UK and EU; should we stay or should we go (*)

(* - with a hat-tip to 'The Clash')

Tomorrow 5th May we will be having elections of one kind or another in every part of the UK - regional parliamentary or assembly elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and local elections in England, plus of course the mayoral election in London, not forgetting also a bumper crop of elections to select 41 Police & Crime Commissioners across England and Wales - and by Friday we will know what the immediate fallout is. The BBC has a dedicated 'homepage' for all of these elections here. I've written several blog articles recently about the Scottish parliamentary elections in my immediate area; please scroll down if you wish to refresh your memory.

However, not much more than a month from now, the UK will hold a referendum which is arguably at least as important if not more; whether to remain a member of the European Union, or not. There are two 'official' campaign groups, supporting the 'remain' and 'leave' sides respectively and you can visit their website here (for 'remain') and here (for 'leave').

Over coming weeks in the run-up to the referendum, I shall undoubtedly be writing more on this topic in this blog, but meantime I have started the ball rolling by writing brief news updates in my own personal website here in the 'homepage', with a slightly more detailed (but also completely neutral) brief section in its dedicated EU page here (nb/ this page has existed in my personal website more or less since I began the website in its current form in 2002). In that latter page I have included a couple of relevant links which I repeat here, because they will undoubtedly be mentioned regularly in passing in media reporting as the referendum date of 23rd June 2016 draws closer:
- Lisbon Treaty Article 50;
- HM Government official EU Referendum website.

The referendum question will be:
"Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"

The only other remark I wish to make at this stage is that whilst HM Government's official position is to recommend that the UK remains a member of the EU and its website linked to above reflects this, the level of 'objectivity' of the arguments advanced for this position is hotly disputed by some and I myself tend to share some of that scepticism, although I have not yet made up my mind finally how I will vote.