Reason to Leave - a shorter post!

So what are the reasons to vote leave?

I think they are mainly emotional: freedom, control and democracy.

Do we want to be a free country, or one where, for example, third parties can tell us we have to give votes to prisoners, even if our Parliament is overwhelmingly against? (I'm not commenting here on whether prisoners should have the vote, it's an example of our supposedly sovereign body's lack of authority).

One where our courts can be over-ruled by foreign bodies which seem often not to share our values? After all, why would they?

One where we ultimately have to follow the stipulations which emerge from an overweening bureaucracy made up of careerist politicians and civil "servants" (sic) who share a passion for a "project" which we feel we never signed up to and want no part of?

One where we are subjects of three "Presidents", none of whom we can vote against in an election if we don't want them?

What happened to the proud independence of a country which hasn't been invaded in nearly a thousand years?

Do we want to live in a country that can genuinely decide its own destiny? Or do we think that true independence is now illusory and it's just not possible to have full control of your destiny in the modern world, even if it ever really was in the past.

And, of course, if we vote to stay, the Eurocrats will ignore us more than ever - and they didn't pay us much attention anyway, did they?

In addition to these powerful qualitative reasons, there is one economic argument that can be made: being in the EU increases our exposure to the risk of a Eurozone crash and bailouts. I don't think this can be accurately quantified, though I'm sure the Eurozone is not out of the wood by a long way. However, as we want to remain a strong trading partner of the EU, we cannot avoid this exposure entirely by leaving. Agreed there is zero risk of being drawn into bailouts if we are out, but even in it seems to me that any bailout exposure is 2nd order after David Cameron's rather limited (polite words for pathetic) renegotiation. Cameron did get useful concessions on this point, which the Telegraph called a "significant win". (see
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/19/eu-deal-what-david-cameron-asked-for-and-what-he-actually-got/). So I discount this eurozone risk argument and we'll just have to cross our fingers on this because, in or out, we would catch more than a cold if the market that accounts for nearly half our exports hits the buffers.

In addition to the all of the above there are Ozzy Osbourne's famous "medical reasons", i.e. we're heartily sick of the EU. This may sound a juvenile reason to vote against, but some folks know I'm very fond of Ozzy's saying and would not be surprised if it swayed my feelings.

However, just because you are sick of colleagues doesn't mean you never want to work closely with them again, so I'll try to put this one out of my mind.

Nevertheless, on an emotional level, I feel compelled to vote Leave. As the Animals sang:

"We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
'cause girl, there's a better life for me and you"

You can see there's not a lot of logical argument in this post compared with my last one. I think this really is a heart and head decision.