That’s it, I am officially wading into this whole thing, I can’t consider losing my summer Camembert-eating kayaking week! There seems to be a constant round of “are you voting in or out?” with every new family gathering/work conversation etc etc.

Someone said to me recently that they didn’t know enough about the financial side of things to make an educated decision, and although this might seem a sensible conjecture to some, I actually found myself voicing an unexpectedly good comeback. Why shouldn’t you vote based on the things you DO know that will effect you? What else should a vote be based on other than the things you feel it will effect most in your life?

As a 22-year old Briton, I feel as though to vote out would be to cut ourselves off – and Europe is one hell of a party I really don’t want to miss out on! The ‘European Generation’ that the EU has created is simply incredible. Americans say ‘I’m going to Europe’ as if we are one big lump, but we actually have the ability to KNOW Europe, and live and work throughout all of it’s crazily different countries with ease. I have worked in Germany with a language camp, visited Auschwitz with the Holocaust Education Trust, undertaken exchanges to Austria with the Commenius project and drank a lot of French wine on our yearly kayaking trips to the French Alps. Yes we have our rivalries, but mostly they just involve mainland EU’ers showing us up with their mad language skills and us laughing at the Gallic shrug, among other things.

Our diversity as a continent has created a group of countries who all do business and life very differently, but making this union work is everyone’s best interests. I wouldn’t trust Cameron not to leave his children behind in a pub (oh wait, he actually did that… awks) let alone run the country, and the EU is a good safeguard to some dodgy decisions from Dodgy Dave, his predecessors and his successors.

We seem to be forgetting our history: the EU has brought unity where once there was war, and without which we would still be struggling to border countries whose workings we knew little about, thus breeding suspicion/contempt/discord. America came out of ‘The Great Isolation’ because, well, they kind of had to in the end: it just doesn’t work in the long run.

We are able to travel across borders, work ski seasons/summer seasons at a whim and study our degrees in amazing paces, all because we have chosen to be part of an alliance where free-movement is paramount. Getting 17 students, 3 vehicles, 17 kayaks, 14 tents,6 stoves and a partridge in a pear tree across to France is difficult enough without having to think about visa’s and border crossings! You know those queues at the airport? Where EU passport holders get to waltz through, yeh forget about those. And think of the the faff – driving licences, holidays, documents – it’s just not bloody worth it.

Can we all just calm down with a cup or tea and talk about this rationally? Yes some things about the EU area little mad, but the core principles are too good to lose. That, and I want to do a ski season next year and the faff is just too much to consider. If that doesn’t sway you then I don’t know what will…

I am a proud member of a European Generation, and come June, I will be voting IN.
Sorry for the politics….