Tag Archives: eu referendum

Jim Hodgson

Leaving the EU hampers progress on climate change

By Jim Hodgson | Fri 24th June 2016 - 12:15 pm

For as long as I can remember I’ve felt that those of us blessed with the safety and prosperity of life in the developed world have a moral duty to support those who are in need and less fortunate. So, for the past ten years I’ve been determined to do all I can to support the biggest issue facing our planet, to fight with others to find a pragmatic, achievable response to the problems of climate change and environmental protection.

I’ve often been frustrated at how this issue – the habitability of our planet – has been stuffed down the back of the political sofa, removed from public life, and quashed by contemporary discourse. It’s pained me to witness and learn how the severity of this challenge has been continually undermined by conventional economics…the system which perpetrates the false notion of unlimited growth on a finite planet.

Climate change is the primary driver behind my internationalism. Without working in union to find solutions immediately, we can expect global poverty, food shortages, more extreme weather, civil unrest, and gargantuan levels of refugees as a result. These are the very real risks we face in a rapidly globalised world. Quite simply, we cannot solve such an enormous problem with an isolationist, inward looking attitude. We cannot face this issue without cooperation with our friends and neighbours in the European Union. The EU is perhaps the best hope we have got of sending an example to the rest of the world: profiling a model of hope, collaboration, prosperity, peace and progression.

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The Voice

Carmichael: Britain needs to hear liberal internationalist voices like never before

By The Voice | Fri 24th June 2016 - 11:48 am

Alistair Carmichael has given his reaction to the referendum result on his Facebook page, reproduced here with his permission.

Facebook asks what is on my mind. This may not be the most coherent answer I can give in my sleep-deprived state but here goes :

1. As a result of the referendum vote we now have massive economic issues to face and deal with – the priority for all parties should be to tackle that.

2. We can not tackle these problems while, as a country, we are split down the middle so this is a time for bringing people together and healing the divisions if we can. I sense a lot of anger amongst my friends and I share the frustration but we can not allow that anger to be self-indulgent. There is too much at stake.

3. The only way in which a break up of the UK can now be avoided is if we go for a properly federal structure and elect it proportionately. Brexit is the consequence of a broken political system.

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Alisdair Calder McGregor

What now for the Pro-EU Party?

By Alisdair Calder McGregor | Fri 24th June 2016 - 10:45 am

Traditionally, at this point after a vote, Politicians start to mutter comments about “The will of the people”

I’m not going to.

Manifestly, the result of the EU referendum is not to our taste. However, I do not believe that it is to the taste of the voting public either – or at least, it won’t be once they’ve tasted the actual medicine that the Brexit campaign have prescribed.

The public have, throughout the EU referendum campaign, been systematically lied to, deceived and manipulated by the Brexit campaign. The warnings of the Remain campaign on the impact of leaving the EU were dismissed as “Project Fear” – and are already being proven horribly right, as the value of Sterling tumbles and the bleak reality of the economics of Brexit become apparent.

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The Voice

Farron reacts to David Cameron’s resignation

By The Voice | Fri 24th June 2016 - 10:15 am

Tim Farron has said that this “self-inflicted wound” will be David Cameron’s legacy as he commented on the Prime Minister’s resignation.

12 months ago David Cameron had the best result of his career. Today, the worst.

I was honoured to share a platform with the Prime Minster on this campaign, but this result, this self-inflicted wound, will be his legacy.

There have been many things I did not agree with the Prime Minister on, but I must thank him for his stewardship of the country and for the way he took the very bold decision to create a Coalition Government in 2010. It was an incredible act of bi-partisan cooperation.

The result of the referendum has left him with no choice. In this immediate period, the Government must act quickly to steady the economy, reassure the markets, and immediately set a new course.

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The Voice

“Devastated and angry” Farron says Lib Dems will fight for a “tolerant, open-hearted, optimistic and outward looking” country

By The Voice | Fri 24th June 2016 - 6:51 am

Tim Farron has made his first public comments since our Brexit result was confirmed. He said:

I am devastated and I am angry. Today we wake to a deeply divided country.

