7 April 2016
Brexit: Making for The Out Door
The UK should leave the EU
by J.R.Thomas
Last week our Editor made the case to stay at the heart of the European Community; this week we present an alternative view. The problem is that so well thought through and so carefully considered is the impulsion of the editorial pen that it is difficult not to agree with many of the points he makes. It is, for instance, very true that it is sensible to work with one’s friends and neighbours on matters of common interest, that one should try to agree common standards and approaches where there are benefits to doing so, and most of all, that the growing development of a community of European nations has done much to enhance friendship and openness amongst people of long and argumentative histories.
Those, like motherhood and apple pie (low sugar apple pie of course), are matters of great worthiness. If the European Community had stuck to such warm if slightly fuzzy aims and indeed to being a European community, and was not edging so determinedly to becoming a European Union, then almost certainly there would no need for a referendum. But those of us who might describe ourselves as enthusiastic Europeans but not enthusiasts for European Union, who admire our European heritage as something civilised and uplifting but worry about the growth of an unresponsive insensitive bureaucracy, increasingly worry that Europe must be reformed before it undermines the very things that it was brought into being to cherish. What is needed, many Brexiters argue, is a far reaching and fundamental reform of the European project. As there is no sign of that, and indeed the whole structure of European governance weighs against that, then, sadly, it is best to leave. If we do, then I suspect other nations will also find in due course that their interests would be better served outside. And if we don’t leave, and reform does not come soon, I suspect that other countries will in any case quit, sooner or later.
Fundamentally, whether we – or any other country – should be in Europe depends on the fundamental allegiance of its citizens, to their self identification. Do you feel British, or European? Or Scottish, or British? Cornish, or English, even? And do you want to have, through the ballot box, the ability to change those who represent you? Humanity has a tendency to form into groups, groups that mankind feels can represent their interests in specific areas. Political parties, allotment clubs, womens institutes, squash ladders; each give something to us and we make a commitment to them through joining, we sign up and identify ourselves with the group. The problem with Europe, the really deep difficulty, the non-negotiable reason why we should leave, is that most of us in this dark damp island do not feel European. Sometimes we are not quite sure who we are (especially perhaps you might say, in the darker damper parts), but as yet, we are not European.
If we go to New England, I doubt we will find any who say they are New Englanders, or Vermonters, or New Hampshirites; they are Americans, clearly proudly citizens of the USA. That is not so in Europe; it is the dream, for perfectly understandable reasons, of some politicians, seeing a remedy for discord and war, hoping to build strength through unity, that we might become all, citizens of the United States of Europe. But no, not now, not yet, maybe not ever. And if that day should come, we would need a democratically elected European Parliament, as there is in every country that joins the European Union (as a fundamental condition of joining) to give legitimacy and political authority to the European Government. Those elected members would then select the executive and we would have a democracy we recognise and respect and which would respond to us. But at the moment we have an unelected unresponsive oligarchy who think they know better than the citizens of the European countries which they exert increasing authority over. Maybe they do, though the evidence is against it, and anyway, that is not how democracy works.
That is my base case, as it were. There are a lot of other reasons why Europe does not work and why we would be better outside than in the present adventure. But the fundamental is that the current European Commission is all about centralising and controlling and standardising until we have a European state. The political and judicial and democratic arguments all flow from this aim, this intent.
Much has been made of the need to control immigration into the UK. This might win the Brexit vote for the Leavers, which in my view would be a pity. Preventing immigration is maybe the weakest reason to leave the European Union. Immigration is often good for a country, receiving young citizens who have fresh ideas and the energy to make new lives is usually beneficial to the country they settle in. But it does also seem right that the citizens of the country should have the right to consider the terms on which immigrants should be allowed to settle. Nothing wrong with that, but far from a sufficient reason to vote Leave.
A self-governing country should control its own economy and a key condition of that is to have control of its own currency. (Remember how Mr Salmond destroyed the argument for an independent Scotland by suggesting it should retain sterling?) The UK has avoided that trap, a life saver over the last eight years, but the weaker countries in Europe are paying a terrible price for the central control of the common currency and all the economic knock-ons from that. The Germans may be great economic managers – but to outsource your economic self-management, as a person or as a country, is an extraordinarily weakening thing to do.
There is a tendency among the troika to believe that they have all the solutions, that they can impose standards that will make life better for everybody. If there was a democratic overview and an easy ability to opt out of much of what the Commission hands down, that might start to become acceptable, proposals could be suggested, debated, agreed to and be accepted by the citizenry. But that is not how European government currently works. It is a structure created by, and now run by, unelected officials who believe, to paraphrase an old saying of 1950’s and 1960’s over-governed Britain, that “the man from Brussels knows best”.
The economic arguments I have left to last; not least because we don’t know, nobody knows, the short term effects of a Brexit vote and subsequent Brexit negotiations. Uncertainty is not good for the economy – but as Europe sells a lot more to us than they buy from the UK it would be in the clear interests of the EU, in economic turmoil as she is, not to be vindictive or protectionist. In the long run Britain will thrive economically if she runs her economy in a business like way; spends wisely, invests sensibly, leaves the public money in the hands of the public, encourages enterprise and innovation. We can do that in Europe (though beware harmonisation of tax rates and economic encouragements), but it would be much easier to do it outside the heavy spending centralising standardising grip of the Commission.
The future of the world lies now in what we used to call the Second and Third Worlds. In South America there may yet be huge growth, as it appeared there would be, ten years ago. In the Far East there clearly is, and in spite of the attention lavished on China, much of that growth is coming from India and the smaller countries of South East Asia (and indeed Australia and New Zealand). Those countries are not building their success by huddling together in an outdated and protectionist group; they are enterprising, exciting places where people are working hard and seizing new economic and social liberties to build modern free societies. That is the way we and each of our European neighbours should be facing, ancient mercantile nations willing to engage with the new. We need open minds, a world vision, and enterprising energy to be part of that new world.
It is an odd argument that leaving a club might in the end make it better. But a Europe that is becoming protectionist and over regulated and undemocratic is a betrayal of all that European nations have contributed to the modern world. If we leave, as I hope we will, and if others follow, as I hope they will, we may yet secure the reforms, or be able to build a new grouping, which will make Europe the friendly cooperating community of nations that we could and should be part of.
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