Last night saw us forsaking the BBC's new series of Dr Who and heading northward to the Marchesi Centre in Windermere where Julie Ward, MEP, was to address a public meeting organised by the Westmorland and Lonsdale Constituency Labour Party.
It was perhaps optimistic to expect a large turnout on a Saturday night but, although few in number, we made up for that in interest and enthusiasm, and were joined by four visitors from the Fylde who had travelled some 45 miles to attend the meeting.
Julie, who is a fairly new member of the European Parliament - elected in May 2014, is one of eight MEPs that represent the North West Region - three of whom are members of the European Parliamentary Labour Party. Her particular interests include culture, education, children, and gender equality and she is an active campaigner for equal rights and social justice.
A broad-brush explanation of how the EU works set the scene for us, with lots of detail about the political groups which operate in the EU (instead of along party lines as in the UK parliament), and how much of their work is carried out in the 20 committees that each cover a specific area of interest or policy making. She gave examples of how her own work on Committees has affected and improved the lives of individuals and groups, and described the impressive translation system which can service members from the 28 different nations in the EU simultaneously.
A lively question and answer session followed, covering issues such as the Greek financial crisis, the planned TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) deal, and this year's changes to the way VAT is collected on digital cross-border sales and its impact on low turnover businesses and sole traders.
One of the things I came away with was a much better understanding of how the UK benefits from its membership of the EU, and how much we stand to lose if we leave it. From legal protections to jobs, much will be undermined or removed if we opt out of Europe in the Government's planned referendum.
