I had a wobble during the weekend after the referendum result was known. I appeared to be on the wrong side of my demographic group. I’m a young (a-hem!), middle class (a-hem!), good-looking (a-hem!) university graduate. The demographic analysis suggests I should have voted Remain. Yet I was adamant that, right from the start, I was going to vote Leave. I have seen enough of EU behaviour over the years to appreciate the many downsides.
The more I read during the campaign the more confident of my decision I became. I could not understand why anyone with any intelligence would vote Remain. I knew that many would be convinced by the economic scare stories put out by the Treasury and many others would feel it was easier to stick with the status quo. But, I also knew there were many intelligent people – people in my demographic – who were convinced that the EU was the right future for the UK. I wondered what had I missed? What were they seeing that I couldn’t? I was convinced that I was a freedom fighter who had helped secure freedom for the UK from an undemocratic, unaccountable political body whose tentacles of control were, little by little, gaining full ownership of the future of the UK. But, somehow, I was not on the ‘cool’ side of the argument. The Leave side are not seen as Freedom Fighters. We are seen as xenophobes and racists and Little Englanders. So I decided to write down my views. I felt that documenting my views would help me better understand my thinking.
At heart, I believe in small government: I believe that people should have the freedom to get on with their lives with only minimal interference from local, national and supranational governments. And that is the first reason why I have an issue with the EU. The EU is a classic example of big government at work: the EU wants to regulate everything. The EU prides itself on creating lots of rules and lots of regulations. Those regulations stifle competition and innovation. But, more than that, the EU is very unaccountable for the laws that it brings into existence. I view the EU as a ‘matrix’ like structure: a system of control.
Another fundamental reason why I distrust the EU is that it has no mandate from the people of the EU28 to continue in the direction it is going: EU is being driven from the top down, not from the bottom up. I will describe this in more detail later in the document.
Let’s start off with a brief review of how the EU works: The unelected EU Commissioners are responsible for setting the strategy for the EU and for formulating the laws that will allow the strategy to be met. The Commissioners work closely with EU multinational firms to agree on the most suitable strategies to follow and then propose new laws that are designed to deliver the strategies. The MEPs simply vote on the laws that are presented to them by the unelected EU Commission. As Perry Anderson says when referring to the lack of democracy within the European Parliament:
‘It does not possess the rights to elect a government, to initiate legislation, to levy taxes, to shape welfare or determine a foreign policy… In short, it is the semblance of a parliament, as ordinarily understood, that falls far short of the reality of one.’
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/10/05/a-very-european-coup/
Every so often the EU decides it wants more powers and the leaders of the 28 countries give the go ahead for those new powers (eg Maastricht Treaty and Lisbon Treaty). Very few countries allow their citizens to vote on the proposals via a referendum (and in those countries that do, the result is usually ignored. More on this later). The objectives and policies of the EU do not form part of the national political debate. Nothing that the EU introduces comes from the will of the people. Everything is decided by a group of professional bureaucrats and unelected Commissioners and then rubber-stamped by national governments and / or MEPs. Got that? OK, let’s continue…
In England, if the government brings in a proposal for a change in the law, we can protest: Every person has a single MP representing the constituents’ interests in parliament. We can write to that MP expressing our dissatisfaction. We can meet that MP at a constituency surgery. We can hold peaceful demonstrations in public places to raise the profile of our dissatisfaction. And, if those measures still do not deliver a review of government policy, we can choose to riot (but only if absolutely necessary). There is a huge amount of transparency in the British parliament: we know
who is responsible for the legislation that we don’t like and we know what we can do to try to force the government to reconsider. We saw the power of the British people to change the government’s mind recently when the government were proposing to remove tax credits: There was a very immediate and very huge uproar directed at the government. The uproar was enough to force the government to shelve its plans very quickly. This was a perfect example of the accountability of the UK government at work.
