Referendum on Europe
Sally Campbell writes a personal reflection on the European Referendum:
Previous United Kingdom Referendums
United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975, on whether the UK should remain part of the European Economic Community. (Result: Yes)
United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 5 May 2011. (Result: No, I voted Yes)
United Kingdom European Union membership referendum will be held on Thursday 23 June 2016
Why would I choose to vote Yes to remain in the EU in 2016?
I voted yes in that other referendum so long ago in 1975. Maybe because even then I could see that the world was changing and little UK needed to work with Europe in the coming years for economic and social reasons. We had lived in Germany, I had worked in the marine research station on Heligoland, and we had also lived in the USA. John with British Steel on Teesside was already working with the European Coal and Steel Community founded in 1951 on environment and health and safety. Since then the world has become more complex in terms of economics, money flows, banking, scientific research, connectedness in many areas of our lives, especially climate change.
As a marine ecologist/scientist I have witnessed the advantages of being part of a larger scientific community, sharing research and better visions for the environment for the future. The UK has been pushed into creating better water quality, conservation and sustainable fisheries. The Birds Directive, Habitats Directive, Natura Sites, now the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and Good Environmental Status with MPAs in Scotland and MCZs in England.
The fresh water and marine environments have benefitted from EU legislation over the past 40 years. Sustainability has risen up the agenda, in many areas and especially so in fisheries. Due in part to the collaboration of many European small scale fishermen, LIFE (Low Impact Fishers of Europe) is having an impact in Europe, so traditional power structures of the fisheries industry are changing.
But I know that many will vote, not with their logic and understanding of the advantages listed below but with emotional beliefs, particularly about immigration, fear of the future, and just wanting to shut the gates of the UK against all-comers. Brexit blames them for all our ills, be it overcrowded hospitals or schools, housing shortages, “stealing” from our welfare state. Figures show these to be largely false and as a society we benefit from their efforts in the UK, particularly young people, and from the many hundreds of thousands UK citizens working in Europe. All those Brexit ills could equally well be blamed on my generation, living too long, needing hospital beds once we are over 65, for longer, more costly interventions; further because we are living longer, occupying flats, houses etc that in a previous generation would now have been sold on. My family, the Chivers family, were immigrants from religious persecution in France in the 1700s, so I admit to an interest and probably prejudice in favour of immigrants! I do feel that as a UK we have all benefitted from the skills and hard work of immigrants, from the “Empire”, the Commonwealth, Europe, America and the Far East. We have always traded and shared with Europe and far flung places, as pottery in Iron Age Forts and Viking settlements show. The Middle Ages brought the Dutch to the east coast trading and settling. This is nothing new!
So I have put together many opinions and information that I think relevant to voting Yes. Please click on the “Print” icon at the top of this article to see the full text.
