You may have noticed that the UK has just held a referendum on its membership of the European Union.  I voted, with a heavy heart, to leave.  Although I was surprised by the result (52% Leave, 48% Remain), it brought me no joy.  However, I would make the same choice again, one which was made after much soul searching in what I believed then, and still believe now, are the best long term interests of my country.

After some reflection, I have decided to share my main reasons for voting Leave, not in order to justify myself, or persuade anyone that they got their vote wrong, but in the hope that it may help some of the devastated Remain voters to know that some people who voted Leave did so on a rational basis that was not based on isolationism and xenophobia.  It goes without saying that I speak only for myself, but I hope that if we can start to understand one another better, then the referendum result and the future of the UK may start to seem less scary.  An honest and rational campaign debate would have helped pave the way for that understanding, whatever the outcome had been.  It is to be mourned that our elected representatives were unable to provide this.

At the start of the campaign my feeling was that I wanted to vote for a third option that would not be on the ballot paper:  To remain in an EU that is not the one that currently exists (a simpler EU whose main purpose was to ease trade between nations).  Trade builds relationships, which help to break down barriers and foster the noble ideals of peaceful coexistence and mutual understanding.  However, I thought that belief in these ideals would lead me to vote Remain and reluctantly put up with the things that I didn’t like about the EU.  From the conversations that I had had with people, this position did not seem unusual.  But how was I to decide which of the two boxes that would actually appear on the ballot paper I would cross?  I knew that I would have to cross one of them.

I decided that I would have to find out more about the ways in which membership of the EU affects our lives, in order to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages and reach an informed decision.  It quickly became apparent that the official campaigns were unlikely to provide much in the way of useful information, although I still kept an eye and an ear on the news to keep track of what was going on.  I therefore obtained some suitable reading material, read it, thought about it and discussed ideas with people.  I could say much on many issues, but what I came to realise was that advantage or disadvantage on a particular issue could rarely be determined with any degree of certainty.  I am a mathematician, so I look for proof and certainty.  I found myself in the realm of arguments and principals, and those very much depend on the prism through which one views the world and, in particular the EU.  I needed a corner stone around which arguments could be carefully built that would make sense of the whole thing.

I make it sound like a carefully planned and executed operation.  The reality was a jumble of reading, thinking, wondering, despairing, talking and listening, all the while hoping and trusting that somehow there would eventually be clarity.  This finally came late on polling day.  I had planned to vote at lunch time, but although I knew by then that I wanted to vote Leave, I could not commit to doing so.  I therefore left it and at some point during the children’s swimming lessons clarity came and I felt that I had made a decision I could stand by.  I was relieved and thankful, and so dragged the children to the polling station on the way home.  However, voting was a terrible moment.  Decisions rarely come easily to me and all along I had been torn by having to choose between two deeply unappealing options.  This was hardly helped by having come to the conclusion that the consequences of either result would be awful:  An immediate release of hurt, despair and economic panic in the event of a Leave majority, or in the event of a Remain majority an insidious papering over of the cracks and passing on of the issue for the next generation to deal with once it had festered some more.  In the polling booth, both boxes loomed out of the voting slip like big red self-destruct buttons.  I pressed the one that said Leave.

Why did I do this?  In the end, I came to realise that I could not vote Remain because I do not believe in the principal of “ever closer union”.  To put up with an imperfect EU and vote Remain because of the good things that come out of it is one thing, but to vote Remain when I disagree with a fundamental principal of the EU, when that principal is not necessary to foster those ideals of peaceful coexistence and mutual understanding and it furthermore ripples out impacting negatively on important issues, would be quite another.

The principal of ever closer union has been at the heart of what is now the EU right from its earliest beginnings as the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951.  It was because of this that the UK did not join the ECSC and as a result was not in the EEC when that was founded.  When we later joined the EEC, and when the 1975 referendum was held, the arguments were mainly economic and the principal of “ever closer union” was deliberately downplayed by our politicians (as some pro-EEC campaigners from the time have admitted).  At a time of huge economic uncertainty, when the EEC would have appeared to be all about trade, it probably didn’t seem that important.  Perhaps few people realised how far and how fast ever closer union would happen.  The result of all this is that our relationship with the EU is founded at best on misunderstanding, at worst on a lie.  People in the UK can justifiably look at the EU now and say that it is not what they signed up for.  The EU can justifiably say that it is exactly what we signed up for.  This is at the heart of the problem of our relationship with the EU.

Over the years, the UK has developed what David Cameron has called a “special status” within the EU.  I would characterise this as having one foot in and one foot out:  a status that still fosters resentment at home about the EU doing more than people think it should whilst also fostering resentment in Europe about the UK not making good on its commitment to ever closer union.  This is not a good basis for building relationships with our neighbours.  In addition, this status is not tenable in the long term, whatever safeguards Mr Cameron did or did not manage to negotiate for it.  All of the newer EU members are committed to joining the Euro in due course.  Once 25 of the 28 (now 27) members are in the Euro the EU cannot but act solely in the interests of the Euro zone.  It would be unreasonable of us to suggest otherwise.

I do not believe that ever closer union is necessary to foster peaceful coexistence and mutual understanding.  I do not believe that it is a goal that the majority of people in the UK truly believe in.  One lesson that I take from the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, 300 years on from the act of union, is that many people value nationhood and self-determination very highly.  Another lesson I take is that these ideals can be pursued hand in hand with those of peaceful coexistence and mutual understanding.  Moreover, I believe that the speed at which ever closer union has happened has caused deep divisions in society, not just in the UK but in many countries across Europe.  Governments should not, of course, just follow the will of the people.  We elect them to lead and take decisions on our behalf.  At times they need to take tough, unpopular decisions in the long term interests of the whole country.  But they also need to take the people with them on that journey and not leave vast chunks of the population behind.  The rise of far right politics across Europe is of great concern.  However, the lesson I take from history is that this happens as a result of deep rooted problems in society.  The cause of these problems in our time is, I believe, in a large part due to the EU and the speed with which it has pursued ever closer union.  This has benefitted some parts of our societies, but left others behind.  Their voices matter and deserve to heard and respected.

There have been many times at which the EU could have changed course by dropping or limiting the principal of ever closer union, but has chosen not to do so.  The EU has been very clear that it will not do so.  There is no reason why the EU should change course because of one country, although I believe that to do so would be in the best interests of all Europeans.

As for the future, I am cautiously optimistic.  This is clearly a very uncertain time.  In the short term we will probably be worse off.  Short term, in this context, is likely to be most, if not all of my remaining lifetime.  In the long term, however, I believe we will be better off.  We still neighbour Europe and will still trade heavily with Europe and will still work closely with many European countries on many things.  Not in the same way, but it will still happen.  We can build a new relationship:  One which I hope will be more fruitful and more productive because it will be based on honesty.  However, there is also a whole world out there that we are now freer to trade with and build relationships with as we choose.  Those choices belong to all of us, but first we need to understand and build bridges at home.