European Union (EU): In or out Britain's three options

The Government has spread around a pretty booklet as to why it believes that voting to remain in the European Union (EU) on Thursday 23^rd June 2016, is the best decision for the UK.

Nudge nudge wink wink. Some of the Government believe this, others – a very substantial proportion – believe otherwise.

But those others haven't had the option of sending a booklet to every house in the country, funded by the taxpaying recipients.

Nearly all the arguments are economic, there’s just one page on a different topic.

Well, there aren’t many pages and some of them are just pictures; but the different topics are ‘Controlling immigration and securing our borders’.

The economic arguments are completely spurious, Britain would be worse off if we exited, apparently.

Nobody knows this, but even if it was certainly true it would be irrelevant as Britain is one of the richest countries in the world.

We could easily feed the hungry, house the homeless and provide enough hospitals and doctors so that there were no health care waiting lists.

In or out of the EU, we’ve got more than enough wealth to meet all our needs.

Instead we’ve spent 40 years taking from the poor and giving to the rich – who don’t need it and It’s been the British Government of various political persuasion own choice, regardless of EU membership.

As long as we are in the EU we have to abide by various regulations, some are to protect the environment, some to protect employees.

The regulations may not be nowhere near enough, but some of the leading Brexit campaigners want out because they want to abandon these safeguards.

Had it not been for the EU regulations and safeguards, Europe would have gone to war again by now; but we do know that xenophobia is once again growing.

Other European governments are, like Britain, increasingly determined to keep people out.

We’re told that ‘the Government has negotiated a deal regarding immigration that will make our benefits system less of a draw for EU citizens.’- at a time when there are millions of refugees seeking a home anywhere they can get one! - future generations will look on us with horror at our callousness.

It looks as though we are all increasingly uncaring about other people if Britain leaves, the EU will be severely weakened and it will not be the same again, other countries may follow suit.

So do we identify with foreigners and seek to cooperate with them, or do we see them as alien and turn our backs on them?

Are we bound to be at daggers drawn, or is there a unity to humanity?

Historically, the idea of humanity as a unity came from Christianity.

Christianity inherited from Judaism the idea of a single god of the whole universe, and abolished the idea of a chosen race, the good news is for everyone.

Whoever you are, wherever you come from, you are a child of God. 

God loves you, and has provided enough resources for your needs to be met, along with everybody else’s.

If they are not met, the fault lies with human authorities, not with the meanness of nature.

So in this ‘in or out?’ referendum there are actually three positions:

• One is to leave.

• One is to carry on as we are, with a self-congratulatory pat on the back, despite the worsening trends.

• The third is to stay in the EU and change it. - Greece, to its credit, tried but was crushed by the neoliberal system.

Other countries are also losing out the way Greece is, it can be changed and Britain could help.

If we are to be more of a help than a hindrance, we’ll have to reaffirm the solidarity with humanity that our parents and grandparents believed in when they set up international agencies like United Nations and the EU.

Everybody needs somewhere to live, everybody needs something to eat and it can be done.