Today may be historically important for the UK. We are told there is a Brexit Deal, but we have no idea what it is. The Cabinet have to decide on it without having the time to read it properly. And then, we are told, parliament will have to decide on what happens next. Which is, of course, not the end of the matter as so too do the EU member states and the EU parliament. Today is not the end of the matter. But, if May does not get her way today then there is, in all likelihood, no deal. Or, possibly, the option of staying in the EU. But whichever way it is looked at, today is likely to be pivotal.
My position is clear. We are unambiguously better off in the EU. The idea that by leaving and literally becoming an isolated player in world markets we can be better off, when most markets we deal with have made clear already that this will not be the case, is very obviously wrong.
And the left wing perception that leaving will permit the creation of a new socialist era in the UK that will be a role model for the world is, to be kind, deluded. If that was true Labour would have said that is its plan. It hasn't. It hasn't got remotely near doing so, and that is because it is not its plan. Which is because it knows there is no mass appetite for this, and we live in a democracy, and that at a time when it might inherit power the last thing it will need to do is imperil more jobs by suggesting policy that will reduce inward investment even more than Brexit has already done.
What that tacitly accepts is something that Lexiteers, including those whose comments I have got bored with moderating on this blog, have not got close to doing, which is that the UK has always survived through its external relations. Once that was Empire. Then it was the Breton Woods institutions, that permitted the closed social democracy many on the left pine for, not realising that this was only achieved by the existence of these powerful institutions that did, however, remove major elements of political control from within our economy. After that it was the EU.
And now far left and right want nothing. No alliances. No strings. Just glorious isolation from which we can apparently show the world how things are done as a buccaneering swashbuckler or socialist nirvana, between which we will presumably oscillate if democracy is going to be respected (which inconvenience both seem to ignore).
It must be pretty disappointing for all involved that there are no successful role models for this new state (of either sort) in existence. Maybe it adds to the appeal for those promoting it. It also fuels my fear - which is an appropriate description. That is because these models ignore three things.
The first is that no state does exist in isolation, unless you wish to suggest North Korea, and it could not do so without the tacit support of China, so even that does not work.
Second, the swashbucklers forget that trade only works on the basis of rules, and the WTO rules are significantly less attractive than the EU's and may be all we have for decades in some cases if we leave the EU.
Third, the socialists (if that is what they can be called) ignore the fact that socialism, if it is to work, has to be internationally orientated, and for us the only way to do achieve that goal is to change the rules of the EU, and not leave it. That's because, like it or not, that is where our neighbours are and unless we are intent on EU destruction, and a massively increased chance of war as a result, that is where they will stay.
To put it another way, leaving the EU, whether motivated from left or right, is a policy promoted without consideration for international relations. But the truth is that these will still exist, and will still need to be dealt with. But there is no plan for how to do so, barring exploitation for national gain from the swashbucklers, which has never been a good basis for securing international agreement on anything, andisolationismm from the socialists, which has a track record no one would aspire to.
Bringing that back to today, what is the implication? Simply that there is only one good outcome from today and it is the least likely. That is, we stay. We'd be massively diminished if we did. Our influence will be minimal for a while. And we will be riven as a nation, presuming we might remain just one country, which I still consider unlikely.
But at least we would have a framework for recovery. And a basis for trading. As well as a network of some influence, rather than none. Whilst we would also have the chance to work in partnership on how international law can be adapted to make possible what is now necessary, which is meeting the challenge of the changing environemnt in a socially just fashion, above all else. In isolation we cannot do that. Worse, all leavers seem to ignore that issue, precisely because it can only be dealt with cooperatively, which means internationally.
I do not pretend otherwise: what now happens on Brexit profoundly worries me. I can but hope. And I now realise that, just as civil war in Ireland a century agotore that country apart for generations, so too will Brexit tear the countries of the UK apart in mkuch the same way. Old friendships will fail. New alliances will have to be built. New politics will emerge. Nothing will ever be the same again, whatever happens. This is the reality.
But through it all, those with political concern do, I think, in the light of the now known facts, have a duty tio do what is best for the people of the UK. And that is achieved by staying. Which is because that route does, at least, involve a plan to maintain positive international relations, which no other option does. And no successful state has ever survived without such a plan.
