THE referendum on EU membership takes place next Thursday, and the UK will decide whether to remain in the EU or to leave.

The opinion polls across the UK are extremely tight – so the result in Scotland could make all the difference.

Now, I’m not going to pretend that the EU is perfect – far from it, there are lots of things I think need to change.

But I worry that the EU referendum debate so far has focused too much on what we supposedly lose by being part of the EU, and not enough on what we gain.

The benefits of EU membership are, I think, so ingrained our daily lives that it’s easy to take them for granted.

As members of the EU, we have tariff-free access to a trading block of over over 500 million people. More than 40% of our international exports go there.

We also have the right to live, work and travel across the EU - with our EU citizenship meaning easier travel and cheaper holidays.

And the EU has been instrumental in protecting worker’s rights. For instance, the right to paid maternity and paternity leave, the right to paid holidays, restrictions on the number of hours you can be forced to work and pension protections are guaranteed under EU law.

If we left the EU, all of these powers would be transferred back to the Tories at Westminster - which would not be a good thing.

Boris Johnson, the leading Leave campaigner, said a while back that he thought many of these protections should be scrapped.

That’s a pretty typical view of many of his colleagues in the Leave campaign, and in that context it’s really not hard to see why they’re so desperate to leave the EU.

Being in the EU also brings real benefits to education and science.

Recently I visited Glasgow University and met students who were part of the Erasmus scheme, the EU’s student exchange programme which has enabled thousands of young Scots to spend time studying abroad. These young folk - the teachers, the entrepreneurs and the scientists of tomorrow - couldn’t have been more positive about their experiences.

Erasmus also brings EU students to Scotland, and Universities Scotland estimate they contribute over £150m to Scotland’s economy every year through their off-campus spending.

While I was at Glasgow Uni, I also learned more about some of the exciting EU-funded research projects that researchers are taking part in. This includes the detection of gravitational waves, which hit the headlines recently.

We should be proud that Glasgow researchers were part of an international team that achieved what is one of the most important scientific breakthroughs in decades - but also remember that they only did so thanks to international collaboration and funding offered by the EU. It’s a similar story in campuses across Scotland.

Now, an issue which has been talked a lot about during this campaign is immigration.

I know that immigration can cause pressures in some areas - I see it in my own constituency.

But EU migrants make a net contribution to our economy - paying out far more in taxes than they receive in benefits.

And if there is pressure on public services, then we should be investing more in public services - not blaming immigrants.

Remember that the impact of Tory austerity is far greater than the impact of immigration.

If we do vote to Leave the EU - and I hope we don’t - what happens next? The Leave campaign have never really been clear on this. I’ve heard one suggestion that we could have a relationship like Norway - outside the EU but still with a free trading agreement.

However, Norway has to abide by the rules that we do - including freedom of movement - but as they’re not in the EU, they don’t have any say in how they’re drawn up.

Norway has a far higher rate of EU immigration than the UK does, and Norwegians pay far more per person to access the single market than Scots do.

So if immigration is your problem, then leaving the EU is not the solution.

Let me repeat - I don’t think the EU is perfect, and I think Scotland would get a better deal if we had our own seat at the top table as an independent nation.

In the 21st century, independent countries need to work together to tackle some of the key issues we all face.

There is so much at stake in next week’s referendum.

By voting to Remain, you can choose to stay part of building a better future for you, your children and your grandchildren.