It came this morning and I’ve sent it straight in.
The arguments about trivial matters such as whether we’ll be 2% better or worse off for a few years are dismaying in their triviality. Even the major medium term issues – such as defeating neoliberal economics, fighting for fair trade rather than free trade – are not the ones to focus on.
The urgent major issues are climate change, biodiversity, population growth. If we can’t deal with these there is no hope for social prosperity or justice – for defeating Beveridge’s five giants: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness, and disease.
The idea that we can tackle these major issues by `taking back control of our country’ is laughable. We need to share our sovereignty with the rest of humanity.
The unique selling point of the EU is that it extends democracy beyond national borders. Of course its democracy is not perfect, but for what is pretty much a first in democratic international cooperation it’s pretty good. It’s better than what we have in the UK in many respects, with our disproportional adversarial system and unelected House of Lords.