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Being outside the EU does not make a nation isolated.
Being outside the UK does not diminish the UK Parliaments’s immense fiscal and regulatory powers.
The UK Government must focus its attention on productivity-enhancing investments that it can make in the UK. Social value and environmental sustainability need to be the chief criteria by which economic activities are prioritised.
The UK has a bright future outside of the EU provided that the progressive movements of the UK unite behind the socialist policies that would make a quality of life for UK citizens possible.
Internecine warfare and petty squabbles on the left are by far the biggest threat to the UK’s future.
Not the far right.
And certainly not Brexit.
The onus is on Europhiles to adapt to the new reality instead of re-litigating arguments they have already lost.
In politics the pragmatic approach is to deal with the world as it is, not to wish away the events of the past.
Nicholas
With respect, I live in the real world and it is clear you do not
And right now I have little time for fantasies
Or for being told I should shut up by you or anyone else under the pretext that differences on the left require my acquiescence, which I will not be offering
There is no successful model of what you propose for a very good reason: it is not possible
That is why I say you are wrong and will continue to do so
Repeating your arguments here is trolling and there is a response to that which i am inclined to use
Richard
@Nicholas,
Try listening to a viewpoint from a different perspective. Somebody outside the bubble.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmjTPr8j5p4
I’m not hearing a counter position to this view being articulated by leavers from right or left. The standard of debate about Brexit has been puerile from start to finish in our mainstream media coverage.
I don’t believe you are considering likely outcomes in the short to medium term. I don’t think mainstream coverage is. Eyes are firmly fixed on a fantasy horizon.
“The onus is on Europhiles to adapt to the new reality instead of re-litigating arguments they have already lost” Nicholas crows in jubilant triumph. We Europhiles have lost the match, and the Brexiters can walk away with the nice shiny trophy, and we must just grin and bear it and sportingly shake the hand of the captain of the opposing team and smilingly declare “Oh well played, the best side won, congratulations.”
Only it was not a football match, a sort of cup final at Wembley, a competition held basically to entertain in which at the end both sides congratulate each other and praise the game of football.. It was and remains a quest for an understanding of the best and route into a prosperous and just future, and the choice of which is the best route to follow cannot be decided by a sporting competition. Our country has been following a broad highway with a clear destination – the straight broad EU route – and has come to a place where an alternative side lane leads off to – somewhere. And the argument has been between those who believe the new route leads to sunlit uplands, and those who have good reason to argue it reaches a dark and menacing wood, or swamp, or cliff. The protagonists may well have a fist fight, and those who would turn off the road have managed to flatten those who would continue along the main road. This is a sort of victory, a victory for the ill informed and ignorant who would deny the truth. That Dutchman who is applying to have his legal age reduced from 69 to 49 may well win his case; but the existential reality would remain that his chronological age would remain 20 years more than what he wishes it to be. Georgie Bush stood on an aircraft carrier and proclaimed “Mission Accomplished” after the fall of Baghdad. That war was “won”, but lost. And the vote of 52% to 48% may have decided the route the leaders of the country should follow – but it does not decide the route the leaders would be wisest to follow. So, no, Nicholas, I and many other of the 48% will not case from “re-litigating arguments they have already lost”.
Five bent Euro’s says they will botch it.
Thanks richard
Couldn’t agree more with this.
13 November 2018
NOTICE ON TRAVELLING BETWEEN THE EU AND THE UNITED KINGDOM FOLLOWING
WITHDRAWAL OF THE UNITED KINGDOM FROM THE EU
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/brexit_files/info_site/travelling.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2iHKvwGHkR7SfNMqz1Euc9QcA9cbt-3kKUBj6MHpjWgNFy1APRtFCIfAI
Both left and right have become obsessed with the idea of Brexit as some magic wand to transform the future of the United Kingdom ( if indeed Britain can even remain united after Brexit ).
The right are convinced that a totally independent “Canada plus” model can somehow usher in a new era of wonderful Global trade deals, completely ignoring that half our existing trade is in the EU, and that we are likely to secure the best future deals in Asia by negotiating as part of the EU. In any case, what the right should be asking is why being within the single market doesn’t seem to be holding back the German economy in international trade?
