OKAY, let’s cut to the chase.

This vote is not about the economy.

It is about migration, full stop.

It is not about regulation because even if Britain leaves the EU, we will still be subject to the same regulations, only we will have no influence over what they are.

In other words we would still have to sell straight bananas, and follow other semi-mythic EU trading rules.

For many Britons, the EU means above all else a phalanx of pram pushing mothers all speaking a foreign language rolling down our streets.

Leaving the EU will not make this go away, nor will leaving the EU make those migrants in the “jungle” across the channel any less eager to enter the UK.

Those migrants already in the EU who are mad keen to get into the UK are the ones people fear and leaving the EU will not make them less eager to enter our green and pleasant land.

As an immigrant myself, I have to be very careful about my comments, but we need to be clear about the different types of migrants.

Those coming from the other EU countries exercising their rights under EU rules about the free movement of people are coming here to work, study or be self-sufficient (tourists).

If they are not doing this, then they are not here lawfully and can and should be removed.

However, the UK Border Agency is so overwhelmed and underfunded that the task is far beyond their capacity.

Poles in the park drinking 9 litres of cider a day or Romanians selling the Big Issue are not here lawfully, but it is more costly to remove them than to let them stay.

People who are fleeing a country where they have a realistic fear of persecution should always be provided with humanitarian protection, of course.  

However, providing humanitarian protection and a permanent home are two very different things.

With 10s of thousands of Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians coming, what we have here is an army.

Western military intervention has helped to destabilise many countries.

Our only decent response should be to prepare them to return to their own countries safely and assist them to put their own countries right.

This can best be done on a pan-European basis through the EU and its multifarious institutions.

The vote on the 23rd is not about leaving Europe, we are here.

Look at a map, however you vote, the English Channel will remain the same size.

It is a vote about what relationship we want with the vast majority of other European nations. 

Like any family when disagreements arise passions can become heated, but mostly the love remains.

The referendum is not simply about Britain. 

If Britain had followed its narrow self-interest in 1940, we would have cut a deal with Hitler and saved the Empire for a generation.

The question is about what is best for Europe.

Do we want to be an active partner in the messy dance of European nations, or become a sullen wallflower pining after past glories?

There is no-one out there, not the US or China, to pick up our toys, if we throw them out of the pram.

If you want to engage in mass deportations of foreign nationals, then be honest enough to say so, but don’t hide behind the “Brexit” campaign. 

Migration, specifically net incoming migration, has finally come out of the closet labelled “racism”, and we can now have an adult conversation about it.

To be concerned about net migration is no longer considered racist. 

It is wrong however to say that we can’t control our borders, if we remain in the EU.

Anyway, the majority of migrants are coming from outside the EU, so voting to leave will not affect this.

Mass expulsions, also known as ethnic cleansing, would cause our health and social care systems to collapse because the vast majority of EU nationals in the UK are here working hard.  

They are doing the really tough jobs, residential care, late night taxis, etc. created by successive Conservative governments’ desire for “flexible working”.

The increase in productivity, the economist’s Holy Grail, is gained with zero-hour contracts, low pay and poor terms and conditions of employment.

These are the jobs that newly arrived migrants from the EU are coming and taking, but the EU is trying to improve the terms and conditions of these rubbish jobs for all Europeans.

The very fact of having a referendum has reset the agenda for the whole of the EU.  

Yes, obviously the EU bureaucracy is bloated and expensive, but what government department is not?

In the end, Dirty Harry does say it best, “Nobody hates the system more than me, but until you come up with something better, I gotta stick with it”.

Think about it, both Dirty Harry and Winston Churchill would vote the same way on June 23. 

JAMES DERIEG
Kemble