Why I want the UK to leave the EU : my EU-sceptic testimony

I am a 42 year-old married man living in Birmingham.  I am English.  I worked for 12 years as a solicitor and I am now re-training to be a teacher of English to international students.

I am pro-European – there are lots of things I love about Europe.  One of my passions is classical music. I love Saint-Saens (French), Strauss (Austrian), Beethoven (German), Vivaldi (Italian), Rodrigo (Spanish) and Vivaldi (Italian).  All these composers came from countries now in the EU.  I also love the music of Greig (Norwegian) and Tchaikovsky (Russian) who came from countries outside the EU.

When it comes to politics, I am on the centre-left.  During my life, I have voted for the Conservatives, Lib Dems, Labour and Greens.  I am not a member of any party but I will only vote for candidates who are in favour of scrapping Trident which is a very important issue for me, especially now that the next government will need to decide whether to replace Trident at a cost of around £100 bn. 

I also think we should work in a friendly way with other countries in Europe and around the world in areas where it is useful for us and them, like migration, international crime and peacekeeping.  I don’t believe that we need to do this as part of a permanent international organisation made up of 28 very different countries.  This is not because I think that people who work for EU institutions are not professional – I am sure they are -   it is because I don’t believe that the institutions of the EU are democratic enough.

 

For me, it’s not enough to vote for an MEP once every 5 years but then to leave most European decisions in the hands of the leaders of the EU countries and the European Commission.  I like to think I’m well- informed about politics but quite often, I can’t get my head round what the EU is doing at any one moment in time and how this relates to my ordinary life.  Politics can be complex but, for me, if decisions are made too far away from home, then I lose interest. This apathy is a bad sign.  I believe that the institutions of the European Union have too much power in too many areas.  They have bitten off more than they can chew and there is no sign of them wanting to return power to member states.

I recently read in the news that the EU is negotiating a new international trade deal with the USA called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). I had not heard about this at the last General Election and I don’t think it was a big issue then. I found out that the TTIP talks were being held by EU and USA officials in secret and without consultation with the people of the EU about various important issues.   It was only when details were leaked that the EU was embarrassed into consulting the public. 

I then found out more about TTIP.  The authority for the deal in the EU came from the Council of Ministers i.e. all the EU leaders.  The details of the deal will be hammered out by EU officials on our behalf and then the European Parliament will only have a vote on whether or not to accept or reject the whole deal.  I know there is controversy about whether or not TTIP will mean that the NHS could be opened up to more privatisation, but even after reading about it, I don’t know if I should be worried or not.  It’s a big unknown as far as I am concerned.  

At any rate, I don’t know how TTIP will impact my life in practice and I fear that I will only really find out several years down the line, by which time it will be too late for me to do anything about it.  This is exactly the kind of “democratic deficit” that makes me feel frustrated and fed up with what the EU does. 

The EU is going one way only – towards further integration.  The UK can try to slow this process down but it doesn’t have the enough influence to do this for very long or to reverse the overall direction.  That's fair enough - we're just one country of 28.  But it's not a price I want us to pay.  Also, the countries who want closer integration are fed up with the UK’s lukewarm approach to the EU. It’s not good for us either.

We need to make up our mind. If we vote to stay in, then we should stop complaining about the EU, embrace the move towards greater political union wholeheartedly and play a constructive part in that process.  Or we should get out while we have the chance and rebuild our relations with EU countries in a positive but different way.  I want us to get out.

There is a crisis in British democracy.  Voting turnouts have been getting lower every General Election in recent years.  More and more people are getting fed up with Westminster politics.  The EU is not the only problem with our democracy but it’s a big part of the problem and if we get the chance to vote to leave the EU, we should take it.  We should bring back democracy to our country and sort out our problems ourselves.  I think leaving the EU will make us better Europeans.