A Great Pro EU article from Nishul Saperia ( http://www.twitter.com/@nishul1)
Many of you will know it:)
I am voting to stay in the European Union. One of the main reasons is fundamental about the kind of world I want to live in and believe in.
I believe in minimising the barriers between people and cultures as a route to societies sharing ideas, reducing ignorance, increasing our understanding of people who are different from us making us more open minded and accepting of others.
I fundamentally believe the human race is better off when we all engage with each other, learn about each other and understand each other.
Progress is made this way. In society. In culture.
Britain allowed my family to come here before I was born massively increasing my ability to get a good education. Now our food is the nation’s favourite. Why? Because it’s damn good. If Indians and people from other cultures hadn’t been welcomed in, would Brits still be eating mainly meat and two veg?
I remember visiting in Brussels the EU museum. It was fascinating to understand the origins of the EU project. At its heart was a desire to never again suffer another world war. Europe has been fundamentally stable since then – and a huge part of it is down to us getting together in a collective and working together as we have.
No doubt – the EU is not perfect. I’ve seen myself the demography of my hometown change as a lot of Eastern Europeans came. I admit I was uncomfortable a bit. A lot of the change happened while I was living in New York and I would come back and see how harrow was a little different every time I came back. I understand it is uncomfortable to see your hometown become alien to what you had known. But the answer isn’t closing borders for me. Those polish will integrate and bring with them their own contributions to our society. Indeed one of my cousins is now married to a polish guy. I think that’s amazing. In how many countries do we see things like this happening – an Indian person married to a polish person in a country that neither are from.
If we vote to go out, we make a statement about who we are as a country. One that is deciding to look inward. That is insecure. That is not open.
These are not the values I hold.