The left are as bad, having convinced themselves that a radical socialist economy is not possible within the EU framework, pointing to Greece and Italy as examples of these constraints. But unlike Greece or Italy, the UK is NOT in the single currency, and is NOT massively in debt to German banks. The left should be asking why being in the EU does not seem to hold back Sweden from being a relatively high tax economy which supports big social investments, ( and is incidentally named by Forbes magazine as the number one place in the World to do business ).
It seems both parties have abandoned common sense, along with any responsibility to invest in the things that really build a strong society and a sustianable economy. Where is the debate about education and high tech apprenticeships for our young people, for reseach and development invstement in green and AI technologies, for an EU strategy to halt the takeover of our economies by US tech giants for which there is not one big European challenger, for creating affordable housing and liveable wages, for a serious debate about the future of basic household income in an era of rapid and unprecedented automation?
No. All of that sounds too much like hard work. Far better to waste all our time and treasure on project Brexit, which will only continue to expand and push out real policy debate for the next 5 years, while Britain falls even further behind in The Global Race.
Robert – the mess is long and old. This country doesn’t understand investment, even at the level of ensuring our kids get decent food at school.
A very measured post (where’s the like button? )
With respect Richard, can you detail your ‘real world’ route to a reformed EU capable of making the changes that you thikn necessary. I’m happy to accept links to others who you consider have detailed such a roadmap.
There are plenty on the Lexit left who have argued why they think this is impossible (see for instance Chris Bickerton, Lee Jones or Costas Lapavitsas for examples), but precious few on the Remain & Reform side have proposed how this could possibly be acheived given the current electoral landscape across the EU.
In the absence of anything coherent in to single out the Lexit left as delusional is rather unfair.
Easy
Labour has to specify what is wrong
And how it would put it right
Including on borrowing, deficits, state support, and such issues
As well as migration
And then campaign to get EU reform
Labour has not tackled those issues in any coherent way
I could but Labour won’t
But running away will not save Labour from its indecision
Richard — yes, those are necessary steps, but they are necessary ones within or outside the EU. The rub lies in the “then campaign to get EU reform” step. This was the step that I wanted you (or frankly anyone of a progressive-Remain persuasion) to give a real-world fleshing out.
The three Lexiteeres I mentioned have all offered compelling arguments as to why any such reforms are impossible in the too diffuse, too captured, too corporately comfortable, too unaccountable, path-dependent neoliberal, steaming-in-the-wrong-direction EU.
Just what form would this campaign take? Where would our partners come from? Through which structures would pressure be applied? To what end? What would be the estimated timescales? These are all real-world questions that demand real-world answers and so far, no one on the Remain side has provided anything much of substance and yet it’s us Lexiters (and I remain one) who are the deluded dreamers.
Tomorrow morning
I do not jump to your every demand
Remainers need to get over it? Like the Ukippers did after the 75 referendum when the result was 2 to 1 in favour not a piddling 2%majority? What’s sauce for the goose…
Surely the vote in 1975 was more informed, in that we had lived outside the EU from its formation and then within for 2 years, so we had some idea of what we were getting when we voted. I voted remain.
The opposite is now the case in that a vote has taken place with no real idea of the likely outcome should we decide to leave, except for vague promises which we now know were either undeliverable, unrealistic, or on the governments’ own impact assessments could be catastrophic in the event of a no deal.
Therefore, had we better replicated the more informed debate and experiences of 1975, a referendum AFTER negotiations had been concluded, this time, would have allowed the electorate to be better educated as to the consequences and the result, therefore, have more legitimacy and respect and not be so divisive and contentious.
Many thanks for this. You’ve hit more than one nail on the head. But sadly it won’t persuade the deluded on either the right or the left. And I can’t see how a public vote that might overturn Brexit can be secured without ripping the fabric of our democracy. I suspect not enough people realise how much the sight and sound of smug, arrogant and complacent Tories, such as David Cameron and George Osborne lecturing and brow-beating the lower orders about what’s good for them infuriated so many voters in the Labour heartlands. Sadly many of them reached for the only weapon available – a vote in favour of Brexit. It would be unwise to seek to neutralise their use of this weapon before the concerns that compelled them to wield it are addressed.
