[Albert]

European referendum campaign kicks off as rivals roll out big guns

The first day of the official 10-week EU referendum campaign kicks off on Friday after months of in-fighting and backbiting, with the leave campaign arguing that Brexit would save the NHS and the remain campaign claiming that a vote to leave could risk a 2008-style financial crash.

The official campaign period includes rules on spending and in other areas ahead of the vote on 23 June. The two official campaigns can spend up to £7m each on campaigning, with £600,000 in public funds, and get a free mailshot and national TV broadcast.

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, a prominent figure in the official Vote Leave campaign, will use a rally in Manchester on Friday night to argue that Brexit would give the NHS a multibillion-pound boost, claiming a large chunk of the UK’s £10.6bn net contribution to Brussels could be diverted to pay for hospital beds.

He will go on to make speeches in Leeds and Newcastle this weekend as Vote Leave points to predictions showing the health service could face a shortfall in funding of £12.3bn by 2020-21. The move has been interpreted as an attempt to reach Labour voters.

Meanwhile, the former chancellor Alistair Darling will issue the latest in a long line of dire warnings from the campaign to stay in the EU. Giving a speech in Westminster, Darling, who led the campaign to keep Scotland in the UK, will say dark clouds are gathering on the horizon and point to what happened when economic confidence collapsed in 2008.

“The single most important determinant of the health of our economy is confidence, and it is waning as the risk of leaving comes in to focus,” he will say.

“We know what happens when confidence plummets. We saw that in 2008 and we are still living with the consequences of the global financial crash. Confidence remains low and uncertainty is making that worse.

“When the IMF single us out as facing what will be a self-inflicted wound, we can’t ignore it. We can’t afford to take a decision where no one on the other side has any clear idea of where we would end up if we left.”

Darling’s speech comes after the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, speaking to an audience of Labour-supporting students and trade unionists in London on Thursday, made his case for staying in the European Union in his first major speech on the subject.

Responding to calls for him to step up the fight for Britain to remain in the EU, Corbyn warned that Brexit could give a Conservative government the opportunity to slash protection for workers, in a “bonfire of rights”.

Remain campaigners are concerned at a fall in support from Labour voters, with the coverage of the debate so far primarily focused on Connservative party splits. Labour voters are twice as likely to vote to stay in the EU, but concerns are mounting that they could be put off from turning out to vote.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday, Darling admitted there were similarities between the campaign to persuade Scotland to stay in the UK and the pro-EU campaign, both of which have been dubbed “Project Fear” by rivals.

“There are similarities actually, in that we are being invited – in both cases, in the Scottish referendum and now – to take something of a leap into the unknown, a leap into the dark,” he said. “What I’m saying is that there is overwhelming economic evidence that we are better off, stronger and more secure being part of the European Union, the largest market in the world.”

The leader of the House of Commons, Chris Grayling, will become the first Conservative cabinet minister to share a platform with the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, on Monday, as the rival Brexit groups seek to adopt a united front. The Vote Leave campaign, which counts Tory government ministers in its ranks, was designated the official anti-EU campaign on Wednesday, causing outrage among the rival campaigns.

[youtube]Kt5Ru8P1OD8[/youtube]


Thread Theme Song

[Charliebfc]

Think Borris Johnson got a nerve saying the NHS will be better out of the EU ,

Seeing he's a Tory and there destroying the NHS ,

I'm also sure he's on record wanting private healthcare instead of NHS,

My personal opinion on the Referendum I don't know if I vote the only info I received so far is a leaflet by the remain campaigns

[Albert]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/23/hillary-clinton-britain-should-stay-in-eu

Hillary Clinton urges Britain to remain in the European Union

Hillary Clinton has thrown her weight behind the campaign to keep Britain inside the European Union in a major new boost to David Cameron’s hopes of winning a Remain vote on 23 June.

After Barack Obama used his farewell trip to the UK as president to make the economic and security arguments for membership, Clinton, who is the favourite to win the Democratic nomination in July and become the first female US president, makes clear that if she enters the White House she will want the UK to be fully engaged, and leading the debate, within the EU.

In a statement to the Observer, her senior policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, said: “Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic cooperation is essential, and that cooperation is strongest when Europe is united. She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she values a strong British voice in the EU.” Sources close to the former secretary of state’s campaign said she stood fully behind Obama’s opposition to Brexit, which the president said on Friday would not only undermine the international institutions, including the EU, that had bound nations closer together since 1945, but would also mean the UK being at “the back of the queue” when negotiating new trade deals.

