To

Brexit or not to Brexit

I can see no rational reason to vote Leave but that doesnt mean there is no
reason to do so.

Givens
We all have biases. I thought I would put some of mine on the table for starters.
David Cameron is vacuous and empty headed. Intellectually, the least able Prime Minister in living memory.
Why does this matter:
It was stupid to call a referendum. Very few people wanted one. The topic is so complicated that
few people have a clear understanding of the workings of the EU, illustrated by the poor
performance of both the Leave and Remain campaign
The 18 months or so that he spent in negotiation with the EU demonstrated his inability nicely.
He adopted the style of the playground bully, appeared to form not a single alliance with another
countrys leader, alienating many in the process, ultimately requested negligible changes and yet
achieved none of them.
He appears to be dishonest. If he cant negotiate a good deal he would support Leave. He gets no
deal yet supports Remain. He paints a picture of national disaster of we leave and yet he proposed
a referendum. That he does not acknowledge his mistake and tries to trick people into believing
he has been consistent gives the impression that he believes we are as empty headed as he is.
The risk is that this becomes a referendum on the competency of David Cameron, a subject on
which I have no debate. It is much more important than that. To me it is clear that Posh Boy
will go whatever the outcome.
The EU is, by necessity, a long way from perfect and changing it is very difficult as 28 parties need to
agree on any significant change. But, the pressure to reform is growing: The French dislike it more than
the Brits and they have an election coming; The Italians are about to elect a right week mayor of Rome;
the Austrians almost elected a fascist President; elections are coming in Germany; the Polish are swinging
to the radical right. The discontent is not just in the UK. If we had a leader capable of building alliances
with the Big Six it could be improved...but never fixed, always fudged.

So Why Vote Remain

I think the debate comes down to five issues:
The Economy
Immigration
Saving money by not paying the EU
Sovereignty
Security and the control, of our borders
My reasons can all be found in that quotation by Winston Churchill Democracy is the worst form of
government, except for all the others. For democracy substitute European Union.
Here goes...

The Economy
I think this argument has now been well rehearsed. Every assessment has concluded that we will suffer
economically: The Treasury, The Institute for Fiscal Studies, Oxford Economics, PricewaterhouseCoopers,
the Centre for European Economic Reform, the London School of Economics, the Bank of England, the IMF
and the OECD ALL agree. Such agreement is almost unprecedented.
The boyz on the Leave side havent published a view but counter with two arguments:
Economists have been wrong before
There is more to this than GDP and the economy
The first is so facile it doesnt merit a response. Does it?
On the second, it is easy to believe there is more to life between 2% growth in GDP per annum and none.
The real impact though is in jobs. No growth means less wealth means lower public spending so being a
teacher, nurse, soldier, policeman or whatever gets harder and fewer private sector jobs. The people who
suffer are not the fat lazy bastards like me but the people with fewer special skills: the youth and those
already poor. If you need evidence look to Spain, to France, to Greece where growth has been bad and
youth unemployment is scary high and almost irreparable.
Of course, maybe it wont happen because we will strike an equivalent or even better deal with the EU or
just export to China and India instead. The latter of those is just dumb right? So is the former:
Just under half of Britains exports go to the EU, we import considerably more than we export. There is no
future scenario in which we will not be trading with the EU. Both sides agree on this. Everyone
acknowledges that we would have to negotiate a new trade deal with the EU. There is much reason to think
that 27 other countries would negotiate very hard:
We may think we are important to the EU but while 45% of our exports go there only 7% of their
exports come here. They have a stronger negotiating position than do we
Posh Boy has built no alliances. Yet worse negotiations could be lead by BoJo the Clown as Posh Boy
would have to resign.
There will be a clear political need to discourage anybody else from leaving the EU. The EU will be
damaged the UK leaves. Why would they be kind to us? Politics will override economics. It is
impossible to imagine that any trade deal would be better than the current one

Immigration
It is a personal view and I recognise one with which many disagree, but in general immigration is a good not
a bad thing. It reduces costs, increases competitiveness and, in total, makes us richer. Of course, this is of
little comfort to an individual who loses their job but I would invite those who are so much against it to
explain why Britain has one of the best performing economies in the developed world, one of the lowest
rates of unemployment, and the highest employment rate ever.
David Cameron was disingenuous, maybe dishonest in agreeing to the free movement of people and then
promising to hit a target. He might as well have set a target on rainfall. He is even more foolish to pretend
he will do it in the future. The two are NOT compatible. Because he is not that smart the other guys give
the impression they will be different
The belief seems to be that if we leave the EU we will not have to commit to free movement of people in
the EU. This is wrong, I think, for two reasons:

Nobody is planning a future without a trade deal with the EU. With nearly 50% of British exports
heading to Europe that is unimaginable
It is equally unimaginable that the EU would approve remember now that all 27 members need to
agree - an arrangement that did not have free movement of people.
In this debate immigration is not on the table. It is not controllable under an perceived future
scenario.
Could I deal with one more issue under this heading? There has been so much talk about waiting lists for
GPs, problems in the health service, getting places at schools. None of these have anything to do with
the EU. They are all entirely up to the UK government. Health, Education, Welfare, Defence and few I
have forgotten, if they are screwed up, then we did it all on our own.

Saving money by not paying the EU

The Leave guys shot themselves in the foot a little by talking about gross rather than net contributions
but whatever way you paint it, we pay in more than we get out. There is so much data on this. I chose Wiki
and checked with the Economist data.
According to the Economist[1] our net contribution to the EU budget is 10bn/annum or about 100m a
week. We are the fourth largest contributor, behind Germany, France and Holland. I find big numbers hard
to digest. Still a stack load of money. Or it seems that way. This is a big number but it is
About 5% of our exports to the EU and about 2% of our imports
About 1% of government spending
About 0.2% of UK GDP
It is a lot of money. The EU is fat, happy and wasteful. It should be better. In the overall debate this
topic is white noise.

Sovereignty
It is wrong to say that the EU is not democratic. Every country is represented and has voting rights. This
is pretty much how every democracy works. In the case of the EU each country has a veto in some
circumstances - e.g. when new countries join, for the approval of new treaties. It is for this reason that
the whole Turkey debate is a side issue. They will only join if we approve.
Again, if you dont agree with some of the outcomes, that bananas should be curly, that we should be able
to pay people to make steel that no-one wants then it is the UK government that failed as they agreed to
follow these rules.

Security and the control, of our borders

There is so much noise in the trashy press about Security and the control, of our borders this. I think it
goes something like this:
The Treaty of Rome, the founding treaty of the EU, stipulates four freedoms of movement:
people, goods, services and capital. The free movement of people excludes those with criminal
records, barring minor stuff like speeding and some other bits, for specified periods.
As Britain is outside of the Schengen area they can refuse entry to and deport whoever they
want. I have heard lots of people saying we can't control our borders. In this area we can. If the

person is from the EU they have a right to appeal to the European Court of Justice. If someone is
refused entry without legal cause then the decision can be over ridden.

Conclusions
Draw your own. Ive drawn mine.

References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

The budget that didnt bark: Why Britains EU budget burden is no longer a valid Eurosceptic
gripe; Feb 13th 2016
Unfavourable trade winds: It would be hard for Britain to negotiate good trade deals post-Brexit;
Mar 26th 2016
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/displayFtu.html?ftuId=FTU_2.1.3.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union#Revenue

Malcolm Harrison
Yateley, UK
Tuesday, 21 June 2016