1) Which side will win?
2) Which side should win?
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Discussion point: the coming British referendum on leaving the European UnionJune 8th, 2015 |
 37 comments to Discussion point: the coming British referendum on leaving the European Union |
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Of course we – the foes of that extra layer of government that is the E.U., should we win.
But will we win?
After all Mr Cameron (and whoever is leading the Labour and Liberal parties) will throw vast resources against us.
I am told “stay alive Paul – we will need you”.
However, I suspect that my friends are just trying to con me into not terminating myself – as my efforts will make no difference.
What will matter will be whether the economy has collapsed by the time of the vote.
If the world economy has collapsed – the E.U. will be discredited (by extension).
Rather unfairly – as it will not actually be the fault of the E.U.
I will be optimistic – at least after a fashion.
The world economy will collapse before the vote – the Credit Bubble House of Cards (mixed metaphor alert) will collapse.
The E.U. will be discredited (as all those in power will be) and there will be a NO vote to the E.U.
Mr Cameron will campaign desperately for a YES vote – which (by then) will also help the NO cause.
In we will stay. The powers that be are going to make out you’re a racist Nazi if you vote out. You just wait – a few right-on comedians will be all it takes.
Of course, out we should go. But consent will be manufactured, they wouldn’t give us a vote if they thought they would lose it. There have been demands for a referendum for 20 years, and I don’t think they are particularly strong now. But now they’ve done their best to smear UKIP (with Farage, or at least Raheem Kassam’s help) I guess the powers that be think that now is the time to strike and have us stuck in for a generation more, at least.
There is a third question, missing from the list — “Which outcome would you prefer to transpire?” (to which I answer “The ‘No’ vote carries the day.”)
The shower of Establishment clowns and knaves associating with, and who will form the public face of, the “Out” (formally, “No”) campaign don’t even deserve to win the wooden spoon. If the small battalions of the blogosphere manage to swing the the campaign despite them, I will, however, be ecstatic.
The BBC have already started their subliminal drip-drip support for the ‘in’ campaign – they won’t even pretend to be neutral on this one.
On the Toady Show just after 7am nearly every day they have some CEO or other expressing his earnest support. It’s become their standard oh-by-the-way question tacked on the end of every interview (but only having checked the answer in advance, obviously).
The only hope for ‘out’ is if the sanctimonious guardianista twats on the other side get as obnoxious as they did last time.
In will win, out should win.
I have said all I am going to say on the “On this day” thread below. And yet again I agree with Perry… In will win but Out should. But let me just add that if IN wins that’s the last you will hear of another referendum on Europe…. Move along now, all sorted, nothing to see here. But if for some unfathomable reason (given the odds stacked against us) the OUT camp wins, then you can expect another referendum a week next Tuesday, because we, the electorate, have obviously misunderstood the question.
One of the mistakes that people writing and commenting on blogs like this is that they believe (or would prefer to believe) that everyone is as rational as they are and can examine the suject under discussion rationally.
However, experience shows that this is a fallacy. Take the recent General Election – you would have thought that the scandals emerging about pretty much everything that was introduced by all left wing parties (nad I imclude the Conservatives in that category) such as Rotherham, the appalling, unnecessary deaths in the Hospitals caused by neglect, mass immigration etc. and so forth ad infinitum that no one would have voted labour.
Not on;y some parts of the country solid socialist but the proportion of the votes cast for labour were significant. If the hoi polloi were bothered:
a) A much higher turn out would have occurred
b) They would not have voted for the mainstream parties.
Hence I conclude that as long as Big Brother and Geordie Shore are on TV, the Kardashians are in the newspapers and the beer, fags and junk food is available, they won’t consider the future and will take the lazy option. The overwhelming propaganda put out by all media will sway the day in favour of the status quo.
So unfortunately “The People” will again vote for slavery(or its modern equivalent).
All in this parish seem to want out. What’s not to like? Eliminating a layer of Govt and rule making from afar would be terrific, right up this alley.
So, while the cynicism feels really good, what to do to help?