Therefore the deal that is on offer – insofar as the key features are being reported accurately – appears to be as good as it will get for the foreseeable future.
You may be right
We will have to see what that deal really is
I accept a deal may be the best we can hope for, so long as it keeps us access to the single market. Indeed, if the UK is forced to follow EU rulings it may not be the worst outcome, given how often UK has successfully blocked progressive EU policies from tax havens to air quality standards.
What really concerns me is how much more time the UK parliament will waste on the future trade deal, while ignoring the real needs in Britains left behind communities. Most likely is that Brexit will be their “tick in the box” for voters concerns done, and not one of the real issues that led to the vote will be dealt with.
Hi Robert, the EU’s arbitrary and unnecessary deficit to GDP and public debt to GDP ratios have circumscribed the UK’s political debate in an unhealthy way. The EU’s empirically unsound faith in the private sector to deliver public goods more equitably and more efficiently than the public sector has terminally undermined the EU’s credibility in the UK.
These are the critical failures that led to the Leave vote outweighing the Remain vote in 2016.
I understand very well that not everything about the EU is bad. But when people’s livelihoods are damaged by an austerity mindset that is actively promoted by the EU, it is understandable that people chose to reject that.
The UK Government did not need to promote austerity.
But the EU provided the UK Government with political cover to do so.
This needs to be taken into account when weighing up the pros and cons of EU membership.
If the EU were primarily about facilitating the coordination of mutually beneficial environmental and consumer protection and labour rights policies, that would be one thing.
But the people of the UK see their politicians using the EU as an excuse to abandon full employment and first rate public services and infrastructure as a policy goals.
Under those circumstances can you really blame them for voting to leave the EU?
The Brexit referendum was one of the few opportunities that UK voters had to express their views about the decisions of their political class as a whole.
I don’t blame them for expressing dissatisfaction with policies of disregard for full employment and neglect of public services and infrastructure.
Instead of demonizing the majority who voted to leave the EU, it is important to understand why they acted as they did and to acknowledge the legitimate problems that animated their choice.
All is not lost. The UK continues to be an advanced society with a high level of productivity and political order.
Hang on
Before you blame the EU remember the UK government believed in all it said in 2010 and would have done it anyway
The EU did not provide cover to the Tories – they were going to do it
The same logic provided them with cover – because most EU countries were neoliberal
Stop belating about it and start trying to change the EU – by working with those wanting to do so
The EU reflects the consensus that created it – including the Labour consensus might I add at the time this was done
If you really think Labour is not to blame for this think again
But suggesting the EU is not related to what the member states did is just absurd and untrue
And your belief that a socialist state will follow Leave is quite absurd. There is no evidence to support that at all.
And candidly, you are wasting my time
Oh! Nicholas, FFS !
“…. The EU’s empirically unsound faith in the private sector to deliver public goods more equitably and more efficiently than the public sector has terminally undermined the EU’s credibility in the UK.”
What do you think the Thatcher and Blair Years were all about ? You can’t seriously suggest the EU did that ? ….and that it was all in opposition to the will of the UK governments at the time ?
That is to rewrite history on a scale worthy of Orwell’s 1984. I’m wondering how old you are and where you are getting your mythology from. If you lived through any of it you have drawn some very strange conclusions as to what was happening around you.
To try and blame the EU for the extreme form of new-liberalism being imposed on us in this country is absurd. Just a bit of research will show that we are by far the most unequal country in the EU, that several of the other countries run nationalised services, have free university education, wonderful parental leave arrangements, worker representation on boards sensible housing costs (plus little homelessness), and I believe Finland has the best education system in the world and no private schools.
Well, we’re here and if I had had my way we wouldn’t have had a referendum. During the 2015 election campaign Ed Miliband was ridiculed because he wouldn’t offer a referendum. How right he was. We all know what we would like to happen but I think it extremely unlikely that it will happen so we have to look to the future. Although I can agree with what you write you also have to admit that it’s a bit like protesting in 1939 that this could all have been avoided if certain things hadn’t happened. Those things have happened. Although the referendum was supposed to be advisory, Cameron raised it above that level by his statements before the vote. What happens to the country depends on how our politicians respond to the situation. Nothing you or I do will change that so we really are in the position where we really have to hope for the best from our political class. My guess is it will get a helluva lot worse before it gets any better but for a lot of people in this country it’s been desperately bad for a long time anyway.
