Vice-Chancellor, Professor Janet Beer, is to take part in an EU debate hosted by the University’s Heseltine Institute and membership organisation Professional Liverpool.
University staff and students are invited to the event: ‘EU debate: Should we stay or should we go?’ which takes place at the Leggate Theatre, in the Victoria Gallery and Museum on Tuesday, 1 March, 5.30pm – 7.30pm.
The debate will be chaired by multi award-winning broadcaster and producer Rob McLoughlin.
Should we stay or should we go?
As member of the national ‘in’ campaign board: Britain Stronger in Europe, the Vice-Chancellor will be proposing the motion to stay in the EU.
Entrepreneurial businessman Alan Halsall will be opposing the motion to stay in the EU. Alan, who originally trained as a lawyer, brought Silver Cross Prams out of receivership in 2002 and sold it to a Chinese conglomerate in 2015.
As well as other business interests which he retains, Alan is on the main board of ‘Vote Leave’ and is joint chairman of ‘Business for Britain’.
Attending the event
The event, which is designed to educate and prompt discussion, will begin with networking and refreshments.
Those wishing to attend should contact Alex Clark by email at: alexclark@professionaliverpool.com or call 0151 224 1855.
The voice of various professional groups on the issue of the EU referendum is also not being heard in the mainstream debate. Many professionals from diverse fields have a detailed knowledge and understanding of how various EU funding streams and policies help address the key social, environmental and economic challenges we face today. So far the political and business perspectives have been very dominant but other views and voices could do with being given a greater airing.
This is a welcome event, but more generally I am missing the voice of UUK and the HE community as the public debate accelerates. Somebody needs to be explaining to people what breaking EU links will mean for their children’s education and professional futures at every level, and a letter to the Sunday Times isn’t going to get the message across widely enough. I started to formulate the question: Who is answering back on the broadcast media? But it’s not even a matter of answering back; the issue of the educational impacts that will affect people outside of the education and science establishment itself hasn’t even been addressed yet.