Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[norustplease]

I wonder how many on the forum have thought of how they might vote in the upcoming referendum?
Of course in theory it depends on Mr Cameron's deal, but many will already have formed their own views.
One thing of prime concern to anyone running a European car, will be that of costs, for example, if we are suddenly excluded from a free trade zone, then how much are your VW/Mercedes/Volvo/Citroen/Renault spares going to cost, modern and classic?
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1953 Citroen Traction
1964 Volvo PV544
1957 Austin A55 Mk 1
Boring Tucson SUV

[Ashley]

I've read and read assessments of financial experts all of whom seem to suggest that either way has advantages and disadvantages and there's no obvious winner.

However being in the EU is a very very expensive exercise in that MEPs, that we don't choose or vote for, or we vote and based on the numbers, candidates from each party are picked. Proportional representation. They have very little power. The EU Commission has that and it's not democratic. It is dictatorial.

I think everyone wants free trade, few want unlimited immigrants, most are worried about extremists and most are proud of our British heritage and don't want it lost in a massive and viciously expensive, not especially democratic beaurocracy.

Or that's what I think.

[Penman]

Hi

[Rick]

Politics is normally something I like to avoid on here, as in the past one or two members (long gone) have tried to use the forum for their own personal crusade(s). So long as things remain civil - which I have no doubt the fine citizens of these parts will be anyway - this one can remain.

RJ
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[ka]

Oh No, not the EU referendum, won't we have enough on the telly and in the press, the only pool of sanity now polluted with the 'I know best' brigade.
Straight to the 'Mark all topics Read' icon.
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KA

Better three than four.

[Bitumen Boy]

I made my mind up on the EU a long time ago, and suspect there aren't nearly as many "floating voters" as Scameron et al like to think. The much trumpeted "reforms" are nothing but a few red herrings wrapped in a load of humbug to my mind, the only thing that would have convinced me would have been for the UK to be able to opt out of this nonsensical idea of free movement of people that causes so many problems.

Scameron seems to think that people are worried about immigrants from the EU coming to Britain and being able to claim a few quid in tax credits and so on - though I suspect not many do, the number of hoops you have to jump through to get a bean out of those b@$t@rd$. The real issue for most working people is that they are here and working at all, because they are stealing our jobs; and if saying that labels me as a racist then so be it. We have millions of native Brits rotting on the dole, being harassed and starved by the Government and demonised as lazy scroungers by nearly everyone - when they haven't got a hope in hell of getting a job, because all the jobs go to the immigrants. The bosses like to claim this is because British workers are lazy, don't want to work blah blah blah, when the reality is they like foreign workers because they are easier to bully, exploit and underpay as they don't speak good English, don't know their rights and won't generally unionise.

On ther rare occasions these issues are brought into the open, the default position of British politicians - of any brand, for the last umpteen years - is that they can't do anything about it because of the EU, which is why I will be voting to leave. The EU is too good an excuse for maintaining the status quo.

[goneps]

I emigrated years before the original referendum was held, and I still can't believe the great British public were daft enough to think that joining the Common Market would be a good thing. To this day I recall the sense of despair when news of the result came through, and my conviction that somehow it was rigged has never wavered.

The only good thing about it has been that Britain didn't give up its currency, and what a wise decision that's proved.

Richard

[Ashley]

I don't think we were ever properly informed as to the true intention until John Major signed the Maastrict treaty. Then it was terrifying because it was clear that we'd eventually become the United States of Europe rather than just travelling and trading freely.

Now it looks an unmitigated disaster, an extremely expensive one, and yet the BBC and government seem desperate to keep us in. I'm confused.

[Ray White]

When the original referendum was held, I was still at school. We were given the task of producing a "thesis" on whatever subject we fancied. I was alone on choosing the Common Market and how Great Britain (remember when we didn't feel embarrassed saying "Great Britain"?) would fare as a continued member of what then was known loosely as the European Community. I was something of a political activist in those days and became obsessed with digging up every possible fact that could be found and wrote to many leading political figures of all parties in an attempt to get a clear picture. The eventual tome was possibly the definitive work on the subject and would have been the subject of a serious book. Unfortunately, as the text had many quotations from leading political figures that proved the public were being lied to in an attempt to maintain the cosy status quo, my thesis was considered by a certain member of staff to be too controversial and not in the best interests of the school . It was confiscated and I never saw it again.


Personally, I have my doubts that we will actually be able to extract ourselves from the E.U.; no matter what the outcome of the referendum, there is nothing that can be done to wriggle out of the various treaties that successive British Governments have signed. Note how David Cameron has been unable to get treaty change? If history is any guide, it would probably take a war to do that.

We again are being kept in the dark about just how much power the European Commission can wield. The referendum is just a political red Herring and in my opinion, a forgone conclusion. We are still being led to believe that it is about trade. I think the reality is that the vote will be just a further confirmation that as a Country, we are finished - and have been for some time - and the future is one of a United States of Europe with Germany in complete control as 'The forth reich.'

In my view, Germany has always wanted European domination and have no intention of relinquishing the power that it has over us and the rest of Europe. Ever.