Nigel Farage’s vision for Britain has won this vote, but it is not a vision I share.

Young people voted to remain by a considerable margin, but were out voted. They were voting for their future, yet it has been taken from them.

Even though the result was close, there is no doubt that the majority of British people want us to leave.

Our fight for an open, optimistic, hopeful, diverse and tolerant Britain is needed now more than ever.

Together we can still make the case for Britain’s future with Europe, as millions of people voted for it. Together we cannot afford to let that vision to die.

This self-inflicted wound will be Cameron’s legacy. This is his failing. And when the call went out to Jeremy Corbyn, he refused to answer. Their self-interested political maneuvering has taken our country to the brink, and we are toppling over the edge.

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Caron Lindsay

So what’s going to happen about Scotland?

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 24th June 2016 - 5:56 am

Not every part of the UK has voted to leave the European Union. Every single council area of Scotland has voted to Remain, all but one of them by a significant margin,with most over 60%. In total, 62% of Scots voted to remain, 38% to leave.

The SNP is naturally making noises about a second independence referendum. Of course they are. It’s what they do. If we were them, we probably would too. Their manifesto was pretty explicit that they would consider they had the right to a referendum in these circumstances:

We believe that independence offers

…

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Caron Lindsay

5 am: Disaster looms

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 24th June 2016 - 4:56 am

The people appear to have chosen to leave the EU.

Yet again I find myself on my sofa in the middle of the night watching a disaster unfold before my eyes.

This one, though, is going to hurt much more than the election nights of the past five years. I’m not quite saying that they can come back, all is forgiven, but the ramifications of tonight for the country are so much worse. Our future opportunities and standing in the world are all heading down the toilet.

Already we see the pound in free-fall,  making the Prime Minister’s predictions during the campaign seem positively optimistic.

Yet people didn’t believe him. They didn’t believe that a Prime Minister would put us in this position if he thought it would do us so much harm? Well, that’s what happens when you have a Prime Minister who is weak, who chooses to pander to factions within his party against the interests of the country.

He is not fit to hold office, yet it’s hard to see anyone in his party who would be less bad as we face economic chaos.

It’s not just the economic chaos, which will hit the most vulnerable as the Tories now inevitably roll back the size of the state. It’s what this means for the politics. It gives a boost for the sort of right wing ideology that make any liberal sick to the stomach.

I feel numb. I fear for what this means nationally and internationally.

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Caron Lindsay

Referendum Results open thread

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 23rd June 2016 - 10:00 pm

So, it’s all over bar the counting.

First of all, thanks to every single person who pounded the streets and melted phone lines today getting out the Remain vote. You are all legends. I want to say a particular thanks to the fantastic West Lothian Stronger In team.

If you are not going to a count, the best thing I can advise is having a nice mug of cocoa and going to bed. Seriously. Set your alarm for 4-ish. It’s likely that nothing is going to even start to become clear before then and, as Stephen Bush wrote in his guide in the New Statesman,  it’s likely that Leave will be well ahead in the early part of the night and that’s just bad for the blood pressure.

This has been the most unpleasant few weeks in politics that I can remember. It was when someone told me in all seriousness outside Morrisons this afternoon that if we voted to stay in, 76 million Turkish people would be arriving here in September. It’s total nonsense and straight from a Leave campaign leaflet.

I asked them to think about how that would happen. When in history had an entire population of a country just upped and legged it to somewhere else? I asked them to think about the logistics of moving half way across a continent. How much would it cost? What arrangements would have to be made. I asked them to think about the number of flights that would entail. Would there be enough capacity for all those people? Of course not. I wish I’d brought to mind Meral Ece’s oft used stat that only 7000 Turkish people resident in Turkey actually have passports.

They got it in the end, but, sadly, because one side had been caught out in a lie, it didn’t make them trust the other lot. It made me more angry about Leave’s cynical manipulation, their barely disguised racism. I don’t actually think that any of Leave’s key figures are fit and proper people to hold office of any sort. I don’t think a Prime Minister should have them in his cabinet and he should be upfront about saying why.

