Europe
As some people may have heard there will be a referendum in two months’ time about whether Britain should remain in the EU. For no especially good reason, given I don’t anticipate this changing anyone’s views I thought I’d enlighten everyone with my thoughts on the subject. Lots of politicians, business people, and others have made a range of statements about this. The vast majority of which seem to me to be more hot air than anything else. However in my opinion, the reasons for and against leaving can be boiled down to three main headings. Immigration, Sovereignty, Economics.
1. Immigration
Those in favour of leaving claim that immigrants are flooding in, taking the country to breaking point. Putting strain on schools, hospitals, housing, jobs etc. etc. Those in favour of remaining tend not to raise this subject.
To me this issue seems to be more about smoke and mirrors. A large number of the immigrants are coming from countries like Syria, Afghanistan etc. i.e. war zones. These are people fleeing those countries for a safer life. Thousands, or millions of immigrants will have impacts on a range of issues. But does this have anything to do with the EU? None of those countries are in the EU. The immigrants camped in Calais etc. that people are screaming about won’t have their situation changed because we leave the EU.
There is a separate issue about EU immigrants and their ability to come here and claim against the benefits system here. But as a whole EU immigrants pay more into the benefits system than they take out. It’s easy to run a headline on some European with twenty kids who’s never worked here claiming benefits. But the thousands of Europeans working do cover that.
To me immigration is being used as it’s emotive. I’m far from certain leaving the EU will have any significant impact on immigration.
2. Sovereignty
The main issue here seems to be that faceless, unelected bureaucrats in Brussels are setting the laws we have to follow. Obviously a bad thing. By implication because they’re faceless they’re nasty people, and they’re unelected. Before we joined the EU the situation was entirely different. Before the EU faceless, unelected bureaucrats in Westminster were setting the laws we had to follow. Hmm, actually wait a minute that’s not that different is it?
Ok, so let’s dig a little deeper, these are Brussels lawyers, they’re much worse than Westminster lawyers because …. Because …. Because … well because they’re foreign for a start. People making this argument pick silly laws made in Brussels because clearly no Westminster lawyer would make silly laws. Anyone who’s lived in this country as long as I have knows that Westminster never comes up with silly laws. Well hardly ever. Ok, so lets ignore the whole Brussels/Westminster point. I’m certain that if that ability comes back to the UK there will be zero reduction in silly laws.
It’s also worth pointing out the case of Norway. Norway isn’t part of the EU but in order to trade with the EU they have been forced to accept laws laid down in Brussels. Leaving the EU would not, therefore, guarantee regaining complete control of our own laws.
Another key point raised is the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). For example the ECHR has prevented the UK extraditing terrorists owing to their family life in the UK. If we leave Europe we leave that behind. That could be a good point if it was remotely true. Firstly the ECHR was set up by British lawyers following WW2 (see previous paragraph comparing foreign and British lawyers). Secondly despite its name, it’s not part of the EU. The UK signed up to it in a completely different treaty. Leaving the EU would not change our relationship to the ECHR.
To me sovereignty seems a complete non-issue. I see no impact one way or the other.
3. Economics
The leave campaign tells me we spend over £350 million per day to be a member of the EU. The Remain campaign tells me we do £billions in trade with the EU. Leave says if we leave we save the £350million and we won’t lose any trade. Remain says we could lose all our trade.
Let’s be fair, they’re both guessing. They don’t know what will happen. We could still need to pay fees to trade with Europe. We could lose some trade.
I see people on both sides quoting their own figures on leaving and the benefits/costs of doing/not doing so. While those in one camp or another blithely dismiss the claims of the other camp and accept the claims of their own camp as fact.
To me the economic arguments are the only genuine issue. I would say there are two big questions.
a) If we leave will any loss of trade with Europe and there must be some loss, be made up for by increased trade with the rest of the world.
b) If we leave how big will the disruption be to the UK, European and rest of the world economies. There must be some disruption, what will the scale be. Some in the Leave camp seem to think destroying the EU would be a good thing. But as everyone points out they are our current major trading partner. Destroying them would have a massive impact on the UK economy. So I don’t want the EU to fail regardless of whether we leave or not.
Most Leave people tell me there will be no loss of trade, and/or it will be immediately made good with trade elsewhere. Similarly they tell me there will be little to no disruption in leaving, or at least none that affects the UK.
But to me these are the big questions, I think both the Leave camp (no problems here) and the Remain camp (doom and gloom if we leave) are both guessing. Because predicting the future is at best guesswork.