[Churchill Johnson]

Stop worrying i predict by 2040 the english people will have no say in any matter's ,even now if one speak's out about someone else it's harassment or racist,with big brother able to read e-mail's,listen to phone call's landline or mobile, cctv able to watch every move ,possible use of drone's to follow our every move where camera's can't,since when has any government taken notice of what we want or say, mind you our so called leaders seem to get richer at our expense. and this is supposed to be a democratic country!!!, take notice of what happened to Titanic this ship is sinking!!!.

[ukdave2002]

I'm involved in running and developing a business (a uk founded and based company) that employs some 14000 staff mainly in Europe, who deliver services to other business again mainly in Europe. Our uk staff are about 95% Uk citizens, about 20% of our non UK based staff are British.

Frankly it's very difficult to predict what effect moving out of the EU will mean to our business, and we have some very expensive experts analysing the situation! we will still have to run the business whatever the outcome. If free trading across the EU is impacted, that could hit us hard, if free employment impacted, less so, although we may have to make some country adjustments ironically this would affect UK staff more than other countries.

In actual fact it's non EU influences that are currently affecting us and other UK business more, cheap steel from China and cheap oil is having a massive impact, some positive some negative, in the future would this be any different if we were in or out of the U.K.?

We are just one of thousands of business, any change will affect different business in different ways, how this will be presented in a way that the UK public can make an informed decision will be a challenge.

Will any future government maintain current EU grants? The residents of South Wales currently benefit from substantial EU funding, will this cease?

What will replace VAT ?

What will be the effect on business who import and export?

What will corporation tax be, could moving out give us an opportunity to make having a UK base more attractive ?

How will it impact border control, was Cameron scaremongering the other day, and what impact will it have on UK citizens traveling for work or pleasure?

There are numerous different impacts of us leaving the EU some positive some negative do we have enough information to make an informed decision ? Judging by some of the previous comments many folk will make a uninformed decisions based on anadotal information with emotional judgment.

I honestly don't feel I have enough information to make such an important decision, and unfortunately most of the information we have is from parties who sit on one side of the fence or the other.

Finaly my biggest concern about leaving the EU is potential damage to our financial sector; loath or love bankers, UK financial services benefit everyone in the UK, London is currently the financial capital of Europe, worryingly Financial services are getting more portable, if we loose these services the impact on the UK will be massive as we don't export much else these days...will staying in the EU help or hinder our Financial Service business?

Dave

[baconsdozen]

Will we be better off with Brussels,or Cameron and his successors deciding the fate of our cars and our enjoyment of them?. Personally I would trust neither as far as I could throw them so its a difficult choice.
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Thirty years selling imperial hand tools for old machinery(Now happily retired).

[peter scott]

Despite paying for people like Mr Farage to supposedly represent our interests in Brussels and get paid for doing nothing:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/farage%E2%80%99s-voting-record-fishing-%E2%80%98makes-mockery%E2%80%99-new-election-poster-20150408

I suspect we would lose many good jobs in multinational companies if we decided to leave the EU and my vote will be to stay in.

Peter
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https://www.nostalgiatech.co.uk
1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

[norustplease]

An interesting series of responses, although my initial question was more loaded towards what impact we all felt that Brexit might have on our motoring, classic and otherwise.

On the broader front, I personally think that one of the key issues here is that of what you could call mission creep. I think that most of us thought initially back in the early days when we finally got the chance to apply, that we were entering some kind of free trade zone, with a few enhanced benefits, which was seen to be a good thing (although parts of the Commonwealth could have been forgiven for thinking otherwise). There was also the sense that we had been unjustly left out, in spite of our sacrifices for the benefit of Europe a few decades previously.
Subsequently, however everything has been progressively consolidated towards the various member states becoming a single and unwieldy federated state, dominated in policy terms by a few major players and without what many would view as a very well defined democratic and accountable voting process.
The financial consequences of Brexit are just the tip of the iceberg and rather like last year's debate about Scottish Independence, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the detail of what would happen if the vote was for a change in the status quo.
As per that of Scottish Independence, I anticipate a close run referendum result.
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1953 Citroen Traction
1964 Volvo PV544
1957 Austin A55 Mk 1
Boring Tucson SUV

[ukdave2002]

Yep know one really answered your original question and it's a relevant one. My take would be that if we are outside of the EU non of the remaining EU countries would want to make it difficult for the UK to buy from hem, so they won't be hiking up prices as its not I. Their interest, we wouldn't however have to pay VAT

The question is, and I have not seen anything on this, is what do the UK government propose to replace VAT with (there must have been some sort of tax before we went into the EU?) and would we also now have to pay an import duty in the way we do currently when importing from non EU countries ?

These are pretty fundamental things that most intelligent folk would want to know in order that make an informed decision. Unfortunatly a load of people will vote on some anecdotal view/ my mate down the pub say's...........

My personal feeling is that if we could take some of the EU granular meddling in local country legislation out, together with some significant burocratic cost removal then the basic principles of the EU work, but that may be asking for a turkey vote on Christmas ?

Dave