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The Voice

WATCH: Tim Farron’s Eve of Poll Rally speech

By The Voice | Thu 23rd June 2016 - 5:25 pm

Tim has been doing so much during this campaign. He’s had a lot of regional media stuff but hasn’t been given many of the national gigs. He could have brought a whole new perspective to the new debates. Even with his cameo role on Tuesday night, he managed to get one of the lines of the evening – about Michael Gove’s lack of trust in experts being why he was such a terrible Education Secretary.

Anyway, last night he made a stonking speech at an eve of poll rally. Watch and share with anyone who needs to be convinced why we need to stay in the EU and then get them out to vote.

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The Voice

How Lib Dem Voice team members are voting in the EU Referendum and why

By The Voice | Thu 23rd June 2016 - 3:15 pm

You might think you know how the Lib Dem Voice is voting in today’s EU Referendum. Read on to see if you are right and check out our reasons for our votes.

Caron Lindsay

I voted remain primarily because I believe in people working together across any sort of boundary to make things better, because when you are trying to solve common problems you aren’t fighting each other.

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Douglas Oliver

EU Referendum: a vote to define ourselves

By Douglas Oliver | Thu 23rd June 2016 - 2:00 pm

It has been affirming, in recent weeks, to meet so many people working together, making sacrifices small and large for the “Remain” campaign. We are united of course in our bemusement at what we perceive to be what The Washington Post called the “insanity” of the Brexit case; our case feels hard, in large part, because I think it is. But when the dust has settled and tempers cooled, however, I wonder if we might better understand their apparent eccentricity by recognising some of it within ourselves.

Because, at the personal level, few of the sacrifices make obvious sense – meanwhile, some of our own ideas are sometimes too firm. Whilst it has been heart-stirring to see people stuffing envelopes and giving money and travelling across Europe to help, it can also be head-scratching, too. In Casablanca, Rick Lane’s character makes a common declaration of apparent cynicism “the lives of two little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world” –it is echoed in politics often. Whilst voting is easy, it is still a sacrifice of time: as big a mystery as the millions voting for Brexit, are the millions voting at all.

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John Waddell

Je Suis Européen

By John Waddell | Thu 23rd June 2016 - 12:42 pm

The EU has been the greatest institution in history for empowering countries. Rather than a sovereign state, or even entity, it only has what it has been given by the sovereign power of its member states. The collective recognition of sovereign states, pooling their power together in a supranational institution for the collective benefit of all them. What they have achieved is an institution that pools sovereignty for the collective benefit of those involved, the power of the EU, is the collective power of 28 member states. The power they ‘give away’ is power they now have across an entire continent.

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Paul Walter

Fun Referendum day quiz!

By Paul Walter | Thu 23rd June 2016 - 10:50 am

Here’s a fun referendum day quiz. Use the comments field below to submit your responses. The first person with the correct answer will win a prize!

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Nick Clegg MP

Nick Clegg writes…Europe makes Britain great

By Nick Clegg MP | Thu 23rd June 2016 - 7:55 am

Unlike many of our neighbours, Britain did not join the EU as a way of embracing a new, modern identity. For the Germans, French, Italians and the Benelux countries, European co-operation represented the victory of peace over war. For Spain, Greece and Portugal, membership signified the victory of democracy over fascism. For many newer members, it was about throwing off the tyranny of Soviet communism.
Not us. Joining the European Community was a pounds and pence calculation of what was good for us, done with a shrug of the shoulders and an ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ acceptance that the age of empire was over.

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NewsHound

LibLInk: Edward McMillan Scott: Turkey’s EU membership will remain in the EU’s deep freeze, no matter what Leave says

By NewsHound | Wed 22nd June 2016 - 5:00 pm

The Leave campaign continue to peddle the lie that Turkey is about to join the EU.

This is not going to be happening any time soon despite the disgraceful leaflet which shows the 76 million figure and an arrow going straight from Turkey to Britain (and actually in Scotland, the arrow pointed to Scotland).