Dedicate one or two of those pub talks or other libertarian events to support for the out cause! Be tactical instead of pure. Don’t be defeatist. Encourage Richard North to bite his tongue every now and then. And Farage. But support them in this effort.
I’m on the fence – I like the Euro (because the costs of it aren’t really imposed on me and it means I don’t have to change my holiday money back), but I recognise that the whole facade is pretty rotten.
Let’s say that Greece defaults and is almost thrown out – after a four day marathon, the respective national heads of the EU meet and agree that the current incarnation of the EU has to go in order to save the whole project. From now on, the things that have only been paid lip service before – important things like competitiveness, freedom from red tape, the principle of laws and regulations being made as locally as possible.
The rent seekers in Brussels and Strasbourg are all made redundant overnight – no, fired with no pay or pensions.
Every country is offered a referendum on continued membership. Membership will imply the dissolution of national parliaments and the establishment of regional assemblies (with local consultation on regional demarcation – we could revert to old county boundaries in England, or even the Heptarchy, I suppose?) A no vote would allow that country to walk away and form a free trade relationship with the amended bloc, albeit potentially bound by some of that bloc’s regulations without a say in their formulation.
Every country that votes is then given a Member of the new European Parliament, broadly, for every million people – Luxembourg, Andorra et al share one. The first job of the new Parliament would be to enact a constitution that forbade the creation of new laws without the repeal of another. A second chamber made up of the leaders of the regional chambers would meet quarterly to vote on legislation passed by the lower chamber with amendment and veto rights.
What I’m saying is – if it were a straight swap – we get more local government, lose Westminster, and replace it with an EU government – would people be in favour then?
I’m going to guess not, because of the social democratic tendencies of Euroland, and I’d tend to sympathise…
Well,
It is a right mess is it not?
(A). Scotland.
(B). Renogitiation – whatever that means or achieves. See also (A) here.
And then the referendum. (A) means we don’t exactly know what country leaves or stays. (B) means we probably won’t know what we are specifically voting for or against. This is arguably deliberate on iDave’s part because this level of confusion will tend to favour a vote for the Status Quo. Capitals deliberate.
My personal feelings are confused. If we vote “out” Merkel et al will shaft us in a way that will make “Game of Thrones” look like “Paddington Bear”. That is a factor. The only realistic reason (and it is a good one) for wanting out is it would potentially enable bi-lateral treaties on movement of goods, people and capital with, say, the USA, Oz, Canada, India etc. I say “potentially” because I suspect at least some of those countries prefer dealing with Europe as a bloc.
I think we will vote to stay in. I think that is the best solution in the context. I also think it is very far from an ideal solution but when has politricks ever presented us with “the least worse solution” and given it to us good and hard?
I’ll add another musing. It occurs to me that cheap flights, Skype, Sat telly and stuff have achieved more of a European identity than anything the EU has done. Everything the EU claims the orinary men and women of Europe could have managed off their own bat. They really have spent decades legislating for what was happening anyway. By which I mean, “Do I need a bunch of Berties in Strasburg to buy Czech lager, Danish butter or Italian olive oil”.
No. Unless they make themselves vital to these tasks and they have by graft and epic corruption.
Fortunately we are getting a copybook case of such antics in the current case of FIFA. I am amazed people are shocked at the antics of Blatter and Warner (and all the rest). Any footie fan knew they as corrupt as Hell on roller-skates years ago. The latest on Warner (the stealing of the money for Haitian earthquake victims) is so beneath contempt as to beggar belief. My point being that a re-org in transnational groups might get a boost from the FIFA scandals. FIFA cannot carry on. That may give folks a bit of pause for thought on the EU.
Having said that the UN survived making Libya head of “Human Rights” so God knows!
Me, I think it’s a bit like a court case. Even if you have an ironclad case and the best lawyer, you still have at least a 20% chance of losing. So although the INs are clearly in the driving seat, and OUT win is by no means impossible. So don’t despair yet.
