Probably the only good reason for anyone to vote to leave the EU is to reduce demand on housing stock.
There is even a huge amount of vacant property in London, most of it owned by large landlords who don't need the incremental income and associated hassle, as just sitting on vacant properties waiting for the market to rise is enough.
No, the problem is not migrants placing demand on housing stock - it is those that are telling you these fabrications, and the completely broken housing market that they built while you and I were still suckling our mothers' teats.
This is easy money for the banks. They get most of the rental income in mortgage payments on a secured loan, while using the landlords as agents.
Foreign investors go where the bubbles are, and leave when the bubbles pop - which the London bubble is doing now.
Anyone who got in after 2008 made out like a bandit. But the party is over now, and we could be moving into hangover territory.
It's a possibility that most of those British expats would have to come back to the UK. Most of them don't contribute much to those countries (other than spending as a pensioner, using the local health-care or having low qualified jobs).
In Spain the perception is that Brits in the south are low qualified and old and that they have driven up the price of housing with their real estate speculation. When young, they are perceived as violent and disrespectful (probably the image created by short-term young binge-drinking tourists). It's certainly prejudice and first impressions, but that's the kind of irrational reactions you could see after a UK exit if Spain is struggling with its own economy.
I had heard the opposite statement, by the way, that they took more from the healthcare than they contributed ... but my google-fu failed me. Do you have a reference? (I don't know what the answer is either way)
Counter-argument to that is that immigrants are simply crowding out British citizens (particularly young people, huge numbers of which are unemployed, or significantly underemployed) in the jobs market.
It is effectively jobs that make the contribution, whether they are filled by British citizens or EU nationals.
Governments will be forced to do everything they can to keep it inflated, as if it pops, then the damage to the UK economy will be immeasurable.
Yes, it'll cause pain. The longer they keep kicking the can down the road, the more people get sucked into buying at comically inflated prices on the assumption of ZIRP+HPI forever, the more painful it'll be. And the politics are slowly but surely changing, as the shut-out shift from an easily-ignorable minority to a near-majority.
_IF_ that truly happens (and i seriously doubt that the "Borrises" are actually genuine about this) then local-uk wages will increase especially for skilled labour. Low wage producer's will simply be replaced by foreign imports, increasing the deficit unless of course the UK engages in a protectionist war with EU and EVERYONE else... (which it won't do).
That's not the only aim.
The EU isn't truly democratic. The central body of power in the EU is the European Commission, and they're not democratically elected. The European Commission is the only group in the EU with the power to propose new legislation, no members of the European Parliament can do so.
I'll be voting to leave purely because I believe in democracy. I want elected representatives to have the power to represent the public, instead of being employed provide a veneer of respectability to a deeply flawed institution. I certainly won't be doing so over immigration as I believe immigration provides a net benefit to the UK.
And in any case a whole lot easier to fix, than to leave for. Because to be honest the EU is more democratic than Westminster. After all Farage is in the EU parliament but not the UK one.
The members of the European Commission are appointed by the heads of government from the member countries, however this matters very little when the mandate of the commissioners is clearly stated to be to represent the interests of Europe over the member countries. This isn't based on some biased media story, this comes directly from the horse's mouth. Check out this video from the European Commission's own YouTube channel...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWpgO1EPO_Y
From that video...
“The commission is a group of politicians, men and women, who meet every Wednesday in Brussels. We call them Commissioners. Together they form the government of Europe so to speak. They all have their own specific responsibilities and come from different countries. It is their role to defend the general interest of the European Union. When they take their oaths, they swear not to accept instructions from their own government.”
> "And in any case a whole lot easier to fix, than to leave for."
Perhaps I haven't made it clear. The only ones with power to reform the EU to make it more democratic are the EC, who would need to voluntarily give up their power to do so. How are you expecting that to pan out?
With the way the UK electoral system is currently set up, the extreme results it produces makes me very happy to have the EU to moderate things.
What the last 20 years shows us is that UK governments have systematically tried to erode workers rights, remove social safety nets and strip away human rights, and it's largely been the EU that has held it in check.
I fear what we'll see in the case of an exit, with a government no longer reigned in by the EU treaties.
As for the EU holding the UK in check, that's not quite accurate. It's true that the current Conservative government under Cameron has been damaging to public services, but that's not always been the case over the past 20 years. The Labour governments of Blair and Brown, for all their flaws, weren't pursuing the same type of wholesale undermining of public services. As an added bonus, if you want the policies of the Conservatives to stop, leaving the EU is likely to divide the Conservatives more than most parties, leading to a weaker party at the next general election.
Lastly, the EU does not always act to protect the people of the UK. As an example, take a look at what happened to the UK fishing industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Fisheries_Policy#Critic...
Without looking them up are you able to name all your local councillors?
Being interested in democracy means using your vote (or making a decision to abstain). Not bothering to vote is incompatible with the declared interest in democracy.
That's a strawman.
Plenty of people are not interested in all or part of a democratic system, but appreciate that it exists, and that it provides channels through which they can influence the way they are governed, if they deem it necessary.
Most people don't know the differences between the town council and their local authority; they have no idea who their councillors are; they might not even know which party has control.
For what it's worth, I voted in the local elections held this year, have voted in general elections, and have even met up with my local MP to discuss financial reform.
Furthermore, the idea of a representative democracy is that you elect people to work on your behalf. You do so because it's a full time job to stay abreast about all political issues. Even if I knew the names of all my local councillors, knowing their names doesn't give me any insight into the decisions being made. Most of us have a limited range of interests, I could tell you about political activity I'm interested in, would that satisfy you that I'm paying attention?
All they can do is say yes or no. The European Commission can keep pushing forward the same legislation until they get a yes. Even referendums aren't enough to stop the EC, look at what happened with the vote on the European Constitution:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitu...
As you can see, the outcome of the referendums resulted in the European Constitution being rejected, so what the EC did was to take the main changes and push them through as amendments to existing agreements. This group of changes is known as the Lisbon Treaty.
> "Also the Parliament can ask the Commission to propose legislation."
That's not the same as having the power to propose legislation.
Anyone can ask the Commission to propose legislation, including lobbyists (there are over 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels, and you can be sure they're focused on influencing the ones with power to make changes https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/lobbyists-euro... ) and the general public (through a European Citizens Initiative).
Just because you can ask for changes, doesn't mean the EC has to listen to you. As I've said in a different comment, the main priority of the EC is to work in the best interests of the EU, not the individual member countries.
The parliament has power of censure over the EC so in theory the EC could be made to listen.
I do agree with you that the EU is a democratic mess and share your concern about lobbyists.
I do however struggle to swallow Democracy as the main argument for Brexit when we have:
* a government in the UK elected by 25% of the possible electorate.
* parties gaining > 10% of the national vote having no representation in UK parliament
* an un-elected house of Lords
* a prime minister (who we technically don't elect and who can change at any time) who magically inherits powers from the queen to sign treaties and go to war
I look forward to the shining lights of the Brexit camp taking on these democratic deficits with the same enthusiasm in the future.
Could you explain further what you mean by this? I'm not familiar with the term 'power of censure'.
> "I look forward to the shining lights of the Brexit camp taking on these democratic deficits with the same enthusiasm in the future."
I don't care about what the 'shining lights' do, I know I'd gladly do so. First step in my opinion would be to renew the push towards proportional representation (and not the Alternative Vote cop out we were asked about before).