If you base your views on the EU on the basis on personalities, then you have already lost the argument in my view
I don't. I just thought I would match the banality of your comment about the state of mind of anyone wishing to remain.
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I base it on the 30 plus years of relative prosperity the UK has enjoyed as part of the EU. The 30 years which have incidentally most benefited the groups most wanting to leave ie. the older generation. The ramifications of leaving the EU will last decades, long after most of those that argue for it will be tucked up at home on their civil service pensions (see below). Conversely, the people in their 20's and 30's are most likely to lose out from a Brexit as they typically have the less job security compared to those with more experience.
Perhaps the biggest lie in all of this debate is the idea that trade deals can be hammered out nice and neatly and we'll all be home by Christmas for tea and medals. The structure of the EU is designed to put the leaving party at a massive disadvantage, according to the terms of the EU treaties, if we want a trade deal, we would have to get
unanimous agreement on certain points from all other member states. If we don't manage it within 2yrs, we are then on the standard WTO Tariff rules until we strike a deal. How much do you think we'll have to give away to get the job done? Sure, we can leverage against our big trading partners like Germany et al, but we also need agreement from the likes of Poland, Italy etc. who have just lost a chunk of funding by us leaving. Something tells me they'll want quite a package from us!
Then we have to make separate deals with other trading partners - notably the USA.
As for your ageist comments the older generation, that's just piffle. As, too, is your assertion that Brexit would "create a mess", which only the young could sort out.
Why so? they are the generation that failed (until recently) to adjust retirement ages and pension benefits in line with increasing ages. Such that we now have a generation who will on average be retired for 30 plus years. Many on index linked Defined Benefit pensions, even those that aren't are the only social group not to be affected by austerity (benefiting as they do from the triple lock) while accounting for over 40% of the country's total welfare spend, while also accounting for the largest proportion of NHS spending. People in their 20's and 30's now will be the first generation in British history who will have to fund both their own retirement and that of the generation before.
They are also the generation who were able to buy new-build houses at cheap prices (compared to wages) but are most likely to block new-build developments which would shift the balance of housing demand/supply so that younger generations can enjoy the same. Because it will "devalue their homes" or "spoil their countryside".
These points are not ageism, they are statements about how the Baby-Boomer generation was too good to itself and Generations X & Y will have to pick up the tab. The problem of course is that pensioners account for the greatest number of voters and therefore hold the balance of political power. Intergenerational unfairness in the UK is well documented, and has been confirmed by IFS studies. Or
piffle as you would say.
like all the other useful lefties that can't see the wood for the trees (and big business loves you all!).
On this point
you genuinely could not be more wrong.
I'm the archetypical hard hearted Right Winger - public school educated, russel group university, blue chip employer. Don't mistake me for someone who's lost out somehow and blames my failings on the previous generation(s). I'm just able to see past all the psuedo-nationalist posturing about how Great a nation we are and how the world will fall over itself to do deals with us and how the EU is stealing our identity yadda yadda yadda.