There are, however, some very powerful IN cards that haven’t been played yet. Aside from the traditional “3 MILLION JOBS ON THE BLOCK” nonsense, there are some quite neat littler ones. Did you know for instance that if the UK leaves the EU, you won’t be able to fly to the United States ? (Because the UK will have to negotiate its own air treaties with other countries. And even if we were allowed under EU rules to start negotiating now – which we’re not – Cameron would never do so.)
Leaving the EU actually requires a lot of hard preparatory work. The UK requires all sorts of international agreements, most of which are now subsumed into EU agreements. Even a UKIP majority government would need a couple of years of hard determined work to prepare for withdrawal. In the absence of such work, there’s a headline a day on the horrors of withdrawal that will be easily understood by voters of the meanest intelligence. That preparation is not going to be done by Cameron.
But look on the bright side. There is absolutely no chance* of any kind that Cameron will get anything at all from his renegotiation. Labour, the SNP, the LibDems (who ?) , UKIP and even the BBC will be unable to resist laughing long and loud at the NOTHING he brings home by way of bacon. So quite a number of voters will absorb the intended message – “Shut up and do as you’re told.” This must help the OUT side.
* when I say “no chance” I mean no chance unless the OUTs move into a big lead. If the polls consistently show a 60-40 OUT lead, something (small, but something) may be forthcoming from the renegotiation.
You will be required to vote over and over until the Bosses get the answer they want. Remember Ireland?
I do not have a dog in this fight, and don’t fully understand all the nuances of leaving (or staying), although I do have a visceral objection to additional, unnecessary (if that’s not redundant) levels of government, especially on the transnational level. But I will observe that on this one thing (if nothing else) Emma Goldman had it exactly right:
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
But you don’t know if Dave will come back with substantial items from Euroland. If he gets some items renegotiated (and Merkel does seem agreeable to a deal), then the worst excesses might be removed. Staying in a reformed Europe might then seem like a good move.
Perhaps nothing will happen in terms of reform. But would leaving Europe damage British Industries? Maybe the reason there are so many British industrialists who support being in Europe, is because Britain will need to trade with Europe, and being in at least means you would negotiate from inside.
As a libertarian, I favour small government. If all of Europe could be reformed along the Swiss lines, that would be a great outcome. Failing that, what sort of Europe will Britain be dealing with? Is it better to be in than out?
Nicholas (bless your heart!) Grey…
Dave isn’t coming back with anything substantial because he is not demanding anything substantial in the first place. The Europeans were shit scared that we might pull out, were prepared to offer us all sorts of exclusive deals to keep us in, but now they are dancing!
The UK is one of the few net contributors to the EU. We are a massive market for their goods and them a much smaller market for ours. Try finding cheddar cheese in a French supermarket for instance. It is the single most popular cheese in the world, but the French won’t sell it.
Do you honestly believe that we negotiate from inside?? We sent Neil Kinnock to Brussels as Commissioner for routing out corruption and fraud. Did he do so? No, he got the main auditor fired for whistle-blowing. The whole shebang is as bent as a nine bob note.
It was set up for the advantage of France and Germany from its very inception. That’s why De Gaulle kept saying NON when our supine politicos went begging to join. Non until we have set all the rules and controls to our advantage, and fuck yours. Very Brere Rabbit that.
But you don’t know if Dave will come back with substantial items from Euroland.
Ah, but I do. It doesn’t matter if Merkel is favourably inclined. (She isn’t but whatever.) There are no substantial items that can be handed over without a treaty revision. (Any Solomon Binding agreement short of a treaty is completely worthless.) And to get a treaty revision you have to get everybody – including Greece – to agree. Not a chance.
But would leaving Europe damage British Industries? Maybe the reason there are so many British industrialists who support being in Europe, is because Britain will need to trade with Europe, and being in at least means you would negotiate from inside.