We do not have the same ability to influence the EU. Firstly, we don’t have a single MEP. MEP’s are allocated to a region of the UK based on proportional representation of the votes cast in that region. I live in the region of ‘Eastern England’. There are 7 MEPs allocated to Eastern England. Which one should I contact? All of them? Would it make a difference? There does not appear to be much in the way of accountability. Every single EU regulation is presented as a fait accompli. There are no options to change the EU’s mind. Plus, whose fault is it? To whom do we protest? And where? Do we protest to the EU commissioners? Or to one of the 5 EU presidents? Or to the European parliament? In Brussels or in Strasbourg? Or to our MEPs? Or is it our own government’s fault for not lobbying effectively against the measure when they had the chance? If we protest in the UK, is anyone in the EU going to know about it? Or care about it? There is not the same transparency as to who is to blame for unpopular legislation. The UK government blames the EU and we all have to just get on with it. Instead, EU legislation comes, thick and fast and there’s nothing we can do about it: there are just too many layers of responsibility for anyone to know how to direct a protest effectively. This means the EU is not accountable. And because it is unaccountable, it is undemocratic. You can tell me that the EU is democratic because of this and that voting system and the fact that certain decisions have to be unanimous etc etc. But these are all processes within the European Parliament. There are not processes available at grass-roots level to reflect public opinion or public disapproval. Furthermore, the EU will not retain unanimous voting systems for ever. There are already signs that national interests are being overruled at EU level. More on this later.
Democracy has to be experienced. The EU is not democratic if people don’t share the experience that it is democratic. If the EU is ignoring swathes of people, it is, by definition, not democratic. It is a meta-parliament: It is, therefore, removed and remote from the people it serves. This creates a tangible disconnect between the EU and the European electorate. Various EU ‘experts’ – eg Prof. Michael Duggan – talk about the ‘’entire bookshelf of analysis’’ that prove the benefits provided by the EU. I’m sure this is the case: there are lots of benefits to being part of a protectionist bloc like the EU with the amount of money it has at its disposal. However, I’m fairly confident that the self-same analysis overlooks the lack of engagement that people have with the EU. People believe that nothing they say or do or feel counts at the EU level: the EU is a remorseless steam-roller that will bring its plans into being, come what may. Democracy and accountability are difficult concepts to quantify but that doesn’t mean they should be ignored.
Let’s highlight some points about transparency, borrowed from here:
The European Commission is the bureaucratic, legislative head, ruling with, well, the rule book – the wilfully impenetrable 90,000-page aquis communitaire, ‘the longest and most formidable written monument of bureaucratic expansion in human history’. The European Central Bank, established in 1999, is as secretive and as without scrutiny as the ECJ. And the European Council, comprising the elected heads of the member states, again operates entirely behind closed doors. This is not a council of equals, but a hierarchy, headed by the powerful duoply of France and Germany
Turnout for the EU elections are very low. This is further evidence that people feel that their voice does not count at a European level. And turnouts have been falling in UK General Elections. These are further indicators of voter disenfranchisement fuelled, in part, by the influence of the EU on UK politics.
So the EU is big, inefficient – refer to monthly migration of EU Parliament to Strasbourg for evidence of just one EU inefficiency – non-transparent, unaccountable and undemocratic. It is also a force that stifles competition and innovation. The EU is the natural bed-fellow of big business. The regulations that the EU imposes are no problem for big business: Big business can afford to comply with the regulations. But small business can’t. New businesses can’t. For example, why are SMEs having to follow ‘Harmonising maximum working hours regulations’? Or ‘Directives on collective redundancies’? Why is the EU even getting involved in things like this? What have these got to do with free trade? Shouldn’t aspects like these lie with national governments?
Only six per cent of British companies do any business at all with the rest of the EU; yet 100 per cent of our firms must apply 100 per cent of EU regulations (representing 85% of the economy). How can small businesses with great ideas and people become the big businesses of the future when there is such a regulatory overhead? In the EU, I would say it is impossible. The next ‘Apple Computers’ won’t come out of the EU: if there’s a new Steve Jobs in the EU now, we will likely never hear of him because his company would be very unlikely to grow that big. The small business with a great idea will be bought by the big business. So big business is propped up. Big business becomes more of a monopoly than ever with fewer, bigger players dictating the market. That’s not going to be good for consumers in the long run. However, it certainly explains why big businesses are such firm supporters of the EU.
Big businesses keen to protect themselves from disruption certainly find a sympathetic ear in Brussels:
Vast vested interests are ranged against innovation, especially in Brussels, where big business and big pressure groups swarm all over the Commission and parliament. For example, the green movement raised a lot of money by opposing agricultural bio-technology and fracking; big pharma tried hard to kill vaping to protect its nicotine patches and gums through an EU directive.
I’ll talk more about the lobbying of the EU by large corporations later in the document.
Remainers believe that the EU is of itself a ‘good thing’. This seems to be based on a feeling that we are “stronger in” or we are “building bridges”. The aim of a United Europe is seen as such a noble ambition that the EU cannot be anything but a force for good, right? But being part of a larger group is not inherently a good thing. It is not a good thing if that grouping is undemocratic or non-transparent or unaccountable. I know lots of people who are hyper-critical of UK governments but are prepared to ignore what is happening at the EU level. They suspend critical analysis because they inherently trust that the EU motives are noble and pure and that the EU can only ever be considered a ‘good thing’. I don’t believe that you can ever rely on ‘trust’ when it comes to political organisations and certainly not when it comes to an organisation with the power and remit of the EU.
