I dislike much about the EU but think it would be a huge economic mistake for us to leave. If we wanted free trade with Europe (it is a huge partner for us, but for any one country we are a small trade partner) we'd still have to obey the regulations, free movement etc but lose what influence we currently have. The French and Germans would love to put up barriers to our financial sector and the US, which doesn't like the looser regulatory framework in the City, would squeeze hard as well. There'd be plenty of poorer European countries happy to welcome Nissan, Honda, JLRover etc etc to build their cars there.
Apart from migration many seem to be raising issues about things to do with the Human Rights Act and overinterpretation and extension of the principles of the HRA (by both the UK and ECourt of HR judges) ... but the HRA is not to do with the EU - it's completely separate, something we could leave if we wanted to.
I was truly undecided at the beginning but am now firmly in the remain camp for what is the most important vote of my life. My children, 20, 22 & 24, are very worried that the grumpy old "Steptoes" (which they also call me, but not over this issue) will drag us out of the EU but won't live long enough to face the consequences. While personalities should be of lesser concern, the likes of Farage, Quentin Letts, Trump, et. al. are deeply unattractive, so is the shameless opportunism of Boris, and prominent exiteers like Priti Patel performed very badly when asked about specific examples of "red tape" on R4 - the FT had an article recently on how tape-free and easy it is to do business the UK when compared with a global index.
Finally, and though the importance of this vote means that personal circumstances shouldn't really matter, we all have self-interest and like others I'll raise them. In the FT last Saturday there was an article on the squeeze affecting even those who many would regard as well-off.. an article which has been picked up by the red tops today, pillorying the couple featured - with ridiculous stats like the number of bottles of Bollinger they could buy with their gross income... but anyone who has one of the cars we like is reasonably likely to be in the middle range or possibly additional, or even more perniciously, the 61% tax bracket between those two so it is relevant. I've never been pay frozen (-15% in real terms) and taxed (directly, indirectly though increased pension contributions, loss of pension tax relief, loss of tax relief on savings, loss, when the youngest was young enough, of C Benefit etc and potentially with £20k to file for probate) as hard as under this government which is committed to balancing the books. Demographics and increased expectations mean that the spend on health/social care is ballooning and they don't have the political muscle to rein in welfare costs, nor the ability, within or without the EU, to tax giant corporations so the only way that they can get that money is by hitting those in work, especially those better paid. If the economy flatlines or more likely dives with Brexit they'll have to hit us harder still just to keep afloat and a subsequent socialist government won't be able to borrow so readily so their favoured way out of trouble won't work either - and the rich barstewards who drive fancy Italian cars will be first to pay.
Bottom line - whether for the more altruistic reason of the future of us and our children or more prosaically, if you want to have enough left over to keep your Maserati, you need to vote remain!!
Right, rant over; time to tear myself away from SportsMaseratiMumsNet and continue slogging away, only to give nearly half of it away in tax...