Sure. British industrialists whose businesses export a lot to the EU would prefer to be on the inside looking out. These are the big companies with bosses who appear in the newspapers. But exports to the EU are only about 10% of the UK economy. The rest is exports to other places and domestic. So the people whose businesses might be affected, as regards 10% of the economy, will get up on the telly and say what a good thing the EU is, while the other 90% who have to follow all these EU regs in the domestic economy, with no benefit to their businesses, will not be invited to appear on the telly.
The other point to note on this is that while in the 1970s the EEC tariff wall was a significant consideration for British exporters of goods, in the 2010s it’s more of a low kerb. The average EU tariff is 1.2%. Total EU customs duty revenue – that’s on imports into the whole EU from the whole of the rest of the world, is about 20 billion Euros. By comparison the net UK budget contribution to the EU is about 10 billion Euros. The total amount of tariffs that British exporters would face is likely to be less than a quarter of that. As for “having to comply with EU rules” most of them are set by the WTO not the EU anyway.
Of course self interested big businessmen are going to rally to the EU flag. This may fool the masses, But there’s no reason for it to fool educated Samizdata folk.
But educated samizdatans do not make up the majority of the population.
Another problem to consider- is Britain letting its’ Navy run down? What happens if an assertive future Germany decides to increase ‘Europe’s’ Navy, since it doean’t need much in the way of border armies? If a united Europe became aggressive, could it simply outspend Britain into compliance?
I don’t think a German led EU is likely to invade the UK any time soon. But if it did, successfully, so that a German led EU wrote our laws and told us what to do – how would that be different from now ?
A German-led Europe will have Russia to the East, so it can’t fully devote its resources to a European Navy. But I don’t think we’ve yet seen the nadir of the Royal Navy. I can’t imagine the voting public will accept, for example, cuts in the growth of the NHS in order to keep the new QE class carriers in service.
The EU always ever was intended to be a political union, established under the guise of an economic union (common market). As Richard North states: “….. our membership of the EEC (styled as the “Common Market”), the treaty organisation that was always intended to become the EU and eventually the supreme government of what Monnet and his sidekick Arthur Salter were calling the “United States of Europe”, way back in 1929……”
Perry correctly observed in response to my comment regarding Edward Snowden: ” …..By far the most powerful enemies of the west are in the west. They are the primary threat to us and are found in Fort Meade and Cheltenham, not Moscow and Raqqah …..” (however those other capitals are the seats of the current, imminent danger, yes, possibly being allowed in order to discredit themselves and whatever else might stand in the way of the Empire).
The Empire will, no doubt, be based in a secular west and will be the force to be feared. And of that the EU is part of its formation.
So, yes, it will happen sooner or later, and it is to be feared.
This is a good exemplar of why I don’t vote in the UK. My best interests are no longer necessarily aligned with those of the people who live there.
Sure, were I still living there, I’d vote “out” – for obvious reasons. But from here in Texas the UK’s membership of the EU presents mainly as a perq, available to me whenever I choose to dig out the old burgundy passport. It would seem immoral for me to vote against y’all’s best interests, just to maintain some rarely used travel bennies.
1. The vote will be to Stay In – substantially. My prediction – 65% in 35% out. This is what Cameron wants, the entire legacy media will be on that side, especially the bbc, and the EU will spend limitless money on FUD.
2. Out should win, because (a) it removes an anti-democratic governing layer, (b) we could then make our own trade deals and have our own seat on the world bodies who deal with such things, (c) we’d keep our seat on the UN Security Council (which otherwise – mark my words – will be taken over by the EU), (d) we’d be better off, and (e) because it would royally piss off the Scottish National Socialist Party.
If Brits vote to stay the UKIP will draw support from Conservative and Labour voters. During the last election support for UKIP grew from 900k to 3.5m and Labour were devastated in England and Scotland. What’s going to happen, effknows but Europe and the Rhinelanders need Britain more than Britain needs them and with the invasion from the Maghreb and that idiot Putin, they’re shit scared. So it’s SNAFU for broke Europe.
@Other Rob: when did the word “example” (a perfectly good word) turn into “exemplar” (an abbreviation of the word “exemplary” — also a perfectly good word)?
