Why I would have voted to leave the European Union

As one can imagine, having a strong desire for a particular outcome of a political referendum and not being eligible to vote was frustrating. Thankfully, my vote was not needed as the UK voted to leave the European Union. Everyone knows that ‘Brexit’ is the core political topic at the moment. I therefore aim to show you that leaving the European Union, genuinely will not be the disaster that the majority of the ‘political elite’ are telling you it will be and that there are genuine reasons for wanting to leave this political organisation.

First of all, we contribute £13b a year to the EU and we receive less of half that amount (£6b) back through EU funding programmes such as infrastructure, university funding and projects such as farming. There are economic advantages associated with being a member of the EU, but contributing that much money to the EU each year is simply not the most effective way to spend that money.

Secondly, EU members must allow all EU citizens to enter their country and work without restrictions. The “right of free movement” has allowed hundreds of thousands of Europeans to live and work in Britain. In the 12 months ending in September 2015, an estimated 257,000 EU nationals arrived in the UK (just under the size of Plymouth). Having free movement of people within the EU is problematic for Britain because it is difficult to estimate just how many immigrants will come to Britain in the near future. It is therefore difficult to put the needed amount of funding into schools, hospitals and transport services. By leaving the single market, the country will have the power to control immigration and ensure that vital services are properly funded. If the rate of mass migration changed and then stayed the same, it would enable government to improve public service funding and therefore performance. However, public services would only become worse if we stayed in the EU as the EU wants to expand. Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia, Albania and Montenegro all want to join. If they all joined, that is an additional 88 million people in total that would have the freedom to move to Britain should we have stayed in the EU.

The EU wants an equal level of VAT for all of its members. It must be 15% on all items and this includes products such as sanitary towels and tampons. There was a campaign to reduce the VAT on these items, even George Osborne tried to reduce the VAT placed on these products, but the EU refused to reduce the VAT. Their reasoning? - It would harm the equal level of VAT principle for all of its members. Feminists have campaigned for all women to have free access to sanitary products and in my eyes rightly so. However, these products are not made in EU countries, they tend to be made in Asiatic countries such as China. As China is not part of the Customs Union and we are, tariffs have to be applied. Therefore, it simply is not an option for these products to be free – it is impossible. If we leave the Customs Union, then the government could potentially pay for all sanitary products and ensure they are free without breaking its own bank. This is a genuine possibility in a post-Brexit Britain and I sincerely hope that the government does this as I believe it would be another step towards achieving gender and social equality.

Leaving the EU simply gives us more freedom which inevitably gives us more options. We are free to negotiate trade deals with the rest of the world. We can reduce tariffs or even in some cases scrap tariffs with countries if we leave the Customs Union. Being a member of the Customs Union means ‘free trade’ with our members of the organisation, but it also requires you to have tariffs on trade deals with countries outside of the EU. If we leave the Customs Union, we can negotiate better trade deals and this can genuinely improve the cost of living. Clothes and food that are imported from countries within Asia and Africa can have the tariffs reduced or even scrapped and this would directly lead to cheaper products becoming available to everyone. The cost of products can go down if we leave the Customs Union.

Furthermore, the EU’s single market rules discourage governments from giving financial support to private companies, thereby reducing the potential that privatization to certain industries can bring. Such as reduced taxes and increased competition which increases the quality for the consumers – us! In other words, the EU limits what the British government can do on a national level.

Furthermore, studies conducted by ‘Business for Britain’ estimated that 65% of new British laws implemented are made in Brussels. In 2010, the UK government estimated that about 50 per cent of UK legislation with “significant economic impact” originates from EU legislation. This is heavily problematic for many. It removes parliamentary power from a national level and how is Brussels superior enough to Britain to know what is in our nation’s best interests?

The EU has been disastrous for the British fishing industry. The Common Fishery Policy aims to manage and share fish stocks by giving each nations’ fisherman quotas for what they can catch. What impact has this had? The rising cost of purchasing fish for consumers. Moreover, fisherman are forced to throw back into the sea all fish that not only exceed the EUs quotas, but also species that the EU quota does not recognise. A great waste and it has had a detrimental impact on local working-class communities.

Under an EU regulation that took effect in 2014, vacuum cleaners with the most powerful motors (1,600 watts and above) were banned. The European Commission says the ban will save energy and encourage more efficient devices. Which?, a consumer group, says it prohibits some of the best machines currently being made. It was interpreted as favouring Germany over Britain as Britain was leading the way with inventing powerful vacuum cleaners. This is why Sir James Dyson (founder of Dyson Hoovers), was one of the prominent figures in the Brexit campaign.