We must not take democracy for granted. Democracy is easy to lose but very hard to gain. We must apply the same levels of scepticism and mistrust at the EU level as we do at the national level, even though this is difficult given the lack of transparency within the EU. So, I find myself in the position where I am the anti-establishment voice and the traditional anti-establishment voices are supporting the establishment. Wow! I didn’t see that coming.
The vote to Leave the EU has served the sort of blow to the global elites that left-wingers are always claiming to crave. And yet Labour party members – including Momentum and hardcore Corbynistas – hate Brexit with every fibre of their being.
Why do people place more trust in a huge, unknowable, bureaucratic organisation like the EU than in the UK’s own politicians? Is it that familiarity breeds contempt? Do we hold our own politicians in contempt because we are too exposed to them? Conversely, are EU politicians brushed with the noblest of intentions because we don’t know them? I dont know. Perhaps, it’s just that the more layers of Government there are, the more secure the Big Statists feel? The EU is seen as a Utopia. It is seen as a vision of an idealised future state when the petty jealousies of nations are removed and we all live in one big, happy society. I don’t believe in this version of the future at all. Humans are petty and arbitrary and jealous and ambitious and make bad decisions. We have seen that with Tony Blair (Re Chilcot Report. In fact, the Chilcot Report is another great example of UK Democracy. Would such an enquiry happen at the EU level?). The fewer the number of people in power there are, the greater the chance of bad decisions being made: the more chance of ‘group-think’ or the cult of personality coming into play. This will happen when 28 parliaments are replaced by one. If you don’t trust politicians, you should not be handing unknown EU politicians ever more power. Are you confident that there are suitable checks and balances within the EU to prevent domination by a single person? There is no reason that you should be: the EU is a recent, man-made construct that has not evolved over hundreds of years to be fit-for-purpose.
I appreciate that the EU government offers a level of consistency that it not available at the national level. At the national level, governments switch from left to right and back again on a regular basis. Each switch is accompanied by a change of focus as the direction of the previous government is abandoned and a new approach implemented. This compares unfavourably to the EU: The EU does not have to undergo the shocks of elections causing about-turns in policy and direction. The EU is designed in such a way that changes to the constituent MEPs does not impact on the business of meeting EU objectives. In this way, the EU can pursue a long-term strategy that is not subject to the de-railing effects of elections. Good, huh? Of course, the downside to this calm consistency is that the EU is not answerable to the changing moods of public opinion. National governments change because the electorate changes its mind as to what the priorities of the government should be. Or the voters are not satisfied with the performance of the previous government. Either way, the electorate has the privilege of replacing the government at certain intervals. This is further evidence of the accountability of the national government: if the government performs poorly, or fails to reflect the public mood, it can expect to be toppled from power. The fact that such a change is not possible at the EU level is further proof that the EU is immune from accountability: the EU has its long term strategy and it has its order book of laws needed to meet its strategy. The EU is not deflected by popular opinion. EU business can carry on regardless. The replacememt of MEPs in European elections does not make any difference to the direction of the EU. The EU commissioners are not elected. The components of the EU parliament may change but the government of the EU parliament does not change. The EU is designed to be like this. It’s undemocratic.
To me, the difference between the UK and EU government models can be described as follows: The UK is driven from the bottom whereas the EU is driven from the top. This is further evidence of the lack of democracy at the heart of the EU: a democratic Government has to be ‘by the people, for the people’. The EU is being driven by a group of professional bureaucrats that want to make significant progress on EU integration during the timescale of their own careers. This top-down approach has undoubtedly inflamed anti-EU sentiment across Europe. What is the EU’s response to such sentiment? Nothing. What was the EU’s response when David Cameron attempted to renegotiate the UK’s relationship? Nothing. The EU is not for turning. I find such arrogance from the EU to be very unnerving. Unsurprisingly, the static unaccountability of the EU has had a direct impact on the growth of populist political parties across Europe, as voters turn to the only parties that are listening. And all because the EU is not accountable to the people it purports to serve.
I can think of another example, at another time, when Europe was dominated by a top-down system of control: an organisation that was all-powerful and totally non-transparent and was
inflexible and unaccountable and forced lots of rules on a membership that had no alternative. That organisation was the Catholic Church. Germany led the Reformation that broke the power of the Catholic Church and lead to Protestantism as an alternative religion for Christians. Maybe the UK voting to leave the EU is the 21st century equivalent of Martin Luther nailing his theses to the church door. Time will tell.
