Brexit: the Mail behind the curve
Saturday 17 August 2013
"So often, discussion about the benefits and costs of British membership of the EU seems to come down to economics, " Harris says. The technical debates about the economics, he tells us, "cannot resolve the fundamental question about Britain’s EU membership, because economics was always a subsidiary matter in the European project".
Harris then tells us that "the realisation that the European Union is a political construct is something successive British governments have failed to take on board … The European project was devised as a supranational union. As well as having the laudable aim of trying to avoid another war between Germany and France, the intention from the start was to suppress national sovereignty and maximise bureaucratic initiative. This constituted a rejection of the influence of Anglo-Saxon liberal ideas".
Sadly though, it then begins to unravel. "David Cameron, in a much-trumpeted speech in January, rejected the Europeans’ key concept of ever closer union", says Harris. "Yet his negotiating position is so weak there is not the slightest possibility of fundamental revision of the terms of our membership of the EU — unless we impose it unilaterally”.
"And the only way to do that is to reject the legal order that constitutes the heart of the EU. To break free and set our own terms requires an Act of Parliament to repeal the European Communities Act and all connected statutes", he advises us.
There is not a mention of Article 50. It is as if the months of tortuous debate had never happened. In the legacy media, they truly do occupy their own tiny little bubble and have not the faintest idea of what is happening out in the real world.
"Mr Cameron could say the European project was a gigantic mistake. He could add that Britain's involvement is too entrenched to be able to achieve any reforms, so we have to withdraw from the EU, before re-establishing bi-lateral links with other European countries", Harris grandly declares.
"This would be risky", he concludes. "But it would reflect what almost all Conservatives feel".
But this isn't what most Conservatives – or anyone - else would support in a referendum. By the time the status quo effect kicked in, and people started to confront the prospect of a unilateral withdrawal from the EU, the sentiment would firmly drop into the "stay in" camp.
Why, oh why is it taking so long for the legacy media to wake up to the reality? These people haven't even started down the road of understanding what is involved in leaving.
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Richard North 17/08/2013
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