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Why do we want to be in the EU? (Just some of the things it does…)

Peace. The EU brings europe together. Europe has a very bloody history, and the EU creates strong bonds between countries based on economic gain. There won’t be wars between countries that are profiting off of each other. It’s easy to think that war wouldn’t be a real thing anymore, but the last one actually wasn’t that long ago, and ideologically we haven’t advanced very much. More on this later.

Financial gain. The EU is a trade agreement. About half of the UK’s trade is to EU countries, and we get really good rates for being in the EU. It’s more than possible to trade with the EU without being a part of it, and we can trade with other countries, but that would be more expensive, and we’d have less power. Norway is in Europe, but not a member- they trade with the EU, but as a non-member they have very little bargaining power.

Health & Safety Regulation. This can sometimes be a lot of red tape, but for the most part it’s very much a good thing. You know how electronics from china have a nasty habit of exploding? Stuff made to EU spec doesn’t do that. Because you can’t sell unsafe stuff in the EU. It means we have furniture that doesn’t catch fire, and clothes that don't contain toxic materials. We also enjoy worker’s rights that prevent employers from being able to abuse staff through unfair working conditions.

Market protection. EU courts will punish anti-competitive behaviour, price fixing, and other forms market abuse from corporations. The size of the EU gives it enough weight to force companies to comply with regulation, instead of having to put up with what we’re given.

A check on local government. The need to comply with EU laws helps ensure that we can’t be totally screwed over by an overzealous government. We’ve spent some time with the Conservative (aka Tory) party in power now. First they were in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who did their best to keep the Tories reigned in. But now we have a Tory Majority government, and things are still getting worse. The EU is the last thing we have stopping the Tories from re-writing most civil rights as they see fit.

Freedom of movement. We can go on holiday in the EU without needing a visa. This encourages tourism, which further brings money to the member states. It also makes international collaboration for science and research a great deal easier, making EU members more attractive for research investments.

Why would we want to leave? (Some of the headliners…)

The EU is undemocratic. This is sort of true, but not nearly as bad as it’s made out to be. Most of the public believe that the unelected EU commission calls the shots, but this isn’t true. The Commission proposes laws, but the EU parliament of elected MEPs debates and passes the law. Laws cannot be passed without Parliamentary approval. However, the Commission still needs an overhaul. Most of the member states all agree on this, and this is likely to change in the future. We can fix the EU and help reshape it by staying in.

It costs £350m a week. False. The UK has garnered itself significant loyalty discounts in the form of rebates, and as a member, the EU spends money on us as well. The true number is closer to half of this. To put this in perspective, the NHS costs about £330m EVERY DAY, so EU membership - for all it brings us - actually ain’t a bad deal.

Take back control of our country. We haven’t lost control of it. For starters, Britain is on the winning side of the overwhelming majority (~95%) of parliamentary votes. All that EU law and regulation helps our quality of life. You could argue that we should make those laws and regs ourselves… but that’ll cost a fortune, take years, and we need to trust the Tories (who we all agree are a bunch of bastards) to have the working man’s back. Which they don’t.

Control immigration and our borders. Disregarding the fact that immigration benefits our economy over all (immigrants spend more money than they get from the government) a brexit is not going to solve immigration. Most immigrants actually have work lined up, which makes them productive members of the economy, and half of them are from outside the EU, which means FoM laws don’t count anyway. And that’s before we consider refugees or illegal immigration, which can’t be solved by laws alone.

We’ll make our own FTAs, including ones with the EU. Our choices for this are actually pretty dire. A lot of countries, including America, and flat-stated “We’d rather trade with the EU.” which means we’re going to end up with very similar or diluted versions of EU agreements anyway. Norway runs this kind of thing, and they end up having to follow a huge amount of EU law and regulation while having no say in any of it. Leaving the EU will actually lose us power, because we’d be giving up one of the biggest player seats at the table. With regards to other countries… this means people like Saudi Arabia (crimes against humanity, extremist culture creates terrorism) or China (crimes against humanity, actively undermines western economy) and so on. The EU is one of the sanest blocs to trade with where we know we’re not doing deals with the devil, and that they’ll scratch our back for us.

So that’s the main headline points. What about national identity and that stuff? Well we haven’t lost that. Just because we subscribe to a bunch of EU laws instead of going through the hassle of making our own doesn’t take away from who we are. And the funny thing is that who we are is a multi-cultural country already. We have american computers made in china. Swedish furniture. Indian food. The glorious mix of cultures is what makes Britain awesome, because we like a bit of everything.

There’s a whole load of scaremongering about the Muslim population on the rise- and I can tell you straight up that Muslims will never amount to a significant portion of the UK population in at least this century. They’re at 5% at the moment, and exaggerated projections could get them to maybe 10% by 2050 at best. So don’t even think about that nonsense of Sharia Law in the UK. It won’t happen.

Now, if I trusted the government, I’d be inclined to roll the dice and say “Yea, the EU is a bit worse for wear right now, I think it’s served it’s purpose and now in the 21st century it’s time for us to part ways…” but right now that means placing all of my trust in the Tories, a party who is actively undermining our privacy rights, our civil rights, and our public services, all under the guise of austerity to save the economy. And it’s not working. We can see it’s not working- yet we’re still forced to drink that kool-aid. I’m buggered if I’m giving them any other laws and regulation to mess with.

The UK economy is delicate, and this is not the time to make big changes. We’ve already seen massive hits to our stock exchange and currency value just on the chance that we might leave.

As I said at the beginning, the population doesn’t understand this situation enough to make an informed decision. There’s a bunch of polls being conducted by the media that shows how the average brit is pretty much wrong on all the facts about the referendum. They think they know the score because they’re being spoon-fed half-truths and exaggerations by ultranationalist parties like UK Independence Party (UKIP) and Britain First. These parties seek to blame all of our problems on the EU, on foreign immigrants, and on other cultures, while offering no better solution. UKIP’s Nigel Farage is an MEP who seldom attends the sessions, seldom votes, and generally insults other countries in a manner that makes me ashamed to be from the same country as he is. Britain First have actually devolved into an extremist group who believe and preach that our christian populace is under threat from muslims and we must shun and be wary of all muslim nationals. I’m not exaggerating. There are videos of BF rallies where people in the audience shout, quote “Kill Them All”.

These views do not represent the entire Leave campaign, that point I must stress, but the problem we now have is that with those extremist voices louder than ever, a Brexit now would give them a huge surge of credibility and validation- a concept that genuinely frightens me. The british public are worried and disillusioned after the past decade of recession and austerity, and we’re vulnerable to being preyed on by extremist ideas. If alarm bells of a european country in a similar disposition in the 20th century aren’t ringing now, they should be.

We also need to consider that despite all of the rhetoric of how great it could be if we leave, there’s absolutely zero certainty. Right now we know how the EU works, we know the ins and outs, where it is, where it’s going, and where we could steer it. But outside, it’s all black. There’s no draft legislation. There’s no draft agreements. There’s no comparison on what rights we’d retain or lose. There’s no plan.