Former Liberal Democrat MEP Edward McMillan has outlined the issues surrounding Turkey’s application in an article on politics.co.uk.

Turkey has always been a divisive issue for the Tories, whose Ukip tendency see Turkey’s membership as the final nail in the EU’s coffin. I witnessed this for several years in the 1990s, when I was the European parliament’s spokesman on Turkey’s accession bid. Leading Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan has waded into the Warsi resignation debate this week. He says he asked her to join Leave and now claims she declined, although his friend, Ukip MP Douglas Carswell, told the Huffington Post that Hannan had indeed recruited her.

But internal Conservative politics aside, the fact remains that Turkey’s entry into the EU remains a very distant prospect. The EU’s response to Turkey’s often blunt courtship has traditionally been: “We don’t think either of us is ready for this yet, but let’s keep working on the relationship”. However, recent thuggish behaviour by President Erdogan’s hoodlums against any dissent to his corrupt regime has made even EU diplomats use much stronger language.

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Caron Lindsay

LDVideo: Paddy: Don’t let other people determine your future

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 22nd June 2016 - 3:59 pm

In a video for the European Movement, of which he is President, Paddy Ashdown urges people to make sure they vote, and vote Remain tomorrow.

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Dr Paul RIchardson

The North West: What has the EU ever done for us?

By Dr Paul RIchardson | Wed 22nd June 2016 - 2:59 pm

Despite weeks of campaigning and countless articles and debates, the Leave and Remain campaigns have consistently failed to connect with voters at a local or regional level.

Yet, the EU has been one of the most active and effective organisations in overcoming regional inequality, with Northern Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, the Tees Valley, and the Scottish Highlands currently receiving the largest amount of EU funding per person. In this blog, I suggest that the EU is as issue of huge regional, as well as national importance, and that the North West of England is a strong case in point.

From 2007 to 2013 the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), which managed the EU’s European Regional Development Fund for the North West, was allocated £755.5 million. During this period it invested in the region’s public transport network, including a £10.8 million contribution for a second tramline in Manchester and £7.9 million for redeveloping Victoria station.

The fund was also used to set up enterprise centres, technology centres, job training, broadband, environmental and renewable energy projects, as well as improved housing. In addition, significant sums were spent on arts and culture (including £3.8 million for the National Football museum, £6.8 million for Media City), healthcare (£4.7 million for the Royal Eye Hospital), universities (£23 million for the National Graphene Centre), and tourism (£14.7 million for Blackpool).

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Julie Smith

Baroness Julie Smith writes…The European Peace Project

By Julie Smith | Wed 22nd June 2016 - 11:55 am

Peace: the single most important reason for the creation of what we now call the European Union, and the reason it remains so crucial. The European project arose from a clear vision: to make war in Europe ‘materially impossible’, to create enduring peace in a continent long ravaged by war. It is almost impossible to imagine now the devastation that plagued our continent for so long. And that is thanks to the visionary ideas of its founders. A spirit of reconciliation and mutual cooperation among the six founding members was crucial to ensuring Immanuel Kant’s idea of perpetual peace seemed to be a reality.

Of course, many would argue that is NATO that has kept the peace in Europe. It has certainly been important in securing the borders of its European members. During the Cold War the European Community as it was initially known could rely on an American security blanket to protect them from Soviet threats. Yet, within its own borders it was the mutual trust that developed as a result of pooling sovereignty in the areas of coal and steel and then across a wider set of economic policies that ensured member states began to see each other as partners and allies, not potential invaders.

For generations now we have lived secure in the knowledge that our fathers, brothers and sons will not be summoned to fight for our country. Military engagement by the state and by individuals signing up is voluntary, not forced. We have the EU to thank for that.

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Martin Thomas

Lord Martin Thomas writes…The Red Army

By Martin Thomas | Wed 22nd June 2016 - 10:20 am

I am six inches taller this week. Wales smashed Russia in Toulouse! Russia was our heroic ally during the war but for most of my adult life, we were living under the threat of a huge looming Stalinist empire.

