The EU: Should we stay or should we go?

THE FUTURE of Britain's 43-year membership of the European Union will be decided in a referendum on Thursday 23 June following an announcement last weekend by Prime Minister David Cameron.

Voters will be asked: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

Or, as The Clash almost wrote in 1981, albeit not about the EU, should we stay or should we go?

It will, undoubtedly, be a big, generation-defining decision which will hopefully settle an argument that has continued to rage in British politics ever since the 1970s.

Back in 1975, Harold Wilson's Labour government held the last referendum on the issue, the result of which strongly backed the decision of Mr Wilson's predecessor Ted Heath to enter what was then known as the Common Market in 1973.

Even then, Mr Wilson made an admission in a letter to the public. He wrote: "We do not pretend, and never have pretended, that we got everything we wanted".

And, since the return to power of the Conservatives in 2010, the issue has headed to the forefront of the political scenery once again.

Moreover, truthfully, it has never much looked like going away either. In 2014, Nigel Farage's insurgent UKIP won the most votes and seats in the European elections.

Meanwhile, under pressure from Conservative eurosceptic backbenchers, Mr Cameron had already guaranteed, in January 2013, a national vote on the EU if his Tory party won a majority.

At the time, that looked fanciful. After all, Mr Cameron had failed to secure a majority in 2010 in an election against Gordon Brown after 13 years of New Labour.

In 2015, however, a perfect storm for the Conservatives developed as Labour collapsed in Scotland to the Nationalists while the Tories themselves gained a whole swathe of seats in the south west from the Liberal Democrats.

Just like in the 1992 general election, the pollsters had got it wrong - and, just like in 1992, the United Kingdom had a Conservative majority government.

So, now it has been established how exactly we have got to this stage, the big question for the pollsters is if they will do any better for this vote?

Frankly, the early signs are that the polls will not necessarily be a good guide to the actual outcome - some surveys have a lead for Remain while others put Leave ahead.

Perhaps an explanation for this muddled picture is the lack of clear information to hand. Certainly, the media coverage so far has not exactly helped.

Indeed, the biggest story which has emerged to date has been that London mayor Boris Johnson will campaign for "Brexit".

It is a decision inconsistent with some of his previous statements but one which would seem best to suit his naked ambition to be the next Conservative leader and PM.

Ultimately, it was the Guardian which summed up the whole charade pretty well, dismissing the importance of Mr Johnson's move and reminding us that we will all have a vote to use on 23 June.

So, where do my thoughts currently lie then? Instinctively, in an ever more globalised world, my view is that the UK should stay in the European Union.

The bloc is the country's biggest trading partner - and it is also an organisation which has done wonders for workers' rights and other everyday stuff from the price of flights to the price of mobile phone data charges.

At the same time, I understand some of the concerns and complaints of the Leave campaigners - that the EU is just too shadowy an organisation with unclear decision-making processes.

In an ideal world then, the next few months would see a firm analysis of a variety of issues surrounding the EU.

But, with much of the media being sidetracked into irrelevance or having made up its mind, there already seems little chance of that.

Of course, the consolation to be taken from this is that the result on 23 June will likely be based on the majority of the nation's gut feeling.

And, at least, that way there should be no complaints about the outcome. The British people will have spoken.