Brexit - Finally Moved to Write

Why?

I think this will disappoint a lot of people who know me and most likely they will question my judgement.  I will get the main question over with, I voted to leave.  Good, now that is said I can finally feel relief that I should not feel burdened with the secret of what should be nobody's business but my own.

Why have I felt the need to be evasive or coy about my views, although, with my commentary on Facebook, it probably became very apparent what my standpoint was on the subject?  I'll tell you why.  It is the very divisive and disruptive nature of the whole debate, coupled with my strong connections to Belgium.  There are all sorts of labels being applied to anyone who discusses the topic that they lose sight of what the real issues are and what they mean to those who cast their vote.

As a generalisation, and this is supported by the analysis of the voting demographics, my friends are split down very similar lines.  Better educated and well off are EU fans, those not so well off and supposedly not so well educated are not hot with the EU.  In the run up and post referendum, I have discussed the topic with my Belgian friends and An, who has remained remarkably impartial on the subject.

So why did I vote the way I did?

It is probably easier to say and more productive to say what my decision was not based upon.  First and foremost my decision is not based on economics, if anyone was attempting to persuade me of the merits of remaining or leaving, economics was not something I was concerned about.  Unquestionably there are economic opportunities and threats with leaving or maybe more correctly stated, consequences, but that was not a vote winner with me.  The much criticised claim of the NHS benefiting by an additional £350m per week, did not play any role.  I, like many reasonable people, saw that for what it was.  The same could be said for the dire immediate economic impacts of voting to leave.  The media and politicians have long spelt out doom and gloom which fails to materialise in quite the way they claimed.

Secondly, I did not vote because of immigration or some xenophobic fear of people coming over to take my job.  I am concerned that we have a large city's worth of people entering the country every year without having the requisite infrastructure to support them.  I do also feel that we should have better controls to allow in only the skills that we need in the country.  I work in an industry sector which takes the best people in the world, wherever they happen to come from and employs them if they have the right skills and ambition.  We also need immigration, let me say that again, we need immigration.  The reason is that we are an aging population and we need to have a youthful workforce to keep powering our economy.  I do feel that this message was not clearly aired, but perhaps the leavers would have felt they were alienating some of their potential voters.  So immigration and the unfortunate labels that go with that debate were not relevant to my decision.

Thirdly and perhaps a little bit on the absurd side, I have no delusions or desire to go back to the days of Empire, even if that were at all possible.  In my opinion the US Empire is on the wane, the Chinese are on the rise and the British Empire's heart stopped beating around the end of 1930s.  No, I am not some cricket playing, fox hunting, feudal lord seeking slaves to work my land and any other ridiculous and imaginative connotations that you would like to dream up.

What shaped my views?

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s.  Essentially in slum conditions in the labour heartland that is Gateshead.  Labour did little for me and Thatcher, the epitome of evil that her policies represented, was oppressive.  During the miners strike I was in favour of the police, because I did not understand the politics at that age but thought that violence was clearly not the solution.  When John Smith came along, I found that there was someone I could believe in, unfortunately he died before being able to get to the office of Prime Minister.  Such a shame.  Much though I detested Thatcher, she did possess strength of character and leadership, but lets not get too dreamy about that.

When Tony Blair came along and we had what I would describe of as the golden years of labour, I was a convert.  People now say that he is a war criminal for the invasion of Iraq, but they were not saying such things when he took us into Bosnia and Sierra Leone.  People have short memories and are far too judgmental.

Before Tony Blair came along I had the blessing of attending higher education, something I think I would have been put off from in this day and age due to the debt being incurred at such a young age.  Among other things, I studied European Studies and at this point in time it was all about the Maastricht treaty.  A few key headers from those days:  in theory the European Union was a great idea, in practice it corrupted behavior.  The UK was painted as that bad player, despite domestically introducing and adhering to most EU Directives and initiatives.  Other nations appeared to play a rather more loose game.  Assurances were given about no desire to have a federal superstate, although clearly that is very much the end state desired.  It seemed that we were (in the form of free market economics) destroying our coal, steel and shipbuilding industries, whilst other European nations were subsidising them.  This was the first thing to shape my views on the EU Project.  But we are talking early 90s here.

The other main driver that has shaped my views has been the violent break up of the former Yugoslavia and USSR.  Now the circumstances are somewhat different in both of those cases but they bring relevant and interesting points to the discussion.  In the case of the former it was a bloody civil war involving all of the horrors of genocide and destruction on the civilian population.  I feel that this is a risk that could apply to an EU superstate, fragmenting along former cultural and national lines.

In the case of the USSR, the EU is ever eager to welcome more countries and I take the view that the reason is twofold: firstly they can get another piece of developing market that they can sell their own goods to and secondly limiting access to competitors and why not.  Turkey has a population (market of 77m)  If they are ever brought into the fold completely then access to that market can be restricted by barriers to trade etc.  So in the case of the USSR the former Eastern Bloc countries have no great desire to be governed by some central, undemocratic and oppressive regime.  We have to remember the fun times they had behind the iron curtain.  If you are 28 or under there is a good chance you will not know a lot about the USSR and being oppressed, a generalisation  but something you should check out.

Why I Voted to Leave

I voted to leave for the simple reason that I believe that the EU in it's current trajectory will result in bloody and destructive conflict.  In my view the EU institutions and where the power really resides, (Mainly Germany for economic reasons), means that the EU cannot realistically become a democratically accountable structure.  A most pertinent question would be 'who will be in charge?'  Should it be a leader from say Greece?  How about Latvia?  Maybe Germany as they are the economic lead nation?  The problem is that anyone from any of the countries will act in their particular interest, it is perfectly natural to do so.  We have seen this in action over the Greek crisis.

I genuinely felt that we might have seen mass bloodshed on the streets of Greece, given the oppressive measures being forced on them by the Troika (ECB, IMF and Eurogroup).  It is a complex problem and I strongly recommend a couple of books by Yanis Varoufakis, it is eye opening.  Yanis is a supporter of the EU and remain but recognises the need to reform.  Sadly the EU does not appear to be reforming and instead is bearing down on dissent where it can.

So that really was it.  I voted because I fear a conflict in the future and let's be honest the EEC/EU has not prevented conflict, although it has helped.  The main security against conflict has been in the collective defence of NATO, which the European nations have been taking full and unjustified advantage of for too long, by that I mean they have not been paying their way.

The last thing I will say, for now at least, is that the EU represents a market of 0.5bn people.  That is a lot of BMWs, bottles of wine, bags of sugar etc that you can sell, whilst putting up barriers to prevent others getting in.  The EU has and will remain a protectionist block that is lobbied by large corporations so they can enjoy the benefits of their influence.  With new EU nations joining, they represent very cheap and mobile labour (as well as a market) that you can take advantage of.

I genuinely hope that the rest of the EU wake up and see what is happening so they can reform.  I did not expect to wake up on that June morning in 2016 and find that the decision was to leave.  I along with many others will find life a little more complicated when the departure becomes effective.