This is misleading. The data simply show what countries would have to pay how much, if Britain didn't have the rebate.

The rebate is already applied on the Island. The rebate money do not flow back to UK - they never leave it in the first place.

I've read that EFTA also has membership fees, and in case of UK the sum would be comparable to what UK pays (net amount) now into the EU budget (more than 2Bln pounds).

The counter-argument would be: how many of the unemployed UK citizens could take the positions?

At the peek of unemployment in Germany 15 years ago, they did a research and found that while there were 1.5M unemployed, there ware also around 2.5M open positions. Almost no one out of the unemployed could take the positions because they lacked qualification and/or education. That research was more or less the final nail in the coffin of Germany's pervasive and very popular anti-immigration policies of the past.

The irony is, back then, the Germany was the main opponents of the free worker movement in EU - while the UK was actually an ardent proponent who talked Germany into it.

So far UK had vetoed many of the EU political power expansion projects (often for a good reason; but not always).

Can't say about the much hated on the USA forums "sharing of wealth", but as refugee situation is concerned, the Brexit wouldn't change it.

UK takes refugees because it has signed of the Refugee Convention. In fact, after the Brexit, UK would probably have to take even more refugees, because right now EU has a deal with Turkey to take some of our refugees.

Of course they would have stayed. Being a loophole to regulations is a very profitable business. That's why, for example, the hedge funds love it there in London. And that is why I'm glad that they are leaving.

... because nobody can compete with the elephant in the "room" - the USA.

And that's why the unions work: they are narrowly defined (not really full-fledged free-trade/etc unions), and they are dominated and controlled by the USA. (And please do not pretend that it is not so. Or probably from USA's perspective, being dominated by USA is the norm of life. But it is not.)

You should believe that.

It's not like you have any choice anymore.

"Liking or not liking" the EU is not the same as "in or out". So it is not going to happen.

Oh, Brexit would make a splash. But.

First. When UK economy would stagnate for few years - and NHS would see even less funding - even nationalists would come to their senses. First-world nationalists tend to lose support quickly, when people's living sandard is on the line.

Second. UK is unique in that it is living in a virtual media bubble. You have a completely perverted image of the EU, created and nourished by the media over the past 15 years. I know it, because 15+ years ago I was reading lots and lots of UK press. And the reporting was on completely different level. I have seen it changing from small stupid lies and half-jokes 15 years ago. To stupid unfustified accusations 10 years ago. To blatant lies and red herring - on front pages! - 5 years ago.

Some saner UK reporters are depicting that it is as if the people started believing their own lies.

Even here on the thread, most US readers know political system of the EU better than the most UK readers. And that's the f*cking Slashdot, where more or less exclusively only highly educated people are gathering. Let it sink for a moment: UK, being part of EU, knows less about EU, compared to the US who is related to EU only remotely.

EU is all about trading - but, excluding: price manipulation, currency manipulation, equity manipulation, market manipulation, and so on.

If you want to sell me something, if you want my money, you automatically have obligations toward me. If I want to sell you something to you, I automatically have obligations toward you. That's Business 101.

Nobody is going to deal with a country which might rip off somebody, and deny responsibility because "but sovereignty!" excuse. That's Politics 101.

P.S. You might want to visit Cuba and ask them about how they reveled for decades in sovereignty.

From whom you got your information?

UK has 73 seats. You are almost 5% off the mark.

Malta and Luxembourg have 6 seats each. That's 40% off the mark.

So from the 7:1 influence ratio you tried to cry here about, it is more like 12:1.

IOW, the voice of the UK in EP is 12 times more powerful. Or in other words: it would take 9 countries at the bottom to match the voting power of UK. and at least 10 to outvote.

Still not enough??

P.S. Seats in the EP.

Bullshit.

Or you are comparing that to how you elect the Queen? Then, yes, EU is very undemocratic. /s

Which is also a requirement for joining the European free trade union.

Oh really? Read and weep. It has nothing to do with the EU. UK would still take refugees after leaving EU.

I assume you refer to this Commission.

It is actually elected by the European Parliament, which is democratically elected.

Any other bullshit to dispel? Or you can google the rest of it yourself?

It would end up either very loose and inefficient, or very short-lived.

Because as long as there are no political boundaries set, every state member is free to participate in the "race to the bottom" of deregulation, as a mean to attract more business and hopefully tax income.

Or other way around: how many free trade/economic unions, not dominated and controlled by a single larger country, can you name? I know of precisely zero such unions in existence. And I have read how such unions in the past have deteriorated quickly because everybody tried to exploit and capitalize on each other's weaknesses.

That's why if you want a long term union, you have to level the playing field for every participating country. A political framework is needed for that.

They are not. Many independent organizations since then did the tests to confirm just that.

One German magazine made a test of several diesel cars, and threw in one benzine one. In their test, only one - diesel! - car complied with the advertised emission standard. (Don't remember the brand (not BMW). What was surprising to me is that even the car running on benzine produced the NOx.)

Another German magazine did a test too, and IIRC only BMW diesel emission was within the advertised emission standard.

The larger problem behind the scenes is that the manufacturers have promised too much to the regulators but couldn't deliver. Thus the existing Euro 6 emission standard, established on the said promises, is simply not implementable at the moment. The industry insiders told that the emission limits should be raised by at least 70% to be in alignment with the current level of technology.

You probably never had to code couple thousand lines of code in a day, have you?

Perl5 is otherwise fine language. I'm using it now for more than 15 years, including using it 2 years full-time professionally.

In the past, on smaller things, Perl's syntax was not as cumbersome. But for newer code, especially OO one, the denser code is just overflowing with the sigils (and dereferences). In the older times, for small/medium stuff, one often resorted to the built-in variables. In OO code, literally everything is a user variable, and a reference more often then not. Sigils and the -> are the most typed characters and are the most annoying ones, since they are hard to type by touch. Modern Perl5 iteration lessen the burden by allowing to skip the -> in more cases than before. But the sigils have remained untouched.