Saturday, March 12, 2016

The EU Referendum (5)

Interesting that upon a chance meeting  with a neighbour and her c. 23 year old daughter walking towards Wimbledon a day or two back, the conversation drifted round to the EU in or out referendum.

The mother is British and her wonderful husband is Spanish. He works incredibly hard at carpentry and similar craft work and provides     excellent examples (including within the maytrees family home) of    specialist    work from the EU which is often difficult to find, at least in London, at a fair price.

I was surprised however that they were hardly concerned at the forthcoming EU referendum or its outcome. She doubted whether the Spanish would put many obstacles in the way of travelling to their country or even owning another home there. She was not troubled at all by the  referendum outcome. Her daughter who lives a few miles away likewise was not at all troubled.

Possibly therefore though  some politicians are troubled by the prospect of leaving or staying in the EU, the people at large are not. Maybe this will change as the date for the referendum approaches or as the debates in public are ratcheted up or the issue of refugees from war torn Syria becomes more immediate than at present in the UK, or maybe the UK being out of the Euro and not part of the schengen area means the common view is that we already have the best of both worlds so why trouble to rock the boat by voting to leave the EU?

My own view at present is still veering towards the out lobby. The report in today's Guardian about  a dreadful anti- refugee law in Denmark (sounds slightly Shakespearean)  though local rather than EU-wide, gives cause for grave concern - should not such laws be outlawed within all parts of the EU if the EU is to have any real meaning?

See Danish Legal Inhumanity

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