Opinion : In or Out? EU referendum to be held in June 2016

So the date for the great EU referendum has been set.

On Thursday 23rd June the people of the United Kingdom will have a chance to decide whether or not to stay in the European Union.

The last such referendum was held forty one years ago on Tuesday 5th June 1975. Back then 17,378,851 people, or 67.2% of those who voted, voted to stay with the European Economic Community (EEC).

In the intervening years the EEC morphed into the EU, as the name suggests and Economic Community has turned into a Union and there is a big difference between the two.

Since 1975 Britain may have lost it’s proper imperial weights and now we have a channel tunnel linking us to the continent. However thankfully we still have the pound after avoiding the disaster of European Monetary Union and the introduction of the Euro as a form of currency.

But what has the EU done for us? Well, as far as I can see very little.

So what has the EU done to us? Well, our country has been flooded with EU citizens who came rushing to the UK for work, indeed just look around Wycombe as see how many shops there are that specialise in selling food from other EU countries.

EU citizens can simply come to our country even if they can’t speak English and have no money to support themselves. However those coming from overseas countries outside the EU have to pass strict language tests and prove their financial stability before they are allowed a visa to enter the UK. How unfair is that?

Over the years the EU has influenced our laws, policies and regulations in an attempt to bring alignment amongst its member states.

Quite simply what should have been an Economic Community has in fact started to become an attempt to create one huge country out of its member states.

In my opinion we would be far better leaving the EU altogether. Britain was, and still is, a world power. The only thing holding us back is the short sighted mentality of those who believe that we need to be in the EU for our voice to be heard in the world.

I just hope that in the forthcoming referendum only those who are truly of British citizenship are able to vote. Indeed it would be a travesty if the electorate had a substantial element of EU citizens in it.

What I would like to know is, supposing Britain decides to leave the EU, will all the EU (i.e. non British) citizens currently in the UK have to leave and go back to Europe?

Come to think of it maybe those who support the EU should be allowed to renounce their UK citizenship and be allowed to leave to live in the EU after all it’s where they would prefer to be?

Already claims are being made for and against our leaving the EU. Oh dear, I fear we will see a protracted election campaign over the next couple of months and by the time the referendum comes everyone will be bored still of the matter.

To those who say that Britain would be poorer if it left the EU my reply is that I would rather be a poor man and be free than a rich slave in my own country.

As far as I can see Britain would be better off outside the EU, however that would mean that we would need leaders capable of standing up for Britain on a world stage. Sadly the lack of such leadership got us into this mess in the first place.

What do you think?

*My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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