Immigration is not sole issue in referendum debate

This argument is often linked with the sentiment that we need to make Britain Great again.

Immigration is a complex issue and significant reductions will not automatically follow from terminating our EU membership.

The desire of foreign nationals to come to this country has more to do with global instability than our membership of the EU, and will continue whatever our relationship with Europe.

On the other hand, it’s a plain fact that the UK would no longer be a member of the European Arrest Warrant arrangements under which more than 1,200 criminals have been deported over the last year.

In these final days of the campaign, please bear in mind that immigration is just one of many issues to weigh up. Leaving would be a complete leap into the dark since nobody has any idea what our relationship with Europe would look like outside the EU, although all major authorities agree that the economic consequences of leaving would be damaging.

It is the leavers who are seeking change, and therefore their responsibility to provide convincing arguments to support their case. I cannot see that they have done this.

They’ve been careful to avoid giving any firm assurances about a future in which we are divorced from the continent to which we belong and where our complex relationships with the world are to be demolished and rebuilt.

They have not made any commitments, preferring empty statements such as our returned contributions ‘could’ be spent in this way or that.

Let’s be clear, no future government of whatever colour is ever going to invest an additional £18.2bn every year in our NHS. Let’s also be clear that our annual contribution to the EU is just 0.37 per cent of our government’s total annual spending.

The consequences of leaving the EU are matters of hard economic reality. It would be irresponsible to decide our grandchildren’s future on the basis of an idyllic notion of Britain’s past greatness, the bulldog spirit, and a return to Empire.

That’s simply not going to happen and future generations will not thank us for basing such an important decision on a mythical return to a nationalistic utopia.

Peter Webb

Glenleigh Park Road

Bexhill

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