Counting underway at the Clickimin

Boxes are arriving at Clickimin and spectators are gathering as the counting gets underway – with early indications Remain is ahead.

Ronnie Eunson chairman of the Shetland Livestock Marketing group is among the onlookers at the Clickimin bowls hall.

He said he has always been in support of remaining in the European Union.

“I’ve always been a [supporter of] remain,” he said.

“For the simplistic reason that the EU maintains peace in our part of the world that has spent most of its history in war,” he said.

From an agricultural point of view Mr Eunson said he would be worried if Britain was to leave.

“I would be nervous about about any UK government and what they would actually do with regards to agricultural policy for a place like Shetland.

“There are some governments of either persuasion that would see rural issues as dispensable in times of austerity.

Being in the EU was about “being part of a community where there are masses of rural communities”  and “masses of folk living in difficult areas”.

“You’re likely to get a better recognition of the vulnerabilities and the potential [of those areas]. I feel that we have huge potential but we are not simply able to realise that.”

Labour member Irvine Tait said he hoped the Remain side wins.

“My position is really the same as Jeremy Corbyn’s; although there are aspects I don’t like I think we need to be in it to reform it and create a people’s Europe.

“I also think that the leave side’s position on immigration has been worrying and I think that Tory right wingers on the leave side would love to have a bonfire of workers’ rights if we were to leave.”

Lerwick Community Council member Averil Simpson was also at the count and said staying in was better for the rights of working people.

“I also feel strongly about how they have used immigration for the leaving [campaign]…I have sympathy for people that have a lot of immigration in their community, but that’s not the fault of the immigrants, it’s the fault of the government.”

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