I am 23, relative to my fellow villagers in rural Herefordshire I am very young. I come from a village that takes on a lot of EU migrants every year to pick strawberries, I pass them on the road home and see them in the supermarket when I go shopping. The vast majority of them are graduates from eastern Europe and are a similar age to me, earning as much money as they can either to save for further education or a chance to stay and work in the UK.
I am in direct competition with these people for work both in Herefordshire, London and beyond. I have the advantage of being a UK citizen, but due to the EU they have a better chance against me than if Britain were outside the EU. I have the option of voting to get rid of the free movement and visa rules to give myself better odds of finding a good job.
That lone reason is a valid argument for leaving the EU, however it would not only mean forgoing the other benefits I get from EU membership but also the friends I have who live in other EU countries. At some point they may have the same option, they could vote to deny me a chance of finding work in Paris, Rome or Berlin. They could decide, the same way that many people in Britain are deciding now, that because I am a foreigner to them my qualifications are trumped by the fact I was not born in their country, regardless of whether I would be better suited than a native applicant.
So if we decide that should be the case - I should not think to live and work beyond my borders, I should deny my foreign friends a job in my country and they should do the same to stop me - because it's every man for himself. Isn't that what made our country great, when we left those less fortunate than us out in the rain?
H. Jones
Kings Caple
Herefordshire
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