The EU has been an integral part of my life Mrs May

Yesterday in her Florence speech Theresa May said:

"The UK never felt a part of the European Union.The European Union, never felt to us an integral part of our story"

I beg to differ.

I sitting writing this in the house that my parents moved into in 1979 on the day of the first UK elections to the European Parliament. So even from then I new about Europe and that it was a part of our lives.

I went to University in Kingston at the end of the 80s and took as one of my options in both 2nd and 3rd year European Economics. It became something of a speciality of mine and my fellow students would often come to me if they needed to know how the mechanics of the European Union, Schengen Area, or then the exchange rate mechanism pre-Euro worked. I even had the horror of listening to parliament on the radio one evening while finalising an essay on our place in the EU on the day of the Maastricht Treaty debate and had to amend my argument slightly and quote from that debate before handing it in at 12 the following day.

I like many others have enjoyed fast access to the EU nations, especially when compared to those non-EU (or now EU) ones that I have also experienced whenever I go to continental Europe, whether for holiday or work. Indeed I have two wallets my every day one which contains Sterling or my other one for days trips to Dublin or Donegal and longer trips to the continent that contain Euros. You see I never change my Euros back into pounds as I know they will be used again at some point.

Indeed my stamp collection of Olympic stamps I base on a Euro price as a lot of the dealers that I purchase from on Ebay are based in Europe so I have to know if I paying a fair price for the items I am purchasing. When you are looking for the remaining 5/6ths of the worlds Olympic stamps that can be important for a Philatelist. With either the Euro, Sterling or US Dollar there are only three currencies I deal in both to buy and sell.

The job that I worked in while I lived on Edinburgh for 10 years would not have existed without us being integral in Europe. When you have working in a multi-lingual, Europe-wide support environment with EU nationals doing skilled work alongside you, you know you are an integral part of Europe. That is why I suspect London voted heavily to remain out of all the areas of England because they like me feel an integral part of Europe in their workplace, leisure time and neighbourhoods.

So Theresa May while you have spent you're working life in the Westminster bubble and maybe therefore think you have not been an integral part of the EU. Remember those times you passed laws to make our law, products, even our currency compatible with the rest of Europe. Europe has been an integral part of my entire life of now 48 years so don't throw it all away because people from your generation don't realise how integral it is. The reason you have yet to come up with creative ways to deal with Brexit is because of how integral Europe has become in our live not because it hasn't.

Your Brexit means Brexit argument that we have to come out of Europe completely is like a heart and lung transplant. The only problem we are facing is that even with your 2 year transition period while the UK is on a ventilator we have no organs yet to replace the European heart and lungs that are in the UK you are about to remove.