The lesson is that people resent top-down control. The EU is very similar to a religion – any religion – in this respect in that religions operate a top-down approach where the word of God is interpreted by those at the top of the church and the tenets – laws! – are passed down to the clergy to pass onto the congregation. The congregation has no influence over the powers at the top of the tree. This is the same with EU voters. It’s not democracy.
I want to tackle this idea, popular amongst Remainers, that the referendum was “unfair” because people didn’t understand the issues. What they mean by this, of course, is that the knuckle-dragging trolls that voted ‘Leave’ didn’t understand the issues! This is a hugely patronising conclusion. Everyone voted based on their own experience of the EU. Leavers mostly voted for reasons associated with Nationalism. The good-looking, middle class, university graduates that we met in my opening paragraph mostly voted for reasons associated with Globalism. These are two ways of looking at the world. Each view is based on the perspective of the holder: the working class have a strong sense of national identity based on strong evolutionary principles whereby your survival is strongly linked to trusting people that are similar to you. The middle classes have, in recent years, adopted a Globalist outlook by way of differentiating themselves from the working classes. They aren’t much more rational than anyone else though. This demographic is terrified of being thought racist or xenophobic in any way. Liberal Globalism is the result of upbringing and education and has nothing to do with any analytical thinking the middle classes may have conducted into the EU. George Orwell summed up this mentality as follows:
“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God save the King than of stealing from a poor box.”
In supporting the EU, liberals are signalling their status: they are showing off their progressive credentials to other liberals. This is nothing to do with an analysis of the pro’s and con’s of the EU and everything to do with class. The fact that the working classes are largely against the EU has made support of the EU the perfect vehicle for liberals to flag their socio-economic status. EU-philia is like a badge or a secret code. It signals that you are a certain type: a type that is in tune with the liberal orthodoxy that rules supreme over the cultural landscape. As Daniel Hannan, MEP, has said:
“The EU is a high-status idea so it is not surprising that high-status individuals support it”.
As an idea, the EU has merits. However, the reality of the EU includes far more negatives than positives (as this document intends to show). On average, Remainers spent no more time deciding how to vote in the EU referendum than Leavers did. In fact, I would argue that Leavers spent more time on their decision: a positive vote for change always requires more commitment than a negative vote for the status quo. Preserving the status quo doesn’t require thought. It’s habit! I would also say that the ‘Leave’ votes of the working classes are somewhat more valid since these votes were rooted in pragmatic concerns, both economic (salary suppression, house price escalation, access to public services) and quality of life deterioration – whereas the ‘Remain’ votes of liberals were linked to softer ideas around status-signalling and feelings of progressiveness.
There is a category of Remain voter that hugely dislikes the USA and believes – maybe correctly – that the UK is in the pocket of the USA. This demographic wants to be more closely aligned with the EU in order to reduce the influence of the USA on the UK. Does it have to be one or the other ‘controlling’ the UK? I don’t think so. There is no reason why the UK can’t be fully independent (we just need Prime Ministers that won’t write “I will be with you, whatever” when US Presidents want the UK to be involved in their foreign wars):
https://www.channel4.com/news/chilcot-inquiry-blair-i-will-be-with-you-whatever
I would argue that it is not rational to choose to be a vassal state of the EU just because you don’t want to be a vassal state of the USA. This isn’t a binary choice!
I voted Leave because the EU does not engage with the citizens. The EU is not accountable. It is anti-competitive. It is obsessed with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ hegemony. It is not transparent. It does not explain itself. It is not humble. As Steve Hilton says:
“The EU is too big, too bureaucratic and distant from the human scale”.
Its powers are not defined, understood or controlled. The EU started life as a trade agreement. Since then its remit has continued to grow. I find that when Remainers refer to the EU, they picture it as a static entity. Remainers ignore the fact that the EU has never been static: the remit of the EU has grown continuously since its inception, both in terms of membership and powers.
The EU will continue to grow. For example, we hear Merkel stating that the solution to Europe’s problems lie in greater political and economic union. I read of plans to pool the budgets of all member states and create a single central bank that will replace individual central banks. I have read the German Finance minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, quoting Mitterrand’s famous line “Nationalism means war” (“Nationalisme: c’est la guerre”) and, together with the French Foreign Minister (Jean-Marc Ayrault), producing a statement calling for a new EU “fiscal capacity”, “a permanent civil-military chain of command”, the “harmonisation of criminal law” and an “integrated European asylum, refugee and migration policy”:
(Evening Standard, 7th July 2016).
