Opinion : ‘If you vote for Brexit your pants could fall down…’

‘If you vote for Brexit your pants could fall down‘ said my friend as we sat eating out lunch on a bench in the grounds of the Parish Church on Friday.

‘By George! I don’t want that to happen‘, yours truly replied. I then asked my friend for an explanation as to how the stability of my underwear could possibly be linked to the United Kingdom being part of the European Union.

‘Well‘, he said, ‘the elastic used by the major underwear manufacturers in the UK comes from a factory in Europe and if we leave the European Union they won’t sell us any more meaning that another source would need to be found and that could possibly not be as good‘.

As my friend continued with a long and convoluted explanation of his reasoning I could detect the aromatic aroma of vaporised manure slowly filling the air.

Sadly my friend is very simple and it seems that someone had persuaded him to vote to remain in the EU with a story that most normal people could see through straight away.

I fear that my friend is not the only one being lead on by prophecies of doom and gloom that are not quite as solid as they should be.

In the national press it has been reported that ‘Britain would be ‘permanently poorer’ if voters choose to leave the EU and that the economy would shrink by 6% by 2030, costing every household the equivalent of £4,300 a year‘.

The year 2030 is fourteen years away yet precise figures are being quoted so whoever came up the aforementioned prediction with must be very clever indeed to be able to see so far ahead in the future and produce such accurate figures.

In another case it was published on a national news site that ‘if the UK left the European Union it would tip the UK into a year-long recession, with up to 820,000 jobs lost within two years‘.

Again 820,000 is a very precise figure for the number of jobs lost as well as the length of the recession, one year, that would follow a Brexit. What accuracy factor is there to the statement?

Listening to some of the arguments to remain or leave it seems that we are all being treated like my poor friend who ended up believing that the stability of his underwear was about to be jeopardised.

Do they these sayers of doom and gloom think that we are all fools?

Don’t they realise that most straight thinking people can analyse the statements that are being said and that we can all see that what is being said may not turn out to be correct?

I fear that an awful lot of once credible people are making statements about what may, or may not, happen and in the process sadly exposing themselves as trying to treat us like fools.

I though the referendum on membership of the European Union would be about facts and not wild predictions plucked from the air.

Sadly it seems that the great and good are conjuring up scare stories in the desperate hope that the audience they are speaking to is full of simpletons who will act like automatons and vote as they are told.

The sooner the referendum is over the better. At least the daft predictions about what will happen if we leave or remain will stop.

Sadly I fear those who try to predict the future may be held accountable if their fanciful predictions do not come true resulting in their reputation and credibility possibly being damaged.

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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