STUDENTS voted overwhelmingly against ‘Brexit’ during a college debate.  

In Barrow Sixth Form College's referendum on membership of the European Union, 76 per cent of voters said that the UK should remain a member and 24 per cent voted to leave. 

The mock referendum followed a lively panel discussion with business and political leaders on both sides of the debate at the Rating Lane College last week.

Panellists included MP for Barrow and Furness John Woodcock and Julie Barton, HR director at Forge Europa, who both support the campaign to stay in the EU. While Adrian Rawlinson, managing director of Marl International, and Harry Knowles, former chief executive of Furness Enterprise, presented a case for leaving. 

Alongside them giving her views was sixthformer and honours student Katie Moncrief and it was jointly chaired by government and politics A-Level students Oliver Pike and Isadora Lynch. 

Questions ranged from whether leaving the EU would strengthen or weaken our borders for immigration to who we would export to if we left the EU. 

Student Rachel Bridden asked whether the £9bn a year the UK pays to be in the EU would be better spent on new schools and hospitals, while Jonty Dacre questioned that if Donald Trump became US President wouldn’t the UK be better to have friends in Europe. 

Adrian Rawlinson said that as an entrepreneur it would be fairer to businesses and that Britain would be better off out of Europe, while Julie Barton said her firm exported to 34 different countries last year and EU membership created a level playing field that makes exporting easier. Harry Knowles argued we should not be allowing an unelected elite to determine the laws of the country and that we needed a democracy, while John Woodcock said while the EU wasn’t perfect it provided a strong platform to deal with big issues such as climate change that were too big for one country on its own. 

Following the debate, Katie Moncrief, 16, said after hearing both sides she had made up her mind. “If I could vote I would want to leave the EU because of the fact that we’d no longer be sovereign and Europe can have an influence on our laws. I think Britain could do it on their own.”