MADAM,

The referendum really is the great issue of our time, which unless common sense prevails, could have a drastic effect on the future of our small island nation.

It seems absolutely absurd to vote to leave the EU, within which we, the world’s fifth largest economy, have successfully prospered over the last 43 years.

The onus to show why we should now take off in a different, untried direction, must surely be on those who want to quit, yet they have conclusively failed to make any credible economic case that we would, as a result, be any better off. This is when all the outside experts warn that we would be much worse off. The leavers have ignored the mass of expert evidence, plus our own individual business experiences of prosperity up and down the nation,over these many years of membership.

Not a single British political party, except UKIP with just one MP, is calling for Brexit. Their only remaining tactic now is the ugly one of anti-foreigner prejudice, the stock-in-trade of UKIP, now enlivened by the tall stories about Turkey designed to scare the children. Turkey’s long hoped for membership is likely to remain just that, simply because they are not up to it on several counts. Europe really does not want them and any one of the 28 member states of the EU, including the UK if still a member, can veto their application to join, job done!

Our largely foreign owned tabloid press, arguably the worst in the world, has laid down a daily barrage of toxic Brexit propaganda which has only a fleeting resemblance to news reporting, but for me, the greatest danger has been little commented on in either campaign. I fear for the United Kingdom in the event of a ‘Leave’ decision. The Scottish referendum gave us ample warning of what to expect if England votes to quit and Scotland votes to remain. The popular SNP political leaders said plainly that they accepted the results of their recent Independence referendum to stay in the UK, but in a UK that was a signed-up member of the EU, not one that had voted to leave; that they would not be dragged out of Europe, on England’s coat-tails.

I have formed a particularly low opinion of those leaders of the Brexit, who, as senior politicians, know that they are taking this high risk for Britain, with Scotland.  To me patriotism means loyalty to the United Kingdom, not to a kind of ‘Little England’, inspired by estuary dwellers and street politicians like Farage.

I really find it hard to believe that older, more thoughtful English voters, could put the future of the centuries-old union of England and Scotland ‘on the line,’ by voting Leave.  History will tell that we are not now in any crisis, other than possibly one of our own making.  How could voting Brexit be worth the risk? It could mean a truncated Britain with inevitable repercussions to follow in Wales and N. Ireland. A ‘Little England’ might be just fine for UKIP, despite their initials, but a Britain without our Scots, would be a fraud and a disaster. 

Clive Lindley

(Monmouth)