Undoing the Undoing of the United Kingdom: Bollocks to Brexit!
I went to school in the UK….from the age of 11 to the age of 16. My father was an American Naval Officer who thought I would benefit from an English Public (i.e.) Prep School. He found a great one. Modern and Traditional at the same time. That school, with students from all over the CommonWealth of many ethnicities, faiths and social backgrounds, made me the student who eventually earned an advance degree in Political and Social History. To this day I have scads of chums there….mostly Old Boys and their families with a smattering of professionals in my field.
I have a great affect for the UK and I HATE what is happening there right now.
To recap:
A referendum was held on Thursday 23 June, 2016, to decide whether the UK should leave or remain in the European Union. Leave won by 51.9% to 48.1%. The referendum turnout was 71.8%, with more than 30 million people voting.
Britain has been debating the pros and cons of membership in a European community of nations almost from the moment the idea was broached with its first referendum on membership in 1975, less than three years after it joined. In 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron promised a national referendum to settle the question.
The options it offered were Remain or Leave, and Mr. Cameron was convinced that Remain would win handily based on polling, constituent analysis and common wisdom among the movers and shakers in British society.
On June 23, 2016, as a refugee crisis made migration a subject of political rage across Europe and among accusations of lies and fraudulent tactics on the Leave side, Britons voted for a hazily defined Brexit by 52 percent to 48 percent.
WHAT HAPPENED?
- A refugee crisis made migration a subject of political rage across Europe
- A focus on “Islamic Terrorism” with migrants named as the principle agents.
- Widely publicized “facts” that showed North African, Indian, Sri Lankan and Asian immigration as a flood that threatened to destroy European British Society as these immigrants and their children moved quickly toward majority status in the UK where whites would soon be a minority.
- The poor performance of European economies. The post-2008 recession was bad in the United States, but it was really bad in the euro area. The eurozone took a greater hit than the US did initially, and then quickly collapsed back into recession rather than experiencing a continued recovery. This didn’t affect the UK directly, as it uses the pound rather than the euro. But some Britons looked at the situation and decided that EU membership was dangerous. The EU had historically only expanded its powers, they worried. How long until Britain got roped into a euro-like disaster — or faced pressure to bail out countries whose economies were wrecked by bad eurozone economic policies
- The appearance of a loss of British National Sovereignty. Boris Johnson, a Conservative who was then mayor of London, wrote on this focusing on the increasing concentration of power in the hands of unelected EU bureaucrats in Brussels: “The more the EU does, the less room there is for national decision-making. Sometimes these EU rules sound simply ludicrous, like the rule that you can’t recycle a teabag, or that children under eight cannot blow up balloons, or the limits o6n the power of vacuum cleaners. Sometimes they can be truly infuriating — like the time I discovered, in 2013, that there was nothing we could do to bring in better-designed cab windows for trucks, to stop cyclists being crushed. It had to be done at a European level, and the French were opposed.”
- Similar fears were voiced about the loss of cultural identity with “threats” to the English Language, English Customs, English Schooling, English Religion etc.
- UKIP. One of the most prominent critics of the EU’s immigration rules was Nigel Farage, co-founder and leader of the far-right UK Independence Party. He argued that large-scale migration of low-wage workers from elsewhere in Europe has depressed wages for native-born Britons. Farage also suggested that unrestricted immigration from Europe could lead to greater competition for government services and even put British women at greater risk of sexual violence. Nativist and racist sentiments especially among older, rural, and less educated citizens. 73 percent of voters between age 18 and 24 voted to stay in the EU, compared to just 40 percent of voters over age 65. Unfortunately for the Remain campaign, older voters turned out in greater numbers so even though younger people were more pro-EU than older people were anti-EU, the older voters carried the day.
Two Years Later
Negotiations have been start and stop. AND NOW there is a plan on the table negotiated by Tory Prime Minister Theresa May’s government and the leadership of the EU. It has failed to gain the support it needs to pass through Parliament.
TThe EU has given the UK a choice on Brexit:
- Leave the bloc without a deal- the so called Hard Brexit
- Remain members for a negotiated lengthy period (of several years) per the agreement reached.