The Belgian commissioner, Marianne Thyssen wants to harmonise welfare systems across the EU28. It’s a deliberate attempt to weaken national identities on order to bring forth a federal superstate. Juncker has also been referring to the need for a European Army.
Do we get a chance to discuss these things? No! There is no published and agreed end to what the EU’s remit will be. There is no EU manifesto published prior to EU elections. At every piece of bad news some powerful European politician will announce that the solution is to have “more Europe”! It is clear that the EU will continue to grab control of more and more areas of remit that currently lie with national governments.
Many Remainers I have engaged with deny that the above comments mean that the EU has any plans to evolve into a Federalist state. This displays a staggering level of wilful ignorance. The introduction of the Euro was a big step towards Federalism. Many of the EU Treaties, such as the ‘Treaty of Rome’ and the Maastricht Treaty explicitly refer to “ever closer union’. Each Treaty moves us ever closer to Federalism. We can all see the direction of travel: each Treaty takes us further from a ‘trading bloc’ and closer towards integration. But we must all pretend this isn’t happening. We are being taken on a journey where we are not allowed to see more than two steps in front of us. We are being shepherded. Like sheep. The Lisbon Treaty was presented as not being a constitution when it is.
I find the EU’s lack of transparency to be very alarming. What is more alarming is that the media and UK politicians don’t hold it to account. Ultimately, EU Supporters want to portray the EU as it exists in their imaginations. They are not so concerned with reality. EU Supporters have already decided that they will support whatever the EU wants to do.
Taking it as a given that a federal superstate is the obscured objective of the EU, let’s not forget the lessons of history: every multi-nation superstate in history – from the Roman Empire to the Hapsburg Empire to the USSR – has ultimately collapsed. The EU will also collapse one day. People do not like being part of a superstate, governed by a remote, unaccountable authority. If small countries like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia can’t stay united, what chance is there for the EU? Even the UK has had trouble remaining united over the last 50 years. Empires fail because they do not have the will of the people. The EU does not have the will of the people. A very small percentage of the EU28 population has had the opportunity to support the EU in a referendum.
There is no open debate taking place as to the final scope of the EU. We are building something that we don’t understand. My fear is that at some point in the future, we could realise that the EU has too much power but by then it could be too late. When the EU becomes self-aware, it will be too late. Someone had to shout “STOP” so that reflection and discussion could take place.
What do I mean when I refer to the EU becoming ‘self-aware’? By ‘self-aware’ I am referring to the ability of the EU to impose its will on national governments without reference to the voting systems that are currently in place. I believe the first signs of the EU throwing its weight around are emerging: On 6th September 2017 the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that member states would be forced to accept thousands of asylum seekers under a compulsory quota system. Hungary and Slovakia, with the support of other eastern member states, went to the court to block the EU decision to relocate 120,000 Syrian and other asylum seekers. The Eastern States tried to challenge the EU and lost. These are democratically elected governments being forced by an unelected EU-politburo to toe the line. Here we see evidence of the EU making a decision and then forcing that decision on member states through EU courts. This will happen more and more in the future. This stuff needs to be challenged now. The opportunity for challenging the remit of the EU grows ever smaller. Those ‘unanimous’ voting systems that people refer to when highlighting the democracy of the EU are a mirage. We have passed the ‘tipping point’ where the EU has more power than national governments, via the Treaties that have already been signed. The EU will use those powers more and more. It’s worth pointing out the points Perry Anderson made about the ECJ:
‘Secretive and situated high above the political fray, the ECJ is unique among supreme and constitutional courts in any democracy – in that its rulings are entirely resistant to abrogation or alteration on the part of an elected legislature…The truth is it would be difficult to conceive of a judicial institution in the West that, from its tenebrous outset onwards, was purer of any trace of democratic accountability.’
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/10/05/a-very-european-coup/
Politically, the EU can best be summed up by this quote from John O’Sullivan (The Spectator, 27th Jan. 2018):
“In the old left versus right world, both sides essentially accepted that the other would win power occasionally. But now we have a centrist establishment in Europe that does not really accept the right of its challengers to come to power. And when they do, it casts them as being illegitimate, or extremists, and seeks to use supranational legal and political powers to constrain or oust them.”