In a couple of months I’ll put an “X” in a box. I’ve not decided which box to pick yet. However to me the burden of proof lands on the side of the Leave campaign. They have to persuade me that in leaving we will be clearly better off financially than staying. Given it’s difficult to see what evidence that could be presented to prove those points I’m tending towards Remain. But there’s two months to go and I’ve not made my mind up yet.
x-posted to facebook
1. Immigration
Those in favour of leaving claim that immigrants are flooding in, taking the country to breaking point. Putting strain on schools, hospitals, housing, jobs etc. etc. Those in favour of remaining tend not to raise this subject.
To me this issue seems to be more about smoke and mirrors. A large number of the immigrants are coming from countries like Syria, Afghanistan etc. i.e. war zones. These are people fleeing those countries for a safer life. Thousands, or millions of immigrants will have impacts on a range of issues. But does this have anything to do with the EU? None of those countries are in the EU. The immigrants camped in Calais etc. that people are screaming about won’t have their situation changed because we leave the EU.
There is a separate issue about EU immigrants and their ability to come here and claim against the benefits system here. But as a whole EU immigrants pay more into the benefits system than they take out. It’s easy to run a headline on some European with twenty kids who’s never worked here claiming benefits. But the thousands of Europeans working do cover that.
To me immigration is being used as it’s emotive. I’m far from certain leaving the EU will have any significant impact on immigration.
2. Sovereignty
The main issue here seems to be that faceless, unelected bureaucrats in Brussels are setting the laws we have to follow. Obviously a bad thing. By implication because they’re faceless they’re nasty people, and they’re unelected. Before we joined the EU the situation was entirely different. Before the EU faceless, unelected bureaucrats in Westminster were setting the laws we had to follow. Hmm, actually wait a minute that’s not that different is it?
Ok, so let’s dig a little deeper, these are Brussels lawyers, they’re much worse than Westminster lawyers because …. Because …. Because … well because they’re foreign for a start. People making this argument pick silly laws made in Brussels because clearly no Westminster lawyer would make silly laws. Anyone who’s lived in this country as long as I have knows that Westminster never comes up with silly laws. Well hardly ever. Ok, so lets ignore the whole Brussels/Westminster point. I’m certain that if that ability comes back to the UK there will be zero reduction in silly laws.
It’s also worth pointing out the case of Norway. Norway isn’t part of the EU but in order to trade with the EU they have been forced to accept laws laid down in Brussels. Leaving the EU would not, therefore, guarantee regaining complete control of our own laws.
Another key point raised is the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). For example the ECHR has prevented the UK extraditing terrorists owing to their family life in the UK. If we leave Europe we leave that behind. That could be a good point if it was remotely true. Firstly the ECHR was set up by British lawyers following WW2 (see previous paragraph comparing foreign and British lawyers). Secondly despite its name, it’s not part of the EU. The UK signed up to it in a completely different treaty. Leaving the EU would not change our relationship to the ECHR.
To me sovereignty seems a complete non-issue. I see no impact one way or the other.
3. Economics
The leave campaign tells me we spend over £350 million per day to be a member of the EU. The Remain campaign tells me we do £billions in trade with the EU. Leave says if we leave we save the £350million and we won’t lose any trade. Remain says we could lose all our trade.
Let’s be fair, they’re both guessing. They don’t know what will happen. We could still need to pay fees to trade with Europe. We could lose some trade.
I see people on both sides quoting their own figures on leaving and the benefits/costs of doing/not doing so. While those in one camp or another blithely dismiss the claims of the other camp and accept the claims of their own camp as fact.
To me the economic arguments are the only genuine issue. I would say there are two big questions.
a) If we leave will any loss of trade with Europe and there must be some loss, be made up for by increased trade with the rest of the world.
b) If we leave how big will the disruption be to the UK, European and rest of the world economies. There must be some disruption, what will the scale be. Some in the Leave camp seem to think destroying the EU would be a good thing. But as everyone points out they are our current major trading partner. Destroying them would have a massive impact on the UK economy. So I don’t want the EU to fail regardless of whether we leave or not.
Most Leave people tell me there will be no loss of trade, and/or it will be immediately made good with trade elsewhere. Similarly they tell me there will be little to no disruption in leaving, or at least none that affects the UK.
But to me these are the big questions, I think both the Leave camp (no problems here) and the Remain camp (doom and gloom if we leave) are both guessing. Because predicting the future is at best guesswork.
In a couple of months I’ll put an “X” in a box. I’ve not decided which box to pick yet. However to me the burden of proof lands on the side of the Leave campaign. They have to persuade me that in leaving we will be clearly better off financially than staying. Given it’s difficult to see what evidence that could be presented to prove those points I’m tending towards Remain. But there’s two months to go and I’ve not made my mind up yet.
x-posted to facebook