Today (June 23) voters decide on the UK’s future membership of the European Union.
After months of campaigning by the Leave and Remain camps, latest opinion polls suggest the outcome is neck and neck. So the estimated 12 per cent of the electorate who were still undecided as recently as last weekend could prove crucial.
Two leading South Holland politicians – both Conservatives – have taken the opportunity to make the case for their respective sides and try to convince wavering Voice readers.
South Holland and The Deepings MP John Hayes has always openly been a Eurosceptic and, although a close ally of Prime Minister David Cameron, they disagree over the UK’s EU membership.
Meanwhile, hoping to gather readers’ support for Remain is Lord Taylor of Holbeach, whose family business is Taylors Bulbs.
It is a distinct possibility that the majority of voters in Lincolnshire will choose Leave but the overall result will be Remain.
In February, Lincolnshire County Council backed a motion stating that the UK would be better off outside the EU.
South Holland District Council resolved to remain neutral over the referendum. Holbeach member Paul Foyster (UKIP) proposed the motion: “This council believes the interests of our residents will be best served by leaving the EU”.
However, council leader Gary Porter, who has declined to publicly state his voting intention, received strong backing when he proposed an amendment demanding council neutrality.
LEAVE: Too often in recent decades Britain’s national sovereignty – its independent authority to govern itself – has been undermined by those in the EU whom we didn’t elect and can’t hold to account.
When we joined the common market, in 1973, Britons never consented to a European project that today makes laws we are powerless to prevent, costs us far more money than we get back, and makes it tough for us to control mass immigration or deport foreign criminals.
So, this referendum is about taking back control; Britons want power to be exercised close to its effect, with laws made by the people’s representatives in Westminster not the Eurocrat elite in Brussels.
Ordinary people intuitively know this debate is about who we are as a nation and where we belong.
What a contrast to the opinion-forming liberal establishment who told us that Britain needed to join the single currency; the same people who assured us that expansion to Eastern Europe would lead to a small, inconsequential number of migrants arriving; and those that told us signing EU treaties wouldn’t undermine our sovereignty.
How wrong these so-called experts were! And today these same naysayers talk Britain down, lecturing us that we couldn’t survive on our own. We could and would in a wider world hungry for British goods and all the talents of all our United Kingdom.
Today is our – last – chance to shape our own destiny, choosing hope over fear and a bright future where we can fight for our own national interests, putting the British people’s priorities first.
John Hayes
MP for South Holland and the Deepings
REMAIN: Today, the country will decide whether we should remain a member of the European Union. This is one of the most important political decisions we will ever have to make. But for my part, I believe it is essential that we vote to remain.
My family business, Taylors Bulbs, has been in Holbeach for nearly 100 years.
I know how much Spalding relies upon trade with countries across the world to create jobs and prosperity.
Remaining in the EU gives us access to a single market of more than 500 million people, representing an economy of almost £11trillion and a quarter of the world’s GDP. Forty-four per cent of our goods and services go to the EU.
And the agricultural industry gains from access to this market. It means we have no tariffs or trade barriers for our quality products and ensures that the rural economy receives subsidies worth £3billion a year directly from the EU.
I am not trying to claim that the EU is perfect; indeed we rightly continue to seek reforms. But the reality is that we just do not know on what terms we would have access to European markets if we leave and what money would be available to replace the subsidies and support the rural economy receives at the moment.
I do not think this is a risk South Holland, its jobs, businesses and people can afford to take. I will be voting to remain and I urge you to do the same.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach CBE
Government Chief Whip, House of Lords