The powers at the top of the EU are determined to wipe out nationalism. Yet, the paradox is that the EU is gaining all the trappings of a nation: it has a flag and a currency and an anthem and a parliament and a constitution and a President (5 actually). And soon it will have an army. At some point in the not too distant future it will be able to decide who it wants to go war against. To me, a single nation of 500m is much more threatening and wields much more power than 28 separate countries with the same aggregate population. There are more checks and balances against misuse of power if we have 28 countries all trying to get along together than if we replace them with a single superstate.
Do we really want the EU asserting itself on the world stage as a 3rd SuperPower, facing off against China and USA? I don’t want that. I feel that such a position would make Europe a target. And, anyway, isn’t Europe more interesting being made up of different countries with different cultures than being a homogenised block? I certainly believe that the diversity of cultures within Europe drove Europe’s incredible success over the last 2,000 years.
I don’t want to be over-dramatic but I keep thinking of the parallels with George Orwell’s ‘1984’. Is this the way the EU is going? Let’s look at the comparisons: The state of Oceania (North America and Britain) in ‘1984’ is all-powerful, it has no competition and it does not need to consider public opinion. It is undemocratic. The Government of Oceania wants its citizens to think of the other 2 global superstates as the enemy (Eastasia and Eurasia in the book. China and Europe in real life). It’s all coming true, isn’t it? The EU wants to flex its power on the World stage with the US and China being the obvious ‘competition’. We have seen in Russia and China within the last 100 years that new systems of government are often no better than the systems they replaced. If we are going to have a new form of government operating at the continental level, it is in everyone’s interests to ensure that such a government is no worse than what it replaces. I have no confidence that will be the case. I did not like that we were building this ever more powerful body that we had no control over. We have to be on our guard against the EU having too much power. As Sir Richard Aikens, the former Lord Justice of Appeal has stated by way of explaining his decision to vote Leave:
“I was not prepared to swap my democratic birthright for a mess of pottage”
EU supporters claim that the EU has prevented European wars of the kind that have blighted the last 1000 years of European history. I respond that the EU has nothing to do with it: instead, as communication and transportation have made the world smaller, European nations have realised that there are other foes to worry about. There are many dictatorships and totalitarian governments in the world that present much more of a security risk than the democratic governments of fellow European countries. In Europe, far more unites us than divides us. We don’t need the EU to appreciate that.
EU Supporters also claim that the anti-terrorism abilities of our security services will be compromised if we leave the EU. This is nonsense. The UK has bipartisan information sharing agreements with a number of trusted countries. This information sharing has nothing to do with the EU. Plus, the UK is still going to be a member of NATO. It is NATO and not the EU that provides security to the UK from international attack. EU supporters like to paint the picture that everything good that happens is because of the EU. And everything bad could be fixed if only the EU were in charge of it.
Another aspect of the EU that I object to is its eagerness to participate in self-promotional propaganda. For example, the EU funds thousands of ‘Monnet Scholars”. These are University Professors that are sponsored by the EU to promote the EU:
“The programme includes the network of Jean Monnet European Centres of Excellence, university-level institutions recognised by the European Commission for high quality research into, and teaching of, topics relating to European integration. The program was originally launched in 1989 and helped to set up 162 Jean Monnet European Centres of Excellence, 875 Jean Monnet Chairs and 1001 Jean Monnet Teaching Modules. These projects bring together 1,500 professors, and reach approximatively 500,000 students every year.”
I am uncomfortable with the idea of a political organisation indulging in this this kind of propaganda. I am also uncomfortable that this propaganda is being directed at University students. I am further uncomfortable with the fact that this funding is covert. During the build-up to the referendum, one pro-EU video that went viral was a talk by Professor Michael Duggan at the University of Liverpool. Professor Duggan spent 18 minutes espousing the virtues of the EU without making clear that, as a Monnet Scholar, he receives funding from the EU to promote the EU. Political propaganda is usually undertaken by totalitarian regimes. I don’t find it acceptable that this is going on and most members of the public are completely unaware of it. Are the UK’s universities strongly pro-EU because of the amount of EU funding they receive? And because of the amount of EU propaganda they have been subjected to?
Whilst I have your attention, let me describe the ‘jobs for the boys’ culture in play within the EU: senior EU politicians usually walk into heavily remunerated roles with multi-nationals as soon as they relinquish their EU roles. For example, Jonathan Hill – the UK’s former (unelected) EU commissioner – had taken on 6 lucrative roles with multi-national firms within 2 years of leaving his post: Aviva Insurance; Deloitte; Freshfields; Iberdrola; Times Newspapers and UBS. Is it probable that Mr Hill was offered at least some of these positions whilst still in his role as commissioner? It seems likely. Either way, this represents a huge conflict of interest. The role of a commissioner is to define the laws that will be voted on by the EU parliament. Who was Mr Hill representing during his time at the top of the EU power structure: multi-national firms or the citizens of Europe?
