I’m unclear as to how anyone really thinks staying in the EU is in any of our best interests.
For example, the decision of the Maastricht Treaty over 20 years ago to replace the European Economic Community (EEC) with the European Union (EU), further to a view of much closer political integration, is simply a huge mistake with serious consequences, especially in a Europe only recently united after post-war divisions.
It is impossible to create an EU super-state on a continent as fractured as Europe. Europe cannot be worked according to some ‘pseudo-scientific’ American political model. If Brussels were serious about trying to do the super-state, then it would hardly impose its will on any member state which disagrees with it (See Treaty of Lisbon in Ireland done twice through a referendum to ensure a ‘yes’ vote, removal of leaders in Greece and Italy etc…).
Clearly, Brussels doesn’t understand what Washington did back in 1783 – the necessary system of checks and balances with a larger, diverse union further to expansion. Neither does Brussels fully understand the role of history in places like Central and Eastern Europe, and that imposing something like refugee quotas on particular states which fought against the Ottoman Turks for centuries isn’t going to wash and is only going to increase nationalist reactions in states which have only recently discovered or re-discovered independence.
We are not ‘one’ but ‘many’. The UK itself is one of the best examples of a political and economic union, one which has evolved and works more on the basis of devolution now than strict centralisation. The EU, on the other hand, has become increasingly bureaucratic, centralised and with greater disregard for the democratic pursuits of its own member states. We are not signing from the same hymn sheet, nor should we be.
Why are we under some kind of illusion that the EU brings us greater freedoms and economic prosperity? Most EU member states’ economies are simply a disgrace of corruption and stagnation entrenched by the use of the Euro which benefits no one’s economy but Germany’s. Greece is the best example of a country which has gone down the shitter since its membership over 30 years ago, the group of PIIGS a great example of economies going nowhere fast in what is supposed to be a prosperous Europe shackled with debt and indecision. The same prosperous Europe in which its two richest nations (Norway and Switzerland) reject EU membership outright. The EU's recent handling of the crisis in Ukraine, which was keen to join, was nothing better than a joke on the stage of international diplomacy - an own goal to Putin if ever there was one.
Immigration is a huge point of contention not only in the UK, but throughout the EU. Ask yourself just how exactly each member state ‘agreed’ to this condition. Was there really a vote on this matter, or was it decided in the boardrooms of Brussels to facilitate cheap labour from states of high unemployment? Then ask yourself how each state could make a decision to act independently from Brussels on this issue – should they wish to renegotiate the terms of the freedom of movement or remove themselves from it altogether. Nevertheless, the ‘democratic deficit’ and the lack of cohesion of the participating member states are actually the least of our worries in some ways by this sad and sorry stage.
If the UK does have the courage to leave, and I certainly hope it does, it simply paves the way for the organisation in its current form to collapse...or, what I would like to see is the decision to return to the conditions of the EEC prior to 1995.
Brexit.
What other EU member states will really want to remain in a post-Brexit union dominated by Germany, given Europe’s most recent past? Benelux, France? The UK’s departure will be followed by others without doubt (most likely Denmark, Hungary, Poland etc…). No one really gives a toss of any sort whether a member state like Slovakia or Greece, for example, pulls out. No one lost sleep over a possible Grexit. It’s a different matter if the UK or Germany wants out, however.
That in itself proves that the EU cannot and will never be a union of equals with a common aim, so let’s cut to the quick on the issue and admit what it’s really about.
Cameron and Corbyn advocating a 'yes' vote is little more than lining the Swiss (not in the EU) bank account.
