Mr Slippery Woos the Nitwits - Britain can leave the EU, but not via a Referendum
The European Question is a very simple one. The EU is, and always has been, a plan to integrate its members into a single supranational state. The idea that Britain ‘originally joined a Common Market which was just a free trade area’ is the most abject tripe. There was never any such organisation.
The poor boobies who write letters to the papers claiming that this what they voted for back in 1975 are just that, boobies. They refused to listen to the correct warnings they were given at the time. Then, when the warnings proved to be true, these boobies forgave themselves by pretending that they didn’t know, when the truth was that they knew, but preferred to ignore the knowledge.
The readiness of supposed ‘Eurosceptics’ to believe obvious falsehoods, peddled by blatant charlatans, while dismissing the cogent warnings of the informed, is amazing. Do bluebottles fly into their open mouths as they walk along? This is one of the reasons why I increasingly believe Britain deserves its fate as a bankrupt ex-power. Tribal voters prefer their comfortable habits to any sort of thought. In that case, why be surprised when you are betrayed and spat upon, repeatedly?
Here we are again, with Mr Slippery going on and on about a referendum of some kind or other which he will offer, in the impossible future after he has won a general election. What kind of nitwit would be wooed by this stuff?
First, the Conservative Party is not going to win the next election, or any other national election, so the referendum, in the form put forward by Mr Slippery, will never be held.
Secondly, if the Slippery pledge leads the other parties to match it, and a referendum is in fact held, the government will control:
The rules
The rules
The timing
The question
Thirdly, if even after all that, the people of the country come up with the “wrong” answer, the result will be ignored or circumvented or used as a pretext for ‘renegotiation’ of our position in the EU, which will lead nowhere.
As for the idea that we can somehow repatriate powers we have handed over to the EU this (with the one bizarre and unique anomaly of Home Affairs, which this government ignored for years before realising that Lisbon had given it an opt-out) is not in fact available.
As my friend Christopher Booker ceaselessly points out, the only way in which we can truly vary our treaty with the rest of the EU is to activate Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the one which allows us to leave the EU.
Otherwise we are subject to the EU’s binding principle of the ‘Acquis Communautaire’, which insists, quite understandably (given the EU’s true nature and purpose), that powers given up by nation states to the EU can never be given back. This is organically linked to the matching principle of ‘ever closer union’ (or ever narrower union, to translate it more literally) under which the original states, slice by slice, merge themselves into a new supranational body which will eventually swallow them entirely and stand on its own as a nation.
It already has the ‘legal personality’ to do so, and it will take surprisingly few more steps to complete the process. It is because of this that the leadership of the EU have not abandoned the single currency, despite the immense costs and dangers imposed by this utopian project.
Can we leave? Yes, we can. Though it is wise for secessionists, such as me, to accept that this will involve costs and difficulties. The ‘Economist’ magazine went into the detail a few weeks ago ( from a pro-EU point of view, which readers should take into account, while being grateful for the thoroughness of the examination) . It was quite clear that departure is technically, politically and economically feasible.
Much would depend upon negotiations, but pessimists on this score always overestimate (as they did when trying to scare us into the Euro) the supposed effect on foreign businesses which might or might not locate here. The truth is that in the era of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) the EU can put up few trade barriers against us, and would have no sane reason to do so. EU members sell vast quantities of goods to us, and have no desire to lose those markets . Companies locate here not because we are in the EU but because of a culture which makes it easy to set up business.
We have very little say in EU lawmaking as it is. And we might well, as an independent power, have more influence on EU lawmaking from outside than we do from within. There’s absolutely no axiomatic progress which says that one member out of 27 has more power than a valuable market that isn’t a member. The EU’s trade negotiations aren’t necessarily devoted to our interests (what do you think happens when the interests of France and Germany conflict with ours?) and have been known to drag us into disputes with the USA on which we have no interest. Also, remember the EU beef export ban, which came close to destroying large part of our agriculture.
We would certainly need to pay some sort of fee for access. But it wouldn’t be anything like our current net contribution. Many of the things we’re told are only available to EU members are in fact available to Norway and Switzerland. Why not to us, if we want them?
Look at it for yourselves. Work out how much you value the freedom to control your own borders, make your own laws, decide on your own agricultural subsidies, control your own fishing grounds. If these things don’t matter to you, then the undoubted difficulties of departure won’t appeal. But if they do, then those difficulties are a price well worth paying.
But they will not be payable until we have a political party, committed at a general election, to withdraw if elected. All our major parties (and the Tories most of all) are deeply committed to staying in. When they offer referenda, they are toying with you and your vote. First, we must destroy the Tories. Then there will be hope.
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