By Rupert Slade a member of one of the SY2E – Remain in the EU groups.

If immigration is your big problem with the eu, then frankly you shouldn’t be my friend. The evidence in report after report is against you. Yes, there is a pressure on services. This is due to a government that has put in place a plan of austerity and believes in the downsizing of the state as an ideology.

The target should not be EU migrants, who are 93 per cent employed and average age 29. Compare them with the 1.5 million living on the costa del sol, who are likely to be retired. They will not want to live four to a room and without question will be a bigger drain on the health service. Follow your logic and they should come home…. Just remember 5 million brits live outside the Uk. Many of us have found it very difficult to vote…..

I am an immigrant and have been for 18 years. In so called very patriotic countries like Poland, Ireland and Hungary I have made lifetime friends. If you don’t like migrants, you don’t like me.

When brexiters talk about the big wide world and the commonwealth….. sounds good, but are we really going to open our borders to India, Nigeria, Pakisatn etc….. No, we know what you are saying, it is very clear. Aussie, nz and canada are your commonweallth or your faded empire. Most of them are white…. British exceptionalism and racism comes in many forms.

If you are not repulsed by Farage’s billboard I suggest you should watch Schindler’s list or the Pianist….. take a look at some nazi propaganda of the 30s… It is the same…. When a universally loved mp whose life is dedicated to cultural integration gets murdered, the backdrop of that billboard is just too much for good people to take.

Do you have some intellectual fear of losing our sovereignty? There are a few of you. Please remember you are voting to appease people’s fear of immigration and dislike of foreigners. I am lifelong liberal, only boffins like me and some of us are really interested in our electoral system…. Please don’t kid yourself that is what people are voting for…. they are voting out of anger at dropping standards of living and fear of modernity. Note that the young are not voting for brexit. It is people my age and older.

The EU is an imperfect democracy, particularly when people are stupid enough to vote UKIP and get meps like Farage who spout on about fishermen, but then don’t bother to turn up . Yes our MEPs and governments appoint commissioners. In the same way in the Uk we need civil servants to make law happen. Yes democracy is imperfect. Scotland always vote Labour and gets tory. I vote liberal and get bugger all. Some votes are more valuable than others…. 50 seats swing the whole country……. But take that aside you have to recognise the need for European governance. We need to tackle world issues together.

Very occasionally we will be blocked( in fact 50 times in the last 10 years out of 600)….. ok I concede there is a democratic deficit….. 28 countries negotiating mean EU politics hover between uk toryism and scandinavian social democracy……. Frankly is that such a bad thing? The left scream about it being a classical liberal capitalist organisation, the right call it a bureaucratic organisation that blocks economic progress. They would say that, wouldn’t they?

The reason why the Eu was set up was to stop tyranny in Europe. When extremists want to smash our human rights or our basic liberties, that is why the eu is there as moderator…….. What is the real agenda of the libertarian right? Do you really think it is for the protection of British workers? Of course not. We know where Farage’s mind is. Do you really want to appease the angry and hating who are voting for him?

BTW if we brexit, can we demand independence for London? 75% of us would have voted remain….. why should we leave the EU and support people who voted to brexit, particularly when we subsidise them…. i am joking of course.

Why do so many brexitters assume that the EU is out to get us through the small print?. There is an agenda to do what is good for Europe. As the voting shows 90 per cent of the time that is good for us. This bizarre xenophobia towards Juncker and even worse towards Merkel is truly vile. It is not her fault her economy works and that she shows compassion to refugees….. The ww2 comparisons belong with a lot of other things in the “little england” dustbin.

In a campaign where you have had the former minister of Education saying ” the public are fed up with experts” you have to cry……. tell that to the school kids. Stop listening to the teachers, the mathematicians, the economists, the writers, the bank of England……in fact pretty much everyone. Perhaps they should do their learning from beefy botham, david Icke and that Monty Pythonesque pub bigot Nigel Farage. Does that not sum up the idiocy of the LEAVE campaign?

I have always defended Britain to the hilt over the years for its openness and tolerance……. I know we will do the right thing on Thursday. I believe we are an open and fantastic place…. Please don’t prove me wrong.This is my last piece on the subject. My wife kath is fed up with me living on social media, but this is so much more important than a general election. It is about who we are and how we project ourselves to the world.

VOTE REMAIN