EU REFERENDUM : WOLLASTON'S MUDDLED THINKING.

Sarah Wollaston, Conservative Member of Parliament for Totnes in Devon, is a fairly independent minded representative. As such, she has a history of rebelling against her party's leaders on occasion and joined the campaign to leave the European Union from its outset. However, she has now changed her mind and decided that the UK should remain within the Union.

Frankly, her reasoning is pretty odd. It seems that her only real concern is the NHS and the claims being made about future funding possibilities by the 'Leave' campaign. She objects to suggestion that chunks of money which currently find their way to the coffers of Brussels could, instead, be directed to the NHS; she says that such claims are dishonest and that she could not "set foot on a battle bus that has at the heart of its campaign a figure that I know to be untrue". She also now says that there would be a 'Brexit penalty' on the NHS because leaving the EU would hit Britain's economy, something which one has to presume that she didn't previously believe.

Wollaston is a doctor and obviously has a continuation of the NHS in its current decrepit form as a priority in her life. However, one has to wonder why she ever joined the 'Leave' campaign if this single issue is so important to her that it over-rides all else, and why she has suddenly 'discovered' the supposed damage which Brexit might cause to our economy. As an MP, shouldn't she have made sure that she knew enough about a broad range of issues before deciding which side to back ? There is far more to this issue than whether or not the NHS would receive extra funding.

To me, this sudden defection smacks of something more. Has Wollaston been 'got at' by her political bosses ? Has she been promised some form of reward for changing sides, particularly for making such a hot topic as the NHS her rationale ? Maybe she has and maybe she hasn't; either way, her words and action show that her thinking on this vital issue has been muddled and blinkered and certainly doesn't change my mind. VOTE LEAVE !