Yes, the EU is crap — but the Brexiters have clearly lost the argument.
On June 23 something that is frankly crap will get my vote. This thing is as bent as the proverbial nine bob note. It’s quite high on the scale of undemocratic and unaccountable. It does amazingly stupid things, breaks its own best rules with impunity, creates fear, loathing and peak naivety by being almost impossible to understand.
But, myriad faults and a structural democratic deficit notwithstanding, membership of the European Union is off the chart— in terms of desirability to me — compared with the alternative and severely impaired ‘vision’ offered by the Brexit camp.
Like democracy itself, as Churchill acknowledged — the EU is awful. But it’s better than having no EU.
To be clear, having tried it privately as a thought game, I can argue a strong case for Britain quitting the EU. Just as I sometimes practice arguing against my own small ‘l’ liberalism. I find these exercises easy because, intellectually, the right wing position is so simplistic in its assertions, cherished ‘certainties’ and emotional appeal. You can use so much more colourful language and inspiring hyperbole. In contrast, the subtleties of more progressive and pluralist philosophies make them all but impossible to sloganise or distill into tropes inclined to make people punch the air with boisterous ‘rah rah’s.
Which is why people like Donald Trump do so well among the poorly educated milieu. But we knew that.
It’s also a lot more fun to be a right winger — or a Brexiter, as this amusing article by Rupert Myers contends.
But back to the Brexit vs Remain debate. And Churchill again.
A couple of weeks ago I read about a survey, described in this article, and felt a creeping despair. It revealed that a majority of the people voting on our EU membership believe some fundamental things about Britain’s current status that are factually incorrect. Not questionable, debatable or subject to interpretation. Just false.
The best one was that most British laws have to be approved by the European Parliament. Another one was that the EU is responsible for setting taxes in Britain. There were others too, but those are my favourites.
That’s not children or a small, rabid minority of the electorate moaning about a thing they don’t really understand. That’s what a majority of those who can vote on June 23 apparently believe.
No wonder the Brexit camp loves giving ‘The People’ a voice, when ‘The People’ unquestioningly absorb industrial scale lying or just choose to believe what suits their mood. Never were Churchill’s words about democracy and the average voter so prescient.
Bored with the to-ing and fro-ing of ‘Project Fear’ (as the Eurosceptic leavers have dubbed the ‘Stronger In’ campaign) and the multifarious promises of buccaneering greatness promised by the various ‘Vote Leave’ factions, I wonder what this endless referendum noise is really all about. How you decide where you stand.
If it were really the economy, stupid, it would all be over bar the shouting already. And that’s probably how it will go in the end, with the undecideds following the traditional path of eventual inertia to opt for the status quo.
It’s impossible to reliably forecast a positive impact of doing something no one’s ever done before — and I kind of feel sorry for the Brexit camp, having that natural disadvantage. Especially with so much authoritative opinion against them. It’s just like the anthropogenic climate change argument. On any conventional measure of persuasiveness the avalanche of ‘expert’ opinion on the upheaval and negative impact of Brexit carries a pride of lions’ share in terms of plausible weight.
Unless, of course, you invoke conspiracy, self-interest, membership of the ‘elite’ or ‘comfort blanket’ explanations of why the weight of academic economic opinion is against Brexit.
And there’s the rub. If you’re pro-Brexit you have little choice but to play the man, not the ball. Or — the best tack to take — play the people (‘The British People’) against other people (currently Turkish people, but the ‘enemy’ is endlessly and conveniently interchangeable).
As a Bremainian, if you don’t accept any of the disparate ‘visions’ on offer from Brexiters you must be corrupt in some way, afraid in a not-very-sensible but terribly childish way, treacherous or just stupid.
There seem to be some rules in the Brexit position. As a Brexiter you don’t say ‘I think you’re mistaken’. Heaven forbid you might acknowledge ‘I think you’re possibly right but my feelings for a noble cause make the gamble worthwhile’. You say things like this:
So one rule is you suggest that the person who disagrees with you is mindless. It’s handy, because if you discount even the possibility of a thoughtful opposing point of view it saves you having to justify your own.
So, here are some mindless (or even treasonous — depending on your level of febrility) ruminations on the choice I’ve made.
- The EU is crap, but so is the UN and I haven’t heard anyone arguing for us to quit that hotbed of political horse trading and unjust decisions, cynical resolutions and self-serving voting blocs.