Obama’s remarks drew angry responses from leading figures in the Leave campaign, including the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who questioned the president’s right to intervene. Leading backers of Brexit also tried to dismiss Obama’s view as that of a “lame duck president” soon to be out of office.

The former Tory defence secretary Liam Fox, a Brexit enthusiast, said on Friday night that Obama’s opinions would be irrelevant after the US elections in November. “Whoever it is that will be at the helm of the United States won’t be Barack Obama,” Fox told BBC2’s Newsnight. “It will be the next president, and the next congress, who will be in charge of any trade arrangements.” But the Remain camp and No 10 sources said that such arguments had exploded in the faces of the Brexit camp.

The Conservative MP Damian Green, a board member of the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign and the chairman of European Mainstream, said: “This shows how misleading it is to say this is just the view of a president in his last days in office. It confirms that mainstream political opinion in the United States is in favour of Britain remaining in the EU, and that the transatlantic values that we share with the US are expressed most strongly in Europe by a fully engaged Britain.”

A No 10 source said: “Not only do you have the serving US president setting out why the UK is better off staying in the EU, but now those who aspire to be president too. Hillary Clinton worked with the UK as secretary of state for a number of years and saw first hand how the UK’s influence was magnified by the role we played in the EU. When you face a big decision in life, most people listen to their friends, and we disregard such advice at our peril.”

The Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has not offered a view on whether he thinks the UK should stay in or leave the EU, although he has said he believes there is a good chance the British people will vote for Brexit, partly because of their unhappiness with levels of immigration.

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong critic of American foreign policy, held talks with Obama during which the president congratulated him on being elected leader and the two touched briefly on Europe. Corbyn said they discussed “the challenges facing post-industrial societies and the power of global corporations and the increasing use of technology around the world and the effect that has”.

Earlier, addressing an audience of 500 people, many aged between 18 and 30, at a town hall-style event in central London, the president said that the UK’s role in the EU had helped secure peace on the continent.

The president said that “from the ashes of war” the UK and the US had formed institutions that had delivered “decades of relative peace and prosperity in Europe and that in turn have helped spread peace and prosperity around the world”.

Obama urged the young audience to reject isolationism and xenophobia. “I implore you to reject those calls and I’m here to ask you to reject the notions and take a longer and more optimistic view of history,” the president said.

Obama leaves the UK on Sunday for Germany, where he will attend Hanover’s industrial technology fair. He will then hold talks with David Cameron, the French president, François Hollande, German chancellor Angela Merkel, and Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, during which they will discuss the next phase of the war against Islamic State and the unfolding chaos in Libya.

Looks like US's establishment wants Britain in, not out.

Obama is telling the British to stay in as well.

[Potemkin]

The UK is America's foot-in-the-door into the EU. Of course they want us to remain in.

[Albert]

The Guardian view on Obama’s Hanover speech: a welcome endorsement of European unity and values

The most forceful message to have emerged in recent years about Europe’s unity and values has just come from an outsider, the US president. In his speech in Hanover this week he told Europeans not to retreat from the extraordinary achievements of the postwar years but to consolidate them and to repudiate those who want to turn back to the narrow nationalism of the past.

Sometimes it takes a friend to point out your virtues or stiffen your resolve, and the American president has been such a friend on his visit to Europe. In London, he tried to improve the odds on Britain staying in the European Union with forthright warnings about our plight should the UK choose to leave. In Hanover he addressed to all Europeans what amounted to a pep talk. It was a flattering discourse, and much of it was cliche, but if there is anyone who can lift cliche to a higher level it is Obama. Almost 60 years after its founding, the European project needs a resounding narrative for itself, something to restore the confidence of citizens courted by populists of all stripes.

Obama has tried to provide it. He sees a “defining moment” because “what happens on this continent has consequences for people around the globe. If a unified, peaceful, liberal, pluralistic, free-market Europe begins to doubt itself … we will be empowering those who argue that democracy can’t work”. At the beginning of his presidency, with all the talk about the “pivot to Asia”, he was less than wholly engaged with the old continent. His continued belief in the importance to the United States of the Pacific world cannot be doubted, but he has learned that Washington cannot neglect a chaotic Middle East or a faltering Europe.

