Letter in the Lowestoft Journal 17th June 2016
To help people make up their minds how to vote we have set up a website https://waveneyVoteLeave.net (no www needed). This explains why we believe life in Waveney and Lowestoft would be better for our children if we vote to leave the EU.
Lowestoft has suffered huge job losses as a direct result of Britain joining the EU. Before 1973 Lowestoft harbour had around 100 fishing boats. However, allowing all EU countries to fish a few miles off our coast wiped out fish stocks and our fishing industry. This in turn led to the loss of hundreds more jobs in the food processing industry, including the closure of one of the UK’s largest food manufacturing factories.
The EU has directly caused the loss of thousands of jobs in towns like Lowestoft, while the number it has created in them has been pitiful.
Despite this Waveney and Lowestoft are rebuilding. Unemployment, whilst always a tragedy has fallen to 2.8% in Waveney. Compare that to the Eurozone average of 10.3%, Spain 20.4%, Italy 11.7%, France 10.2% etc. Our young people clearly have a much better chance of a job here than in the EU!
We are also concerned about the pressures on the NHS. It’s simply not fair to ask hard pressed staff to cope with a third of a million extra patients – that’s the population of Lowestoft plus Ipswich plus Norwich – every single year.
Yes, there have been threats made by the EU about what will happen if vote to leave – and yes we probably will see how much of a bully the EU is if we do vote to leave. But we believe the only way to deal with a bully is to stand up to them!
This is not just about jobs, it about who we are. We are first and foremost British and we believe that we will get on better with other European countries as friends and neighbours, rather than in a marriage that cannot work. So, we would urge you to have the courage to VOTELEAVE on 23rd June.
waveneyvoteleave 