As an EU resident I am so, so glad immigration and terrorism are not priorities. There are more important things to worry about (such as privacy, housing, equality, welfare).

You realize that massive refugee influx directly affects topics such as housing, equality, welfare - right?

Only in the dreams of some people where all of these were not massive problems before. Sure, more people may make some very small dent on these issues, but nothing remotely relevant. Despite all the fear-mongering there has not been a "massive" refugee influx, but a very, very small one.

This is an age-old strategy of "make sure those who have less fight each other for scraps instead of asking the rich to pay their fair share."

First: I appreciate you actually making a point, instead of just down voting other opinions.

They were massive problems before, i agree, but adding more than 1 million refugees over the course of 2 years (in the case of Germany) adds a very real problem to the housing market and we should be honest about that. You can not blame so called right wing populists for hoping on this issue if other parties fail to even talk about it.

I'm German and I have no idea why you think the refugee crisis would pose a "very real problem to the housing market". The housing market hasn't changed much.

There's plenty of vacant housing in Germany. It's just not in the places people want to live anymore (i.e. mostly rural East Germany). Housing is scarce in the urban areas but that didn't really change.

The 1 million number sounds scary in isolation but it's really just a drop in the bucket. The real problem is our attitude to refugees and our immigration laws: a lot of people are stuck in a legal limbo where they are forced to live off welfare because they're not allowed to seek employment or attend craft schools or universities, many who are technically allowed to do those things only have temporary visas that get extended quarter-to-quarter but could be discontinued at any point. This creates a lot of unnecessary uncertainty while also isolating them socially, hindering "integration", which in turn increases frustration and all kinds of social ills.

Additionally, our welfare system is based on the assumption of a growing population but our birth rates are too low, so immigration is actually necessary. There's a lot of untapped potential in the refugee crisis, our attitudes just need to change to see it as an opportunity rather than a problem.

As we have seen asking the general public about an important topic leads to a situation like Brexit. Just because ppl have an opinion about what the priorities should be does not mean they have the slightest understanding about what the is happening in the world. The MPs are the ppl claiming to know best so you should trust them that they are doing everything in your interest and if they are not then it is your right to remove them from power. Having the average Joe decide on external politics is one of the stupidest thing you can do (e.g. Boris Johnson).

I do find your argument for Brexit to be a bit better than the average but employing the same logic London should just be a separate city state because there are ppl outside who vote against London’s values (openness and inclusion). I’d be the first to admit that in that vote if asked I would vote for an independent London from the U.K. and this is exactly why general population should not be making these descions.

The UK does in fact have regular swings of devolution of power to regions and cities. See: the Scotland referendum, which resulted in more powers being given to the regional assembly despite the independence campaign losing. The flow of power over time has been slowly away from central government, or at least, people have been offered that choice.

The MPs are the ppl claiming to know best so you should trust them

Hmmm. But I also claim I know best. Now who do you pick?

While you're not wrong in spirit, it seems the current UK government (and its opposition) also downplay the major concerns of people.

And I do agree with some of the concerns. (See Corbyn downplaying grooming gangs, antisemitism, etc and see the current gov ignoring the economic impact of Brexit)

Well, Corbyn has been taking a beating because of what he's ignoring. At this point in the electoral cycle Labour should be well ahead of the Conservatives. They should have cleaned up in the last round of council elections. Neither happened, and it's partly because Corbyn is seen as ignoring those sorts of things.

Meanwhile the current government isn't ignoring the economic impact. So far there has been none - the economy is growing and has little spare capacity, if you believe the 4-5% unemployment lower bound. As for future economic impact when the EU inevitably tries to block UK companies and trade, that's pretty much all the Tories are talking about these days. Very much not ignoring it. So I'm not sure I agree that the government is downplaying the concerns of the people.

The Governor of the Bank of England disagrees with you that there has not been an economic impact yet. His estimates are that we have lost possibly as much as 2% of GDP as a result of the vote. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44207677

I'd also point out that last year in the first 3Qs the UK grew its economy, true, but at by far the slowest rate of any of the G7 countries indicating we are lagging behind. Not all of that can be definitively put at the feet of Brexit of course. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-economy-performanc...

I don't think the government is actively ignoring the economy, I just think they are hamstrung by the clear divisions in the nation (and indeed their party) as to whether we pursue a hard Brexit, or a Brexit in name only.

And I say he's wrong.

BoE and the profession of economics in general has a long history of failure to make correct economic predictions. Carney in particular has a catastrophically bad track record of predictions with respect to Brexit and has been publicly and repeatedly slated for it.

He can pull some figures out of the air to claim that the UK has "lost" economic performance compared to some model he won't reveal, if he likes. Those of us who understand the limitations of macroeconomics will roll our eyes and ignore his biased pseudo-intellectual nonsense.

> when the EU inevitably tries to block UK companies and trade

FTFY

> when the EU uses border/customs rules for countries they don't have an agreement with

> (hint: immigration, terrorism)

Dear God, no. Those are primarily external problems, we should (and are, thankfully) focused on fixing internal problems and making ourselves better.