- Revoke the Article 50 exit process altogether. Forget Brexit.
Britain has little time in which to make up its mind. At a historic summit in Brussels the bloc’s 27 other leaders said that if May’s deal was swiftly approved, the UK’s previously scheduled March 29 exit would be delayed until May 22. But if MPs do not back the deal, Britain will have only until April 12 — the country’s deadline for triggering elections to the European Parliament — to choose between the remaining courses of action. “Until that date, all options will remain open, and the cliff-edge date will be delayed,” said Donald Tusk, European Council president.
In the meantime a number of MPs are trying to take control of the parliamentary process to debate alternatives to May’s plan — such as a softer Brexit or a second referendum, The reaction in the public has been HUGE (to borrow a word). 100’s of thousands in the streets. Reports of numbers close to a million this weekend have found their way into the headlnes.
THE OBJECTIONS TO BREXIT….
1. THE LEAVE CAMPAIGN LIED ABOUT THE NHS
Remember the claim that leaving the EU would allow the UK to spend £350 million a week for the NHS? It turns out these figures were false. The UK’s contribution to the EU is actually much lower, at £137 million per week. Also, any so-called “savings” would likely be distributed across many services, so the actual figure going to the NHS would be even smaller. Not to mention the fact that the negative impact on the British economy as a whole will dwarf anything saved in terms of budget contributions to the EU. Also, nobody on the Leave side talked about staffing issues in the NHS because of Brexit, or the disruption of medical supplies from the EU (the British Minister of Health has said he ‘can’t guarantee people won’t die’ because of a no deal Brexit). Brexit is going to cost the NHS much more than £350 million a week.
2. THE LEAVE CAMPAIGN LIED ABOUT THE DIFFICULTIES
These were supposed to be the easiest negotiations in history. Both parties were starting from a position of full compliance. The EU was supposed to value the UK’s trade so much that it would bend over backwards to accommodate it. The UK was supposed to be able to cherry pick the best bits of the EU, and ignore the bits it didn’t like. Well, that didn’t happen; instead, two Brexit Ministers have resigned, the government’s negotiating strategy has collapsed, and the British political system is in meltdown. These might, in fact, be the most complicated international negotiations Britain has ever conducted. And we haven’t even started the real Brexit negotiations yet. We’re still talking about backstop and the political declaration. The real Brexit negotiations over the future trade arrangement can only begin when the UK is no longer an EU Member State, and they could drag on for years. Some trade experts predict we could still be talking about the Brexit negotiations for up to a decade.
3. THE LEAVE CAMPAIGN LIED ABOUT THE COST OF LEAVING
Over half of Britain’s trade goes to the EU, bringing the country around £400 billion a year. That dwarfs any savings from not contributing to the EU budget. Over one-in-ten British jobs are directly linked to EU membership and studies show Brexit could wipe up to 10 percent from UK GDP. International companies invest in Britain because it’s a gateway to the EU’s 500 million consumers. Even if a post-Brexit UK persuaded former partners to grant it Norway-style access to the EU market, it would have to accept EU rules without any say in shaping them. Enjoy a glass of Chianti, or a slice of camembert? Thinking of retiring to the Algarve, or a weekend in Amsterdam? All of that could be harder or more expensive if Britain leaves the EU’s free trade zone and new tariffs and controls are introduced. Brits lose the freedom to travel, study, live and work in the other 27 EU countries. That’s bad news for anyone wanting a cheap, hassle-free European holiday, not to mention the over 2 million Brits currently residing elsewhere in the EU.
4. BETTER TOGETHER
In all sorts of ways the EU makes life better — from lower credit card fees to cheaper roaming charges when you call family on holiday, to compensation for flight delays. The EU guarantees safety standards on everything from food and toys to nuclear power plants. Its environmental protection is the highest in the world. As the world’s biggest economic bloc, the EU’s leverage is unmatched in global talks on climate change. Brussels’ anti-trust authorities protect consumers against abuses by multinational companies. The EU guarantees equal rights and labor standards. It helps the fight against international crime through Europol and the European arrest warrant.