I’m not getting after you personally, but the trend disturbs me: I see this kind of thing happening to my beloved English all the time — simple words turned into more complex, pretentious-sounding ones — but I thought it was confined to academic writing.
To quote Roger Moore: “The point of language is to communicate your thoughts in the shortest possible time and in the clearest possible way.”
As for the main question(s) on the table…
1) Which side will win?
2) Which side should win?
Answer: Britain will get the result it deserves.
@ KdT – I can see your point. It pisses me off when people say “utilise” instead of “use”, for example. In this case, however, I chose the word “exemplar” because the matter struck me as more than just a run of the mill example. Admittedly, that renders the word “good” superfluous, but I blame that clumsy construction on lack of caffeine.
Agree with Tim – “Britain will get the result it deserves.” YES/NO?
JihnB,
The biggest threat to the West are the Newsrooms of the television networks.
War always centralises- the winners have a stronger government which was needed to co-ordinate the victory, and the losers want to ‘start anew’ with an all-powerful center so they can win next time (or the winners impose their central systems on the losers).
Therefore, a ‘european’ war on Britain, if successful, would strengthen Brussels. First, it would need to practice on Greece, stopping them from leaving the Zone.
And Putin and/or Russia can be the cause of the next War to spread Enlightenment from West to East!
I’d like the OUTS to win. So after they do, and the Government refuses to exit, the British people might begin to understand their current sort of “democracy”.
‘War’: noun. A situation in which more than two or more governments violently compete over who has the right to get you killed and/or to rob or enslave you for their own ends.
@KDT
> To quote Roger Moore: “The point of language is to communicate your thoughts
> in the shortest possible time and in the clearest possible way.”
“Harry Potter was the son of wizards who were murdered by a bad guy called Voldemort. He went to a school to learn wizardy stuff. Voldemort grew in power and eventually took over. To preserve his life he split his soul into various inanimate objects. Harry chased around with his chums destroying them, and eventually killed the guy himself. Afterward, they lived happily ever after.”
Short, to the point, and not a best seller.
@Fraser:
I refer you to George Orwell’s opinion on the topic.
I would also refer you to the unreadable Marcel Proust [10,000 words describing a cabinet omitted for reasons of brevity] and for comparison, his opposite number Ernest Hemingway’s six-word tragedy:
FOR SALE
Baby shoes
Never used
Sorry, but I’m on the right side of this one.
(By the way, your synopsis of Harry Potter is descriptive but inadequate, which is why publishers prefer to look at the first couple chapters of the proposed work rather than a synopsis.)
Fraser, someone else has already written that story! Good luck on your next best-seller!
@Kim du Toit
> I refer you to George Orwell’s opinion on the topic.
I clicked the link and, ironically, it was TL;DR. However, my point was that sometimes a little bit of padding enhances the enjoyment of communication. Brevity is boring. English is not mathematics, sometimes it needs a little decoration to get the point across. A house containing a bed a chair and a TV might be functionally useful, and less prone to clutter, but not such a joy to live in. And let’s face it, a very large amount of communication is for camaraderie not communicating ideas.
> his opposite number Ernest Hemingway’s six-word tragedy:
> FOR SALE Baby shoes Never used
Two things, first of all, I always disliked Hemingway. I find his staccato style, and ridiculous stereotypes of masculinity and femininity just plain silly. I remember being forced to read “For Whom The Bell Tolls” in high school. For a writer known for his laconic style, all I remember is the utter horror of how damn long it was. Which again is ironic, since I live about ten miles from Oak Park, Illinois, where he was born, and where he is worshiped as a god.
FWIW, that particular Baby Shoes “novel” of Hemingway is almost certainly not written by him. You might look it up on wikipedia or snopes.
For a writer known for his laconic style, all I remember is the utter horror of how damn long it was.
I remember asking a witty friend of mine, who taught English for many years – “you’re an educated sort of fellow, what’s your taste in books – what’s the key attribute of a good novel ?”
“Brevity.”