The latest news from the political frontline in Europe comes from Austria, where Norbert Hofer, the candidate of the anti-immigration and Eurosceptic Freedom party, came first by a large margin in the first round of the presidential elections at the weekend. The result was celebrated by far-right politicians across Europe, including Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen in France, and leaders of Italy’s Lega Nord and Germany’s National Democratic party. If Mr Hofer wins a second round it would strengthen the Eurosceptic bloc within the EU. But even if he does not, the fact that the presidency will in any event be held for the first time ever by a politician from outside the two major established parties says a lot about the alienation of Austrian voters.

In this they do not differ much from other electorates across Europe, although there is an important difference between new political forces on the left, which tend to be pro-EU, if sometimes in a lukewarm way, and new formations on the right, usually anti-EU, even if in practice they do not actually want to leave. Mr Obama acknowledged the “concerns and anxieties” that underlie such alienation: “They cannot be ignored and they deserve solutions from those in power.” But as he himself has reason to know after two terms in office, that is easier said than done, whether in America or in Europe. He did not offer any such solutions, which anyway do not come in handy packets. What he did instead, in the words of the popular song, was to say that, when things look dark, “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and … don’t mess with Mr In-Between”. Thanks, Mister President. We needed that.

Come on British people, do us all proud and end this EU project!

[Heinie]

The English like jingoism. It will be a good lesson for them to be called on their bluff. See how they like being out in the cold.

[Rei Murasame]

Yeah. That is not the face of #Brexit.

The face of Brexit is Asian and female:

It is not “racist” to be concerned about the impact of mass immigration, Britain’s only Asian female Cabinet minister says.

The Work and Pensions minister Priti Patel, who is campaigning to leave the European Union, blames other politicians for making it impossible to raise concerns about the impact of the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants without being accused of being racist.

In an interview with the Telegraph on the first day of the EU referendum campaign, Ms Patel says she is well qualified to comment on the issue as the daughter of Indian immigrants of Gujarati origin who left Uganda shortly before Idi Amin expelled the Asian community.

She says: “I don't subscribe to this view that it is racist to speak about immigration and I say that as a daughter or immigrants from decades ago. Our job is to articulate and represent the concerns of the British public – and we should be doing that whatever our backgrounds are.”

Ms Patel, 44, will become one of the increasingly prominent voices for the Leave campaign ahead of the EU referendum vote on June 23. One of her arguments for a British exit from Europe or ‘Brexit’ will be that leaving the EU will allow the UK to take far greater control of the UK’s borders.

It might even help the Conservative party to hit its troubled manifesto target of bringing net migration levels into the UK down to tens of thousands of migrants as early as the first year of after a quitting the EU.

She says: “There is no reason we can’t. The public must not be given the view that when we leave it is all too difficult, all too complex. It is not.

“There is more we have got to do to control our immigration and our membership of the European Union has really hampered us – we are working with our hands behind our backs.”

Taking back control over exactly who can and cannot move to the UK would have a huge knock-on effect in easing pressure on public services such as on school places and in the National Health Service.

She says: “Speak to the public wherever your go, pressures on public services are acute when you look at school places, there are not enough school places in some parts of our country because of the changes in our communities, because of the flow coming in.”

A ‘Brexit’ would allow Britain to trade more with Commonwealth countries like India, said Ms Patel, pointing out dismissively that the EU has been trying and failing since 2007 to agree a deal with India.

Closer to home, the Government could use some of the £350million saved by not handing a “weekly subscription” to Brussels to reverse cuts to public services, like community bus services in rural areas.

She says: “Any Government that is in control fully of its public finances by having that money back would be in a much better position to say ‘we can spend this locally in our communities’.”

Ms Patel – who has the right to attend Cabinet and is tipped by many to be a contender in the race to succeed David Cameron as Tory leader– is also unafraid to put a shot across the bows of Barack Obama, the US President, before a visit to the UK next week when he is expected to make the case for Britons to stay in the EU.

Ms Patel says she does not think it “appropriate” for President Obama to be telling Britons how to vote in the referendum, pointing out that “diplomatically we wouldn’t go to other countries and start speaking about domestic elections - and this is a domestic election”.

