign nation decides how porous the borders ought to be. To cede that control significantly reduces the self-determination of the people within the border, even if the decision of exactly how porous does not vary between administering entities.

Sovereignty is widely considered an obsolete concept.

So, why should southerners accept all those northerners coming down? The southern people have no sovereignty on the matter. Oh and don't even get me started with those Scots :)

The UK is not and has never been in Schengen, so it has borders and has control of it. They just happen to have agreed to a deal with the rest of the EU to give EU citizens almost the same rights as UK citizens.

In other words, people voting LEAVE can't have a problem with border control as it is now, because the borders are controlled. The problem is of a very different (and sad) nature.

Yes, you can, together with everyone else, cooperatively.

It's difficult, we have good benefits, minimum wage, NHS, great schools, etc etc. To negotiate on immigration with other EU countries that don't have these things is really hard.

In what way other EU countries do not have that?

We have a lot of Polish immigrants where I live. Health care in Poland is delivered through a publicly funded health care system, which is free for all the citizens of Poland provided they fall into the "insured" category (usually meaning that they have their health insurance paid for by their employer, or are the spouse or child of an insured person.)

Minimum wage in Poland is 410 EUR, in the UK it is 1,378 EUR

... I could keep going but you get the point. The UK is a desirable place to live. The UK is small. The UK has a housing crisis. The NHS is at breaking point (our local hospital is in crisis)... Not much of this is due to immigration, but it doesn't help that 500,000 (or so) new people turn up each year.

I still fail to see your point. What does free Polish healthcare have to do with the NHS? O.o

Yeah, it is a complex issue. I guess you just need to do your own research and make up your own mind.

I don't know where you guys were when you voted for the Lisbon Treaty.

You might want to read up on this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_European_Constitution_...

Our government doesn't really care what the people think though. The Euro project must go on, no matter the cost.

I didn't know this, thank you for the link. How did the Dutch & French govn'ts have the power to sign it then?

A referendum in The Netherlands is not legally binding for the government.

The same thing happened just a few months ago when the Dutch people voted against the EU association treaty with Ukraine [0].

The government will still push through with the treaty. The EU project is holy and must go on. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission said the following on the Lisbon treaty:

  "If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and 
  if it's a No we will say 'we continue'."

He also stated:

  "There can be no democratic choice against 
  the European treaties."

[0]: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/06/dutch-voters-re...

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