I grew up with soccer, as we used to call it. Saturdays were school rugby in the morning, and the Boys’ Enclosure at the Wrexham Racecourse soccer ground in the afternoon. Tunnicliffe thunders down the wing, crosses to Les Speed in the centre who puts the ball in the net. At our end, the amiable Ferguson tries to keep his knees together in goal – he famously let one through his legs at Stoke in the FA Cup. Soccer was simple then.

Then Hungary with Pusckas put six goals past England in 1953 and the world turned upside down. Russia invaded Hungary  and Pusckas fled to Real Madrid. Soccer became Football. What you have to do now is  stroke the ball to each other in your own half, send it back to the goalie and back again –  intricate patterns of play with the only hope of a goal to wake up the crowd from a penalty, corner or free kick. 

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George Kendall

WANTED! Prime Minister for poisoned chalice of post Brexit Britain

By George Kendall | Wed 22nd June 2016 - 8:57 am

I have an article in the New Statesman, asking why anyone would want to be Prime Minister if we vote to Leave. I’d be interested in what you think on this issue, so please do comment below.

If we vote for Brexit, and a Leave campaigner becomes Prime Minister, their every word of reassurance will be repeated back to them a thousand-fold.

As the country lurched into recession, economists would point out that 90% of them had predicted this. Voters would ask the new Prime Minister, why did you say Project Fear was a lie?

If David Cameron remained Prime Minister, and tried to mitigate the damage would be denounced as a betrayal. If he tried to stay in the single market, they’d scream, “We voted to end freedom of movement.” If he delayed invoking Article 50 they’d hound him till he did. And every set-back would be blamed on his “weak and pathetic” negotiating skills.

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David Graham

My reflections on the Guardian Live EU Referendum debate

By David Graham | Tue 21st June 2016 - 8:33 pm

Attending the Guardian Live referendum debate at Cadogan Hall, off London’s Sloane Square, last night were Chris Grayling MP, Daniel Hannan MEP and John Mann MP for the Leave side; against Andy Burnham MP, Caroline Lucas MP and our very own Tim Farron MP for the Remain side.    The debate lasted an hour, and gave the speakers an opportunity to put forward what they considered to be their best points.

Mr Grayling was on the defensive in relation to the economy.  He criticised the Institute of Fiscal Studies and National Institute for Economic and Social Research modelling for assuming  – in line with the raising of tariffs and other restrictions on trade that would kick in as a matter of existing EU law -that the pound would fall and that trade with the remainder of the EU would fall in a Brexit scenario.  He trotted out the facts that German cars and French food are sold in the UK, but had no answer to the riposte that all other Member States (including net importers from the UK and states with a small share of trade with us) would have to agree before tariffs could be reduced.   He said that studies showed we would be better off, albeit not as well off, in 12 years’ time.  This glossed over the predictions of short-term recession and permanently foregone output of the order of 2% to 5% every year compared to a remain scenario.  

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Paul Walter

Could there be three ironic (?) tragedies that follow a leave vote?

By Paul Walter | Tue 21st June 2016 - 10:08 am
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Posted in Europe Referendum and Op-eds | 67 Comments
Anthony Fairclough

Working to build a liberal core vote in Merton

By Anthony Fairclough | Mon 20th June 2016 - 5:30 pm

Merton photo 2

Merton Liberal Democrats were very pleased and somewhat surprised to be among the first winners of the Party’s “referendum pledge challenge”.

The vast majority of the winning groups are areas of (often recent) historic strength for the party with an organisation to match – so it was a real boost to us to see the local group’s name up there.

Last summer, bolstered by our newbies, we agreed a selection of campaign themes that articulated who we were and what we wanted to achieve as a group. This included the EU referendum/staying in the EU. A co-ordinator was appointed for each theme, to keep a watchful eye on developments in the area, and make sure we never forgot the themes in the heat of campaigns.

On the prompting of the EU campaign co-ordinator, all our street stalls during the London elections were about the referendum from an early stage. We’d also agreed that we would ask about the referendum as a secondary question when doing voter ID, but in many places we found it an easier conversation starter to go with the EU, before moving into asking for support for the London team.

