Wednesday 14 May 2014

I am wondering about all the pro-european voters. It seems to me that they are not putting any reasons as to why Europe is good for Britain. I found a web-site (www. Independent.co.uk/) that puts forward some very good reasons as to why we should remain in, but no one ever states these in the press. Why not? Most people won't search for web-sites like this one.

We are hearing nothing except about how we will be inundated by immigrants from Eastern Europe unless we come out. The press seem to home in on this bogey-man of immigration and give UKIP a lot of air-time, but not much to the other parties. Is it any wonder that the public are going along with this? Only the Lib-Dems have said anything about the impact that leaving the EU would have on Britain, and then it's only in Kent. In fact, here are a few things about immigrants that the scare-mongerers fail to mention.

We are a very insular people, it seems to me, and are currently bordering on xenophobia. UKIP's insistence on focusing on the immigration aspect of Europe is feeding into this. Xenophobia is a very dangerous thing. Look at the Nazis and more recently the genocide in Eastern Europe. (I refuse to use the euphemism, 'ethnic cleansing.') There have also been many instances of it in Africa. I am not saying that Britain would suddenly start death camps or anything like that, but that is the ultimate end of that sort of thinking.

Here are a few statistics about immigration: They are usually young and skilled. They come to the UK to work. The 'non-activity' rate, i.e. people who are retired, students and stay-at-home mothers) is 30% as compared with 43% for the UK as a whole. 32% of immigrants have a university degree as compared with 21% of the native population. EU immigrants are half as likely to take up benefits as the native population, too. This is from a University College of London study. Because they are already educated, we will not be paying to educate them, nor will we be paying out pensions or healthcare as they are young!

Europe has had its problems, true, but it is the largest free trade area on the planet. Do we want to be outside that?  The UK accounts for less than 1% of the world's population and less than 3% of the Global income, and shrinking. If we come out, we will find it increasingly difficult to have a voice on the international stage. A Chinese newspaper had  this quote. 'The Cameron Administration should acknowledge that the UK is not a big power in the eyes of the Chinese. It is just an old European country apt for travel and study.' If we leave, would foreign companies (such as Honda in the north east, an area that needs jobs desperately) still come to Britain if they did not have the access to this vast market? Or would they go to France, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia etc and take their jobs to those countries? That would impact greatly on our economy. Would they even move their factories etc from Britain? No. Leaving the EU would have a devastating effect on the economy of this country.

If we are not in Europe, we can have no say in what they do, thus they would be able to make laws and rules that impinge badly on us.We would have to abide by those rules whether or not we are in if we wish to trade with Europe. We would not be able to negotiate them and they may not be to our advantage. In fact, they could be detrimental to us.

Contrary to popular belief, being in the EU is not excessively expensive for us. It costs us only 0.5% of our GDP and we are  getting back this year £9.252billion.

I hope people read this. You can find out much more in the website I've mentioned, so please read and digest.

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