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by Cllr Gill Moseley on 19 June, 2016
One of the Members of our Liberal Democrat Focus team has put pen to paper to explain his reasons for wanting to Remain in the EU.
WHY I WILL VOTE TO REMAIN IN EUROPE
1. We live in a global village. From combating terrorism to eliminating tax havens, the challenges we face need international collaboration. The EU is a powerful mechanism for achieving such collaboration. If we walk away from the EU we not only side-line ourselves, we leave our children and grandchildren in a more unstable and unpredictable world. The EU is built on the values of western liberal democracy. Our unity is a force for peace. A weakened EU may well end up costing the UK more in defence and security spending in the long run.
2. Capitalism needs regulation. Without regulation we get ripped off both as consumers and workers and the environment suffers. So on the whole, I don’t mind the so called EU red tape. Europe-wide regulations go a long way to ensure fair dealing and green values across all 28 countries in the EU as well as those countries which, while not members of the EU, have agreed to abide by its rules in order to trade in the single market. A level playing field for regulatory standards means that honest and decent companies are less likely to get undercut by dishonest cheapskates. We in Britain sell nearly half our exports to the EU zone. To keep that market we will need to abide by its rules anyway.
3. I think the membership fee for being in the EU is reasonable. At first glance the EU seems like an expensive club to belong to because any figure with nine noughts seems huge. Our membership contribution of £14.36 billion in 2014 was 1.95% of our total public spending for the year. As a member of the Community we benefit from EU programmes covering areas like agriculture, assistance to poorer regions, trans-European networks, and research. Through these we got back grants of £6 billion from the European Union in 2014. This brings our net contribution down to £8,385 billion which is 1.14% of total public spending. This doesn’t seem too bad to me. I pay a bigger percentage than this in management fees for my stocks and shares ISA. (Source HM Treasury. Figures for 2015 are not yet confirmed but the percentage fee looks like being much the same.)
4. EU immigrants are being wrongly demonised. Unemployment in the UK is now the lowest since 2005 at 5%, and decreasing, so the cry that EU immigrants are taking our jobs is fairly hollow. In fact without EU labour we’d have to invent some other way of encouraging immigration. So the mobility of the EU labour market is helping us economically and the taxes paid by these immigrants are helping to pay for the pensions and other benefits that we home grown Brits enjoy. And if there aren’t enough schools or hospital beds to go round, don’t blame the immigrants. They pay their taxes and deserve to receive health care and have their children educated. Lack of resources is down to poor government planning.
5. Leaving will cost us. International investors will look elsewhere to park their capital while a Brexit Britain waits to learn how badly its export market will be hit by leaving the EU. An outward flow of capital will reduce share prices and investment. Companies will find it more difficult to prosper, unemployment is likely to rise, which in turn reduces the tax flowing into government coffers. With luck this uncertainty may only last three or four years, yet the long term impact of even three years of increased government borrowing and renewed austerity cuts is a high price to pay for nothing very certain.
6. The sovereignty issue is an argument I take seriously. I live alone and I value the independence of action this affords me. But I have been married and like all married couples we gave up some of our individual sovereignty in order to do something worthwhile – to have children, to build a home. And while I enjoy my independence now, I know I have far less influence than I did as a married man. I think it is like that with Europe. I think the European Union is an enterprise that has served the cause of peace and prosperity well. I think it is at a critical point in its history and our departure now would seriously undermine its potential. Our European ‘marriage’ is not an abusive relationship in which we are getting hurt. We have gained much and the trials of membership are minor compared to the benefits. We’d lose far more in influence than we’d gain in sovereignty. We fool ourselves if we think that there are golden days of unbeatable Britain to be reclaimed. Nationalism is not the future. Barriers are coming down, whether we like it or not. Our children and grandchildren won’t thank us for marginalising the UK from the continent of Europe.
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