In? Out? Shake it all about?

Armstrong LR_14

The big day is looming. The biggest political decision that anyone of us are ever likely to make. Do we stay or we do go?

I’ll be honest. I have wavered on occasions and found myself changing my mind a lot, especially in the early days of the campaign. However as the campaign has gone on, and as the claims and counterclaims made by both sides have become increasingly extreme and, frankly, on occasions dishonest, I have firmly come down in favour of Remain.

I can understand why people like the idea of leaving the EU so much. I quite like the idea too. I actually have a lot of respect for Michael Gove, a Lord Chancellor who has overturned the stupider decisions of his predecessor (the loathsome Grayling). I admire Gove’s intellectual clarity. I have less enthusiasm for Boris and none at all for Farage.

My heart says Leave – but my head says Remain. Whenever I contemplate leaving, I get that slightly giddy feeling that I experience when I look over the edge of a cliff into the abyss; a tiny, mad little part says “Go on. Jump. It’ll be incredible!”

And then the sane majority of me kicks in.

I envy the Brexiteers their faith in their cause. I wish that I agreed with them, but I can’t ignore the conclusion that they are horribly wrong. I am a lawyer. I am used to weighing the strengths and weaknesses of arguments. I am used to assessing the quality of the evidence before me. And I have come to the inescapable conclusion that it is madness to leave the EU.

I’m not blind to the EU’s faults. There’s a lot wrong with it. It is not democratic enough. It is incredibly wasteful. It interferes in far too much. But, nevertheless, for all its faults, I consider the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

The UK economy will undoubtedly be damaged by Brexit. I don’t accept the view of the Leave campaign that there will be a brief period of pain that will make it all worthwhile. I think that it will be far worse than that. The Brexiteers have lost the economic argument totally. Their argument is to just say “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.” That’s not an argument, that a vague hope for the best.

We have a strong economy, one of the strongest in Eurpoe and we are about to throw it away. All this talk about sovereignty is all well and good, but none of it pays the mortgage. The vast majority of economists think that Brexit is a bad idea. The Leave campaign argues that economists don’t always get it right and point to Geoffrey Howe’s 1981 budget which was roundly condemned by huge numbers of economists at the time and ended up being the foundation of Britain’s economic recovery in the eighties. So what? Just because they were wrong then, doesn’t mean they’re all wrong now. Many of them won’t be the same economists anyway. And I suspect that Howe would probably be in favour of Remain.

It’s not just academics in their ivory towers. What about all the business people who want to Remain? These are people who actually have experience of running a business. Some business people want to leave, but they’re massively outnumbered. And what about the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Bank of England, the Office for Budgetary Responsibility and the IMF? They’re all wrong too, are they? Brexit argues that you cannot tell what the future will bring, before going to argue that remaining is risky. Well I just don’t accept that. No-one can make guarantees about the future, but the odds are in favour of things being OK if we remain. Leaving is a huge gamble.

Leaving the EU will damage the Union of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Scotland is likely to be massively in favour of Remain. If we try to drag the Scots out of the UK, there will probably be another independence referendum. We beat the SNP off last time, but I’m not confident that we can do it again if there’s another referendum so soon. Brexit will mean that we clutch defeat from the jaws of victory over Scottish independence .

There are some who claim they would be glad to be rid of the Scots, but I think it’s madness. For a start, Scotland is where we keep our nuclear deterrent. The SNP want it gone if they get independence. We would have to build a new Faslane somewhere in England, which we probably cannot afford. The arguments of the anti-nuclear lobby will grow louder and we may decide to give it up and not replace Trident. You may think that’s a good thing, but I don’t. Our nuclear deterrent has helped keep the peace since the 1950’s. In a world where we are dealing with an increasingly aggressive Russia and China, plus that nutcase in Pyongyang, we are safer if we carry a very big stick. What’s more , if we lose our nukes, we lose our permanent seat on the UN Security Council. It will diminish us as a country.

I really don’t worry that much about immigration from within the EU. Most EU immigrants work and pay their taxes. Very few of them come here just to claim benefits. The OBR’s figures show that they contribute more than they take. It is striking how antipathy for immigrants tends to be high in places where there are relatively few of them. I heard a hilarious item on the BBC 6 O’Clock News on Radio 4 a few days ago where in a vox pop in Sunderland, one person after another banged on about immigrants before admitting that there was not a problem in Sunderland. In my view they should be more worried about the effect on the Nissan factory there than immigrants in far off London.

Large parts of our economy would grind to a halt without EU labour. Construction, hospitality, agriculture and the NHS are all heavily reliant on it. Yes, EU immigration places pressure on public services, but the taxes they pay help and anyway, it’s a sign of a heathy growing economy. Ruin the economy and tax revenues will fall, and the “austerity” of the last few years will be nothing compared with what follows.

As far as Turkey joining is concerned, don’t hold your breath. Erdogan is leading that country away from democracy and they are nowhere near qualifying. Furthermore, even if the UK decided to let them join (Boris used to be very much in favour of them joining), there’s no chance that Greece or Cyprus will let them in while Turkey continues to prop up Northern Cyprus. It’s a complete red herring.

As far non-EU immigration is concerned, leaving the EU won’t make the slightest bit of difference.

The only foreign leader who thinks that Brexit is a good idea is Vladimir Putin. (Oh and also Donald Trump, if the Americans lose their minds and vote him in). The EU is a bulwark against Russian aggression. Britain leaving the EU would weaken the EU. Russia has already invaded Georgia, Ukraine and annexed Crimea. It may have been an exaggeration for David Cameron to claim that Brexit makes a world war more likely, but it certainly will embolden Russia. Who is next for a dose of Russian unpleasantness? The rest of Ukraine? The Baltic states? For all its faults, a strong, resolute EU will deter further aggression. NATO is vitally important of course, and a far more potent military force, but the EU is important too.

Both the Leave and Remain campaigns have come out with lies and exaggerations to support their causes. I was dismayed by the nonsense from Labour recently claiming Brexit will lead to the NHS being privatised and the loss of workers’ rights. I simply don’t accept that the two things are linked. The UK is already better when it comes to worker’s rights that the EU requires.

But the one that really antagonises me is all this nonsense about us paying £350m per week to Brussels. It completely ignores the EU rebate, (which we deduct before we pay it, it’s not a refund with strings attached). The true figure is about half that, and gives us access to agricultural and scientific grants and the single European market. That is worth having. Just think about all the cars we make in this country. MG Rover may be dead and buried, but we still make huge numbers of Jaguars, Land Rovers, Mitsubushis, Toyotas, Nissans, Hondas, Aston Martins, Lotuses, Bentleys and Rolls Royces. All of those car manufacturers have foreign owners, some of whom set up here because we we’re in the EU and others who invested here because we are in the EU. And that’s just the car industry.

Am I guilty of peddling Project Fear? You betcha. You should be absolutely terrified of what is likely to happen.

I struggle to find much enthusiasm for the EU, but I’m rational enough to recognise that for all its faults, it is madness to leave. We need to stay in and work to cure its flaws.

19th June 2016

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