- I’m certain Britain can thrive outside the EU. Eventually. Despite my branding as a traitor on social media for not desiring Brexit, I think Britain’s energy, inventiveness, relatively lean regulatory framework (even with all the EU-inspired statutory instruments), domestic stability (notwithstanding the rise of the authoritarian right and the SNP’s refusal to accept the will of the Scottish people last year) and good old fashioned grit stands it in good stead to crack on alone, if that’s what people want.
- I started out with a desperately naive standpoint when the referendum was called. I felt certain about everything. I’ve now moved from 100:0 Remain to about 75:25 remain. This is because I’ve been digging around outside the propaganda minefield to work things out for myself. I recommend this brilliant radio series on how the EU managed to fuck itself so comprehensively up (along with ineffably stupid Greece) — ‘Europe’s Choice’ first broadcast in 2012. Especially this particular episode.
4. Although I’m confident Brexit would not be the end of civilisation as we know it, I also believe now is not a sensible time to threaten the stability of a region so many lives were sacrificed to preserve, not long ago. I see the gleeful predictions of the entire bloc’s demise if Brexit starts a domino effect, from a sizeable minority of ‘dark’ Brexiters. And I view it as pathetic, playground triumphalism. Destructive rather than constructive. A mindset that precludes me from ever joining the ranks of proper libertarians.
5. Anyone who thinks this is a binary choice between right and wrong, good and evil, freedom versus slavery, democracy versus totalitarianism is too stupid to bother discussing it with. Whichever side they’re on.
6. I was born in England. I had no say in that. Why I should be ‘proud’ of this accident of birth escapes me. I’m fond of Britain because it’s home and it happens to be ‘my country’. I’m proud of what I consider to be British values (especially tolerance, which appears to be under threat from self-anointed ‘patriots’), but that’s completely separate from giving a damn about blood and soil. For me, being British is a state of mind that’s transferable to any political or economic bloc. Indeed, I actively want British values to be given a voice at the heart of the EU. The EU needs that. I self-identify as a British European.
7. I don’t buy 95% of the tropes and assertions peddled by the Brexit camp. They don’t stand up to scrutiny. With a credulous people softened up for years by a Eurosceptic popular media speaking for proprietors who, incidentally, keep all their wealth offshore, Brexit’s leadership have been making hay by dissembling on an industrial scale. If only they hadn’t done that. If only they had inspired us with an honest case. I might have now been 50:50.
8. The race card #1. Hardly any of it stacks up. Whenever I dig outside the interest groups for information on negative economic impact, the data fails to stand up the Brexit claims. As for immigration so far, it seems to me that the majority of ‘ghettoised’ cultural problems we have are nothing to do with the EU. They largely stem — ironically — from our own days of Empire. They need addressing, but leaving the EU won’t help with that. Throw in the fact — still seemingly not understood by many — that negotiating access to the single market will inevitably mean preserving freedom of movement and you have the ultimate Brexit shibboleth.
9. The race card #2. You don’t like people coming in and doing jobs for less money than you’ll take. Welcome to the modern world. It’s called globalisation. It provides those cheap clothes you buy in Primark and I don’t see why those people shouldn’t go where the money is.
10. The race card #3. It’s a fact that people who are most against immigration live in areas with few immigrants. Go figure.
11. The race card #4. Nothing to do with the EU, this one, but because Brexiters are so obsessed with race it’s worth noting. When Sadiq Khan became Mayor of London I suddenly realised how pissed off the jihadist recruiters must now be feeling, peddling their narrative around the poor and disaffected Asian youth that ‘there’s nothing for you in this infidel nest of vipers they call Britain’. Way to go, London.
12. The race card #5. Brexiters — you just turn me right off on this issue. Simple as. The direction of travel in civilisation is not greater segregation and racial purity. I don’t agree with those who insist that people have a human right to preserve their own racial heritage. Just like the people on the left who refuse to acknowledge the pain caused by immigration, you too prevent an intelligent conversation about it. I think we’re just going to have to disagree on this one. It’s a values thing.
13. Which reminds me that…
14. The EU is a clusterfuck. Sometimes, on Twitter, I’ll say so and a Brexiter will ask — aghast — how I can therefore support it. Here’s how;
JFK was bang on with that sentiment.
