The Sun: BELIEVE IN PEOPLE

We are about to make the biggest political decision of our lives. We urge everyone to vote REMAIN.

Many ‘leave’ champions seem to promote that we, British people, are better than people of other nationalities. We are not better. Having travelled through every part of Europe, we’ve found more in common with Europeans we meet on the side of the street, in a café or on a finish line, than many people we happen to bump into in our own street — sense of humour, ambition, friendliness….

Just because you don’t know them, because they speak a different language doesn’t mean they are not as good as you and us. Europeans mostly speak their own, plus English. But how many of us can speak another European language?

Is Wayne Rooney​ better than • Lionel Messi •​? Was Lennox Lewis​ better than Muhammad Ali​? Is Joe Hart​ better than David De Gea​(possibly ☺), Is Andy Murray​ better than Novak Djokovic​?

Is The Sun better than La Gazzetta dello Sport​?

Is David Cameron​ better than Barack Obama​ or Justin Trudeau​ or Angela Merkel​?

We don’t have the best of everything, we need help — often!

Our young kids spend all day on their mobiles playing fun, competitive games and quizzes with people from all over the world. Our older children spend all day in schools and playgrounds, blind to colour, race and religion.

They do not see it! — unless they’ve been taught it at home.

Many of the people voting Brexit are the older generation, like ourselves, raised on a TV diet of ‘Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language, Steptoe & Son and Rising Damp. All pretty racist programmes, reflecting society in Britain at the time. But they were made for a time that we have thankfully progressed from. Most parts of Europe have made the same progress, many have progressed way further than us, but some haven’t progressed as fast. They will, and our welcoming of everyone will help increase the speed of that progress to an even more harmonious future. As much as many Brits benefit from being welcomed on holidays or for their retirement, throughout Europe.

Much of the vote leave campaign seems to be based on the belief that voting for someone two years ago, whom you have never met but speaks the same language has more common sense on European issues than someone whom you haven’t voted for, still haven’t met but has worked their way up through the ranks of the European civil service to end up doing a (probably very, very) dull job, but just trying to do their bit make Europe a slightly better place for everyone — and taking ZERO credit for it. Unlike our elected officials whose very clear aim seems to be to always take credit for anything they might have remotely been involved in.

Are you confident our education system has brought up people with more common sense and fairness than any other part of Europe? I’m not sure. We seem to breed academic competitiveness as the route to a successful future, rather than collaboration. We want to be better than anyone, rather than collaborate with everyone.

We love Britain but we also love every other part of Europe for its own identity; the food in Greece, the mountain cycling in France, the beer in Belgium and the friendly welcome — for cyclists — everywhere.

We believe that almost every single problem in this world could be solved simply by strangers talking and connecting with each other. Less loneliness, arguments, war. More friends, happiness and love.

As they say, strangers are simply friends waiting to happen. Why not introduce two strangers to each other today and lets get this world on its feet and look to the real problems we can actually solve — but ONLY together — poverty, inequity and climate change. We look forward to us working with all our friends in Europe on that.

A VOTE FOR REMAIN IS A VOTE FOR A BETTER WORLD.