27 May COLUMNIST: Why I’m going to vote Brexit… Tim Tiernan
I’m sure that you’ll have seen many of these types of stories on both sides of the argument that’s raging in the UK at the moment, “should we stay or should we go” and many people with vested interests on both sides telling you that the sky will fall if we vote this way or that.
This isn’t one of those stories…
The reason I wanted to put this out there is that I think there’s a few arguments for Brexit that win out for me.
The EU only looks after the Euro.
I don’t say this lightly, but I truly believe that since the Greek, Irish and Spanish bail-outs we’ve seen a steady decline in anything productive coming from the EU trading block (it really is true that it’s the slowest growing trading block in the world at the moment). I also believe that these countries were treated appallingly by the EU and their Eurozone partners.
If the UK ever got itself in financial trouble, do you think that the EU would come to our aid? We sent £850m to Greece to rescue it from ruin, but I don’t think we would see the same in the other direction if push came to shove.
I don’t want this taken the wrong way… This is not an argument for the UK joining the Euro. During the last (present?) recession, it would have been catastrophic if we had not had control over our own currency.
My issue is, there could be another EU law, something buried that you’ve never heard of that restricts us from saving ourselves should the worst happen (e.g. the steel industry). If another law ever got in the way of us saving our financial services industry we really would be up a royal creek.
There’s no way to know what the EU and the Eurozone countries are going to do in the future in their own self-interest, we are only one voice in 28 (potentially, soon to be 32) meaning that our influence is diluted in such bodies as the World Trade Organisation and in so many other areas.
Mass migration of UNSKILLED labour.
I used to quite like the EU, I think it was a good idea when we have 12/15 countries in there, but now we have (completely understandably) so many immigrants coming to the UK, working in our service sectors (restaurants, shops etc.) which is where I started out working. These migrants are happy to accept the minimum wage for years on end, because it’s 7 or 8 times what the average wage for an unskilled worker is in their countries (p.s. I would do the same in their position!).
There was a time when I was working in a cafe, every 6 months you were reviewed and wages were increased depending on how you performed. Where is the incentive to do that now that there’s (at the most conservative estimate) 100,000 people coming to the UK from the EU willing (and happy) to work for the minimum?
If I hadn’t worked in Cafes, Bars and Clubs I would never have learned the business skills I have, my respect for money, my drive to make something better for myself.
The usual response to a statement (rant?) like this is: Where would the NHS be without migration? To which I would say: Broken. However no-one on the ‘Leave’ side of the argument, so far as I can tell, is campaigning for no migration at all, but why don’t we have the right to pick and choose who comes to our country. If we need nurses, let’s bring in nurses from the EU, India, Africa, America or anywhere we damned well please (if they want to come…).
Security… or the lack of it.
Another argument from the Remainers is that we would be less secure outside of the EU. I don’t believe (however, I’m open to being convinced) that this is the case.
We have the best security services in the world working in the UK and they are relied upon by many other nations to provide the crucial intelligence required to tackle the worst threats that those who wish us harm might wish to throw at us.
The problem is that Europe has almost completely porous borders externally and has removed any borders internally. Meaning that someone who wishes us harm, once they get across the border in to Slovakia or Hungary has a straight shot from there to Paris, Brussels or any other country or city in the Schengen area.
Luckily, in the UK we still have borders that are policed… but in the EU, there’s no way to know how long that will last. We can be over-ruled on internal migration policy, as has been proven time and time again.
Lastly… we’re British, not European.
Ok, I like Europe, it’s a nice place to live… it beats the hell out of many other places in the world at the moment but there’s a big world of 196 countries out there and we’re reliant on a union of 26 countries to negotiate trade and relationships with them on our behalf.
We’re a big fish in the world, but listening to some in the Remain campaign, you’d think that we were somewhere near the bottom of the list.
We have the 5th biggest economy and a proud (sometimes?) history of looking outward to the world. We can’t do that when we have other people negotiating on our behalf, we just can’t.
There’s a quote from Winston Churchill that I think makes a fitting end to this essay*:
“We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed.”
I hope this has been useful or (at least) interesting you. I’m not trying to convince anyone to think the way I do, I wouldn’t be that presumptuous, I just wanted to put this out there. Every voice deserves to be heard, why not give your reasons to stay or leave. I’ll be listening.
Thanks
Tim
*I bet that wasn’t the quote you were expecting… the other one (“If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea”), so far as I can tell, is made up…
Image Credit: First published on Cartoonmovement.com, The Netherlands, February 22, 2016. | By Tjeerd Royaards.