“…the vast multi-nationals, oil majors, investment banks, and others can all outgun the rest with huge budgets. The ability to take on hired guns (like Lord Hill) potentially gives them massive commercial advantage.” (Diane James, City AM, 31st July 2018).
This is by no means an isolated incident: it is the norm, not the exception. The EU must be for the benefit of the EU citizens, not for the benefit of global firms. How can people tolerate this abuse of power and privilege? Well, the main reason is that people are not aware of it because the EU is neither transparent nor accountable. I know that this also happens to national level politicians. However, it is much more visible at a national level. George Osborne, for example, has come in for heavy criticism for the roles he has accepted since he ran away from government. Jonathan Hill, on the other hand, not so much.
And let’s discuss that other EU activity that stinks to high heaven: EU lobbyists. Giant corporations and industry groups employ 30,000 lobbyists that are focused on winning influence and directing EU legislation to suit their clients’ corporate goals. It seems way too cosy: EU politicians are being schmoozed by Global firms whilst in office and then parachuting into well paid jobs with those same firms once their turn at the top is over. Is the law up for sale in Brussels? Those 30,000 lobbyists are delivering results – 75% of EU legislation is the result of lobbying. But don’t take my word for it. Here is confirmation from a 2014 article in The Guardian (written in the days before The Guardian blocked any criticism of the EU):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/lobbyists-european-parliament-brussels-corporate
And here is a film on YouTube about the EU lobbying industry that everyone should watch:
The film explains that EU politicians are working hand-in-hand with multinational firms to ensure that legislation meets the needs of those firms. This film sickened me.
Is there any wonder, then, that prior to the referendum, all CEOs of FTSE100 companies that expressed a preference – 36 out of 100 – wanted Britain to remain in the EU? It’s no surprise: these firms get to set their own rules. Plus, the lack of transparency and accountability within the EU allows them to lobby for their firms’ best interests with no downside; the amount of EU regulation gives multi-nationals an advantage over small firms since their relative size gives them synergies of scale; and the single market suppresses wages which allows multinationals keep their wage costs down.
The EU lobbying system is no better than the cronyism and corporate interests that exists in the US. I never thought I would see left-wingers siding with Big Business, but Brexit has led to some very strange bed-fellows.
Let’s now look at the EU-related referenda that have taken place over the last few years: Between February and July 2005, 4 EU countries (Spain; France; Netherlands & Luxembourg) held referenda on the subject of a ‘Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe’. Both France and Netherlands voted against the Treaty (May and June, 2005). At this point, the EU pulled the plug on this Treaty and subsequent referenda scheduled to vote on the Treaty in Poland; Portugal and UK were pulled. At the time, Joes Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, said in relation to the referanda that rejected the Constitution Treaty:
“They must go on voting until they get it right.”
Unfortunately, the countries in question were not even given a second chance to “get it right”. The EU re-branded the ‘Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe’ and called it the Lisbon Treaty (2007). Commentators recognise that the Lisbon Treaty is an EU Constitution in all but name. However, this time around none of the countries – with the exception of Ireland – that were offered a referendum previously repeated the offer. The Lisbon Treaty was signed by all EU nations – including France and Netherlands, where referenda had previously rejected the Treaty – with little or no national debate. The only exception was Ireland (see below). This shameless abjection of democracy sickens me and deepens my distrust of the EU. A cynic may well be heard to say that referenda were no longer offered because the EU – and national leaders (let’s not forget their culpability in this) – did not want to take the risk on what the result might be. The EU treats public opinion as an obstacle to overcome, not a reason to change direction.
Ireland, however, was offered a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. This is because Irish Law insists that referenda must be offered on issues of national sovereignty. Basically, Ireland had no choice but to offer a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Ireland duly rejected the Lisbon Treaty in June 2008. But the EU did not give up. Ireland was given another chance to “get it right” in October 2009 – just as the credit crunch was biting – and this time voted in favour of an unchanged Treaty. This was a repeat of the Irish referendum on the Nice treaty: In 2001, Irish voters rejected the Nice Treaty. Ireland was made to vote again in 2002 – this time accompanied by huge campaign in favour of the ‘Yes’ vote. Ireland duly voted ‘Yes’ in 2002 and this was the result that was accepted as being the ‘correct’ result. Wherefore art thou, Democracy?