She says: “I just don't think it's appropriate for others who are not voting in this election really to give of a view. We are very proud British public are proud country and quite frankly we are capable of making up our own minds. I would not dream going and wading in on another country’s election at all.”

Britain’s decades-old “special relationship” with the US would survive too if Britain left the EU, she says, pointing out the strength of the UK’s Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US and the Nato alliance.

[...]

And:

ASEAN countries might have a lot to thank the United Kingdom for if the UK decides to leave the European Union. That’s because the UK could become unwitting allies in ASEAN’s goal of negotiating more international trade agreements.

The UK public will soon vote to decide if their country stays in the European Union (EU) –as early as this summer, or by the end of 2017 at the latest. The decision to vote depends on whether British Prime Minister David Cameron persuades his European colleagues to agree to his proposals for EU reforms.

The UK government has consistently said it wants to stay in the EU, but needs a few changes. They include restrictions on EU migrants’ access to welfare benefits, protection of local currency markets in the UK and other EU nations not using the Euro, reduced EU bureaucracy and a UK exemption from the EU’s goal of an “ever-closer union.” If EU leaders don’t agree to the changes, the UK plans to hold a referendum where citizens can decide whether Britain should exit the EU, or “Brexit” (British exit).

If UK voters endorse the Brexit, the split will become a reality and Asia could benefit.

This is because Cameron wants to adopt a trade strategy that includes unrestricted trade deals with China, Japan and ASEAN. One of the main reasons he visited Southeast Asia last August – featuring the first visit by a British prime minister to Vietnam and the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta – was to strengthen trade links with that part of the world.

If it leaves the EU, Britain will need to update its trade relationships with Europe, in the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) and the European Economic Area (EEA). Brexit supporters say that any difficulties in renegotiating those trade agreements would be offset by stronger trade with other regions, especially the massive Asian market, including ASEAN. The supporters also believe eliminating the EU’s bureaucracy and red tape would make it easier for Britain to sign trade deals around the world, a no-lose situation for them.

[...]

And:

There is no doubt that the forthcoming referendum on Brexit is of the greatest political significance. For me, it is a choice between remaining in an increasingly dysfunctional EU, as it struggles with the migration crisis, ponders further Eurozone integration and worries about sluggish growth, or leaving and thus regaining control over our future. There are no prizes for guessing that I shall vote to leave.

There are, of course, many ramifications of Brexit. But trade with the EU, and its associated jobs, will surely be uppermost in many minds. After all, the EU is still Britain’s largest trading partner, even though it is declining in significance as EU growth lags the more dynamic parts of the globe. Any major disruption to Anglo-EU trade would, therefore, be damaging. But there is no convincing reason to believe that there would be a major disruption. Alas, there is much scaremongering on this point.

This week’s trade data were a timely reminder that we are a crucial market for EU exporters – £89bn of the total £125bn goods deficit for 2015 was with the EU, £31.6bn with Germany alone. For every £3-worth of exports to the EU, Britain imported £5-worth from the EU. It is quite simply inconceivable that any German car exporter or French wine exporter would wish to see any impediments to their trade with Britain.

Trade would continue under World Trade Organization rules if Britain left the EU; it would be the default position. In the absence of any trade agreement with the EU, we would then be subject to the EU’s Common External Tariff (CET) on goods – there are no tariffs on services, and EU exporters would be subject to any reciprocal tariffs we imposed. Granted, the average CET is now very low, but cars, for example, are subject to tariffs of nearly 10 per cent. A trade agreement would be in our commercial interests and, given their surplus, in the interests of our EU partners. It would surely be forthcoming. Moreover, there would be minimal disruption to our EU trade after Brexit and, therefore, a minimal short-term economic impact.

There are two key articles in the Lisbon Treaty that favour a successful trade agreement. Article 8 talks about “a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness”. Article 50 concerns a Member State’s withdrawal. It specifies that the EU “shall negotiate and conclude an agreement… taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union”. In other words, the Lisbon Treaty outlines both the “mood music” and the mechanism of withdrawal. It would surely be honoured.