I am in favor of a united democratic European government and a united democratic world government in order to increase cooperation and to enable political innovation (e.g. a basic income, a job guarantee) and to decrease competition and wars and poverty worldwide.

But many politicians of the European elite and European national elites live in a fantasy world where privatization, austerity, competition, unconditional support of the USA and Israel, wars, bombs, islamic rebels, sanctions and brazen lies and propaganda against Russia (e.g. Skripal, panama papers, referendum in Crimea) and Syria (after Libya after Iraq after Yugoslavia after Iraq after ...) create peace, democracy, friendship and prosperity.

I was pleasantly surprised that aggressions against Iran were even a topic among politicians and in the mainstream media in Europe instead of just following the USA and Israel and Saudi Arabia into the next disastrous conflict. But this reluctance has more to do with business than with morality and wisdom.

Immigration is good for any economy, because a growing economy is a strong one. There are many, many things more important than terrorism. And I imagine there are as many views on what exactly, as there are people. My biggest issue personally is that I want to see a common fiscal policy adopted across the union, to match the current monetary policy.

Well, I'm also a full-blown federalist, although I understand very well why people don't like the idea. I'm still hoping to be able to hold a genuine European passport in my hand that states "European" as nationality and "German" as mother tongue. Here is the main reason why I favour a genuine union with a partially joint military, a strengthened power for the European Parliament, and less power for appointed commissioners in the future:

The EU is in my opinion a great success, way greater than what most people realize. Previous generations, who still remember WW2 or its effect from their childhood, recognize what kind of monumental achievement the EU was - which is based on unanimous votes by member nations with varying governments from all political sides!

Unfortunately, younger generations have lost sight of this, some of them erroneously believe that wars could not start again in Europe without the EU. That's very short-sighted, historically, Europe has been torn by wars almost all the time.

Although the EU is certainly not a warrant for peace, it makes a peaceful future overall much more likely in the long run. Take the cordial relations between Germany and France as an example, without the EU these would not look nearly as good as they do now.

Besides that, there are also economic reasons for the EU, of course, but I just wanted to mention this perspective which is all too often forgotten today.

So what about different cultures? Does the EU "destroy" local culture? About that I have to unfortunately point out the sad truth that nationalists generally tend to lack culture. Few outliers aside, the people who actually advance culture have practically always been international cosmopolitans and humanists. And there is a reason why we all don't speak Latin any longer. So I don't buy the "culture" argument from nationalists, it tends to be very hypocritical.

Finally, as for the priorities you mention, sadly there is a case for technocracy to make here. The impacts of terrorism and immigration are minuscule and almost neglectible in comparison to the impact of, say, advances in technology, and the public's fear tends to be badly aligned with reality.

Yet many people obviously disagree.

I don't think the EU is a recipe for peace or is making Europe more peaceful. Far from it. The EU looks a lot like a bunch of very unhappy neighbours kept in line by the threat of wildly over the top retaliation from the federalist core if they even think about stepping out of line.

Look at Brexit. The EU is talking about grounding all flights, banning British firms, insisting on obedience, suggesting that the UK be split up to convenience them and demanding huge ransom payments (and don't argue with me about this, these are my perceptions). Then you look at eastern Europe, Catalonia and so on.

I do not perceive the EU as a happy peaceful entity. If it looks peaceful it's only in the sense that a successfully dominated population doesn't fight back. True peace comes from understanding, collaboration and compromise. The EU sucks at all three.

Not that many people, Brexit was a pure coincidence. It wasn't caused because most people in the UK were against the EU but by irrational fears against imaginary immigrants. If there hadn't been an immigrant problem in other EU countries due to the civil war in Syria at that time, Brexit would never had happened. That there was this problem at the same time was a pure coincidence and had nothing to do with the EU - and a lot with the USA's and UK's military involvement in Iraq, of course.

Also bear in mind that the vast majority of all British politicians were "Stay", because they knew what's at stake.

It is also mysterious to me what makes you think that the EU would "suck" at understanding, collaboration and compromise. These are central pillars of the EU, without those three factors the EU could not have possibly been founded by unanimous votes of all 28 member states. All I can say to people like who - who genuinely leave me baffled - is that you could inform yourself better about the EU structure and what EU programs and institutions are actually doing and, most importantly, how incredibly cheap the EU is in comparison to the respective national budgets.

Last but not least, there is either peace or no peace. People, states, and nations will always disagree about certain matters. Your idea of a "true peace" is naive and unrealistic.

Nobody expected the war in 1918 either.

US, and to a lesser extent European countries, have had little difficulty finding bodies to send to war in the last 50 years.

> The people who actually advance culture have practically always been international cosmopolitans and humanists.

That claim is hard to square with the literary canons of a number of European peoples, the creations that these people consider the bedrock of their culture and which are exported around the world as what that respective people has to contribute to humankind. You'll find that these canons are to a large extent dominated by nationalists, especially in the wake of 1848. Sándor Petöfi, Mihai Eminescu, Taras Shevchenko, and Elias Lönnrot were not international cosmopolitans, at least not in their literary activity.