THE EU referendum isn’t until June, but if our postbag is anything to go by a lot of people are already giving it plenty of thought.

I’m a bit confused by the issue, so I’ve been investigating it. After all, I don’t want to waste my vote.

But where to find finely nuanced arguments both in favour of and against staying in the EU? I decided my best bet would be to gather the collective wisdom of the politicians and business leaders who have been speaking out about the referendum for a long time. What with being such important people, they’re bound to know what they’re talking about.

As far as I can tell, their thoughts can be boiled down to two conclusions.

The first conclusion is that staying in the EU would be a complete and utter disaster for our country.

Within moments of the last vote being counted on polling day, a sinister cabal of foreign leaders in Brussels would summon the British Cabinet to grovel in obeisance before the EU flag.

At the same time every top security jail in Continental Europe would receive a secret communication. It would order that the cell doors behind which lurked the very worst criminals be thrown open and the inmates ushered aboard buses with barred windows.

These buses would then be driven to the nearest Channel Tunnel terminal and their passengers loaded aboard trains bound for Dover.

In addition, every major terrorist organisation in the world would be issued with a stack of blank British passports. Any British person who objected would be shipped off to a re-education camp.

British people would also be legally obliged on pain of imprisonment to hand over half of their income to the EU – and offer free bed and board to any foreign person who happened to knock on the door.

In the interests of diversity, our schools would be forbidden from teaching in English. Lessons would instead be delivered in an obscure foreign tongue understood only by three people and a cat living in dense woodland some distance from a village whose name contained no vowels.

Wienerschnitzel on a bed of snails would be our new national dish by law.

All told, continued EU membership will be the foulest horror since the Black Death came ashore near Weymouth in 1348.

The second conclusion to be drawn from the pronouncements of politicians is that leaving the EU would also be a complete and utter disaster for our country.

Firstly, we’d all automatically be classed by a horrified international community as great big racists and no better than some bloke called Bubba with a pick-up truck, a white robe and a pointy hat.

European political and business leaders would instantly refuse to do any further trading with Britain. This refusal would even apply to mutually beneficial deals which have been in place since before we joined.

Every foreign person currently living in Britain would immediately leave in disgust, such would be their revulsion at our decision. We would then discover that every doctor, nurse, dentist, engineer, scientist, teacher and member of the emergency services was, in fact, a foreigner. Our entire society would therefore collapse. Buildings would burn untended, pestilence would rage, the streets would be the territory of marauding gangs, the piteous cries of the wounded would go unheeded and we’d all end up having to eat our cats and dogs for sustenance.

As the consensus seems to be that both staying and going would be a disaster, I’m at a bit of a loss.

Maybe I need a Plan B, such as not listening to any politicians or business leaders and trying to work things out for myself.

I might make mistakes, but at least they’ll be my mistakes.