Looking ahead, Brexit would enable a major competitiveness boost to the British economy. First, we could repeal or amend those regulations associated with the Single Market which businesses find most irksome. Social and employment legislation and unhelpful financial regulations (on bankers’ bonuses, for example) spring to mind rather than those product regulations necessary for trade (which in any case tend to be agreed internationally). For this reason, attempts to remain within the Single Market by reapplying for European Economic Area (EEA) membership on Brexit (the “Norwegian option”) strikes me as totally misplaced. For many businesses, the Single Market brings more costs than benefits. And a decade ago Gunter Verheugen (then EU commissioner for enterprise and industry) released data on compliance costs which implied that the costs of the Single Market could outweigh the benefits by a ratio of at least two-to-one.

The Single Market still tends to be perceived in the UK as a free trade area, with regulations added as a rather tiresome afterthought. But this is to profoundly misunderstand the Single Market, which was designed to be a harmonised (regulated) market from its inception. Regulation is in the Single Market’s DNA, and we would be better off without it.

Second, we could negotiate our own trade deals, on purely commercial grounds, with those countries with which the EU has yet to conclude any agreement, including the US, India, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The necessary realignment of trade from the EU to the world’s more buoyant growth areas, already occurring, would be given a boost. Membership of the EU’s Customs Union precludes any such negotiations.

Third, we could agree a more pro-business immigration policy which does not discriminate between EU and non-EU nationals. The current policy of the “freedom of movement of people”, a pillar of the Single Market, clearly favours EU nationals.

And finally, we would no longer be a major contributor to EU funds, a useful potential addition to the Treasury’s coffers. Our contribution for 2015-16 will be nearly £11bn, net of rebate and public sector receipts.

I am an optimist about Britain’s economic future. But I would be even more optimistic in the event of Brexit, after which we would control our own business legislation, trade deals and immigration policy. Britain would flourish.

Ruth Lea is economic adviser to the Arbuthnot Banking Group.

Brexit is neither jingoistic nor is it xenophobic. It's simply the case that Britain has a significant number of people who can no longer stand the white male club that is the EU, or at the very least no longer see the arrangement as profitable.

So that's why we want to leave.

Oh, and if you think about it, in fact, the EU is a systemically racist structure, as it favours European trade and European free movement, over Asian trade and Asian migration.

These days, whenever pro-EU people come to me and start advocating for the EU, I just say "You're a white male". Because every time, it is the case. For example, Heinie is a white male.

At the end of the day, I know the real reason that they are upset. White males in continental Europe led by their Queen Merkel, are presently trying to fill Europe with Arabs and North Africans for cheap labour, and they are upset that Britain would rather have well-educated Asians instead.

Fine, it's an unbridgeable disagreement and that's why we're quitting. Fuck the EU. It's time for #Brexit.

[Adam Master Man]

More and more countries wants to leave EU, not because EU was bad idea, but because globalist elite control it. They bring massive non-European cheap work force into european countries just to exploit them and on other hands destroy European heritage and people.

[Frollein]

A Czech commenter wrote that they are noe discussing "Czexit" after the latest EU plans to force all its member to accept illegal MENA immigrants or pay a heavy fine...

[Rei Murasame]

Yep. That's this story here:

The EU Commission plans to impose fines on countries that refuse to take refugees under revised EU asylum laws to be put forward on Wednesday (4 May).

The commission will propose a sanction of €250,000 per refugee, according to the Financial Times.

The commission's proposal will maintain the guiding principle of the current system that the country where migrants first step into the EU must deal with asylum applications.

But it proposes that when a country at the EU’s external border is overwhelmed, asylum seekers should be distributed across the continent.

The commission has been trying to encourage reluctant countries, particularly in central and eastern Europe, to take part in the redistribution system.

[...]

[Frollein]

How are they going to even formulate that law when most member states will reject it from the start? "The EU" now consists of Merkel, Juncker, and Schulz

[Rei Murasame]

And soon it hopefully won't exist at all. All of this nonsense needs to end, it's time to just put an end to the EU.

[Albert]

EXCLUSIVE: Brussels plot to impose Euro law after EU referendum a 'threat to our freedom'
Express
PUBLISHED: 07:00, Sun, May 8, 2016

BRUSSELS is plotting to impose Euro law on the UK in a move which will cost the British people their “personal freedom” for good, a senior democracy campaigner has told Express.co.uk.

Plans to create a centralised EU prosecutor will fatally undermine our legal system and kill off the principles of trial by jury and ‘innocent until proven guilty’ which have been the fundamental rights of Britons since the Magna Carta.

