EU Referendum - How Fed Up of It are You?
It seems like it's been going on forever, but finally the end is in sight. At last. How on Earth do you decide which was to vote?
Here's how not to do it...
Ignore the threats and promises
Nobody knows whether the economy will be better or worse off. This is a fact - no country has ever left the EU before, so nobody knows what might happen to the leaving country, or to the remaining EU members. You can't look to any example in history to help you decide. It's unknown.What you can't say is that "well, look what happened to the Euro-countries -lucky we didn't join". That makes no sense. That implies there's one 'copy' of the world where we did join Euro; and the one where we didn't (this one); and we can look at both copies and say which one is better. We're not David Tennant; we can't fly off into different time-streams and compare them. There's no way of telling which decision in history would have had benefit or not. It's like the old puzzle of saying, would the world be better off had you killed Hitler as a child ... no-one can say what the impact of that might have been.
It's all guesswork.
Unelected Elite
"I don't want to be governed by an unelected, unaccountable elite". Well, we get to elect 600 odd people to represent us, once every five years. Outside of that 600 odd, most are appointed, without election. If you think the governor of the Bank of England, the civil service, the head of MI5, and so on, have no impact on your life, you're wrong. We don't elect these people. We elect a very small proportion of the people who govern us. But they are, in general, appointed by those we have elected. And it's no different in the EU. Our MPs, our MEPs select those who represent us. It's no different to many other posts. We can no more "throw" these people out, than we can our own MPs - we get one chance every 5 years. If you don't like the current government, then you didn't elect them in 2010, and didn't even have the chance to get rid of them up until 2015, and even then you didn't get your way. We can't throw our own government out. The EU case is no different.This is no argument.
Ruled from Brussels
Being rules from far away? Well, that's true for everyone. We don't rule ourselves; there's a group of elected people, many miles from us, who determine the laws of the land; how we live. That's just a fact of representative democracy. Whether they are 100 miles away, or 300 miles away, it makes no difference.People spend a lot of time complaining about how corrupt and self-serving our politicians are, and then look to giving them more power and control. Voting out will give David Cameron more power (at least until he's replaced by another self-serving idiot). I'm not sure this is wise.
£350m a week, lost
This £350 million - whatever happens, what won't happen is this:- David Cameron knocks on your door and offers you some of it
- It goes to the NHS
- It goes to pensions
- We see any of it
£350 million is a pittance - about 1 or 2 percent of weekly government expenditure. The much larger sum is already assigned by the UK government. If they wanted to prioritise and put more money into health, education, defence, ... they could. It's nothing to do with having no money, because it's being given to the EU. This is no money, whether the figure is accurate or not.
Control our Borders
In 1973 the world population was under 4 billion. It's now approaching twice that number. The world is different to how it was then. Outside of the EU, the pressures on other countries would not disappear. The human crisis within the Middle East, in Syria, would not vanish. We can't turn back the clock and re-emerge into 1960's Britain. The world is how it is. This notion of reverting Britain to a 'Great Britain era' is as laughable as the "Make America Great Again" tagline. "I don't like some aspects of the country today; let's go back to a time when I did." Just when was that? You can't turn back the clock. Spend less time wishing for yesterday, and concentrate on making tomorrow better.Migrants from outside the EU make up over half of the total ... we already have the ability to control that number, but do not. Why would this be different outside of the EU? We're not controlling the numbers from outside of the EU today, why do we think we'd control it tomorrow?
And this supposes that immigration is a bad thing.
Too much red tape
See my first point. Who's to say there wouldn't be more red tape if not in the EU? It can't be conceded, unchallenged, that the EU produces more red tape than the UK. We just don't know. Sometimes an EU decision has originated in the UK - a UK idea which is then adopted more widely.The inference that red tape will be reduced cannot be substantiated.
Take Back Control
"We've lost control of our country; our sovereignty" This is a silly notion. How much control do you have today? Is David Cameron often knocking on your door, ringing you up, to see what he should do? The fact of representative democracy is that we get one chance every 5 years to chose a representative. That's it. You and I have not control now. We'll have no more outside of the EU.We're ruled by a remote elite who have little understanding of our lives. Leaving the EU will not change this.
How I'll Decide
My decision will be around two things.1. BREXIT
It's a horrible word. Yuck.
2. Murdoch Decides.
Rupert Murdoch, the Australian exile who lives in New York, has dictated the winner of every UK general election since 1979. I think it's wrong that he wields so much influence, so much power. Whatever he dictates, I'll vote against. Just to show that the British people can have some say in their own future. I know ... ironic.