The lack of debate on EU Treaties means that the UK Government has not had any meaningful way of determining popular opinion on the EU: All EU treaties are signed by the Prime Minster of the day with as little fanfare as possible. The Maastricht Treaty (1992) was signed by John Major; The Nice Treaty (2001) was signed by Tony Blair; The Lisbon Treaty (2007) was signed by Gordon Brown. There was no apparatus put in place to establish public opinion on these abjections of UK sovereignty. There were no referenda. The treaties also did not form part of the dialogue of a General Election. Instead, there was a political consensus in the UK, across the political parties, that these Treaties were good and that the UK should sign them. As a result, British people realise that future treaties, taking the UK deeper into the EU, would also be signed by the PM of the day without reference to the will of the populace. People realised that the EU Referendum in 2016 was going to be the last chance they would have to voice an opinion of the EU. That goes a long way to explaining the ‘Leave’ vote.
Finally, I did not like the sound of the Financial Transaction Tax that has been proposed by Juncker. I believe it would have been implemented and I believe it would be been to the massive detriment of the UK financial sector. I believe that the UK government will be outvoted on this measure. My experience is that the UK government mostly loses when it tries to protect its interests at the EU level (refer to UK fishing industry). Other examples in the EU pipeline – as of 2016 – are licensing rules that would decimate the London art market and the ‘Ports Service Directive’ which was opposed by every commercial port in Britain, every trade union and every British MEP and yet was set to become EU law just prior to the referendum. Regulations like these should be set at a local level, not by a remote centralised bureaucracy aiming at hegemony.
In fact, I believe that any EU country with a strong vested interest in something will tend to lose out on things that are important to them because they will always be outnumbered by the other 27 countries. You could say that a single county – or country! – in the UK faces similar odds at the national level. That’s true. But it doesn’t make it a good thing. I did not want to take the chance that the UK could be turned over by the EU in the same way that parts of the UK have been turned over by the UK government. We must not ‘hope’ that the EU will protect the UK’s special interests.
Shortly after the referendum, I read a comment in the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ online forum that struck a chord with me. The subject was on the breakdown of the vote along class lines. The comment was as follows:
“… people that do well from high property values, relatively low personal taxation and low costs of labour supported membership of the neo liberal EU. People that were adversely affected by low stagnant wages, overcrowded schools, poor access to GPs, were less likely to be convinced of the benefits of freewheeling globalisation.”
Having just read through what I have written above, I am convinced that I voted the right way. The EU does not fit with human psychology and it does not fit with history. I voted the way that is better suited to how humans are: humans want accountability and transparency and democracy and choice and a feeling that their voice counts. The 40 year political consensus that existed within the UK with respect to the EU – where every political party has the same pro-EU view – had to end: it was increasingly disconnected from the wishes of the electorate – 95% of Labour MPs voted ‘Remain’ in 2016! The Establishment desperately wanted the UK to stay in the EU: most of the MPs; most of the Aristocracy; most of the media; most of the celebrities; most of the multinational corporations etc etc. That should be a big enough clue that leaving the EU is the right thing to do: when all of the Establishment wants something, you can guarantee that it is not going to be for the benefit of the British working class. Unless you want the rich to get richer, perhaps?
With a small government completely at our control we can act in our best interests and have full accountability. I hope we can also build strong bridges with other nations. Britain is an innovative, competitive pro-market economy and I want it to stay like that. I accept that there is an upfront cost to Brexit . But I would rather pay the cost to back out of a mistake than continue on what is undoubtedly a descent into a sluggish, federal European superstate the accountability of which appears to be highly dubious. I firmly believe that, in the medium term, the UK will be better off outside the EU. We will be better off in terms of living in an innovative, competitive economy supported by a legal system that is the envy of the world.
I believe that a curtailed EU will make the world a safer place by not having a concentrated centre of power. I believe that the UK will be better off financially once we are free of the over-zealous rules and regulations that have been applied across every strata of national life.
The EU is a political experiment that does not consider the natures of the peoples it is meant to be serving. The EU has tried to do too much, too soon. And it will fail. One potential fault-line within the EU lies between the Globalist EU core (France / Germany / Belgium / Holland) and the Nationalist European newcomers (Poland / Hungary / Bulgaria / Slovakia etc). The newcomers have joined the EU not only for the economic benefits but also as a protection from Russia. These countries are very nationalistic in nature. I expect this difference in ideology to become a source of increased tension in coming years. Not to mention the economic fault-line between northern and southern EU countries.
Brexit will remove power from the EU and place it back in the hands of UK citizens. As William Wallace once shouted in a famous film: “FREEDOM”!
Atticus Fox 
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