In Or Out?
Posted By Judith on 9th June 2016
Many years ago I remember having a conversation with my mum about television, specifically what we wanted from it. She said she wanted to be ‘entertained’, I said I wanted to be ‘informed’.
That is still true today, I much prefer programmes about the natural world or history or how things are made to programmes like ‘X Factor’ or ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. Having said that I do also love football and cricket, am a life long ‘Corrie’ fan, and my guilty pleasure is ‘Judge Judy’, she’s hilarious.
However, when all those years ago I said I wanted to be ‘informed’, I could not have imagined in my worst nightmare the procession of (mis)information produced by the EU referendum to help me make an ‘informed’ decision on June 23rd.
With 2 weeks to go, I’m even more confused than when it all started. When one side comes on TV and says something is ‘white’ (backed up by facts and figures) and the other side say it is ‘black'(also backed up by facts and figures) how is the ‘man in the street’ to know who to believe?
I’m not sure that the majority of the British public is capable of making a decision on such a complex subject in the first place, but certainly not when they are being fed at best misinformation, at worst a pack of lies.
The fact that members of the 2 main parties are intermingled in this fight is also confusing, so in an attempt to fathom out which way to vote I thought looking at the main ‘personalities’ on each side might help. Frankly it didn’t, I think each of them has their own agenda.
Why should I care if we’re in or out? Being retired, having no children, no mortgage, no savings, a lot of the ‘fear factor’ from either side passes me by, though I do expect I will be needing the NHS at some point.
I could just not vote at all but somehow that feels wrong. The one thing ‘they’ all agree on is that this vote is far more important than a General Election.
Another confusing aspect is the fact that even if the ‘leave’ campaign win, they will not be running the government on June 24th, it will still be Cameron et al, or perhaps a vote to ‘leave’ would force a general election? Then there’s the possible issue of Scottish independence. It could all get even more confusing and very messy.
In 1975 I was old enough to vote, but doubt very much that I did. Looking back we should never have joined but as we know hindsight is a wonderful thing. My natural instinct is to vote for the UK to leave as I believe we are perfectly capable of making it on our own.
Indeed if the ‘leave’ campaign won and at midnight on June 23rd someone could flick a magic switch so that when we all woke up on the 24th we were completely disentangled from Europe, that is exactly what I would do.
However, there is no magic switch and when I think of all the money and time that would be spent/wasted on the subsequent battle to disentangle ourselves, it makes me shudder.
Therefore on June 23rd, probably for all the wrong reasons, I will be voting for the UK to remain in the EU. (Or will I? 😉 )
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