Before I conclude my mini-series on the EU referendum, if you haven't already, please read my previous blog posts as this one will make a lot more sense if you do. These can be found here:
The EU Referendum: Part 1
The EU Referendum: Part 2
If you have already read my previous blog posts, you will know that I have been using Vote Leave's "5 positive reasons to leave the EU" as a basis for my posts and I have one reason left to criticise before I move on to make some genuinely positive reasons to vote Remain!
5. Vote Leave is the safer choice
I feel that Vote Leave may have run out of reasons here as this one seems to be the other four regurgitated into a single, confused lie. Nevertheless, it provides me with a reason to recap why you should not believe Vote Leave!
The first claim here is that "we'll be locked in a car going somewhere we don't want to go". As I've said before, this is nonsense. We have a say in where we go or, at least, we would if we didn't elect UKIP MEPs who don't turn up to do their job! The biggest waste of money in the EU is probably the salaries of these MEPS who don't go to work and vote on issues that affect us. Regardless, as I said in Part 1, British representatives have voted in favour of 87% of British laws (and in fact, just yesterday, I saw a higher figure claimed!)
The leaflet then claims that we'll keep subsidising other EU countries. This claim is true, but is it a problem? Firstly, it's not just other EU countries that are subsidised. Cornwall, the poorest region in the UK, will receive £800 per person between 2014 and 2020, and this will be spent on infrastructure to help Cornwall to catch up with not only the rest of the UK, but also the rest of the EU!
Poland is one success story of the EU. As a result of reforms it began to make in the early nineties as part of its negotiations to join the EU, and some EU funding (paid for by subsidies from richer countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and the UK), its economy has more than doubled in size in the last 20 years. As a result of this, the UK now exports over £4bn goods to Poland. This is roughly the same amount we export to India, the country with the second largest population in the world. This means UK businesses have many more customers, which means more jobs!
Furthermore, 2% of our imports now come from Poland. This is more than we import from Japan, the third largest economy in the world. This is important as it enables UK businesses to purchase goods more cheaply (due to increased competition, and lower transport costs), which means lower prices for us!
Finally, the Vote Leave campaign claims that by leaving the EU, we will have control over how we spend our money. I'm not going to make the same point about decision-making in the EU, but there is another problem with this claim. Many people don't understand how much money £161m per week is (the amount we pay to Brussels that is spent by Brussels). It works out at £8.5bn per annum. That's a lot of money, but given that the UK government spends nearly £800bn per annum, it works out at just under 1.1% of the government budget. This means that by remaining a member of the EU, the UK government still has control over how it spends 98.9% of its budget.
The Vote Leave campaign claims that if we left, we could spend all of the money we send to the EU on the NHS. Again, this takes advantage of the fact that people don't know how much money is already spent on the NHS: £145bn per annum. Assuming government spending priorities stay the same, tax rates stay broadly the same, and using the forecast published yesterday by the Economist Intelligence Unit that the UK economy would be 6% smaller by 2020, spending on the NHS would actually decrease by leaving the EU. I'll admit that this is a crude calculation, but don't be lured in by this argument!
Ok, so that's Vote Leave's "5 positive reasons to leave the EU" dispelled. So are there some positive reasons to remain in the EU? Of course there are.
1) Travel: Membership of the EU makes it incredibly easy to travel, work and live abroad! Not only because of visa-free travel but also smaller things, which people may not appreciate are linked to the EU. For example, the cost of using your mobile phone in any other EU country is currently about 25% of what it would be if we were outside the single market. From June 2017, it won't cost a penny extra to use your mobile phone elsewhere in the EU. Add in the fact that the pound is very likely to weaken with a vote to Leave, and there are concerns that the price of flights could increase, and those regular trips to Europe many of us now take for granted could soon be no more. UK residents went on 37.6 million holidays abroad in 2013, with 9 of the top 10 most popular destinations being members of the EU.
2) Science: Although the UK makes up less than 1% of the world's population, it produces 16% of the the world's most influential journal articles. There are estimates that Brexit could mean a loss of £1bn to UK scientists, but it is not just funding we will lose. Being part of the EU enables easy cross-border collaboration. Over 50% of journal articles published by UK scientists are a result of collaborating with international scientists. If we leave the EU, we could pay to take part in the EU's science programme, Horizon 2020, but we would have no influence over it. Leaving the EU would be a hit to the UK's medical research charities of which we have some of the best in the world.
3) Sport: Not only does the EU fund some "grassroots" sport in the UK, but by being a member, it means the best footballers can easily come and play in the Premier League. It's estimated that two-thirds of European footballers currently playing in the UK would not meet automatic visa criteria if we left the EU and may have to leave. I'm sure many of these would be granted visas, but leaving the EU would add an unnecessary barrier and suddenly La Liga and Bundesliga look even more appealing.
