I have been avidly listening and reading everything relating to the EU referendum and there are several things that are swaying me. The first is the fact that everyone admits that the UK can exist comfortably outside the EU, it is just a matter of how much the UK's economic growth will be, more or less than remaining and that appears to be the biggest concern.
So, when Barack Obama tells us what is best for the US, that he wants us to remain in Europe, that is fine, I am not offended because of course he should voice the opinion on what is best for the US but to then say that we would have to go to the back of the queue for a trade deal, that doesn't sound like the way a "friend" would talk to another "friend". What happened to the "special relationship"? Besides, the US doesn't have a trade deal with Europe and won't for several years, if at all. It doesn't seem to have affected how we trade with the US at the moment.
The biggest issue that we have, being English, is that we are a nation of adventurers, we want to know what is behind the final frontier and we always have someone stupid enough to go and look.
The rest of the World, "Oh look, a bear. Do you think it's asleep?"
England, "Let me poke it with a stick so we can find out."
It is what we do, we are curious people with big hearts and a genuine sense of justice. We disagreed with Tony Blair when he lowered our standing in the world by helping the US invade Iraq and now we find ourselves with the unique opportunity to do something that is essentially English, to go our own way.
Globalization is what we've always done. Sir Francis Drake, the second person to circumnavigate the globe, set up trading agreements with China on the way past. Our history hasn't always been glorious but it has been global for the past 500+ years and before that it was pan-European. Globalization is nothing new to us, we're not shying away from it but I do believe that each European country is bigger on its own than as part of a federation of Europe. Being English and being European, I speak with my counterparts across Europe and they too feel the same way that we do, with the exception that they won't get a referendum.
I would thank Cameron for the referendum but I can see that he had no choice but to call it, his party is against him and he is sitting there with Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingstone and the idiot Osborne, while opposite sit the bulk of the Conservatives.
Getting back to Barack Obama and why I find his comments distasteful, he tried to invoke the spirit of WW2, a war that we fought by ourselves until 1941, holding back the might of the German empire while the US sold us equipment to keep us fighting, running up a debt that we finished paying in 2006.
Remember WW1? We finished paying off our debt to the US last year, 2015. We stood alone in Europe, facing off against huge odds while the tide of men washed and crashed against the trenches, breaking against the lines of bayonets, strafing machine gun fire and drowning in the mud and yet our allies bring up how much we owe them as allies, maybe we should we remind them that we stopped the invasion of Europe twice, English lives fought and died alongside the invaded French.
I am not anti-US, I think Americans are amazing people, they have a positivity that is infectious and their belief in the American way is incredible but it is not right that WW2 is brought up to guilt us into staying in Europe when it was our men and women that made the ultimate sacrifice for two years before they helped their allies.
My Grandad was part of the British Expeditionary Force, a professional soldier not a conscript. He wasn't evacuated at Dunkirk, he had to fight his way across France and from there went to the Middle East and fought there. He didn't see home for years. His brother was in the RAF, his father, who fought in WW1, was captured at Singapore by the Japanese.
This is the first reason why I want to vote out of Europe. I don't think the world owes the UK a debt but you know what? You're welcome for our sacrifice in WW1 and WW2, nearly every English family lost someone in those wars and our Commonwealth cousins sent soldiers to both wars, the Canadians and the Australians and New Zealanders are incredibly brave and their sacrifices were essential to Britain being able to stand and yet we are not allowed to open into trade agreements with them because Italy objected.
Secondly, I don't like the rhetoric coming from the top. In David Cameron we have another great appeaser, another Chamberlain. All scare tactics as he kisses the bare arses of the other European leaders in his attempt to tie the UK into a permanent agreement that will destroy all democracy in all but name. This is the greatest threat to the UK since WW2 and the more I think on it, the worse it will be if we stay. The French and the Germans will be leaving at somepoint and someone will be left trying to hold water in a colander as the deficit out weighs the size of the European economy, our ability to defend our selves becomes a European project led by other nations and the intelligence is compromised as we are contracted to share with Europe first. The inability to control our borders will suddenly become the number one concern yet there will be nothing we can do about it, and all the while we pay the lions share to be a part of the failing project. The writing is on the wall already, there are no plans to reform the EU, why would there be? No-one is going to vote for a reform in Brussels, they weren't elected. Neil Kinnock was turned down twice by the British electorate yet he walked into a job in Brussels, unelected and has more power over the fate of the UK than ever before. How can that be? I didn't vote for him. Why would he or any other of the anti democracy elite reform the cushy number they have? They are living the dream off the back of the fools that are too scared to leave.
We are English and it is our way to take chances because we are arrogant and have self belief, it is in our DNA, it is a national trait. Look at English Rugby, Stuart Lancaster is a good man and tried to instill a sense of decency and humility in the squad. Along comes Eddie Jones and tells the squad to play like Englishmen, there is no shame in arrogance and it is what England does best when they can back it up. We now have a team that is not embarrassed to win and winning is now a part of their psyche. Maybe it takes someone from outside of the UK to spot what it is to be English, in the same way that Americans are decent and positive people, Canadians are quirky and have a dry humour, the French are argumentative and very nationalistic yet can be so self effacing and the Germans have been told they can't be proud for too many years, they are nation that has had the shackles thrown off and are stretching themselves to see what they are capable of. They are more aware of what Europe means than we are, and they are stopped at every turn by their leaders as their democracy works against them from making any decisions that might threaten the EU project.
We need to stop appeasing Brussels, we need to get rid of Chamberlain because we need a Churchill, someone that knows what it is to be British first and European second, someone with the back bone to call this what it is, a transparent attempt to turn this collective of disperate Countries, with a shared and often difficult history, into a United States of Europe, a federation in which every nation will lose its identity, becoming a state within a larger federation, except that it will be run by a dictatorship, unelected faceless people that work out our futures in an excel spreadsheet. This is not the way it is meant to end, this is not what WW2 was fought for, it was fought for the freedom of sovereign nations and here we are, close to signing away our freedom, democracy and sovereignty. If I believed that staying in the EU was good for me, I would vote to stay but I can't see a single good reason not to leave.
We need to do the British thing and do our own thing, we are the housemate that doesn't like the rota, that plays the music too loud and too late and doesn't get on with anyone else in the house and dislikes your friends. We are better as neighbors, we have the space to appreciate what you bring to the world and we like saying "morning" as we collect the milk from the doorstep. We'll even make small talk over the fence!
Another plus, Ken Livingston said that he might emigrate if we vote out, that has to be a good enough reason to vote out if not for any of the reason above!
No comments:
Post a Comment