Post-Referendum Blues
It’s a complicated story. Prime Minister David Cameron was continuing to
have long term problems with so-called Euro sceptics within his party and an emerging
threat of losing votes to UKIP. He thought a good way to quieten the Euro
sceptics and minimise vote loss to UKIP would be to have a referendum on the
European Union. This promise was made before the last election and was probably
an important element in the Conservative win.
Most unusually, the Great British Public was invited to vote to Remain
in the EU or Leave. We have never been invited to vote on other serious issues,
like Hanging or Fighting in the Falklands/Iraq/Afghanistan wars or even declaring
war in 1914 and 1939, so why choose this subject? The promise of a referendum
was a device to save the Conservative party and most immediately enhance their
chances of winning the last election.
Aren’t our politicians voted into
power precisely to discuss and attempt to resolve disputes? Now, generally
speaking, MPs are well educated and better informed than a large proportion of
the public. If they’re not knowledgeable about a particular matter they work to
acquire the facts and their advisers, including a large band of public servants,
help them to understand.
There are some MPs I respect who stated that leaving the EU would be good
for the UK. I don’t understand their reasoning.
Very little has been explained concerning the outcome of their solution
to leave the EU. It is difficult to find any factual basis for the assertions
that we would be better on our own, without the support of the other nations in
the EU, that our trading potential would be greater, that we would be able to
regain control of our country and our borders.
Here are the ten points made by the campaigners for Leave.
1. Freedom
to make stronger trade deals with other nations.
Apart from other members of EU we already trade with Russia, China,
Canada, USA, Japan, South Africa, Algeria, Brazil . . . need I go on?
We’ll need all that rather illusory freedom since our EU departure
means we will cease trade agreements with the whole of the European Union
nations. Moreover, trade agreements take considerable time so it will be quite
a while to get back to where we were before Brexit even assuming that such an
outcome is possible in the long term.
2. Freedom
to spend UK resources presently through EU membership in the UK to the
advantage of our citizens.
This doesn’t even make sense! I think there’s a verb missing.
3. Freedom
to control our national borders.
We already control our borders, possibly not well, but much of that is
due to our poor Border Agency performance not Brussels. On the matter of
immigration, Brexit is critical of the numbers but repeatedly fails to give
answers about what they think are the right numbers.
4. Freedom
to restore Britain’s special legal system.
A system so ‘special’ that is it full of outdated and anachronistic
laws. EU legislation and policy is the main driver of UK law and policy in
agriculture, fisheries, external trade and the environment. In other areas, like
welfare and social security, education, criminal law, family law and the NHS EU
direct influence is far more limited.
Brexit fails to mention that the vast majority of these laws are wholly
acceptable and we played a major part in their creation. Moreover, the move
towards EU common law enhances trade since it reduces the complexity of commercial
legal matters and cost. Brexit also fails to mention that leaving the EU will
involve a huge legal task that will affect both Westminster houses with the obvious
impact on time available for other important legislative measure and that all this legal retrenching will require civil servants
with their host of expensive private sector consultants, mega quangos which the
overtaxed British public must pay for. Recent press reports suggest that it will take ten years to unravel EU laws.
5. Freedom
to deregulate the EU’s costly mass of laws.
See above.
6. Freedom
to make major savings for British consumers.
The argument here is that British money from British taxpayers should be
spent on British interests. We will no longer receive money from EU. The argument
is pure blind assertion with no supporting evidence.
7. Freedom
to improve the British economy and generate more jobs.
This is a very woolly statement and does not explain HOW. It is wholly
at odds with the views of most business leaders.
8. Freedom
to regenerate Britain’s fisheries.
The Common Fisheries Policy sets quotas for member states stating the
amounts of each type of fish they are entitled to catch. Fishermen claim it
threatens their livelihoods, although fishing stocks were in decline long
before the policy was framed. The CFP was created to manage fish stocks. Isn’t
that a good idea?
9. Freedom
to save the NHS from EU threats to undermine it by harmonising healthcare
across the EU, and to reduce welfare payments
It will cost the NHS more to continue in its top-heavy, over-managerial
ways. The NHS needs overhauling.
Moreover, the NHS has considerable catching up to do to equal many of
its EU equivalents.
10. Freedom
to restore British customs and traditions.
This is ludicrous. We still have cheese-rolling, Easter egg hunts,
Maypole dancing, Morris Dancing, Guy Fawkes (usually called Bonfire Night),
ceilidhs, Jack in the Green, well-dressing, wife carrying, pancake races,
ferret racing . . . I suppose that some want to see fox-hunting restored, then
why not cock fighting and dog fighting, and let’s import a few bears for bear
baiting.
The young people in UK who will have to live with the fall-out from the
decision by the so-called Brexiteers to leave EU, are rightly angry, for they
will be affected for the rest of their lives – job prospects, housing,
pensions, freedom to work in Europe.
The Referendum Leave campaign relied heavily on scare-mongering about
immigration. I don’t know why they didn’t simply say, ‘Charity starts at
home . . . and that’s where it should remain’ for when (some of) those
who voted to leave were questioned it was immigration that they all mentioned.
I am reminded of Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech in 1968. The
full text is here and his reasoning is chilling.
Nothing much has changed. Great swathes of people fear and despise those
they do not understand. When will the penny drop that Great Britain is and
always has been a melting pot? We have been invaded, occasionally enslaved, for
centuries. There is no such thing as a pure-born Brit. When will we appreciate
the rich diversity of our ‘new’ countrymen and the things they bring for us to
savour?
However it would appear that the United Kingdom is less united and more
divided than ever. Scotland wants independence, Wales wants independence,
Ireland wants reunification, London wants independence. How long will it be
before the UK, or England at least, returns to the Heptarchy of late antiquity
and the early Middle Ages?
From Wikipedia:
The Heptarchy (from the Greek ἑπτά hepta, "seven" and ἄρχω arkho, "to rule") is a collective name
applied to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of south, east and central England during late antiquity and the early
Middle Ages, conventionally identified as
seven: East
Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex and Wessex. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms eventually unified into the Kingdom of England. By convention, the Heptarchy lasted from the end of
Roman rule in Britain in the
5th century, until most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms came under the overlordship
of Egbert of Wessex in 829: a period of European history often referred to as
the Early Middle Ages or, more controversially, as the Dark Ages.
The term has been in use since the 16th century, but the initial idea
that there were seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms is attributed to the English
historian Henry of Huntingdon in the 12th century and was first used in his Historia Anglorum.
Meanwhile the pound continues to fall,
meaning that goods will be more expensive and our standard of living will fall.
Mortgages will be more difficult to arrange. The interest rate is falling. We must hope that we do not once more become the Sick Man of Europe as we were before we joined the EU.
