- Giving the people a say
First and foremost, I am proud that a Conservative Government delivered on its promise to give the people a say on this vital issue. When I canvassed throughout the beautiful villages and market towns of South Suffolk in the run up to the election, I was struck by how many people - particularly potential UKIP voters - said that they did not trust the Prime Minister to deliver a referendum because 'he had not given one on the Lisbon treaty'. In fact, we won the election and we DID deliver a referendum, and it looks like it will take place later this year. Some also said holding a vote would just create uncertainty. That may be so, but I take the view that one way or the other we have to settle this matter; we cannot spend the rest of our lives as a nation debating whether we are in or out. Being a referendum, the decision will be made by YOU the public, not me and my fellow MPs. Thus, my view on this is no more important than yours, though I appreciate my view will be covered in local debate. This being a public vote, one thing I will promise is to seek to engage local people and ideally have the kind of hustings or similar public meetings in the run up to the vote that one might expect in an election campaign, conducted on non-party lines with speakers from both sides.
- Sovereignty v trade
Whilst much of the Europe debate is highly legalistic and technical, one might summarise the journey of our membership as one of effectively exchanging sovereignty for economic benefit; pooling sovereignty over the years with our European partners, in order to maximise our benefit from trade and investment. I worry that leaving the EU would amount to us doing the opposite - gaining sovereignty at the expense of our economy.
I do not say that lightly. I voted for the Referendum Party in May 1997 because I was passionately opposed to Britain's membership of the European Single Currency, as I had been opposed to the ERM. I would describe myself as moderately Eurosceptic because I genuinely worry about the extent to which our own sovereign Parliament has lost power, with so much of our legislation now emanating from Brussels. However, I was elected in May 2015. Some may feel we have given up too much sovereignty over the years for too little trade, but the point is when so much power was given up, I was not around to speak out. I can only vote on the position we are in now and I profoundly believe that Brexit is a step too far because it would entail very significant economic risk. Conversely, I regard our position of being in the EU but not in the euro as a very strong 'unique selling point' to the international investors upon whom we depend. I therefore take the view that it is in Britain's national economic interest to remain in a reformed EU.
- Leave v remain
I do not adhere to far-fetched arguments that either scenario of leave or remain will lead to some kind of doom-laden outcome in which the world collapses around us. However, I cannot imagine that many members of the public would wish to leave the EU if they thought it would make them poorer, and to do so would be a national humiliation. The challenge is therefore to look at the two options and try and work out which is most likely to be beneficial to our overall prosperity.
If we leave:
It is argued that we could 'cut red tape'. I know the 'petty rules' of Brussels can be maddening, but I am not convinced an 'independent' UK Government would be any less bureaucratic, and in fact, if we wanted to continue accessing the single market (and to do otherwise would be truly economically harmful) we would still need to abide by the rules of the EU - but without the ability to influence them!
It is argued that we could 'reduce immigration'. I believe the overwhelming majority of people in our country are worried about the sustainability of current migration levels into the UK, and I count myself among them. However, if we leave, the EU border moves from Calais to Dover. Most importantly, the two main examples of countries outside the EU who have negotiated continued membership of the single market are Norway and Switzerland - and both had to accept continued 'freedom of movement' in order to have access (not to mention still paying in to the EU). I have yet to hear a credible explanation from the 'leave' campaign of how we would leave, negotiate with the EU about a new trade deal and somehow get everything we want in terms of single market access whilst not having freedom of movement.
Ultimately, to leave has the single biggest attraction that we would become a sovereign, independent nation again. However, if we still had to abide by EU rules without the ability to influence them, I question how 'sovereign' that would make us. Yes, we could clamp down on free movement and potentially cut immigration, but every single company of any reasonable size that I have ever visited confirms that the reality is they are dependent on an increasingly East European workforce. From care homes to fruit picking, to retail and factories, there is almost no part of our economy that would not be left scratching its head if we stopped East Europeans coming here. Yes, we could impose limits, with quotas and protections for particular sectors, but that is hardly the deregulated future we are told awaits us outside the EU.
The single biggest problem with Brexit is the sheer uncertainty of what is entailed. A whole range of respected investment banks and financial institutions - including the IMF and Bank of England - have warned of the potential negative impact on our economy of voting to leave. They do not do this because they are part of some 'project fear', but because they have genuine worries. Indeed, it has been striking for me that speaking to local firms, those that export are particularly concerned about the impact of leaving the EU. Again, they do not say this for abstract reasons but because they work hard running businesses and they are rightly worried about the 'leap in the dark' exit entails. The Bank of England is stockpiling reserves to defend the currency in the event of Brexit. This not a game; livelihoods are at stake.
In contrast, I believe that if we were to remain in a reformed EU we would avoid the uncertainty of exit and instead have the certainty of finally putting this 'in or out' tussle to bed, giving us the platform to move forward as a country in confidence. Some might worry that we would then have to swallow a whole load of new integration measures from Brussels, but the whole point of the negotiation is that we would have secured a legally binding commitment from the EU to protect us from 'ever closer Union'. Most importantly, we would be able to send a powerful message that our future lies with certainty as a major nation inside the EU but outside the straightjacket of Euro. It would be a very positive platform.
- Peace and prosperity
Having stressed the economic part of my argument, I should emphasise that I do not see the 'Remain' argument as purely hard-nosed finance and accountancy. There may be some for whom the small-print of the PM's negotiation is what matters, for others, the principled position of 'sovereignty above all else'. Yet we should remember that Europe first started to unite not because of legal small print, but because it wanted an end to the slaughter of continental wars; the EU did not expand Eastwards because of small print or arcane legal argument, but because half the continent had been brutalised by the tyranny of Soviet Communism. There is a big picture on the side of Remain that is about the unprecedented peace and prosperity we enjoy but perhaps take for granted. As said, I would not argue that a vote to leave would immediately undermine this. However, if Brexit set off a domino that forced the collapse of the EU itself, we would not be best placed to deal with the massive influx of the desperate that is our continent's dominant crisis by far. And it is not hard-headed to worry about the jobs and living standards of our families and communities when we know that Britain's economy is going great guns but remains utterly reliant on inward investment - what the Governor of the Bank of England calls the 'kindness of strangers'.
It is not scare-mongering to point to the many risks of a vote to leave, especially when those advocating this policy have yet to set out a convincing explanation of how exactly we would go forward in this situation. And it is an incredibly positive prospect to consider how it would boost our overall prosperity if we voted to remain in an EU that is not the status quo, but one where - as a result of the PM's negotiations - we would have ruled out 'ever closer union'.
For those who see leaving the EU as an end in itself, remaining will never be attractive whatever form our amended membership takes. For those who want a rational argument about the choices, I would ask them to reflect on the uncertainty of exit against the really positive step of remaining, putting our indecision behind us for a generation and taking our economy and our country forward from strength to strength.