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I’D like to make a confession: I’ve decided to vote to leave the EU .

That might be surprising from someone who was a Labour MP for 14 years. But it shouldn’t be.

The Labour Party has a long tradition of healthy scepticism when it comes to the EU.

Gisela Stuart, the outspoken Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, and a former health minister under Tony Blair, is leading the Vote Leave campaign.

My former colleague and fellow ex-Glasgow MP, Ian Davidson, is also playing a leading role in the campaign for us to leave.

I’m proud to announce that I have been asked to serve as the campaign’s director in Scotland.

(Image: Brian Logue)

It’s true that most Labour MPs will be voting for the UK to remain part of the EU. But Labour voters themselves are not as convinced. And who can blame them?

Every week the UK sends £350million to the EU. Scotland’s share is roughly a tenth of that – more than £1.5billion a year.

Just think what that money could buy here in Scotland – on schools, on our health service, repairing our roads – if it wasn’t being sent into the black hole that is EU spending.

Earlier this week, George Osborne unveiled his latest budget. For many thousands of Scots, it was bad news because it means more cuts to services and benefits.

But I would caution any elected Scottish politician who complains about austerity while supporting the notion that we should continue to send billions to Brussels instead of spending it here.

(Image: Getty)

I don’t doubt their genuine anger and concern for their constituents. But on June 23, they’ll get the best chance they’ve ever had to do something about it.

This isn’t about being anti-European. But it is about putting our own country, our own economy, our own people, first.

And part of the argument that Scottish Vote Leave will make will involve the challenge of immigration.

For wealthier, more secure workers, migration from the EU poses no difficulties; it helps provide cheap and reliable workers. But for the worse off, the downsides are obvious.

Last year, a report by the Bank of England concluded that net migration has driven down wages for the poorest paid. We know of British builders whose hourly pay has dropped from £15 to £7 an hour because of the influx of foreign workers.

Even with relatively high levels of employment, wages have stagnated because of the virtually limitless pool of workers employers can now choose from.

Providing work for our new citizens from partner nations in the EU is only part of the challenge.

If current assumptions about migration from the EU are accurate, Britain will need 880,000 more school places by 2023, 113,000 in London alone. The Office of National Statistics reckon we’ll need an extra 68,000 homes a year.

Let’s be absolutely clear: immigration has done our country a great deal of good, both economically and culturally. And it will continue to benefit us.

But it has to be managed. That means welcoming those who have the skills we need and won’t have to resort to living on benefits. And it means taking control of our own borders.

Crucially for Scotland, Britain leaving the EU would mean even more powers for the Scottish Parliament.

The EU take all our decisions in areas such as the environment, agriculture, fisheries and social policy.

(Image: ADAM ELDER/SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT)

If voters decide we should leave, power over those policies would be decided by elected

politicians in Scotland, not in Brussels or even Westminster.

Even at this stage, less than 100 days from polling, voters aren’t exactly engaged in this debate. And who can blame them?

But as we get nearer to polling day, we’re going to be bombarded with scare stories from the pro-EU campaign about how the world will come to an end if we vote to leave.

It won’t, of course. True, we would be facing a completely new world. But we would still trade with Europe and, of course, with every other country.

We would still travel, work and holiday in EU countries. But the biggest difference would be that for the first time in more than 40 years, Britain and Scotland would be taking control, taking responsibility for our own destiny.

Our own courts, and no one else’s, would make decisions based on Scottish and UK law.

Some will say that’s a scary prospect.

But I say that outside the EU, Britain and Scotland have a much brighter future than we do right now.