Big changes afoot.
Whatever the outcome of the latest cobbled together compromise proposal it will be entirely unpalatable to some greater or smaller number of folk.
I wish we’d had more of this standard of thoughtful analysis of Brexit before the referendum, or even before Theresa may went recklessly charging into signing Article 50.
It is so refreshing to see an interview which is all about the interviewee’s opinions, and not about the interviewer trying to make points and fish for controversial soundbite headlines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvDAW5SjdaE
It’s also very interesting to hear an outside perspective view being expressed. Brexit from start to finish is all ‘Me, me, me’.
Totally Anglo-centric. Dismayingly so. (If you’ll excuse the pun which I hadn’t intended but am reluctant to remove).
After nearly five decades of voters failing to stop hyper-inflation of house prices it would seem fairly obvious the extreme left and right would come up with Brexit fantasies and these adopted by significant portions of the electorate who have long since lost the ability to reason on anything remotely complex in the monetary and economic fields if they ever did.
May is clearly hoping that she can still appeal to the will of the people more than two years ago. The poll clearly did not establish that on fairly simple statistical rules, primarily the lack of validity in the yes/no vote and the poor and misleading information given. I was worried about our democracy 20 years ago and now believe we don’t have one. I don’t like democracy as an epistemology, but there are workable systems with proper constitutional safeguards. What we’ve ended up with is the chronic elitism of a soggy mediocrity, mediated by interest groups, many vetos on sensible public deliberation and failure in evaluation across the board. The real problems facing the world are barely part of our current politics, we have an economics no more than a political narrative of the rich and use numbers to shout down accurate representation of people’s lives.` I probably think it’s a bit worse than Richard’s thinking, though wouldn’t quibble. Labour died for me under Blair (though I joined the Party to vote for him). Like the Brexiteers I made a mistake.
I agree with much of that
archytas says….
….amongst other things I’m in general agreement with…
” Labour died for me under Blair (though I joined the Party to vote for him). Like the Brexiteers I made a mistake.”
Like Archytas I was a member of the LP (for a while) I didn’t really want to vote for Blair, but I’d have voted at the time for almost anybody to be rid of Thatcher. I still don’t believe it was necessary to emasculate the Labour Party to have achieved that.
Following a miss-selling scandal even more heinous than PPI, 37.5% of the electorate were tricked into expressing a desire to raise a two fingered salute and walk away from our closest friends and neighbours. The two main political parties interpreted this as creating a compelling democratic imperative for the UK to commit the greatest act of collective self-harm in my memory. Am I missing something here or has the world gone bonkers?
I’m missing it too George. Just crawled under the bed doing housework, but it wasn’t there. I hear, if there is a second referendum they intend to outsource it to Florida, to ensure fair play!
If BREXIT was meat, you would see that it would be green, inedible and it would make you sick if you ate it.
If it were water, you would see that it would be too dangerous to bathe in being too deep, with currents and whirlpools to suck you under.
If it were air, you would smell it as foul and dangerous (like volcanic gas) and you would escape it.
If it were a freight train you would know that the brakes had failed and it was going to hit the buffers at speed and you’d jump off.
But because it is to do with politics and national identity too many of us do not see that the basis of the vote is corrupted, illegitimate and therefore dangerous.
So yes – it’s bonkers George. Absolutely.
It may well be that we about to enter some sort of ‘event horizon’ as Richard says. We have not been here before.
🙂
@Pilgrim Slight Return
Very poetic Pilgrim. I’m not disagreeing, but I wouldn’t have thought of it like that.
“It may well be that we about to enter some sort of ‘event horizon’ as Richard says. We have not been here before.”
I suggest the nearest parallel to what we are about to do is a declaration of war. if we go ahead with this madness all normal standards of international relations, and behaviour will be on ‘hold’ and it is impossible to predict what the outcome will be and how long it will take to create a new normality.
It will depend on who writes the history books as to whether we are able to describe the eventual outcome as a ‘victory’.