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Mary Reid

LibLink: Jeremy Browne on why Europe fears Brexit

By Mary Reid | Mon 20th June 2016 - 2:19 pm

Jeremy Browne - Some rights reserved by Foreign and Commonwealth OfficeOn City AM, Jeremy Browne has been explaining that Europe fears Brexit because it would unleash forces that could prove impossible to control. He writes:

In Britain, we inevitably focus most on how our departure from the EU would affect the UK. What the other countries in the EU mainly worry about, however, is how it would affect Europe. They are standing back, nervous that any intervention could be open to misinterpretation and be counter-productive, but they watch our referendum with trepidation.

The

…

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Paul Harrison

What did the EU ever do for us?

By Paul Harrison | Mon 20th June 2016 - 11:38 am

 

And so the Brexit campaign tells us how much better things would be if we went it alone.  Well, let me share my own experience as a former Headteacher and bring some perspective and reality into the argument.

Apparently we constantly lose out financially by being in the EU. Not my experience.

My school was a relatively successful rural comprehensive in County Durham. As with many rural schools, we struggled each year to balance our budgets and were certainly not favoured by either central or local government. No Building Schools for the Future, Excellence in Cities or Action Zones funding for us! We were certainly losing out compared to other schools in the area.

With no capital funding available, I turned to Europe and twice successfully bid for funding, to build a Construction Workshop and a Virtual Learning Environment. These were not large sums – €120,000 and €150,000 – but it was money I could not access elsewhere. We ran four Comenius projects and a Youth in Action project with our European partners, averaging €25,000 per project, so bringing in a further €125,000 to the school. And then we also successfully bid for two European Social Fund projects to share our best practice with teachers elsewhere in the EU and this brought in a further €80,000.

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg on the Brexit Betrayal

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 19th June 2016 - 8:51 am

Last Thursday,the European Movement held a “Lead not Leave” rally in Edinburgh in support of a Remain vote. Just before the event started, the news that Jo Cox had been shot came through but at that time we didn’t realise the full horror of what had happened.

All the contributions from the cross-party panel were superb. The Greens’ Sarah Beattie-Smith was passionate on women’s rights, climate change and the EU having the power to make sure multi-nationals pay their taxes.  Tory Jackson Carlaw said he’d been surprised by how much a Remain vote had come to mean to him. North East Fife SNP MP Stephen Gethins, who had been disgracefully misquoted on the Vote Leave leaflet was passionate about membership of the EU. Kezia Dugdale was warm and talked about some very practical reasons we need to stay for social justice and workers.

The final speaker was our own Nick Clegg. He was pretty stark. He talked about the reality of Brexit, waking up to discover that the Leave lot don’t know what’s happening, the Tories are immersed in a bloodbath, there’s constitutional gridlock and the economy is, frankly, down the toilet. It was one of the best speeches I’ve heard him make.

It was very different in style to his tremendous resignation speech, but no less powerful and compelling. The scenario he sets out is very plausible. He wasn’t trying to appeal to the audience. He knew that he was at an event where most people were going to be pretty passionately in favour of Remain. He wanted to address his remarks to the waverers. Your mission, dear readers, for the next few days is to play this to as many waverers as you can.

Now, the whole thing is definitely worth watching, but if you just want Nick, go to about 25:55.

I had recorded his speech (and Kezia’s) on their own. It was my first time using Periscope and to say that I screwed it up royally is an understatement. For a start, I didn’t realise you had to type in what your were broadcasting so people had a clue what the random video was.

I had  meant to embed the tweets in which they were broadcast on Thursday, but it obviously wasn’t appropriate to do so and they only last for 24 hours.

By some miracle, the recordings are still on the app, and I’d love to shove them on You Tube but I can’t work out how. If you know, please tell me.

