Britain loves Europe. We just don’t like the EU. Those of us who stand for Brexit can tell the difference.
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The Remanians consistently run our country down. “We can’t cope on our own!” they scream. “We’re too small! Out of the EU our economy will crash! Jobs will be lost! House prices will tumble! Workers’ rights will end! There will be war!”
This is patriotism? Oh please!
Ours is the world’s fifth largest economy. We’re a founding member of NATO. Our military budget is the fourth largest, and the UK is one of only five permanent seat-holders on the UN Security Council. We sit on the G7 and the G20. Our language, English, is the world’s most widely spoken. We have the world’s best universities. We have a huge commercial advantage in sitting at the centre of the international time zone. We have a cracking history of maritime trade and industry. Ours is a country of 65 million amazing people.
If we aren’t big enough to compete on the world stage, who is?
I do wonder if the Remainians might be suffering from a form of Stockholm Syndrome. Britain has been locked into the EU for 44 years now. Are they terrified of being released from captivity? Paralysed with fear about taking back their place in the outside world?
This is what the EU wants of course: captive, compliant member nations willing to let unelected and democratically unaccountable bureaucrats rule the roost and make our laws. The very opposite of patriotism, in other words.
Whether we vote to Leave or Remain, everything is going to change. The EU is on a mission to move irrevocably towards ever-closer union. Full financial, political and border integration has, is and always will be the aim.
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Our boys didn’t fight in two World Wars for a United States of Europe. They fought and died for what is now is peril: our democratic independence, our freedom, and for the parliamentary sovereignty of the United Kingdom. They didn’t fight to see the EU flag raised above parliament, they died holding the Union flag aloft. Selling out to the authoritarian, EU oligarchy is a disgrace to their memory and their sacrifices.
So, Jess Phillips: enjoying a roast dinner and a full English breakfast doesn’t make you patriotic. What makes you patriotic is standing up for your country rather than selling it out to a foreign power. Being patriotic means having confidence in your country, not running it down again and again. Being patriotic means acting in the best interests of your country, not spreading unnecessary fear and panic about the jobs and the economy. Being patriotic means believing in Britain. Scratch even the surface of the Remanians’ arguments, and you’ll see they fail this test every single time.
The patriotic vote is a vote to leave the European Union. It’s saying to the EU: we wish you very best; we’ll continue to be your trading partners and military allies, but we’re a proud and patriotic people. From now on, we’ll govern ourselves.
Suzanne Evans is a Vote Leave board member, and UKIP’s Parliamentary Spokesman