When Britain first joined the EEC in 1972, Parliament accepted that European law could have primacy over UK law. This has resulted in power being taken away on a national scale and this is what the EU seeks to do. It seeks to achieve political and economic unity by merging everyone as one and it simply does not work like that. Centralised laws that are made in Brussels are implemented in all EU member states, ranging from UK to Poland, from Romania to Spain. Europe is steeped in cultural, historical and ethnic diversity, so how can one law possibility suit and benefit all parties involved? The Euro illustrates the EU’s attempts at integration perfectly. The German economy has thrived because of the Euro, but at the expense of countries such as Italy. Youth unemployment in Italy is 19.9% which is much more than the EU average of 11.5%. Working-class communities in countries such as Italy and Spain suffer at the hands of the EU and the Euro, because ‘working-class’ jobs such as factory work and mass production have largely been moved abroad - where labour is cheaper. Unemployment in many countries within the EU is rising and this has contributed to the rise of far-right parties across Europe. This includes within countries such as Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, and to some extent France.

The EU is partially responsible to the rise of the far-right parties because of their inadequate response to the migrant crisis. Amnesty International has blamed "failing EU policies" for the soaring death toll among refugees and migrants in the central Mediterranean. In a report, it said "cynical deals" with Libya consigned thousands to the risk of drowning, rape and torture. It said the EU was turning a blind eye to abuses in Libyan detention centres, and was mostly leaving it up to sea rescue charities to save migrants and refugees. Not only did they turn a blind eye to the crisis, but countries such as Greece were granting the refugees and migrants’ safe access, so the migrants and refugees would move on and leave Greece. This led to clashes with refugees and police in countries such as Hungary, where they were not welcome. Greece’s actions intensified the crisis because their actions did not deter more migrants and refugees making the dangerous and illegal journey across the Mediterranean. The issue escalated massively as smugglers were thriving at the migrants and the refugees’ hope of a better life. Thousands of people died as a result of this trafficking and the EU’s response and solution to the issue was completely unsatisfactory. The far-right often scapegoat migrants and refugees for many of society’s problems such as violence and unemployment and the EU have in many people’s eyes failed to address this. The incompetence of the EU and the dangerous and immoral stereotyping has enabled, far-right parties to once again become increasingly popular. This has seen a rise in islamophobia and racism and it is an ever-increasing issue throughout Europe.

The evidence provided illustrates the issues with both past and present EU integration policies. However, it is important to look towards how the EU may operate in the future. One of the reasons that the EU is facing the issues that it does today, is because many are not comfortable with the levels of integration that the EU seek to achieve. The EU illustrates deterritorialization perfectly and this has had a negative impact. Cultures, traditions, history and national identities are gradually being lost as countries are becoming increasingly similar. This was only going to intensity if we stayed within the EU. Despite the warnings of integration that the Euro highlighted, the EU desires a United European Army. Guy Verhofstadt even wants a United States of Europe – one parliament, one economy, one set of laws and policies. This would be disastrous for Europe – it is a project doomed to fail from the start. This would only lead to more polarization and the far-right would become even more popular.

Moreover, there is a stereotype surrounding the type of person to vote ‘leave’. It is the white-British working-class population that voted for Brexit and they are the reason for Brexit. This is simply not true. People of all races and social classes voted for Brexit and many immigrants and second-generational immigrants voted for Brexit too. This is because the EU's immigration policy favours immigration to those within the EU because of the free movement of people. This places EU nationals at a distinct advantage over migrants from outside of the EU. Leaving the EU and the single market will ensure that the UK can implement a fair and sustainable immigration policy to all immigrants – regardless of place of birth and ethnicity.

Many believe that Brexit will be a disaster economically for this country. This is a possibility, but it all comes down to the deal that we negotiate with the EU. If we become a truly independent country, then we have unlocked a whole new economic potential. 22% of global GDP is from the EU. If we fully leave the EU, then we would be in a position to negotiate better trade deals with the countries that contribute 78% to the global GDP. We can negotiate tariff free trade-deals with emerging and well-performing economies such as Japan. If we can do that and maintain a good trading relationship with the EU (which is beneficial to both sides), then Britain has huge potential.

Brexit can be a disaster however. If we leave the European Union but stay in either or both of the Single Market and Customs Union, we would feel the economic repercussions. This is because we would not be in a position to negotiate better trade deals with the rest of the world and we would not gain as much from the EU as we would not be a full member state. If we leave the Single Market and the Customs Union, we can genuinely succeed economically. If we do not, we may as well stay a member of the European Union. However, it is pivotal that there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. We cannot risk upsetting the peace between the two countries. Both Ireland and Britain have come a long way from the troubled past and it is crucial that the current relations between the two countries are maintained. This may mean having some sort of customs agreement with the EU as Ireland is a member state of the EU, but it does not mean that we cannot negotiate a better deal in which we could be in a position to strike our own trade deals with who we desire. If we cannot do that, then even as a ‘Brexiteer’, Brexit would not be successful.

When I came to a decision as to my desire of the referendum, it was important for me to not only look at Britain, but to also look at the EU as a whole. It is a failed project and if we fully leave (i.e. leave the single market and the customs union), we will be better off in the long-term, even if we struggle at the beginning. I genuinely believe that we are better off outside of the EU and I hope in time, this becomes true.