4) The City of London: I know many people think London is too dominant in the UK to the detriment of the rest of the country - I disagree - but, through taxes, London's banks pay for 12% of government spending. One of the reasons London is the financial centre of the world is because it is part of the largest single market in the world. We would lose this if we left the EU.
5) Security: There is a lot of debate on whether the UK is safer inside or outside of the EU, and I am no expert on this. However, the two most recent former heads of MI5 and the most recent former head of MI6 probably are the experts on this. They all believe the UK is safer as part of the EU.
6) The Environment: The EU has been instrumental in improving the environment and without it, I don't consider there to be any hope in tackling climate change. Because of the EU, we have clean beaches, unleaded petrol, an ozone layer. Without the EU, nitrogen oxide emissions from road trasnport would be 10x higher. The EU is an example to the rest of the world on the environment and it would be a big loss if Britian left.
7) Peace: David Cameron's claims that World War Three could break out if we left the EU were probably misguided... but there is no denying that the EU has brought nearly 60 years of stability to a continent that had been torn apart by war countless times in its history.
If we are going to solve any of the world's problems, we will need to collaborate on an international stage. If we can't even collaborate with our neighbours in Europe, how can we hope to reach agreements on things such as climate change, poverty and tax evasion with countries further afield such as China, India and Argentina?
The EU has shown that international collaboration can work over a sustained period of time (nearly 60 years). It is not perfect, but we won't make it any better by voting to leave. In fact, we would be part of a weakened UK, separated from a weakened EU.
What the EU needs is a strong vote to remain from the UK electorate, followed by votes for MEPs who want to engage in and improve the EU and not those who do not turn up at all, or go along to cause disruption. So if you haven't yet registered to vote, please do so here: REGISTER TO VOTE! You have until Tuesday to do so.
Contrary to popular belief, you do not need your National Insurance Number to register to vote, although it does make it easier. You can find your National Insurance Number on your payslip, student loan statements or by contacting HMRC: https://www.gov.uk/lost-national-insurance-number. If you still cannot find it, you can submit an application to register anyway, and the local council may request a photo of your passport to verify your identity.
If you have any questions, please comment below. Otherwise, on the 23rd June, vote to REMAIN a member of the European Union!
The EU Referendum: Part 1
The EU Referendum: Part 2
If you have already read my previous blog posts, you will know that I have been using Vote Leave's "5 positive reasons to leave the EU" as a basis for my posts and I have one reason left to criticise before I move on to make some genuinely positive reasons to vote Remain!
5. Vote Leave is the safer choice
I feel that Vote Leave may have run out of reasons here as this one seems to be the other four regurgitated into a single, confused lie. Nevertheless, it provides me with a reason to recap why you should not believe Vote Leave!
The first claim here is that "we'll be locked in a car going somewhere we don't want to go". As I've said before, this is nonsense. We have a say in where we go or, at least, we would if we didn't elect UKIP MEPs who don't turn up to do their job! The biggest waste of money in the EU is probably the salaries of these MEPS who don't go to work and vote on issues that affect us. Regardless, as I said in Part 1, British representatives have voted in favour of 87% of British laws (and in fact, just yesterday, I saw a higher figure claimed!)
The leaflet then claims that we'll keep subsidising other EU countries. This claim is true, but is it a problem? Firstly, it's not just other EU countries that are subsidised. Cornwall, the poorest region in the UK, will receive £800 per person between 2014 and 2020, and this will be spent on infrastructure to help Cornwall to catch up with not only the rest of the UK, but also the rest of the EU!
Poland is one success story of the EU. As a result of reforms it began to make in the early nineties as part of its negotiations to join the EU, and some EU funding (paid for by subsidies from richer countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and the UK), its economy has more than doubled in size in the last 20 years. As a result of this, the UK now exports over £4bn goods to Poland. This is roughly the same amount we export to India, the country with the second largest population in the world. This means UK businesses have many more customers, which means more jobs!
Furthermore, 2% of our imports now come from Poland. This is more than we import from Japan, the third largest economy in the world. This is important as it enables UK businesses to purchase goods more cheaply (due to increased competition, and lower transport costs), which means lower prices for us!
Finally, the Vote Leave campaign claims that by leaving the EU, we will have control over how we spend our money. I'm not going to make the same point about decision-making in the EU, but there is another problem with this claim. Many people don't understand how much money £161m per week is (the amount we pay to Brussels that is spent by Brussels). It works out at £8.5bn per annum. That's a lot of money, but given that the UK government spends nearly £800bn per annum, it works out at just under 1.1% of the government budget. This means that by remaining a member of the EU, the UK government still has control over how it spends 98.9% of its budget.
