The sobering truth about Britain and the EU
It is a well-known fact that membership of the EU has mired us in a quagmire of regulation created by faceless bureaucrats who impose their unelected agenda on poor British people, inhibiting our lives and business with absurd rules. The classic example comes in this analysis of the words in various documents:
Lord's Prayer – 66 words
10 Commandments – 179 words
Gettysburg accost – 286 words
European union regulations on the sale of cabbage – 26,911 words.
There you have it. We would clearly be amend off if nosotros were out of Europe and could decide for ourselves on our own cabbage-growing requirements.
Except that it isn't true. As the BBC's More or Less demonstrated this week, this case is a complete fabrication—and, bizarrely, the number 26,911 goes dorsum to a statistic quoted in 1945, before the EU fifty-fifty existed! There used to be some regulations on vegetable sizes and forms, only the EU sensibly decided to abolish them. In fact there are some regulations nigh the growing of cabbages, and they run to 23,510 words—and they are written in Britain by a British farmer as part of the British Red Tractor assurance scheme.
This illustrates a worrying reality about the debates on the EU in the run-upwardly to the referendum: not many voters will exist making a well-informed conclusion based on the facts, non least considering they are often so complex and speculative. The Economist highlights the dangers:
…Voters will be influenced non past a cool calculation of costs and benefits but by their general view of Europe. And in the midst of a huge refugee crisis and stuck in the economic doldrums, Europe does not look inviting. Referendums are ever unpredictable: a sudden shock in the markets, or even a terrorist incident, could swing voters. In that location is all to play for.
This is the disturbing conclusion to an commodity that focuses on the serious dangers effectually possible Brexit in a whole raft or areas—gratis trade deals, which are unlikely to include services so vital to our economy, freedom from regulation, which likely won't materialise, immigration, which cannot be controlled without sacrificing trading arrangements, security, diplomacy and sovereignty. In purely economic terms, it doesn't look expert.
The immediate effects of a Brexit vote are probable to be bad. Prolonged incertitude over Britain's new human relationship with the EU will discourage investment, specially foreign direct investment, of which Britain is the biggest internet recipient in the EU. This is particularly worrying for a state with a big electric current-account deficit that must be financed by capital inflows…
The longer-term furnishings of Brexit are besides probable to be adverse.
It has been argued that the EU will want to requite a post-Brexit UK adept terms for trade. But that looks wildly optimistic.
The incentive for other Eu countries is not to human activity with generosity. A decision to leave will exist seen by many as a hostile and destabilising act for a union that is already in deep problem. Voters across Europe are disillusioned with Brussels. Populist parties in France, the Netherlands, Italy and elsewhere are watching the Brexit debate closely. The European union will be desperate to prove that a decision to leave does not have a painless event…
The idea that nosotros will have leverage in future merchandise deals ignores the fact that the relative importance of trade to the Great britain and to the EU is completely asymmetric.
…[Information technology is] asserted that both sides take a strong interest in a free-trade deal. This is true but any deal is unlikely to comprehend services. The second is to claim that, because Britain runs a large trade arrears with other EU countries, they demand the British market more than Uk needs theirs. This is a fallacy: Britain accounts for only x% of Eu exports, while the EU takes almost half of Great britain'due south. Moreover, most of the British trade arrears with the Eu is with just 2 countries, Germany and Espana—even so a trade agreement must be endorsed by the other 25 members too.
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) develops the case for remaining in the Eu on the ground of merchandise deals. Being in the European union gives united states of america easier admission to global markets, includes us in more comprehensive deals, to more than other countries, and on more than favourable terms, with lower tariffs, and in a shorter fourth dimension, and thus boosting the economy, than any deals we could strike on our own. The last paragraph looks to the future.
Priority must be given to completing the deals with Japan and the Usa – giving United kingdom business easier access to 2/3 of the world's markets by value. The European union-US deal (TTIP) could add £10bn to the UK economy past attracting more than investment, cutting cherry tape and increasing consumer option. The deal would besides prepare the bar for regulatory standards around the world.
Have you heard of TTIP? That's right, it is the merchandise agreement which it is claimed will fundamentally undermine our services, jobs and fifty-fifty our democracy.
As a bi-lateral trade agreement, TTIP is about reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for large business organization, things like nutrient safety law, ecology legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations. It is, as John Hilary, Executive Managing director of campaign group War on Desire, said: "An assault on European and United states of america societies by transnational corporations."
TTIP is the end indicate of the logic unleashed by Margaret Thatcher's embracing of Friedman-style gratis market place economics, the thing responsible for our rapid growth in wealth, growing inequality, and the devastation of much of our common life as a nation.
The coffee and the restaurants are better – but the essentials of life are harder to find than ever: a good life and an honest identify; a solid, modest home big plenty to house a small family unit in a peaceful, orderly mural; good local schools open to all who need them; reasonably paid secure work for this generation and the next; competent authorities and wise laws. These have become luxuries, unattainable for millions who once took them for granted.
And 'considering nosotros're all notwithstanding worshipping that gratis-market dogma that absorbed us 30 years agone', we accept seen the end of our coal industry and are now witnessing the stop of our steel industry, which the Regime could perfectly easily rescue if it wanted to. It is the reason that the NHS is being bled dry out past private companies through the PFI process—which Jeremy Corbyn admits was Labour's error. And it is the reason why indigenous white boys perform measurably worse at the end of their schooling than they did at the commencement—free market economic science and individualism take destroyed the culture and communities on which previous generations depended.
In this sense, important though it is, the debate about membership in the EU feels like rearranging the trade deal chairs on the deck of the Titanic of free market place economic science. The much bigger question, which isn't really being addressed, is what our gratis trade fixation is doing to our lives and our globe.
It should not completely surprise the states when commentators similar Anthony Gwyther and Wes Howard-Brooke draw parallels between the beast in the Book of Revelation and global capital. InUnveiling Empire, they identify the depiction of Roman imperial power in Revelation and the claims it makes—to be the true source of prosperity, the end of anarchy, the controller of financial, the true victor in the struggles of the earth and the ane that volition last for ever. Onto that they map the similar claims made by the ideology of global capitalism, which therefore commands our unquestioning allegiance. (What is the political response to any party which questions free market economics? They are irresponsible and unelectable!) And they highlight the manner that the kingdom of God and its looking-as-though-he-was-slain king unmask such claims for what they really are—a deceptive apocryphal that tramples the people of God, comes under judgement and ultimately destroys itself.
To remain in Europe or to leave might well be a choice between the devil you know and the devil you lot don't. But in the end, without more fundamental questioning of the state of affairs nosotros are in, I doubtable it will turn out to exist the same erstwhile devil.
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