Remain

I am voting to stay in the European Union. At the start of the campaign I couldn’t articulate why I felt so strongly that we should stay in the EU. I’ve read a lot of good stuff on both sides of the debate and kept a few interesting cuttings from the internet. I've surprised myself by agreeing with speeches by Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron (he's the leader of the Liberal Democrats, apparently). As the campaign has progressed, though, I’ve recognised that I’m voting Remain because I think it reflects what kind of nation we are.

I cannot vote on the same side as Farage, Galloway, Gove, Duncan Smith and Hoey, the politicians I hate most in this country. If I was being kind I would say that they are a bit weird. Even the most hardened anti-EU campaigner must admit that the Vote Leave leaders are a bit weird. I know the pro-EU team have Corbyn and Osborne, but they are the equivalent of Grimsby Town FC compared to the Barcelona of weirdness that is the Vote Leave leadership. But if they were just weird, it wouldn't be a problem. Farage and Galloway are dangerous bigots who each have a diametrically different vision of the world and what Britain should look like, and I'm not sure either of these Britains are ones where I want to live. The journalist Marina Hyde wrote an article on Nigel Farage last week for the Guardian, shortly after he had launched that odious poster and shortly after Jo Cox had been shot dead. One paragraph hit the nail on the head:

"There are many people I respect and admire voting leave – there are people in my family voting leave. I understand their reasons. But they must stomach the reality that a vote for leave will be taken by Farage and countless others as a vote for him, a vote for his posters, a vote for his ideas, a vote for his quiet malice, a vote for his smallness in the face of vast horrors. Is it worth it?"

Then there's Boris. Everyone loves Boris, don't they? Certainly the Vote Leave campaign love Boris, because the weirdos have been told to keep their heads down during large parts of this campaign for fear of frightening the horses. I liked Boris, he was always good value and, at the start of the EU campaign, I could easily see him leading the Tories into the next election. However, it became clear from the early stages of the campaign that this referendum was as much about buffing up Boris's CV as it was about getting out of the EU. His media-orchestrated 'will he, won't he' decision gave a pointer to what was to come. Subsequently, his contradictory views on EU (two articles in the Telegraph; one 'we should stay in', another 'we should leave'; pro-Europe quotes in his Churchill book) together with a borderline racist comment on why President Obama wants the UK to stay in the EU have undermined any political credibility he had in my eyes. This referendum seems to have developed into a referendum on the future of the Conservative party, and, unfortunately, also a referendum on immigration.

It saddens me that when the Vote Leave campaign focuses on immigration their poll ratings go up. It saddens me, because it reminds me that there is a xenophobia in certain parts of this country, where the word 'immigrant' is spat out like a bad taste. In my view, immigration into the UK over the past 60 years has been a good thing. We are a better country for the cultural diversity that immigration has brought us. We are also a more tolerant country, prepared to look outward beyond the White Cliffs of Dover rather than focus inwards on our own problems. Prepared to welcome people who make a valuable contribution to our society. Prepared to accept people who are in dire need of help, often as the result of what our country has done to theirs. And it is my view that we should be an outward-looking rather than an insular nation that is at the heart of why I’m voting Remain.

I will be very disappointed if we vote to leave the EU, but I suspect that, if we do, then there is a long way to go before it actually happens. More than anything, however, I will be disappointed because it will signpost that we are becoming a nation more focused on ourselves rather than others. One of the internet clippings I saved was a shared post from one of my Facebook chums and it sums up nicely how I feel:

"If the leave campaign was about how Britain could contribute more to the world if it left the EU then I'd be interested. But it's not. It's about how Britain can give less and take more from the world - and how it can keep the rest of the world out. Come on Britain, we're better than that.”