No George, you nailed it, only much more succinctly than I attempted to the other day. All I’d say is that it’s not the world that’s gone bonkers, it’s the United Kingdom. Which as a Scot I can only (and parochially – apologies to those south of the wall) hope may not remain united for much longer…
We seem determined to throw ourselves off the cliff. The public has decided!
I expect we will apply to rejoin the EU in a decade or three. On worse terms, of course. But I still hope I will live to see it.
Better together, as they say.
Andrew says:
“Better together, as they say.”
Pah !
‘Better together’ with a resource rich Scotland to pillage, but not with any wider win-win international co-operation.
Haul down the Union jack and run up the Jolly Roger. !
Hi Richard,
I couldn’t agree more.
All of the debate so far has been about what we lose or what is “imposed” on us by being in the EU rather than what we gain or what we get to influence over the whole of the EU.
All of modern trade requires compromise, just like life. I could define my relationship with my employer as a dastardly imposition on my liberties – but it enables me to be paid and sustain my family.
How these questions are posed makes a massive difference. In the recent Survation poll for C4 the question was asked (something like) “Should Europeans be able to live and work in each other’s countries” and I think 74% were in favour. That’s freedom of movement, supposedly hated by so many!
Thank you Richard – I agree 100%. And with PSR’s and others comments.
Whatever you think of the EU it is way better than the alternatives, and changeable if you are on the inside. The appetite is clearly there. But not from the outside. And these are our friends and neighbours, cultural contemporaries and most important trading partners. Who now despair of the UK and are in the process of moving on without us. As far too many have pointed out, the UK’s problems are overwhelmingly of its own making – blaming them on the EU is no better than a recalcitrant teenager winging about their parents. Harry Enfield’s Kevin springs to mind.
The isolationist socialist or neoliberal neo-fascist nirvanas that the Corbynist Lexiteers and ERG/Faragist Brexiteers dream of are as bad and deluded as each other. And both stray into deeply illiberal or even totalitarian territory.
The UK needs to sort its own problems out. And that is far better and more easily done as part of the EU.
I’m really struggling to see what is so great about the EU, and why anyone would want to stay in.
Its not very democratic, with the positions of real power filled by political appointees and not voted for – just look how Martin Selmayer got his job.
The EU also has clear aims to become a federal superstate, and overrule the national governments. They already pass down laws which we don’t have a say in as voters.
The ECJ is a biased institution and a lot of the judges in it are political appointees, and they always side with the EU.
Is it trade? Well the EU is supposedly a free trade area, but thats not really true either. It’s free trade within the block after all the huge amounts of special interests are taken into account. Outside the block it charges large tarriffs for imports and dumps produce of poorer countries. Africa suffers particularly badly from this.
The EU economic policy has been a shambles, and has led to huge unemployment in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy. The Euro itself only really works for Germany and France. Germany and France regularly break the fiscal rules, but no-one bats an eyelid, but as we can see with Italy at the moment, if they try and do it they are threatened – and they’ve had the EU impose a PM before. And that’s before we get on to what happened to Greece.
The EU is fairly corrupt as well. They haven’t been able to pass a clean audit in 17 years or so? Let alone the huge costs of the bureaucracy.
Free movement of people is nice, but at the same time a lot of EU countries already don’t have it. And shouldn’t it be up to individual countries to say who can and can’t come in?
Human right s have nothing to do with the EU in particular. We had them before the EU, and we will have them afterwards.
Same story with peace in Ireland – which has more to do with the US on diplomatic terms and the IRA starting to realise they weren’t going to win by bombing people, as well as starting to run out of money. The EU didn’t solve the problem.
The EU hasn’t stopped any wars. It was NATO that had to intervene in the Balkans and if anything the EU helped make the Ukraine situation worse, as Russia was keen for the Ukraine not to become an EU member.
I realise that most people on this blog are pro-EU, but I really can’t see why. I’ve had this discussion with quite a lot of pro-EU people and they can’t give me a good reason why being in the EU is a good thing, or why the EU itself is a good thing.
They can never give me a straight and reasonable answer, other than just stating “it’s good” and long rhetoricals. I’m waiting for someone to really tell me what the benefits are of it for us in the UK, and for most of the EU countries as a whole – probably barring Germany and France who have done well out of the EU and hold most of the power in the EU.
