EU referendum: Are you Wexit or Warin?

Adam Sammour is WarIn:

There are many reasons why I implore you to support the remain vote; here are just some of those which focus solely on our University. The areas in which the EU helps Warwick are numerous, and they are a key reason why Warwick thrives as a university.

Erasmus opportunities are so readily offered up to us, and the funding our university receives is in part from the EU’s education budget. The plethora of EU students add to our impressive cultural diversity, and even the course and module choices applicants are given is increased by the EU.

The EU permeates Warwick. It sits quietly in University House pumping money into our education. It adorns the walls of our departments halls telling us to ‘STUDY IN GERMANY!’.

The areas in which the EU helps Warwick are numerous

It sits in Library Café and in our seminars in the accents and languages spoken by the EU students who give so much to our university experience.

Diversity is something we should cherish. Diversity lends so much to our personal development, as well as society’s wider development.

Diversity is something we should cherish

It does this by challenging our beliefs, ideas and assumptions, teaching us of different experiences and of different cultures, and just generally broadening our horizons.

We would still have diversity on campus without the EU, yet Warwick would be enormously less colourful. Accessibility is another key word when we sum up what the EU does for Warwick. On top of the Erasmus schemes, when we applied to study here there was the option of studying ‘European Law’. We are one of the only universities in the country which offers this course.

And without the EU we would lose it. I for one do not want to see the University’s ability to educate diminished in any way, seeing as that’s its primary function.

I for one do not want to see the University’s ability to educate diminished in any way

Finally, we can see a ‘Real Politik’ answer as to the question ‘What does the EU do for Warwick?’ Without the EU the University would be vastly poorer.

This is not only because of all the EU students paying their fees, but also because the EU gives roughly 15% of our University’s funding. The Library could be less capable of providing you with up to date textbooks, our teachers could be paid less, potentially leading to a diminishing standard of teaching.

Without the EU the University would be vastly poorer

The bill for all the lost money would come down to us, the tuition fee paying students. Essentially, vote to stay in the EU if only because it benefits Warwick to stay. It gives us new buildings, new books and our diversity. A vote for the EU is a vote for Warwick’s improvement.

Lewis Hutchinson is WrExit

From the very outset, Warwick has been a hotbed of opinion. If you can think of an ideology, there’s almost certainly a society or group to represent it. We’ve been heavily invested in national politics since 1965 – whether marching on Westminster to demand free education, or canvassing Leamington to re-elect Chris White.

It’s something we should be proud of. But our membership of the EU has eroded our national democracy to the extent that our university and our opinions are increasingly meaningless. Parliament now only makes 35% of the laws affecting us.

The power it once had is in the hands of an elite, unaccountable council of bureaucrats in Brussels who most of us can’t name, and none of us voted for. What’s the point in being a noisy thorn in the government’s side if the government has no power?

Our membership of the EU has eroded our national democracy

Similarly, we have always been an international university, unrestricted by the island we’re on. Over 8500 of us are international students, coming from across the globe, and our campus is a near-utopian image of diversity – a place where the cultures of the world meet. We all get the chance to take a year abroad to whichever corner of the world takes our fancy.

Yet the EU want to restrict our ambitions and outlook to one continent: they are crippled by narrow-minded Eurocentricism, meaning Britain must favour immigrants from Europe over other areas, and restricting our own trade deals with other nations.

The EU want to restrict our ambitions and outlook to one continent: they are crippled by narrow-minded Eurocentricism

Being in the EU comprehensively shuts our door to the rest of the world. Are we to abandon our internationalism and let the EU decide our world view instead?

We’re also renowned for our forward-thinking. Campus will soon have a £150 million automotive research centre, our departments lead the way in academic research and our recent growth is being made future-proof by the new £20 million teaching and learning building.

Being in the EU comprehensively shuts our door to the rest of the world

This is at odds with the EU, an organisation fundamentally stuck in the past. Developed in the 1950s and 60s, the EU has a dogmatic reverence for standardisation and regulation over innovation and diversity: it prefers to restrict us rather than empower us.

The countless meaningless, unnecessary directives, which inundate Britain every year, are evidence of this. How can we be dedicated to the future, yet commit ourselves to an organisation stuck in the past?

The EU has a dogmatic reverence for standardisation and regulation over innovation and diversity

Warwick in the EU is a square peg in a round hole. We hold high what they erode, are open-minded while they are narrow, and create the future while they live in the past. We must embrace the optimist’s choice and say thank you, but no thank you, to the European Union this June.