Every day we read that the Exit Campaigns are gaining presence, that their voice is finally being heard. That the UK public are standing up to an undemocratic union, a fascist movement, a money swallower. Eurocrats are being branded as liars, and thieves by the Exit parade. But isn’t all of this just becoming a bit odd?

Leave.eu is gaining popularity and pumping its iron together with UKIP campaigning thoroughly for an EU exit. They are persistent, know nothing more or less than the average UK Citizen but brand themselves as something superior and something that has some sort insider knowledge. What Leave.eu have on their side is money and power. They are merchandising, commenting and thanking flamboyantly on the status pages of anyone who gives them attention, regardless of how xenophobic or placid the comment may be, turning their cause into a type of vogue, something that needs to be seen and heard by millions, something that has the edge and is the right thing to do.

It’s almost a sort of good cop, bad cop approach.

It is safe to say that these types of efforts are being rewarded by people. It shows absolute dedication to the cause and the most dubious thing about all of this is that; people are actually falling for it.

The average Anti-EU Brit who’s sat down the pub wants to hear one thing at the moment, that the EU is failing and the project is over. He is absorbed in the conversation that Johnny Foreigner will take his job, turn his country in to an Islamic state, that Europe wants to abolish the pound and make us all Europeans, that we are being restricted by foreign trade agreements, foreign policy and legislation all because of this evil union…Scary stuff for an average person.

But what he or she is forgetting are the other important issues at stake. The EU is about so much more than just ‘trade agreements’. On every Anti-EU forum you hear comments beginning with “trade this and trade that”, that we are undermining our ability, we are being locked into something evil, something not worth our time and that trade and only trade is the most important thing at stake.

But is trade really the be all and end all of this argument? The answer of course is no. People are forgetting the fundamental rights that the EU brings. Rights that are being undervalued. Rights which concern every citizen of the European Union consisting of: travel, work and retirement, vehicles and transport, residence formalities, education and youth, health, family and consumers. (See link for more information: http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/).

Dave Matthews, Vienna.

Dave explores the questions that a Brexit raises further in a second post https://sayyes2europe.eu/2015/10/11/brexit-nothing-more-than-a-contemporary-mode-part-2/