Sure it has weaknesses… no one on earth says otherwise
But like democracy, it’s bad but better than all the alternatives
Jason,
You make some good points, but also some poor ones. I’ll be concentrating on the poor ones, I’m afraid.
The EU parliament is directly elected. The Council of Ministers is elected via national elections. The EU Commissioners are nominated by national governments. That gives a clear democratic route for all branches. I would argue it is more democratic than the UK which has hereditary peers and head of state.
Please could you give some examples to support your claim the ECJ is political? The recent decision on GM crops and CRISPR technology clearly went against the Commission.
Corruption in the EU itself is no worse than in the UK. Audit is devolved to national governments, so corruption when money is spent is a greater issue in some countries. Stronger EU audit powers would be needed to overcome this, which would impinge national sovereignty.
I am unaware of any EU countries refusing free movement apart from Italy’s efforts to expel Roma. Could you give an example? I personally think the state shouldn’t prevent someone from moving to a new country to start a new job, or live with someone they’ve met, so I’m fine with free movement. Twice in my life I’ve used it to work abroad. My brother is using it at the moment.
You want a good example of EU regulation? Two to start: The working time directive. REACH chemical registration. Personally, I’m a fan of GDPR.
Thanks John
For those who have not seen it, there is a whole web-site devoted to refuting the myths, misunderstanding or outright lies promulgated about the EU and EC
https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/
“I’m really struggling to see what is so great about the EU, and why anyone would want to stay in.”
No major war in Europe since 1945; save in the Balkans, which is an invaluable reminder that peace is always fragile and requires vigilance and total commitment to maintain. The British will not be content with leaving the EU; already I hear the Brexit voices, and the pointing fingers – that we are just the first, and more countries will follow our example. What a wretched ambition.
Lest we forget; only two days ago it was remembered – forgotten already.
Jason
You said this: ‘The EU hasn’t stopped any wars. ‘
You show real gaps in your knowledge here that I cannot let pass. Both WW1 and WW2 involved two of the largest countries in Western Europe – France and Germany as main combatants and the killing fields therein. Throw in a few smaller countries – Belgium and Austria (WW1 basically ended the Hapsburg Empire for ever) and there you have it. Peace broke out after WW2 and the common market came soon after and things have been very calm since then between these two old adversaries whose problems with each other had been at the centre of most European conflict through the ages. How many times has the map of Europe changed over the years just between France and Germany?
Sure – England was always having problems with France and Spain but the French spent just as much time looking East and protecting their borders there.
You mention former Yugoslavia but the country as it was was not part of the EU when it suffered a terrible civil war in the 1990’s not long after Tito died (he had somehow kept the factions together even during the Soviet era). There were no EU treaty frameworks or anything like that to prevent what happened therefore how could the EU have stopped it? Had the EU wanted to march its soldiers in, it would have conflicted with NATO and no doubt Russia (really bad news). The EU was/is about using common trade markets to enable peace – not military means. That is why payments are exchanged to be a member which are just a means of equalising the effects of trade deals between nations so that any negative effects can be mitigated. This helps to keep the peace.
Or as Frederic Bastiat said: ‘When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will’. How true.
Do some more research Jason. I dread to think of how many impressionable people have listened to your views on this and now have the wrong end of the stick.
Thank you PSR. And a little more recent history for you Jason.
Its been an eye-opener for me to travel in Eastern Europe over the last few years – or more correctly Central Europe – reading widely about them and realising how little we know here. Those countries suffered under totalitarian regimes that were not quite the nirvana that some in Corbyn’s immediate entourage seem to imagine. The EU has played a huge role in rebuilding the institutions and infrastructure of those countries to the benefit of those countries, that has transformed them in a remarkably short period of time. Yes we are seeing problems and some serious ones but those are more about their legacy than the EU. Peaceful, prosperous countries as our neighbours is a bigger contribution to the avoidance of war than large militaries as PSR points out.
