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EU in/out Referendum - 23 June 2016


FlyerTon

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Except we have an actual example of when this happened in recent history and it caused record numbers of spoiled ballots and the subsequent investigation concluded that local and national elections shouldn't be held on the same day.

Great contribution otherwise.

Of course you completely fail to acknowledge that this was in part due to the fact that numbers were needed for the council elections, and only crosses for holyrood. No such difference exists.

Great contribution from you....

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However, someone would have to spell out clearly what the consequences of a No vote would be. Not in a 'Aaaaaaa! We're doomed if we vote No!' kind of way, or I'll just vote No to spite them.

What are the main benefits to the likes of me, John Prole in the street?

For a start it would help if I could find out what kind of membership we'll have if we leave the EU. Hopefully, that could be figured out by this time next week. In terms of day to day living, being in/out will have a negligible affect on most peoples lives. Don't buy arguments that make being out of Europe as being "cut adrift", "isolated" or "no longer a big player", but at the same time being out of Europe won't mean living in the land of milk and honey either.

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Except we have an actual example of when this happened in recent history and it caused record numbers of spoiled ballots and the subsequent investigation concluded that local and national elections shouldn't be held on the same day.

Great contribution otherwise.

Surely the major difference, though, is that in 2007 a preferential voting system was mixed in with two ballots for a simple one?

Holding the AV referendum at the same time as the Holyrood elections didn't lead to massive ballot spoiling.

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Of course you completely fail to acknowledge that this was in part due to the fact that numbers were needed for the council elections, and only crosses for holyrood. No such difference exists.

Great contribution from you....

Aye fair enough I fucked that one up. Apologies.

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Surely the major difference, though, is that in 2007 a preferential voting system was mixed in with two ballots for a simple one?

Holding the AV referendum at the same time as the Holyrood elections didn't lead to massive ballot spoiling.

Yeah. I misremembered is the phrase I think we are meant to use now.

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For a start it would help if I could find out what kind of membership we'll have if we leave the EU. Hopefully, that could be figured out by this time next week. In terms of day to day living, being in/out will have a negligible affect on most peoples lives. Don't buy arguments that make being out of Europe as being "cut adrift", "isolated" or "no longer a big player", but at the same time being out of Europe won't mean living in the land of milk and honey either.

I'm saying vote No. Is it In/Out, Yes/No, Stay/Go or Stay/Leave?

What are the official campaigns calling themselves?

They haven't left much time to convince people either way if the vote is in June. I'm not particularly het up about Europe so they'll have to put a bit of work in, in order to get me to give a shit.

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If you want to look at it in purely 'who's going to be next PM' terms and assume that anyone on the winning side gets a big boost to their chances of becoming PM, then Boris being the only high-profile Tory candidate on the out side is a good move.

If he's just another 'inner' then his chances of winning a leadership election could be as low as 25%. That's lower than 'outs' chances of winning the referendum to start with so it's better to put your eggs in the 'out winning basket'.

It's probably also the case that the people who will vote in the next Tory leadership election are much more likely to be 'out' than the population at large. 'Out' and therefore Boris will probably win the Tory membership in the referendum.

We've already seen what happens to voters opinions of politicians who spend months trashing those voters views in the run up to a referendum.

To put it crudely in SNP/indyref terms, you can lose the referendum but if you get a large enough vote and are the only big gun standing on the losing side, you end up with much more support than the multiple guns on the winning side. 45/1 is a hell of a lot bigger than 55/3.

As long as the vote is relatively close, I can only see even a referendum loss helping Boris.

Smart move imo. He'll be able to tell the mainly anti Europe Tory leadership electorate that he gave it his best shot (assuming the result is to remain) and he's the man to vote for to hold Brussels to account.

Aye, fair points actually. I was thinking in terms of electoral credibility with the general public if he's generally seen as the man who was on the losing side and didn't have the skill to win people round, but it is going to increase his appeal among Tory members regardless of how it goes and if that's enough to win him the leadership then it's worked.

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Johnson is undoubtedly an upgrade on those Leave had announced over the previous couple of days: Gove, Grayling, Villiers, Duncan-Smith, Whittingdale, Patel, and Galloway. Johnson has an ability to almost transcend traditional political divides, emphasised by the fact that London - a 'Labour city' - has twice elected him Mayor. That's certainly no mean feat, even against an opponent as polarising as Ken Livingstone.

I can't stand Johnson personally, but his endorsement won't do the Leave campaign any harm whatsoever. I doubt it will greatly hamper his leadership ambitions either, sadly.

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Getting Boris on board has rescued the Leave lot from the clusterfuck of having two of the most widely despised people in this country - George Galloway & Iain Duncan Smith - on board.

The good thing about the EU referendum is no matter what political party you support, you get to see someone you dislike losing because of how divided some parties are. I mean, you either get Cameron squirming on TV as he resigns and warns us about national security, or you get Farage complaining about vote rigging and saying UKIP won't go away etc as he loses the plot.

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