It’s inevitably a bit trite — not to mention controversial — to say this, but many of us think the EU is a cause worth preserving and bolstering, regardless of immediate intrinsic benefit to Britain. Read Prof Steven Pinker’s book on the decline in violent deaths through history ‘The Better Angels Of Our Nature’ and you get a handle on some principles that underpin the idea of things like the EU. You learn that it’s primarily trade, not military alliances, that keeps the peace between fractious neighbours. You also learn that some freedoms are inevitably eroded as civilisation advances. People might object to this but every one of us gives up some personal ‘sovereignty’ in exchange for the protections and rights of being in a modern state. It’s the same at macro level too, as EU membership shows.
As a long game the EU is an attempt to create a civilising force in the world. Like increasing immigration. It creates a lot of friction, when you try to tame different factions sufficiently to work together and that’s what we’re seeing now. It may all fail in the end, or it may not. You either think it’s is a worthwhile project to see through to completion, or you don’t. I do.
Of course, this isn’t an argument for Remain. It’s just a values-based judgement. I would expect no one to be persuaded by it.
15. Project Fear again. You can call both sides out on this one, unless you’re really idiotically partisan. But I’ve heard Remainers branded ‘scaredy cats’ for wanting to avoid the inevitable economic shock of Brexit. I quit a reasonably secure job to go it alone last year. I ditched the security of paid holidays and sick pay plus a predictable lump of cash automatically plopping into my current account every month partly on the basis of confidence in the economy. It’s worked out so far, because people are investing in the kind of stuff I can help them with. I don’t welcome retired people, with their mortgages cleared and a chip on their shoulder that came free with the Daily Mail, deciding that an inevitable brake on the economy is a price worth paying to ‘#TakeControl’ as they’re fond of putting it. I don’t share the enthusiasm for “fantastic insecurity” trumpeted by a billionaire like Peter Hargreaves either. Dunkirk, in case he forgot, was a massive retreat following ignominious defeat. Some people, with less at risk than me, might well love the idea. They’re welcome to it.
16. You have to be suspicious about the coherence of a movement that brings the hardest left and the furthest right together. Marxists and libertarians mounting common cause. And trying to persuade the rest of us that what they want is best for us. I find that actually laughable. No I don’t. I find it intellectually risible and more than a bit frightening. I see it as the lunatic fringes desperate to disrupt, with nothing of value to sell to me, just for the sake of dismantling something that happens to keep them both, thankfully, in check. Let’s keep them there.
17. And I’m out of patience. I’m tired of armchair iPad economists pontificating on how things will really work for Britain outside the European Union. I’m tired of being quoted at from the Ladybird book of Astrological Economics when I already live and work in a country that — for all its faults — is currently as close to technical full employment as any country on Earth. I’ve listened to you and I’ve seen you have nothing of substance to offer.
Strangely it has taken a coruscating anti-Brexit polemic published in the Mail Online (of all places) by a former Thatcher adviser to finally rally me sufficiently to say with absolute conviction ‘I’m done listening to you because you’re deluded at best and downright nasty, at worst.’
So there we are. I’ve looked at the two tribes and chosen to stick with my natural one. I can see some merits in the other side’s case, but they don’t outweigh the case for remaining intellectually, philosophically or emotionally. I do understand the emotional appeal around the broad objective of Brexit. Indeed, it’s quite exciting. But that’s hardly a case to embrace it. I’m also as bored with the dewy-eyed version of the EU peddled by many of my fellow Bremainians as I am with the froth-mouthed EU-haters of Brexit. I’ve ended up understanding a lot more about the iniquities of the EU — plus a lot more about how it works and how it’s meant to work (too often not the same thing).
But still I want to reach out, rather than draw back.
It’s hard to write anything about the referendum without at least one mention of Boris Johnson. He reputedly wrote two essays, on the eve of his decision on which camp to support, embracing and opposing Brexit.
He was pilloried in the tiny segments of media that support Remain and, of course, by the whole Bremainian camp. Stupidly. So unutterably stupidly. Because it was a sensible thing for a thinking person to do. It’s sad that he so obviously sublimates the interests of everyone else to his own political ambitions because it’s likely he was just working out which version played best to the Conservative eurosceptic wing. But in itself it was a thing we would all benefit from doing.
If you can put yourself in the head of a thoughtful opponent (even when they’re hard to find — as I’m sure they are for both sides) it’s fascinatingly revealing. Try it sometime.
