Land, air and sea – we’re better off in the EU
I was blessed to grow up in Shropshire. I may not always have thought it was a blessing – when you’re a teenager and what you want most in the world is access to all the temptations a giant city has to offer, then a rural idyll tucked along the Welsh border is not necessarily your first choice But now, every time I go back to visit my parents there, I think again what a wonderful place it is. If you’ve never been, picture the opening scenes of Lord of the Rings. It’s that beautiful. I am completely smitten.
Nearby are the striking mountains of Snowdonia, where I went on adventurous school trips and where my wife and I went walking last year, and across the county border in Staffordshire is the vast expanse of Cannock Chase, where I broke my arm when I was six (although I don’t hold that against the park).
I mention these places because they are all, rightly, protected for us and for future generations. But that protection doesn’t come from national law – it comes from the EU’s Nature Directives, bold and far-reaching legislation aimed at protecting our vital wildlife. Before those European laws were introduced, the UK was losing 15% of its protected sites every year. That figure is now down to just below 1%. And if you think that a Tory government outside the EU would still protect the countryside in this way, then it’s worth remembering that George Osborne described these protections as “placing ridiculous costs on British businesses” (a claim his own government discovered to be unfounded).
Some of the most beautiful, quintessentially British areas of the countryside – Snowdonia, Cannock Chase, Dartmoor and many more – therefore owe their status to our membership of the EU.
And it’s not just on land that we have reason to be grateful for being part of the Union. The air we breathe is going to get cleaner too. This isn’t just a nice-sounding thing to have. Every year, over 23,000 people die sooner than they should have done because of unacceptably high levels of nitrous oxide in the air. That’s appalling – and unsurprisingly, the nitrous oxide itself doesn’t really care whether the air it’s polluting is over the territory of the UK, or France, or anywhere else.
If we want cleaner air, then we need to act together – and the EU has introduced new legislation requiring just that. Labour MEPs like my boss, Anneliese Dodds, and Seb Dance are campaigning to make sure these new laws are now properly enforced.
The quality of air isn’t only important for us. As the RSPB has pointed out, there is categorical evidence that endangered species of birds, singled out for protection by the EU, are faring much, much better than they would be if those laws were not in place. It is undeniable that EU laws, while they can no doubt be improved and better enforced, are working to protect wildlife.
Lastly, British beaches and seas are in a better state because the UK is a member of the EU. The EU has introduced something called the Bathing Water Directive. OK, it sounds like a typically dull Brussels initiative. But it has resulted in 99% of all bathing waters around the UK coast meeting minimum standards for water quality. That’s up from a frankly hideous 27% in 1990. I was eight in 1990, and spent a significant part of my summer holidays swimming in the Channel. I shudder to think about quite what I might have been swimming alongside.
With this level of European level protection – and with a Conservative administration at home whose days of hugging huskies and promising to be the ‘greenest government ever’ are well behind them – it’s little wonder that environmental charities like the RSPB and Friends of the Earth, and respected publications like Nature magazine, are all queuing up to argue that we should stay in the European Union.
So however you are about to spend your Easter holidays – be it climbing mountains, walking through green pastures, braving a first dip in the sea, or just breathing in air that you hope isn’t going to shorten your life in any way – it will be a more pleasant experience because we are a member of the EU.
The patriotic choice is to vote to stay in the EU
Should we remain in the European Union, or leave? It’s a question that’s going to get asked a lot in the next few months and – assuming you have registered to vote in advance – it will be one staring up at you from the ballot paper on Thursday 23 June.
It might well be a question you’re thoroughly sick of hearing by the time that day comes round, but it’s no less important for that. In fact, the amount of media coverage that is going to be given to the debate, the increasing passion of each side’s arguments, and their relentless determination to secure your vote, are all reflective of the fact that this is the biggest political decision of our generation.
In between now and the vote, I’m going to try and set out a range of different arguments for why I think we should stay in the EU. If you’re unsure at all about how to vote, then I’d urge you to read what you can about it and to hear the points of view of both sides. I will only be putting forward the case for staying in – but there will be plenty of opportunities to read the arguments for and against.
For me, the overwhelming case for staying in is in the answer to a different, but related question: what kind of country do we want to be?
The world has rarely been more dangerous, more unstable and more uncertain than it is right now. We’re seeing a shift in geopolitical power the likes of which hasn’t happened for nearly thirty years. We’re seeing economic woes and the subsequent rise of far-right nationalism with horrible echoes of the 1930s. And we’re seeing environmental challenges that are unprecedented.
There is an argument that, in the face of such turbulence and uncertainty, the best thing to do is hunker down within our borders; look inward; care for our own and let everyone else do the same. If the world outside is dangerous and scary, build a great big wall and shut it out. It’s an argument that’s got a lot of traction in places like Hungary. Donald Trump is building a terrifying election campaign on the back of it.
It’s an appealing argument in dark times. But it’s the wrong one, and certainly not one befitting of the UK.
On the contrary: there has never been a more important time for us to be an outward-looking, alliance-building, progressive country. The biggest challenges of our time – from terrorism to climate change, from the billions of pounds lost to tax avoidance to the millions of jobs at risk due to technological change – do not respect national borders. If we are to rise to those challenges, then we have to reach out to our neighbours and friends and work with them.
It is hard to think of a better example of that kind of constructive, cross-border working than the European Union.
Within the 28 Member States of the EU are countries that in the past have fought one another, conquered one another and tried to wipe one another off the map for good. In different times, faced with problems arguably less challenging than those we face right now, those countries have reached for their arms without blinking. I don’t have to look too far for the evidence of the what happens next: I live 10 miles from Waterloo, 80 miles from Ypres and 100 miles from Bastogne.
Today, the leaders of those same countries sit around a table and talk to one another. They argue things out. They debate, they negotiate, they frustrate one another… and then they compromise. As a result, we are living through the longest period of peace that Western Europe has known for centuries. It is an extraordinary achievement, and one those of us born in the last 50 years take completely for granted.
If there is going to be a group of countries that get together, and work with one another for the greater good – a union of nations that looks at the challenges we face and decides that the only way to rise to them is to pool their efforts and work together – then I want my country to be part of it. I’m incredibly proud to be British, precisely because it is part of the EU.
There are of course lots of other reasons for voting to remain part of the EU – because it is better for our economy, for the environment, for workers’ rights – and I’ll touch on each of those in upcoming blogs. But for me, the overriding reason will always be what our membership of the EU says about us as a country: that we believe the world can be better than it is, and that we want to be part of making it so.
the unfinished article 
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