Stay in the EU or not?

That is the (current question)…

With only a few weeks to go until the UK makes a critical decision on whether to stay in the eu or not for the country’s future, it seems the nation and indeed, our politicians are as undecided as they were at the start of the process.

We have heard every argument for and against, on every conceivable subject from immigration through to security and business. The overarching argument however, from both sides has been dominated by economics; project fear is in full flow.

How it was back then

For those old enough to remember, the scenario was similar when we were deciding whether to join the European Union. Back then, it was the beginning of a mass experiment into regional integration, and the truth was, nobody knew what was going to happen.
We could speculate about the opening of borders and how it would impact on our country. We talked of improved relationships, of learning from each country’s best-practice, and untold trade opportunities. The whole EU experiment was based around economics, Britain being the poor man of Europe during the 70’s, Britain needed the EU more than the EU needed the UK, our membership came down to a simple question, one based on economics.

However……

Due to the continued integration of the EU and its powers in the UK, our membership in the EU can no longer be based on economics alone, fundamentally we need to understand whether Democracy is best served being in or outside the EU.
Currently there is no way for the public to directly remove EU leaders or lawmakers through any direct democratic process. Power of the few must be given in the consent of many, if the powerful are not held accountable to that consent, then we all lose more than pounds and pence.
Before our politicians can even debate the economic benefits of the EU, we should openly debate how best Democracy is served, and to this end our decision should be made.

So what do you think? Should we stay in the EU or not?