EU REFERENDUM : IGNORE THE SCAREMONGERS.

We are told, by those who want the UK to remain within the European Union, that a vote to leave will result in horror. We will suffer mightily on issues of trade and security and will still be unable to reduce immigration as we might wish. Is any of this true ?

On the issue of trade, we have a huge trade deficit with the rest of the EU, that is, they sell far more to us than we do to them. Are they really going to suddenly stop selling their cars, wine, cheese, olive oil and all the rest to us, at a huge dis-benefit to themselves ? Of course not. With regard to the USA, we are one of their 2 or 3 biggest trade partners world-wide; would they really refuse to enter into trade agreements with us ? Of course not. On the other hand, leaving the EU would open up massive opportunities for the UK to enter into its own trade agreements with the rest of the world; the countries of the Commonwealth that we treated so shabbily when we joined the EU, and the countries of the developing world, such as China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and so on. To my mind, the trade issue is a one way street - leave, and we benefit.

When it comes to security, it has been said that leaving the EU would be a huge risk and open us up to more terrorist threats. Why ? The EU actually has little to do with matters of security, in fact, the Schengen agreement reduces the ability of European countries to prevent terrorists from moving freely around the continent, as the people of Belgium recently discovered and those of France found out a year or so ago. Security is not one of the main issues handled by the EU; it is Interpol, and cooperation between the police and security services of all nations which provides civil security, while our membership of NATO deals with militaristic matters. Many countries within the EU have poor and inefficient security services of their own and actually rely heavily on information from the British security services; are they likely to risk losing this support / Of course not.

Regarding immigration, our country remains a haven for hundreds of thousands from all over Europe and the rest of the world. We have long accepted immigrants from anywhere and everywhere, but generally in relatively small numbers at a time, though there have been exceptions, notably the influx of Asians from East Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, however, we are confronted with hundreds of thousands of people arriving from all over Europe, primarily for economic reasons of their own; simply put, the UK is a richer country than theirs. The consequences of this mass influx are many and not necessarily all negative, but they include a depressing effect on wages and a vast increase in the pressure on all public services - health, education, transport and housing in particular. As members of the EU, we have no power to control this influx, or its effects; leaving would restore at least some ability to do so.

On all 3 of these critical issues, leaving the European Union will be far less traumatic than the 'Remain' side would have us believe. We must ignore their scaremongering. VOTE LEAVE.