Thanks Wheeze, I will try and work my way back through this thread - that's going to take a while though!

Muddy Retriever, yes of course you're right; I guess it's a question of good faith, that is, will our government actually do that? I admit I am sceptical and think the money will go to projects like HS2 rather than where it is actually needed.

Rightly or wrongly, I always had a sense that the EU and EC objectives were fundamentally humanitarian and quite realistic. For example I worked on a four year project to help older people. I worked behind the scenes with academics and healthcare professionals, but was also in communication with the people doing the work on the front line. I know that we did an awful lot of good with the money, some 4 million Euro, throughout the EU and improved things dramatically in the countries that needed it so much more than we here in the 'richer' countries did. I don't know of any grants in the UK that offer that kind of money for that kind of work. Again, I am not an expert, I just know from talking to the people who did get the funding and helping them writing the bid (that was just my part of the work) that they did not know of anything else similar available anywhere. Maybe this will change and the UK government will start handing out similar sums of cash to Universities for projects like that, but I don't see / hear much evidence of this. I love working internationally, it's super tough, but it's really great and I am wondering if this will ever happen again in my lifetime now, maybe if I move into an EU country.

Happy to be proven wrong of course, that would be fantastic, I would actually love to be wrong. However, I suspect the money is all going to end up in the pockets of the corporations and be business oriented rather than socially oriented. The regular cycle of public taxation turned to corporate profit for minimal social good requirement.

Re. material misstatement, sure, as I said above nothing is perfect, it all still needs loads of work, and EU reports are, erm, onerous to say the least, the annual reports for the project I mentioned were sent in boxes! I guess I just hoped we could continue to do this work together rather than re-establishing borders, barriers and separatist ideals and throwing some of our hard work towards abolishing these ideas away.

I believe humanity is stronger if we all work together.

I'm not actually sure that everything we pay into the EU does come back to us, does it? Maybe that was what you meant? Anyway, I'm quite happy for some taxation to go and help other countries, much happier than I am to see it increase the bank balance of the corporate fat cats for sure. I'd like to see a thriving, capitalist, wider society, that is the EU and beyond, that celebrates it's industrial champions who in turn behave responsibly and hold genuine altruistic notions of welfare for the common good and in collaboration with government work tirelessly to make things better for everyone.

I am dreaming aren't I

Can I just say it's really refreshing to have some civil discourse about this - thanks everyone - despite the gloomy subject and everyone being sick to the back teeth of it, I feel like I have managed to say what I think without being judged or chastised in any way while still being questioned, challenged and informed.

Good stuff!

I hope my posts come across as cheerfully curious and open

I still don't know anything really...