Enjoy. The text (more or less) of Nick’s speech is under the cut but listen to it if you can. The energy of his delivery really brings it alive.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Tim Farron: The EU is bloated and bureaucratic but it just needs reform

By NewsHound | Sat 18th June 2016 - 4:53 pm

You can’t say Tim Farron isn’t brave! He’s written for the chiefest of the Brexity newspapers, the Daily Express.

The comments under his article are in the main as you would expect. When the nicest thing you can see is a comparison to Ashley Peacock from Coronation Street, you know it’s not going down well in some quarters.

However, as we know, commenters do not always reflect the opinion of the majority of readers. We need to win people over to the Remain cause  and we’re not going to do that by snuggling up to passionate pro-Europeans.

Here’s what he had to say:

There is no doubt in my mind that to work alongside those countries who share our interests and share our values, we need to remain.

And there is no doubt in my mind that to be the beacon of hope and freedom, in a turbulent and dangerous world, we must vote to remain.

We are a proud nation that stands tall in the world. We are home to freedom, ingenuity, creativity.

He then goes on to tackle the sovereignty issue:

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NewsHound

Jo Cox: Brexit is no answer to real concerns on immigration

By NewsHound | Fri 17th June 2016 - 5:15 pm

As part of our tributes to Jo Cox, we’re linking to this article in the Yorkshire Post, published last Friday. In it, Jo Cox very persuasively argues that Brexit will not solve concerns over immigration. She accepts that those concerns are genuine – sincere worries about pressures on GP surgeries or schools.

But she explains that Brexit will not answer the concerns and calls for practical steps to improve the situation.

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Liam McArthur MSP

Liam McArthur MSP writes…From Orkney, why I’m voting to Remain

By Liam McArthur MSP | Thu 16th June 2016 - 11:55 am

Next week voters across United Kingdom will go to the polls to decide on our country’s future relationship with our European partners.

This decision could not be more important and I urge you to make sure your voice is heard on Thursday 23rd June.  For my part, I wanted to set out why I am passionately in favour of the UK remaining in the European Union.

As an internationalist, I see the European Union as an opportunity for us to punch way above our size on the global stage.

Through our membership of the European Union, businesses in Orkney and across the have access to freely export to the largest common market in the world, a market of some 500 million people. Indeed, in 2014 that market was worth £5.1bn for our Scottish food and drink sector alone.

In other parts of Orkney’s economy too we see the vital importance of European Union. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy provides £20 million a year in support for Orkney’s farmers. Our renewables sector benefits from key EU funding, keeping us at the forefront of research and development. Meanwhile, over half the value of our vital tourism sector relies on tourists from the EU, travelling without visas.

To leave the European Union and walk away from the single market would be to close the door on these opportunities for Orkney.

Whilst the economic arguments are compelling, for me they do not represent the fundamental purpose and values of a union we helped build. Jo Grimond was right to describe the creation of the European Community as “the disappearance of the cloud which has lain over Europe for a thousand years – the plague of Western European wars….it is alone worth any petty tribulations that the EEC may inflict”.

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Iain Gill

Referendum Pledge Challenge – the week 1 winners

By Iain Gill | Thu 16th June 2016 - 11:15 am

Pledge card01Last week the referendum pledge challenge was launched. We threw down the gauntlet to local parties, setting them the challenge to get voters in their area to pledge to vote REMAIN.

In return, local parties could earn themselves up to £3,000 during the last three weeks of the campaign!

Take up of the challenge has been fantastic – local parties up and down the country have thrown themselves into it and have got behind the scheme.

This was a chance for us as a party to try a new way of campaigning and to really influence the outcome of this referendum. As we know, this referendum is now scarily close – a high turnout is vital to ensure REMAIN wins the day.

No doubt many of you have already begun focusing on this week’s challenge but here’s who’s triumphed in the first week:

£1000 Cardiff – for embracing the challenge and coming top in the UK!

£750 to Hull, Wiltshire & Hazel Grove – for taking up the challenge and securing a significant number of pledges and emails.

£500 each to Tower Hamlets, Wimbledon, Bedford, Berwick, Cambridge, Sheffield & Southwark – to reward their significant level of activity asking the Referendum question in this short period.

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