Brexit : The thing is, Mr Zuniga, that we are different
Of diplomatic receptions , human rights and Brexit
National day Embassy receptions offer the opportunity of mingling with diplomats and other personalities that you would not meet elsewhere. During my time in Amnesty International I tried for years to meet the Cuban Ambassadors , but seldom I was given an appointment . So I used these receptions , which occasionally I attended to informally have a word with them and to test their willingness to accept a visit of Amnesty International, s. The ground rules are that you can be freely approached and approach those present in the reception sipping good wine and talking diplomatic niceties. Once I was approached by the Chinese Ambassador who, as soon as he learned who I worked for , he politely excused himself to talk to somebody else.
During one of those receptions, given by the French Embassy in London to commemorate Bastille Day , I was able to approach former Labour Minister John Prescott so there was the opportunity to ask him a question I had in my mind since I arrived to the UK coming from France where the Europe Union started as a dream for peace , prosperity , human rights and social justice, a Bolivarian dream .But even if those founding ideals were later abandoned for the sacred free market paradigm, there is still a substantial body of public opinion not only in France but in the rest of Europe about a long-term dream of a unified Europe based on peace and human rights , political , economic and cultural.
The question was : Could you explain to me Mr Prescott why British people are not more pro European Union ? The answer was : The thing is Mr ? .. Zuniga, « The thing is Mr Zuniga that we are different. » I do not remember the rest of the conversation, but I retained those words. That came back to me in the context of the referendum.
At the beginning of the referendum campaign I thought that the result was a foregone conclusion, that the British people would not risk their welfare. Warnings from the Bank of England to the International Monetary Fund, from the London School of Economics to Nobel Prize winners and artists and intellectuals were clear and well documented.
On the other hand, Gove, Boris, Farrage and supporters like Dyson who moved his vacuum profits business to China, had only innuendo, rubbish statistics and racist arguments to advance their cause
It is the Economy, stupid , it is said, so Stay In was the logical choice ;
But is it ? , Brexit, if the polls are to be believed, jumped ahead.
Why ?
Well, because British are different , or rather feel they are different, what in reality means they feel they are better that their continental partners and the rest of the world but of course they aren’t . To start with, their democracy is not the best as they want to believe , in fact it needs serious reform .The upper chamber is made of hereditary peers ,appointed former ministers and party donors , their electoral electoral system made to perpetuate the two party domination of the political system elected by a minority of the electorate. According to Brexit, the EU is undemocratic, because the Commission have no elected officials , but they do not say that they are nominated by their country elected officials. The elections of the European Parliament are more democratic that the British, The UKIP has Euro MPs, it has not UK MPs
Enter the Referendum , the worst political mistake in modern Britain. A real mess . A recipe to get out , hate frustration , racism , xenophobia.
The IN or OUT question became a sort of primary elections within the Conservative party with participation of the whole electorate or worse, some sort of virtual general elections. It is not about IN or OUT it has become NHS, taxes, pensions and MIGRATION. The absurdity is that a Brexit vote only instructs the present or any future government to leave the EU, but it does not oblige it to take it any specific decisions about the issues listed above like for example inject vast amounts of money into the NHS.
The British people sleep walked into the European Union for three reasons, one : that General De Gaulle had vetoed their entry because he believed, not without reason, that the UK was a Trojan horse of the USA, second , because the access to the common market was good for business and jobs and third , because they wanted to sabotage any attempt to create a federal Europe under the domination of Germany and France, that is Germany.
Once within the EU particularly since the Treaty of Rome signed by Thatcher, The British started to see with horror that they had to adopt the metric system , to which they obtained as to many other demands lengthy delays of implementation and to adopt EU- wide standards ie for food, like branding as chocolate only products with cacao, and getting rid of health risk substances in the food , which lead papers like the Sun and tto scream « Bruxelles wants to take away our cheese and onion crisps » well, because they had no cheese or onion and the artificial colors were harmful. The relentless campaign about “Bruxelles interference” has never stopped , many will remember the Sun front page « Up yours Delors » a convinced federalist and former President of the European Commission.
The Human Rights Act , The Social Charter, and the decisions of the European Court about children spanking , gender discrimination, treatment of asylum seekers, torture and extrajudicial killings and a range of other issues updating the UK law in international standards of human decency , were never accepted by the cheese and onion crisps defense league brigade . who have the arrogance to pretend that an UK Bill of Rights drafted by them can give more and better rights to the British people that the UDHR, the ICCPR, the ICESCR and the ECHR put together ? Por favor.
They wanted revenge. They wanted revenge.
Do you understand now ,the “we want our cheese and onion crisps country back” ?
Javier Zuniga Mejia Borja , June 2016
