By Matt Biggadike

HARLOW UKIP councillor Bill Pryor has dismissed reports of a recession should the UK choose to leave the EU in the upcoming referendum on the 23rd of June.

Councillor Pryor, of Staple Tye, believes that leaving the EU will bare no detriment to the UK’s trading arrangements with the rest of Europe and will help to tighten security in the meantime.

“At the moment the EU members in the Eurozone are going through very poor financial times, and if we stay in we are liable to get caught up in that.

“If we get out we can trade with anybody, the difference between the trading of Britain to Europe and Europe to Britain is colossal – there is no way that the EU, especially Germany, won’t want a trade agreement with Britain regardless of us leaving the union.”

The Deputy Leader of the Harlow Conservatives, Joel Charles, recently said that leaving the EU would result in the loss of intelligence data sharing between members of the European Union as well as the European arrest warrant which has seen 7000 foreign criminals deported since 2004.

However, Pryor insists that leaving the EU would not result in the UK being isolated in terms of security: “We are one of the leading nations for intelligence and we will continue to share that with the European members, just as we do with America.

“I think we will still work together as normal, because the whole of the continent will want to keep itself safe and we secure more intelligence than the rest of Europe put together.”

In fact Pryor insisted that if anything, leaving the EU would have a positive impact on security in the UK: “We will secure our borders, which will leave us in a much stronger position to stop dangers coming into the country. I’m not just talking about immigration, it is just vital to secure our borders.”

The Harlow UKIP campaign to get out of Europe has been going for 12 months now but Pryor insists there is still work to be done: “We will be having UKIP ‘Out’ stalls in all of the main shopping precincts in the town and areas such as Staple Tye and Bush Fair over the next five weeks.

“There is of course a national campaign running, and there will be plenty of literature provided for the branches to use.”