Remain's EU referendum campaign is the most shameful episode in recent British political history on a par with 1930s ‘appeasement’ in its willful dishonesty
Robin Mitchinson
On 31 May 2016 10:44
... Proud man drest in a little brief authority, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep.
We are now in purdah, which means that Cameron can no longer use legions of civil servants to invent new porkies to push for a ‘stay’ vote. His statesman-like response to the challenge of Brexit is to warn about more expensive mobile phone calls and budget-airline fares.
So vote ‘leave’ and it’s Clacton, not Benidorm.
Yeah, right!
The current referendum campaign is the most shameful episode in recent British political history on a par with 1930s ‘appeasement’. Heir to Blair? Heir to Neville Chamberlain, more like.
This does not mean that the lacklustre Brexit’ campaign will get any better, split as it is between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
There is no coherent message, and it is way past time when they should be setting out the issues in plain language that people can understand, not just the ’pollies’ who occupy the Westminster village. Here are a few.
Should:
1. Westminster be the ultimate source of laws for the British?
2. The Supreme Court be the final legal authority for Britain, excluding any jurisdiction from any foreign court?
3. Britain have sole control over immigration, including terms of entry and visa policy?
4. Britain have sole responsibility for all public health matters, such as tobacco and alcohol policies? all consumer protection matters returned to Britain e.g. power of vacuum cleaners, standards for light bulbs?
5. Britain have complete control over fisheries and agriculture?
6. Our armed forces be merged into the proposed (but not disclosed) EU defence force?
And many more….
The outrageous ‘no-balls’ from Bremain should be whacked over the boundary right now. It’s not difficult.
‘Wages will fall’. The greatest threat to wage-levels is uncontrolled immigration from Eastern Europe as the €-zone falls deeper into recession.
‘House prices will fall’. And that’s bad? Not for first-time buyers in particular.
‘Unemployment will rise’. Like it has in the €-zone, to insane levels, especially under-25s, where it has hit 50 percent or more in some places?
‘Inflation will rise’. That’s a sign of a buoyant economy. But they say that the economy will shrink. Stagflation as in the €-zone, maybe?
‘Food prices will go up’. Hardly. The EU imposes swinging tariffs on the import of many foodstuffs. EU tariffs on agricultural products average 18 percent -- over four times more than charges on other goods, with isoglucose (sweetener derived from starch) hit hardest by a staggering 604 percent duty.
It would sell for 40 percent less than EU-produced sugar.
‘Farmers will lose their CAP subsidies’. Actually, the subsidy paid to farmers by Brussels is half what HMG pays into the CAP. It could double the subsidy without additional cost to the UK taxpayer.
Britain must decide whether it is to remain shackled to a corpse or free itself from a moribund economy (the slowest growth rate of any region in the world), a bloated, unaccountable, meddling and self-serving bureaucracy, and inevitable coalescence into an up-dated version of the Soviet Union, a collection of so-called republics slavishly answerable to Brussels.
The Daily Telegraph eloquently describes the EU ‘as an ultimately doomed, job-destroying, declining and mismanaged behemoth which stands no chance in an increasingly agile, globalised world’.
The alternative is for Britain to cut the painter.
After all, this is the world’s fifth largest economy and is destined to become the largest country in Western Europe as the population of Germany continues to fall.
As to governance, we have the perfect example of the attitude of Brussels towards democracy.
Boss Juncker (elected by nobody, of course) threatened the people of Austria that if they had the effrontery to vote for a ‘right wing’ President, then there would be serious repercussions. We have been here before , in 1999 when the elected Government of Austria was effectively black-balled by the EU.
Juncker is also making threatening noises in the direction of Hungary and Poland.
And yet the rise of the ‘far right’ is inexorable for the time being. Blame can be heaped on the centre-left and centre-right parties. They form cosy coalitions, as was the case in Austria since 1945 until recently.
The reaction of the people is ‘stitch-up’ and they look for alternatives, and this usually means ‘far right’, as there are few alternatives for the protest vote. The Eurocrats simply dismiss them as ‘neo-Nazi’.
The ultimate peril is that the EU will grow even more oppressive and authoritarian. Several member states have a solid track record of throwing the rascals out by force.
There are modern examples of political violence in Spain, Portugal, Greece, where the regimes were overthrown; Germany and Italy which suffered years of nihilistic terrorism; France, which was on the brink of civil war over the abandonment of Algeria, has a long tradition of revolution.
We now hear that Brussels has parked plans for an EU defence force until after the referendum for fear of the British reaction. This begs a huge question.
What is the raison d’etre? The defence of Europe is the task of NATO. There are only three countries, Britain, France and Poland, with the military capacity to be effective in a major conflict. So what would this rag-tag of un-battle ready, under-equipped, under-funded warriors actually be for that was not the business of NATO?
Could it possibly be for ‘internal security’, the repression of populist uprisings, especially amongst people who have known dictatorship in the recent past, and are not buying it again? Is the EU defence force for the protection of the Brussels oligarchy from the hoi-polloi?
To echo Leo Amery on 2 September 1939, ‘Speak for England, Dave!’
And finally:
‘’Fat cats with huge salaries should be cut in half’
UKIP leaflet.
Robin Mitchinson is a Contributing Editor to The Commentator. A former barrister, living in the Isle of Man, he is an international public management specialist with almost two decades of experience in institutional development, decentralisation and democratisation processes. He has advised governments and major international institutions across the world
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/6324/shameless_remain_s_willful_dishonesty_over_europe