Britain's EU vote: #Brexit view from Durham
This report is part of a series on local community views about the June 23 referendum on whether the United Kingdom should exit the European Union.
DURHAM, England — As this city in northeastern England prepares for the European Union referendum, residents find themselves reflecting on a darker chapter in their past.
Wherever you go on its cobbled streets there are reminders, with banners flagging up a major exhibition, Somme 1916: From Durham to the Western Front.
At the Gala Theatre, people will be invited to another exhibition — opening a day after the referendum — to immerse themselves in the sights, sounds and smells of the trenches and to experience a recreation of one of the bloodiest battles in human history.
And beneath a leaden sky, the latest farmers’ market finds school children, selling food as part of a project inspired by recipes of 100 years ago including carrot cake, scones made with beetroot, turnips and pickled eggs.
For it was on July 1, 1916 that hundreds of soldiers of the Durham Light Infantry, known as the Durham Pals, were killed or wounded in combat with German and Austrian soldiers during World War I.
That world war was followed by another, before ultimate peace and the eventual formation of the European Union (EU), which has been broadly credited with helping keep harmony on the continent for the past 70 years.
But, where the people of Durham were once united in mortal conflict against their European cousins, they remain very much divided today on whether to remain part of the same family.
Venture beyond the stalls of the children, whose future will be shaped by the forthcoming vote, and people are very much in two camps: to remain in the 28-member alliance or to leave — dubbed “Brexit.”
“We have benefited so much from being part of the European Union,” said stallholder Jenny Connor, of nearby Dalton Moor Farm.
“If you want to change something you do it from the inside, not the outside. If you want to get an improvement you do it at the table. These days you are much better off being a team player.”
However, Duncan Hornby, 58, of the Charlies Country Kitchen, said: “I am going to vote Brexit because of immigration and the cost of the European Union to this country.
“We have the internet now and can get anything on line from anywhere in the world. We don’t need the EU as much as we did. It is a drain on our resources.”
Brexit voter Andrew Brian, who sells handcrafted leather said: “As for the argument that the EU has kept the peace — it is not the EU it has been NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization).”
The city, surrounded by a belt of former coal mining villages, is dominated by Durham University, which campaigners for remain argue stands to lose a lot.
According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the University of Durham received $15 million in research funding from EU government sources in 2014/15, as well as $41,000 from EU charities, $1.2 million from industry across Europe and $451,000 from other EU sources.
The City of Durham's member of Parliament Roberta Blackman-Woods, a member of the opposition Labour Party, said: “All workers in the City of Durham benefit from our membership of the EU protecting workers' rights and safeguarding equality legislation.
“Like other areas of the northeast, Durham city has a number of manufacturing companies that do business primarily with the EU helping to create the trade surplus that exists between the northeast and EU.
“Clearly if we were to Brexit there is no guarantee whatsoever that these markets would be open to Durham companies in the same way.”
She said that many people in the city work at the automaker Nissan, and voting to leave the EU would jeopardize its location in the region.
It would be difficult for universities to make up the shortfall in research funding from other sources if EU funding stopped, Blackman-Woods added.
Jonathan Arnott, the northeast of England’s member of the European Parliament for the anti-EU, anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party (UKIP), dismissed the Remain camp’s economic arguments as scaremongering, saying the city would thrive under Brexit.
Referring to Durham University, he said: “In terms of students, the system we operate at the moment is quite discriminatory.
“For example, if you are a student from say France you can come and live in the U.K. and study here and can be effectively taxpayer-subsidized to do so — and get the U.K. student loan, which will be very difficult for the U.K. government to reclaim later.
“Whereas, let’s suppose you are a student coming from India or Taiwan for example, you have a lot of hurdles to jump through to study in the U.K., including having to prove that you can financially support yourself.
“So what we have now is a two-tier system. A system that is the same for everybody will leave universities more culturally-enriched,” he added.
Webber reported from Middlesbrough and Barnard reported from Reeth