A common refrain from many of those campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union is that Britain has no need for the EU when it has the Commonwealth. 

Today, Professor Mary McAleese, the former President of Ireland the first born and raised in northern Ireland  will passionately urge voters to keep Britain in the European Union. This will doubtless unleash howls of protest from the Brexiteers but she firmly believes that, since both the UK and Ireland joined on the same day in 1973, British influence in Brussels has helped to create a better, more open and more liberalised Europe – which has helped Ireland to prosper and brought years of suspicion and violence in our two countries to an end.