PHOTO: UK In or Out of Europe?

As the UK’s voters go to the polls over the question of membership in the European Union, Paul Newman of the University of Birmingham offers some last-minute thoughts, and we feature a video from the University of Liverpool’s Michael Dougan highlighting the myths spread during the campaign:

See EA’s full EU Referendum Coverage:

Michael Dougan: “Myths in the EU Referendum”

Paul Newman: Last-Minute Confession of a Remain Voter

I have a confession to make. I’m basically a Euro-federalist (well actually, I’m a world federalist, but that may take a couple more
centuries).

Yes, I’m the one Boris Johnson warned you about, the one who would rather see decisions of international and inter-continental importance taken by a Parliament of Europe than separately by Parliaments of Westminster and 27 others.

Let’s face it, historically the vast powers held by the European nation states have hardly been a success story in terms of peace, equality, or individual freedoms. On the other hand, I don’t think that it is a coincidence that the EU era has coincided with that of
post-war peace.

It has been depressing listening to the horribly narrow referendum discussion around short-term economics — “Will be be better-off next week if we’re in or out?” I’ve not heard much about the longer term. Would an isolated UK have any influence in the world and would our economy be competitive in 50 years time, when Asia is much more developed, Europe has grown stronger without us, South America is more organized, and the US is still the US?

Even more poisonous is the ill-informed hate-based frenzy over immigration. It’s well documented in academic studies that the economic effects of immigration are overwhelmingly positive, not to mention the cultural impact. In any case, people are going be more and more mobile as history moves on.

Yet there seems to be no end of little Englanders and pseudo-fascists promoting a backward view towards a long-gone empire, while the press attempts to whip us up into a frenzy of fear. It seems we actually might be mad enough to close ourselves off from the unprecedented richness of opportunity and progress that we have increasingly enjoyed for the past 40 years.

It is true that we are facing an migration crisis, but the biggest crisis is of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean as they try to enter the EU. There is an economic crisis, which has been unfolding in Greece and elsewhere in Southern Europe over the past few years.

But re-think this: both problems could have been dealt with much more effectively by a more powerful, more centralized EU
administration. Is that so inconceivable?

And if we don’t like the way that the EU is run or find it too bureaucratic, let’s work to change it by being at its center, not sitting on the outside and looking in.

One day, we might think of breaking up the Nation-States, devolving local power to smaller units of administration, and deciding global
issues centrally with our European partners, instead of flag-waving and retreating into our crumbling trenches.

But for today, I’ll settle for a Remain vote.