EU referendum: The view from one family
- Published
With only a couple of weeks to go until the EU referendum on 23 June, people up and down the country will be discussing their opinions with their families. But being related to someone is no guarantee you will agree with them - on the referendum or anything else. BBC News spoke to three generations of one Manchester family about their different views on whether the UK should stay in the EU.
Maria and Raymond Dormer remember voting in the 1975 referendum about whether to leave or stay in what was then the European Economic Community. Now grandparents to eight children, they find themselves having to make a similar decision.
Mrs Dormer is worried about the impact on jobs and the money coming into the UK from the EU.
"If we come out, we are going to lose that," she says. "If we come out and - in five, eight or 10 years' time - we or the government think 'we should never have done that', we're not going to be allowed back in.
"One of the things I'm concerned about [if the UK leaves the EU] is travelling, because at the moment we can travel quite freely around Europe. Also what concerns me is exports and imports - is it going to cost us more as the consumer, buying everyday things?"
Her husband Raymond, who is retired after owning a small retail business, believes the UK should have a stronger voice in the EU and, like many, is worried about immigration.
"We might end up with too many people in the country - can our National Health Service, our housing, our other services cope with this?
"The whole thing is balancing up the good and bad and I think that's the problem at the moment - we don't know which way to go or whether we will benefit by a definite yes or no. Well, it's just not clear-cut."
Their daughter Victoria Howarth is a single mother with five children. As a book-keeper, she is used to crunching figures and some of her reasons for wanting the UK to leave the EU are connected to finance.
"The membership fee that we pay to be in Europe is so astronomical and I think it could be put to better use," she says.
She wants the UK to "make our own business decisions" and have more direct negotiations with economic powers such as the US, China and India.
She also says she hopes the UK will gain more border controls if it leaves the EU and is concerned about the country's standing.
"[The EU] is not just the market, it's got its own flag, its own anthem. It'd be nice to see Britain - the little country that it is - stand on its own, be more than just a star on the flag.
"We're becoming smaller and smaller regarding our voice - we stood very big. This is why my feeling is to leave."
Her daughter Rebecca, 20, who is studying business management at university, believes the UK should stay in the EU.
"From a student's point of view, being able to travel freely - that's all I've known. So I definitely wouldn't want to anything to jeopardise that.
"You have the option to be an exchange student - fair enough, I'm not, but if I wanted to be, I could - so I'm looking at it from that perspective.
"If we did go at it alone, does it mean we make our own laws, protect the borders better? I don't know because I don't actually know how much money we have to do all this."
But not every member of the family gets to vote. Rebecca's 16-year-old brother Alex is two years below the minimum voting age but has views on what the UK should do and told the BBC he thinks younger people should have been allowed to cast a ballot as the referendum results will affect their future.
- Published30 December 2020
- Published22 February 2016
- Published29 April 2016
- Published26 May 2016
- Published8 June 2016