Belief in the European Union is a perfectly valid position. It is valid for a German with memories of the last war, or a Bosnian with experience of more recent wars and massacres. It is valid for the people of Eastern Europe, offering them stability and the chance of a better life. For hundreds of millions of people it has much to offer.
But not, in my view for Britain. We were the odd man out from the start, tricked into joining by Harold Wilson and talk of a ‘common market’. We failed to read the small print – ‘ever closer union’ – but forty years on we know it all too well. We now have the chance to get back on the right track, though the powers that be, for reasons I cannot fathom, are trying to trick us again.
They are distorting some facts and omitting others. They talk of our influence into the EU. What influence? We have put down more than seventy motions in the past few years and not one has been adopted. They speak of our future in a ‘reformed’ EU. What reform? I hear no talk of reform from Brussels. Surely they don’t mean the paltry http://www.healthandrecoveryinstitute.com/adderall-adhd/ concessions that David Cameron came home with on his last attempt?
We are told our trade will suffer, businesses will relocate to Europe, and jobs will be lost. Yes, some of this will happen, it is a concomitant of major change, but I believe we will emerge stronger as a free nation. We are the world’s fifth largest economy, we import more from Europe than we sell to them; how foolish would they be to put up tariff walls and barriers between us.
And then there are things which the ‘Remainers’ leave out. The tens of thousands emanating from Brussels. We don’t need them, thank you – we’re only too good at creating our own. We may have no influence but we are the second largest financial contributor to the EU. Maybe that’s why they want us. And finally, the EU is on a journey towards a superstate, the bureaucracy will only increase, the erosion our sovereignty and of our own laws can only continue.
There are those who would have us ‘rather bear the ills we have than fly to others we know not of’. PROJECT FEAR plays to our caution, PROJECT HOPE to our aspirations. That’s the one for me.