Express.co.uk has learned that a European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), which would have sweeping powers to pursue British citizens, is expected to be up and running by the end of this year.

Today Christopher Gill, president of The Freedom Association, warned that the relentless march towards a uniform European legal system based on continental law, which was rebuffed in the early 2000’s, will get back under way as soon as Britain votes to remain in the 28-nation bloc.

He said: “If we do vote to stay in the EU they will pull the rope so tight around our neck we won’t know we’ve been born.”

The former Tory MP, who was delegated to the Council of Europe for two years, said the EU referendum on June 23 is a fight for “our freedom and our democracy”.

And he has commissioned research by a top QC which shows the Government’s opt-out from the EPPO is “ineffective” and that Britain will soon have “lost exclusive control over the instances when criminal jurisdiction can be exercised within its borders”.

Critics say the drive to create a centralised EU prosecutor is a way of reviving Brussels’ ill-fated Corpus Juris project of the early 2000’s, which aimed to create a single Europe-wide code of law.

The European Commission (EC) plot horrified British politicians so much that then Home Office Minister Kate Hoey - now a prominent Labour eurosceptic - vowed to veto the plan, effectively killing it off.

The creation of the EPPO was a fundamental plank of the whole Corpus Juris proposal, and will see prosecutors loyal only to Brussels stationed to Britain wielding the same powers as our own officials.

And David Cameron’s decision to fully sign Britain up to the controversial European Arrest Warrant (EAW) in 2014 means Brussels can simply circumvent our objections to the scheme and order the detention of British citizens, according to legal experts.

They have warned that continental law is fundamentally different to our own, and that the imposition of Euro law will erode the basic rights and freedoms that British people hold so dear.

Most criminals in other European countries are tried by career judges and do not have the right to put their case to a jury, whilst many continental legal systems place the emphasis on the defendant to prove their innocence as opposed to our ‘innocent until proven guilty’ principle.

Crucially most EU countries do not protect the rights of their citizens against unlawful detention in the same way the UK does.

Britons benefit from a centuries old legal principle called habeas corpus, which can be traced back to the Magna Carta and means nobody can be detained for long periods without being charged.

Now Mr Gill has warned that the biggest issue at stake in the June 23 EU referendum is the “threat to our individual freedom”.

He said: “Our big fear is the concentration is on economics, jobs, trade and immigration - the Prime Minister talks about security, safety, defence - but nobody is talking about what’s really at stake in this referendum which is our freedom and our democracy.

“If you take away English common law and habeus corpus we’re no longer a free people. The European Arrest Warrant is the tip of a huge iceberg. If we vote to stay in and it transpires that we get continental law instead of British law the public are entitled to turn around and say why weren’t we told about this?

“A lot of people are thinking that by voting to remain in the referendum they are voting for the status quo, but there is no status quo as far as the EU is concerned and if they get a favourable vote they will go into overdrive to apply all the things they’ve been holding back on.”

The former Tory MP, who represented the South Shropshire constituency of Ludlow from 1987 to 2001, added that British politicians are not being honest about the far-reaching influence of the EU because they do now want to admit they have been “totally neutered” by Brussels.

He warned: “People will find themselves in a strait jacket and they aren’t going to like it. There isn’t any precedent in history where a people feeling oppressed don’t want their freedom and independence back, so it’s really string up the fires of resentment and dissatisfaction when there is no safety valve in terms of elections where they can get rid of people who are calling the shots.”

Mr Gill, who is President of the influential think-tank The Freedom Association, engaged the services of top barrister Jonathan Fisher QC in 2014 to evaluate whether Britain’s opt out from the EPPO is watertight.

He concluded that it was “ineffective”, writing: “In my view the implications which flow from this conclusion are significant.

“The introduction of the EPPO will presage the ability of an EU institutional authority to trigger the criminal process and initiate the curtailment of individual liberty in a non-EPPO participating Member State.

“In this way, the non-participating country can be said to have lost exclusive control over the instances when criminal jurisdiction can be exercised within its borders, since by virtue of the EAW procedure the EPPO will have been able to arrest a citizen in the non-participating country in circumstances where the latter will not have desired this outcome.”

The EU prosecutor is being set up with the aim of countering cross-border fraud which affects Brussels funds, such as bogus claims for subsidies.

