Why I'm voting remain, no matter how painful it feels
Today I voted in the UK’s EU Referendum to remain in the EU, and it really irked me because there are many things that are broken in the EU.
In the end it came down to couple main things:
- Risk: I really think that Martin Lewis (one of the most balanced experts who has spoken up about this) has captured this the well in his article and video here.
- Immigration: There has been a lot of very toxic arguments about immigration and migrants. I refuse to believe that people displaced in large parts by our own foreign policies are somehow evil. Great countries have a view of the world that grows the pie, rather than trying to grab the largest slice of a pie that is fixed in size. Here is a great TED talk about immigration I would rather that we tried some of these approaches than the dark path that Farage is trying to lead us down. To make this personal, I am the product of parents from two different countries in the EU and many of the best people I know are not from the UK, demonising the Polish, Romanians, Syrians, Turks or any other country is a path I will not walk down.
The thing is the EU is broken and dysfunctional as an organisation, there are good reasons why we should want a better deal and it needs to be reformed. The list is long. However if we leave we will still have to accept free movement of people, the crazy EU “banana” laws and many other things we don’t agree with in order to continue to trade with the EU, but it will be worse as we won’t have a say or a veto if we leave.
This article makes a great point - Take it from a divorcee: Brexit will cost you dear. The grass is not greener on the other side, if anything this campaign has revealed just how many issues we have in the UK, leaving the EU is not going to help us solve any of them.
Finally, if some of these logical points don’t get you over to the remain side of the house I hope some humour will! I found this video by John Oliver both hilarious and insightful.