The Vote Leave campaign claims that if we left, we could spend all of the money we send to the EU on the NHS. Again, this takes advantage of the fact that people don't know how much money is already spent on the NHS: £145bn per annum. Assuming government spending priorities stay the same, tax rates stay broadly the same, and using the forecast published yesterday by the Economist Intelligence Unit that the UK economy would be 6% smaller by 2020, spending on the NHS would actually decrease by leaving the EU. I'll admit that this is a crude calculation, but don't be lured in by this argument!
Ok, so that's Vote Leave's "5 positive reasons to leave the EU" dispelled. So are there some positive reasons to remain in the EU? Of course there are.
1) Travel: Membership of the EU makes it incredibly easy to travel, work and live abroad! Not only because of visa-free travel but also smaller things, which people may not appreciate are linked to the EU. For example, the cost of using your mobile phone in any other EU country is currently about 25% of what it would be if we were outside the single market. From June 2017, it won't cost a penny extra to use your mobile phone elsewhere in the EU. Add in the fact that the pound is very likely to weaken with a vote to Leave, and there are concerns that the price of flights could increase, and those regular trips to Europe many of us now take for granted could soon be no more. UK residents went on 37.6 million holidays abroad in 2013, with 9 of the top 10 most popular destinations being members of the EU.
2) Science: Although the UK makes up less than 1% of the world's population, it produces 16% of the the world's most influential journal articles. There are estimates that Brexit could mean a loss of £1bn to UK scientists, but it is not just funding we will lose. Being part of the EU enables easy cross-border collaboration. Over 50% of journal articles published by UK scientists are a result of collaborating with international scientists. If we leave the EU, we could pay to take part in the EU's science programme, Horizon 2020, but we would have no influence over it. Leaving the EU would be a hit to the UK's medical research charities of which we have some of the best in the world.
3) Sport: Not only does the EU fund some "grassroots" sport in the UK, but by being a member, it means the best footballers can easily come and play in the Premier League. It's estimated that two-thirds of European footballers currently playing in the UK would not meet automatic visa criteria if we left the EU and may have to leave. I'm sure many of these would be granted visas, but leaving the EU would add an unnecessary barrier and suddenly La Liga and Bundesliga look even more appealing.
4) The City of London: I know many people think London is too dominant in the UK to the detriment of the rest of the country - I disagree - but, through taxes, London's banks pay for 12% of government spending. One of the reasons London is the financial centre of the world is because it is part of the largest single market in the world. We would lose this if we left the EU.
5) Security: There is a lot of debate on whether the UK is safer inside or outside of the EU, and I am no expert on this. However, the two most recent former heads of MI5 and the most recent former head of MI6 probably are the experts on this. They all believe the UK is safer as part of the EU.
6) The Environment: The EU has been instrumental in improving the environment and without it, I don't consider there to be any hope in tackling climate change. Because of the EU, we have clean beaches, unleaded petrol, an ozone layer. Without the EU, nitrogen oxide emissions from road trasnport would be 10x higher. The EU is an example to the rest of the world on the environment and it would be a big loss if Britian left.
7) Peace: David Cameron's claims that World War Three could break out if we left the EU were probably misguided... but there is no denying that the EU has brought nearly 60 years of stability to a continent that had been torn apart by war countless times in its history.
If we are going to solve any of the world's problems, we will need to collaborate on an international stage. If we can't even collaborate with our neighbours in Europe, how can we hope to reach agreements on things such as climate change, poverty and tax evasion with countries further afield such as China, India and Argentina?
The EU has shown that international collaboration can work over a sustained period of time (nearly 60 years). It is not perfect, but we won't make it any better by voting to leave. In fact, we would be part of a weakened UK, separated from a weakened EU.
What the EU needs is a strong vote to remain from the UK electorate, followed by votes for MEPs who want to engage in and improve the EU and not those who do not turn up at all, or go along to cause disruption. So if you haven't yet registered to vote, please do so here: REGISTER TO VOTE! You have until Tuesday to do so.
Contrary to popular belief, you do not need your National Insurance Number to register to vote, although it does make it easier. You can find your National Insurance Number on your payslip, student loan statements or by contacting HMRC: https://www.gov.uk/lost-national-insurance-number. If you still cannot find it, you can submit an application to register anyway, and the local council may request a photo of your passport to verify your identity.
If you have any questions, please comment below. Otherwise, on the 23rd June, vote to REMAIN a member of the European Union!
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