But Mr Fisher QC concluded that the prosecutor’s reach could soon and easily encroach beyond simple fraud to “capture all types of criminal conduct from which criminal benefit is derived”.

He added that the link between the drive for an EU prosecutor, the application of arrest warrants by Brussels and the shelved Corpus Juris project is “inextricable”.

Italy-based legal expert Torquil Dick-Erikson told Express.co.uk that it the plans go ahead Brussels will soon have Britain “by the throat”.

He said: “The fact is that criminal justice means police and prisons, so whoever controls a country's criminal justice, has that country by the throat. This is why the EU's plans in this area are so vitally important.

“The EU has a strategic aim to set up its own system of criminal justice based on Napoleonic-inquisitorial principles, quite alien to our own Magna Carta tradition, which is to be erased and replaced.

“The broad public is as yet still completely in the dark as to what is being planned in Brussels and what they intend to do in the event of a Remain vote on June 23.”

In June last year Home Secretary Theresa May told the House of Commons that ministers “broadly expressed conceptual support” for the prosecutor's office, but added that “the UK reminded member states that we would not participate in this measure”.

Two months later EC official V?ra Jourová told the EU parliament: “The Commission's goal is to set up the European Public Prosecutor's Office to protect the Union's financial interests and, thus, European taxpayer's money by 2016.”

In a Government response to the proposal Mrs May said: "Despite the fact that we are clear that the UK will not participate in an EPPO, the Government is fully engaged in this negotiation, and is constantly reviewing the proposal.

"Be assured that, where issues raised may impact on the UK, we actively remind others of our concerns.

"The Government has also made clear that we regard the EPPO measure as unnecessary.

"However, a number of Member States strongly support the principle of establishing an EPPO. As such, the Government is actively engaging in these discussions, as well as advocating an alternative vision of how to address the problem of fraud on the EU's budget.

"We are also in regular contact with prosecuting and law enforcement authorities across the UK who have the potential to be impacted by EU proposals, including the EPPO."

[Frollein]

Do we have any preliminary numbers yet? Any polls? Where should I bet my money?

[Rei Murasame]

Also, if they are trying to use the EU structure in the way described in the Express article posted by Albert, and they are also trying to admit Turkey to EU accession eventually, would that mean that someday all of Turkey's 'anti-terror laws' would apply across Europe, and that Turkey would be able to issue a European Arrest Warrant against people in the UK who support the MKP-PHG-HKO, and the collaboration between the MKP-PHG-HKO and the PKK in the joint fight against ISIL and against the Turkish semi-feudal state?

Yet another reason for Brexit. I don't fancy being subject to Turkish 'anti-terror laws', nor do I want to be within the legal reach of the Turkish shit-eating state.

[Albert]

Do we have any preliminary numbers yet? Any polls? Where should I bet my money?

Your wish is my command. *licks Frolleinini's boots*

EU referendum: 50:50 split in latest poll of polls.

[Frollein]

Yes, yes *kicks Albert away*

... how can it still be 50:50???

[AFAIK]

The polls were wrong about the 2015 general election but the bookies got it right. Check out the odds being layed by Ladbrookes or William Hill.

'Remain' has now been backed into a heavy 2/5 favourite, odds implying a 71% chance to win, while Brexit has weakened to a 12/5 outsider, representing a 29% chance to win.

While there have been six figure bets on either side, 69% of all individual trades are on Remain, with the biggest standing to win £200,000 should the UK vote to stay in the EU.
https://betting.betfair.com/politics/br ... 416-6.html

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[Heisenberg]

The thing that gets missed when discussing this is that, even if there is a vote to leave (which is - to put it mildly - rather unlikely), there is no provision in the act for what happens next. I find it impossible to believe that a parliament which is probably 70%+ pro-EU would want to, or even be able to, take Britain out of the EU. There is also the point that prominent "Out" campaigners - think Boris - have said they want an "Out" vote so they can negotiate a "better deal" for Britain. That hardly sounds like "#Brexit" to me.

In truth, the whole thing is a complete farce, and I'm amazed that people aren't bored by it now. I'm not sure I can face another month of this.

[Albert]

Yes, yes *kicks Albert away*

... how can it still be 50:50???

*prostrates himself and begins to weep like a real man* ...... Frollenini!

I do not know how it is 50/50 honestly. How they make these kind of elections so close and neck to neck is beyond me.