It is difficult to make an informed decision with all of the misleading nonsense being spouted by the politicians, neither side have presented a clear or credible argument.
In principle I like the idea of a European Union but have deep reservations about the way it is currently organised.
I have written (a rather long) post about some of the issues that are being discussed and my conclusions.
Public Finances
The leave campaign would have you believe that the EU costs Britain £350m a week but the real figure is apparently closer to £248m, either way it seems like a lot of money. It isn't quite that simple though as a lot of the money comes back in grants and subsidies. So I don't buy the argument that there would be a lot of extra money for our public services. My expectation is that not a lot would change in the amount of money available. The only thing that would change is that our elected government would be the ones deciding where to spend the money instead of the EU. In theory a good thing but in practice they will just waste it and probably give themselves pay rises while they are at it for being so good at wasting it. On the other hand it is very selfish of us to say we are not going to help poorer countries in Europe such as Greece because we want to keep all our money to ourselves. I don't think it is an issue that I would consider makes much influence to how I would vote.
Trade
So much has been said about trade. Yes it is convenient that when we make a sale to an EU destination that we don't have to deal with duty (tariffs) and VAT arrangements are relatively simple. But then again a majority of the products we deal with are from China or the United States so we have to pay duty on those imports and that cost gets passed on to customers anyway. So maybe in the longer term better trade agreements with the US and China may make things cheaper for us all. Short term there will be some disruption while new arrangements were sorted out. In order to sell products into Europe UK companies would still have to comply with EU rules such as CE marking and RoHS directives so it isn't as if magically there will be less red tape. The EU is struggling to negotiate a trade agreement with the US that is fair, TTIP is biased in the favour of the US and wouldn't want to be part of that. But you have to ask if a large union of countries does not have the strength to negotiate a trade agreement that is on equal terms with the US then what chance does a little individual country like the UK. The so called special relationship is nothing more than the UK and US speaking a similar language and the US having huge influence over the UK since we borrowed so much money from the US during two world wars without which we would have been bankrupt. So again, who knows exactly what would happen but one thing is for sure people want to buy stuff and so a way will be found to make that possible. So again apart from short term problems while things are up in the air I don't see it being a long term issue either way.
Immigration
Oh please! stop reading the Daily Mail and other so called news papers. While Britain is one of the more desirable countries to come to in Europe for economic migrants not everyone wants to come here. I don't blame anyone who wants to better their life moving to a country with better economic prospects, you would do the same. But the fact is people come here to work not just to get benefits, some may come for the NHS but equally many are working minimum wage jobs that many British born people refuse to do choosing to live on benefits instead of working hard in a physically demanding or unpleasant job for very low pay. Big business wants to keep the migration flow happening because they get a fresh supply of people willing to work for next to nothing. In an ideal world the EU would work to help accelerate the economic growth of those countries so people don't have to uproot their lives in search of a better future. The biggest immigration problem however is people from outside the EU and we don't seem to have got that under control.
Expansion
This one does concern me, the push for continued expansion of the EU is largely responsible for many of the problems, Taking on countries like Greece caused them to take on regulation that they could not afford to implement and has turned what was a poor but stable economy into a basket case. The very idea of including Turkey in the EU seems like trying to build an empire not unifying a group of neighbouring countries. If we can’t stop this continued expansion then that to my mind is a reason to be out, as I think further trouble is on the horizon.
Integration
The EU is forever trying to impose greater control over member countries seemingly trying to make a United States of Europe with a federal government. There are some valuable laws that cover some very important issues. It makes a lot of sense for countries to agree on common standards so that people can travel, work and trade in other countries without being arrested for wearing the wrong clothes, following the wrong religion or having sexual preferences that don’t meet with the standards of a government. But I would rather that the EU stick to the major issues and stop messing about with trivial things. For example it might seem good that now we get cheaper mobile calls while roaming through Europe but really is that something that should be put into law? It is this kind of meddling that makes me think there are far to many bureaucrats with time on their hands on the payroll. That money could be spent on far better things like helping fix problems in countries that are struggling.
Democratic Accountability
My biggest concern about the EU is the way that there is little transparency in the law making process and the process for introducing laws is not fully democratic. The elected Euro MPs can not propose new laws, amendments or repeal of existing laws.
What I would like to see would be slimmed down EU that only deals with the significant issues of basic human rights, environmental issues and trade etc. Not trivial things like how much it costs to make a call or how orange an orange needs to be to be sold as an orange. I would like to see this done in a proper democratic way so that the member countries can propose laws and amendments to the existing ones and attempt to convince the other countries to support proposals based on merit. I would also like to see a halt to further expansion of the EU or at the very least a managed expansion programme where new countries are associate members while the rest of the EU helps to bring the new members economy in-line with the standards of the rest of the union to prevent the mass exodus from new countries. It is not in the interests of any new country to loose significant numbers of their population or for other countries to have to deal with the sudden influx of new people requiring somewhere to live.
The problem is as far as I can see this can not happen with the EU as it is now, the current leadership are using for ever more expansion and integration and the member countries have very little say in the direction of the EU. The UK has never really been fully behind the EU project, seemingly being on the opposition more often than not for anything the EU is doing so I wonder why we are part of it in the first place. While Britain is probably the most vocal about its opposition to the EU we are far from the only country with reservations and if we did leave I think it would start a bit of a chain reaction with some other countries watching with interest and following suit if it worked out for Britain.
Unfortunately I think it would take a big event like a country leaving the EU to actually make them stop and review where they are going with it. What bureaucrats fail to realise is that as much as we would like everything to fit into simple clearly defined categories, life isn’t like that, people don’t like to feel like they are being told what to do paying more taxes for the privilege.
The right balance has to be found and at the moment I think the EU is trying to hard to gain power. So as the reforms that I would like to see happen are seemingly impossible while we are in the EU I think leaving would be the better option. It would have some short term consequences no doubt as everything is thrown into uncertainty but it is probably the action that needs to be taken for the long term benefit of everyone to stop the EU forcing their laws onto countries who never elected the officials.
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