Day or night, you won't miss a story with the Liverpool Echo newsletter Sign me up now Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Imagine there are 10 of you in a lottery syndicate. Every week you chip in your tenner and hope upon hope that one day you’ll win big and tell the boss to shove his job.

Then Fred pulls out and you’re down to nine. No worries. More for the rest of us. Then Fred drops the bombshell: He still wants his share of the winnings.

Eh? How does that work? You don’t to want part with your tenner but you want all the benefits? Fred? Do One.

And here we are expecting the rest of Europe to be our mate and let us stay in the club when we won’t pay the membership fee?

Watch: A look at the polls

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

Forget that. It’s not how human nature works. If we vote ‘Leave’ things will change and they’ll change in a bad way.

Trade will suffer. We won’t be able to strike the same deals with EU countries that we do now. That will cost prosperity and it will cost jobs. The Irish Ambassador said as much when he was in Liverpool last month.

You can’t expect Ireland to trade with you as it does now, he said. And if you pull out you’re risking £65bn of Anglo-Irish trade - trade that supports 5,000 jobs.

Liverpool was founded on trade with Ireland and our proximity means we will suffer more than most. Britain does more trade with Ireland than it does with China. And much of it goes through Liverpool.

Then there’s immigration. The bigots of the Far Right crusade under a flag which says Brexit means an end to it. If you shut your eyes, put your hands over your ears and shout la, la la, very loudly, you could just about believe it.

Alastair Machray, Editor, on the EU referendum Alastair Machray, ECHO Editor: "Twenty five years ago Liverpool and Merseyside were near basket-cases, down-at-heel and down on their luck. Two things changed that: An indomitable spirit and £2.3bn of European Investment in the shape of Objective One and Two Funding."

We have to remember that the European Union – or as it was then, the European Coal and Steel Community – was founded on four basic principles: free movement of labour, capital, goods and services. Without free movement of labour it doesn’t work. Who cares?, say the far right. It ends immigration.

It doesn’t. The majority of immigration is from non-EU countries.

And actually we need both. Controlled immigration is necessary. Immigrants produce things, they buy things, they create demand, they create wealth, they help fuel economic growth. They pay more in taxes than they take in benefits.

There is no evidence to suggest immigration has worsened job prospects for British-born workers. As long as we continue to produce and to grow we need willing workers.

In the latest figures just out, the government's quarterly labour survey - the official employment figures - shows that record numbers of British citizens are in work.

That doesn’t mean to say that certain individuals haven’t been disadvantaged, but free movement of labour has benefited Britons too. Overall, at worst, it evens itself out.

(Image: Yui Mok/PA Wire)

Benefits tourism? Cameron has done the deal. That can’t happen any more. And anyway, despite all the rhetoric, the figures contradict the claim that benefits tourism is rife.

And culturally hasn’t Liverpool ALWAYS been about the mix? A cultural melting pot that bubbles with life and energy and creativity? We’re Irish, we’re West Indian. We’re the Welsh, we’re the Somali. We’re the Polish, we’re the Chinese. We’re Liverpool.

Even ‘Scouse’ is a word of Scandinavian orgin.

Of course we don’t want uncontrolled immigration. Currently the French marshall our southern borders for us by stopping the flow of migrants desperate to get through the channel ports and reach the UK.

If we exit the EU now do we seriously think they’ll continue with this agreement? Or get out of it soonest? What we pay towards it doesn’t begin to compensate for the stress. The Mayor of Calais, for instance, has been strident in her calls for the border to be moved to the UK.

Financially, the pound is suffering on the international currency markets and there have been several days lately of significant losses across Europe’s major stock markets. Fear of Brexit is a major contributory factor.

The overwhelming majority of serious economic forecasters say Brexit would inflict long-term damage on UK economic growth. Now the markets are echoing that view.

The Remain lobby points to relative peace in Europe since the end of World War II. In a Europe bound by treaties that promote harmony and legislate against future aggression this is a fragile peace to be guarded and cherished not taken for granted.

The atrocities in the Balkans and the muscle-flexing of Russian imperialism tell you all you need to know about that fragility and the need for a united Europe.

And at the end of it all there’s loyalty. A word Liverpool, battered but unbowed, understands more clearly perhaps, than any other city.

25 years ago Liverpool and Merseyside were near basket-cases, down-at-heel and down on their luck. Two things changed that: An indomitable spirit and £2.3bn of European Investment in the shape of Objective One and Two Funding.

We were part of Team Europe and Europe saw a team member in distress. And it came to our aid.

Funding from Brussels started in 1994 when £700m was allocated under the Objective One programme. In 2000, another £928m followed and between 2007 and 2013 the North West shared another £700m.

So we built Queen Square and turned John Lennon Airport into an international hub. We built and improved roads and built and improved railway stations. On a wave of confidence developers saw the opportunity. They built new shopping centres like Liverpool One and we built new bus stations to bring people to and from them.

People took notice. Big firms threw in their lot. Firms like Jaguar and QVC set up home here and created wealth and jobs and pride.

Developers took notice. The warm swell of optimism began to spread beyond the city centre. Birkenhead was revamped. New Brighton was re-born.

We sat up and smartened up. The Anglican Cathedral, the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Bluecoat. The city’s old guard improved their facilities and began a joyous second youth.

We built trophy developments that the rest of Britain envied - like the Echo Arena and BT Convention Centre. Suddenly, gloriously, kickstarted by European Funding, the huge, sleek, white cruise liners were pulling up at the Pier Head and tourists were flocking to the new Liverpool. A city of arts and creativity was heralded as European Capital of Culture.

The funding still comes, the growth continues, the story goes on. For those two reasons: European funding and indomitable spirit.

So we’ve had what Europe had to offer? We’ve played the system and milked it dry? So laugh and get out?

That’s not how Liverpool behaves. It’s not how it thinks. One day other parts of Europe will stare into the abyss just like we did. We should know our history and be grateful we have the chance to help.

And one day we might need help again. Who will we turn to? Cameron, Osborne, Gove, Boris? Left to their own devices, successive British Governments would not have invested in the regeneration of Merseyside.

Liverpool isn’t a great British City, it’s a magnificent European one.

Think New Liverpool… and vote Remain next Thursday.