Final appeals have been made to residents in the Burnham-On-Sea area from both sides of the EU referendum debate.
With just hours to go until polls open for Thursday’s historic vote, local representatives from the Remain and Leave camps have made a last attempt to sway voters.
Burnham-On-Sea’s MP, James Heappey, is campaigning for the UK to remain in the EU.
Helen Hims, Burnham’s former UKIP parliamentary candidate and the leader of the local Leave campaign, is pushing for voters to back the move to leave the EU.
Burnham’s MP James Heappey told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “Thursday’s vote matters a lot. It will shape the direction of our country for decades to come and the choice is not straightforward.”
“There will be arguments made that this is all about sovereignty. Vote to leave and we get our country back. Beyond that we’ll make something up as we go along and it’ll all be fine.”
“But it isn’t as simple as that. The world has changed since we joined the EU – the age of the nation state replaced by the age of globalisation and interconnection. People might wish it could be like it was in the ‘good old days’, but they’re gone.”
“Now our strength comes through our influence. And our influence comes from being a part of things. From being on the pitch playing the game rather than carping from the sidelines.”
“So beware the siren call of sovereignty and worry about the economic abyss that awaits if we leave on Friday. I won’t go so far as to say that disaster is guaranteed as the referendum campaign has already had far too much hyperbole. The truth is that we just don’t know what our economic plan would be should we leave.”
“For me, that’s too risky. And I reject wholly the suggestion that five or ten years of pain is alright if we get our country back in the end. Tell that to the young person just starting their career, or the person saving for a mortgage. Tell it to the small business that is trying to grow or the person trying to plan for their retirement.”
“The stock exchange and currency markets have recovered this week because they are betting on a remain vote. Make no mistake, if they thought the opposite outcome was coming, the pound would rapidly lose value and the stock market would lose billions. If we actually left, people suggest it would be worse than Black Wednesday.”
“Who cares? It’s just bankers losing money. Nope. It’s our pension funds, it’s our ISAs, it’s our companies’ ability to invest and create new jobs, it’s the cost of importing things like petrol and its recession.”
“To me, that’s just too big a risk to take. So I’m voting to remain and expecting that after the battering we’ve given the EU here and with French and German General Elections to come in the next eighteen months; I’m expecting that they’ll finally see the writing on the wall and accept the need for more change.”
“Finally, no matter what the result, please let’s learn from last week that the great thing about our democracy is that we have the right to disagree with one and another. Nobody who votes to remain is a traitor, nobody who wants to vote to leave doesn’t care for our country. We will all be voting for what we think is best for the United Kingdom. We must respect that and respect the result too.”
Burnham’s Helen Hims, who is leading the local Vote Leave campaign, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “Many people are being increasingly confused by the countless arguments being flung back and forth. It’s time to narrow our decision down to the fundamental issue of: ‘who runs our country?'”
“I’m pro-European and pro-World, but anti-EU. To me this referendum is all about self-governance.”
“One of the most precious things we possess is the ability to control our destiny through the ballot box; electing and removing those who govern us.”
“The EU commission might do some things we like, and our elected politicians might do some things we dislike, but if that’s the basis on which we vote to stay, we might as well accept tyranny.”
“Voting ‘In’ on 23rd June doesn’t mean no change, it means surrendering everything we’ve ever known to a foreign, unelected, undemocratic government which will ultimately have the final say over every aspect of our lives – no further ballot boxes required!”
“As the oldest, most stable and most successful country in Europe, the UK has a duty to remind the European Union, barely 50 years old, that government is the servant and not the master of the people.”
“The EU model is outdated and failing, the Euro currency doesn’t work, its borderless regime is breaking up, the migrant crisis is overwhelming and European solidarity is coming to an end.”
“It should be clear the future of Europe lies not with an integrated German-led federal union, but with closely-co-operating independent sovereign nations, seen as normal everywhere else in the world – except the EU.”
“This referendum is our chance. We can see the direction in which the EU is going, and we know that no re-negotiation can alter it from within. As the EU shrivels economically, and yet continues its relentless march toward full statehood, we have one last opportunity to stand amicably aside and negotiate a better relationship based on free-trade and self-governance: Vote Leave.”
Polling stations will be open across the Burnham-On-Sea area from 7am-10pm on Thursday.