On a different front, the multiplicity of bodies that are under the auspices of the EU take on roles on a shared basis across 28 countries that we will otherwise have to set up for ourselves. The Medicines Agency, that has now moved out of London is but one of many. Just do a bit of research Jason, and find out how many 1,000s of people are being now recruited in the UK – with difficulty as they tend to be highly skilled – to recreate those bodies in the UK. Except that now we have to bear all of the cost of those agencies, and lose the ability to import and export the products or services they regulate freely across borders. In the case of medicines, threatening both people’s health (as even the government is now acknowledging) and leading to major drugs manufacturers relating to European countries.
One tries not to be patronising but the lack of even basic knowledge demonstrated by those arguing for Brexit is hard to deal with. Mind you it does go right to the top with May and Raab so I guess Jason, you are in ‘good’ company
I am glad you returned to the matter of war in Europe. Jason’s ill-informed opinion is regrettably now the vulgar, almost standard Brtitish standpoint, even among supposed political leaders; indeed it is a major contributor to the constitutional predicament we now find ourselves in. It has stirred the implicit, unstated ideological ‘elephant in the room’ nobody wants to admit or acknowledge, but many secretly admire: and the rest of us can smell the claustrophobic stench.
Britain was always an insincere, insecure member of the EU and a corrosive rather than constructive influence on European development. It was a member of the EU that used its membership principally to prevaricate at best, or more often to disrupt the EU, rather than to work to construct it. We did not join to enhance the EEC, but to retard the EU. I have always suspected there was a distinct possibility that it would end this way: but it is much, much worse, for it does not end there.
Then we have to cope with British exceptionalism, the ‘elephant in the room’. The British are not content to leave the EU: whether conscious or unconscious (and probably a little of both), the British have begun an ill-judged ideological journey into hubris that must disturb the delicate harmony of Europe. A precedent is calculatingly being set by Brexiteers. Others are implicitly invited to join. This is dangerous and irresponsible. We are fast becoming a political wrecking ball.
British ideology is desperate not just that we leave the EU, butthat we undermine it (I need not rehearse the Brexiteer finger pointing at the EU here, or the relished forecasts of the EU’s doom that Brexiteers revel in). The Brexit ideology contains the seeds of the disturbing (or should that read ‘disturbed’) desire that Britain returns to the pre-war ‘balance of power’ European politics that Britain dominated in Europe until 1914, without even having a land border in Europe (save Gibraltar). It did not end well then, and it will not end well now.
Beware what you wish for. Lest We Forget.
Fintan O’Toole as soften, nails it
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-historians-will-not-believe-sheer-ignorance-of-brexit-supporters-1.3695347?__vfz=rtw_top_pages%3D5923100000648
Excellent
As his his Long Read in the Guardian today
Andy Crow
My point is that we are failing to keep going back to what is wrong about the referendum.
We have had issues with the GE in terms of rule breaking and now we have an executive decision (unapproved by Parliament) that has all sorts of issues with the way in which the referendum was conducted to the point that it could not have been lawful.
This lack of lawfulness and process is terribly worrying.
And no one (except perhaps Jolyon and a few others who rightfully see these issues as points of law and are having a go) seems to give a rats arse.
As for you liking the present situation to a war – you are right. I’ve long said so. And it will get worse.
When May came out of the front of No.10 last night with that little speech and you could hear her being shouting at to stop BREXIT I felt that all was lost. I felt that if I was there I would have tried to get into the compound and done something really silly. But if May had said lets forget about it, it’s a bad idea a Leaver or two would have wanted to do the same.
I’ll tell you something else – the fault lines in our democracy have never been so exposed as this. Does this feel democracy to any of you?
It doesn’t to me.
Vassal state? We’re already a fucking vassal state – to unreason!
God!!!!
P.S . Andy Crow!
Ha! I’ve picked up another smiley from the great man himself!
Do keep up – there’s a good chap.
Richard – any chance of a smiley league for contributors? It might increase the famous (and much loved in the EU) black humour we Brits are renowned for that we are no doubt going to need in these coming days, months, years whatever? ‘Might keep things civil too on this most vexatious of issues.
(Only joking – I know you have enough on your plate).
I was going to give you a smiley
And then thought better of it…
Fair enough (disappointed sigh).
Mind you my spelling and sentence construction today has been rather shocking. Must try harder. Apologies.