GUEST COLUMN: EU vote is unique event in our history, by Roy Bainton

After tomorrow's EU referendum vote, Britain will change, no matter who wins, because vicious political battle lines have been drawn and neither side is going to forgive the other.

This is a unique event in British history.

The referendum isn’t a General Election.

In my view the battle for and against Europe has become an internecine squabble between warring factions of the governing Tory party.

Nigel Farage and UKIP, after campaigning for this vote for so long, have become mere footnotes.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

So where does all this leave us, the bamboozled public, on the eve of such a momentous event?

The Brexit camp reached an all-time low in my view when Boris Johnson compared the EU to Hitler’s plans for Europe.

The Remain camp was just as bad, suggesting the possibility of a new World War if we didn’t stay in, mass unemployment and falling house prices.

Both sides are working with smoke, mirrors and political flatulence.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The past few weeks of fear mongering have been a deplorable disgrace to British politics.

So tomorrow we go to the polls either to keep things as they are until the next General Election, or hand over the country to Boris Johnson and his pals.

Britain already knows, after 40 years, what it’s like being a member of the EU.

What we, Johnson, Cameron, Farage and the rest don’t know, is what life will be like outside the Single Market.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

As for ‘making our own laws’, we’ve been doing that throughout the past 40 years.

Otherwise there’d be no Parliament or House of Lords.

So when you enter the booth tomorrow, whatever you’ve decided, take time to pause and think.

Once the drawbridge is up, it can never be lowered again.