I read this last night, I can't find who wrote it, but its spot on in my eyes:
"I have been listening to the various arguments about this idiotic and damaging referendum for weeks now. All of them focus on personal advantage and disadvantage. Both camps want to appeal to the venal, the self serving, "You will all be better/worse off in/out of the EU". Remain suggests leaving to be economic and security suicide, while Biscuit merely seem to be asking 'what did the Romans ever do for us?'.
This debate is being conducted in the usual schoolyard manner we have come to expect of our ‘leaders’. And there is so little to be said for "Brexit", a word as ugly and false as the barely disguised xenophobia it truly represents, that its supporters are reduced to yelling "That's not fair you're just trying to scare us!" every time some eminently respectable and sober individual or organisation (Mark Carney, Obama, the OFS, the IMF, the head of the NHS... the list goes on and on) remarks that in their considered opinion leaving the EU carries risks. Since Biscuit have obviously lost the economic argument they're now just banging on about immigration - “comin' over 'ere taking our jobs” - an appeal to the most base and unattractive of all our lamentable small island prejudices.
But we are not merely a small island, we are (even though we enjoy denigrating our postwar, post imperial state) one of the richest, most powerful and influential nations on the planet. Along with France and Germany we underpin European stability. Our withdrawal from Europe would be deeply resented by every other state within the bloc, and justifiably so, as the whole would be immeasurably weakened, a state of affairs which should please no one bar a few jingoistic right-wingers and Vladimir Putin. Following Biscuit, right wing nationalist parties in other member states would clamour for independence too, their poisonous bitter protest rooted (as all rightist arguments are), on the theory that their unhappiness/lack of employment/poverty/woeful education/sexual frustration must all be someone else's fault. We will see violence and stupidity rampant and power hungry men merrily abandoning what little decency they once had to become the local Trump-u-like.
Meanwhile, Boris Biscuit Barrel 'La Trumpa' Johnson makes scandalous comparisons to the Third Reich (please be assured dear reader that labour camps, racial cataloging, slave nations and state sponsored euthanasia for the disadvantaged are not part of any one's plan for the future of the EU), and David Cameron suggests that your holiday to the Costa del Sol might cost a few extra hundred quid if we leave. Johnson is unforgivable, and call me Dave may be exaggerating. But so what? What if we stay and your holiday still gets more expensive? (it probably should by the way), and we should stay anyway.
I've been working for a few weeks in Lithuania this year (Vilnius is very lovely, you should visit). They of course secured freedom from the crumbling Soviet Empire in 1991; that’s 25 years ago, like yesterday. They were the first Soviet satellite to secede, Russian tanks ran over celebrating Lithuanians as they withdrew, peaceful people forming human shields before buildings of national importance were shot while they sung. Gorbachev received the Nobel peace prize that year. The Lithuanians are terrified of the Russians returning.
Look at a map of Europe in 1975 - Spain is a fascist dictatorship, Portugal is just starting to recover from the 26 year rule of Salazar - another fascist. Poland, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria are all soviet satellites independent only in name. You won’t even see the Baltic states on the map, they are entirely subsumed by the USSR. A short time later,15 years, these countries start to reappear, looking west for support, desperate to reestablish autonomy and national identity, to trade and to travel freely - you know; the stuff we’ve all been enjoying for half a century.
Now the EU extends from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, from Ireland to Greece, that's a big WOW! a cause for great celebration. France and Germany are our close friends, no longer bitter enemies.
Bulgarians and Romanians coming here to work is a bloody triumph. These are not a bunch of ‘gypos’ coming here to commit criminal acts and live off benefits, they are people freed from ghastly dictatorships who have, for a just a few short years, been able to enjoy something like freedom and affluence.
This is what the EU is for, this is why it’s the most forward thinking and civilised development in postwar history; a secular, democratic, tolerant, inclusive federation of mutually supportive states.
And we are threatening to break it up? It’s a f***** disgrace."