Brexit Buzz

It’s time to lay down your respective weapons, Leavers and Remainers, and focus on the future. The young are less Eurosceptic than their parents and grandparents. The EU has provided the platform for opportunities for young people, with open borders, no exchange controls, lower cost travel, Erasmus and the like, leading to more interaction – academic, work or just friendship – between young people of different nationalities to meet, share, learn, respect and even love each other. Contact breeds understanding, which in turn brings opportunities. Formed of 28 independent, proud countries with different cultures, languages, economic development levels and history, this isn’t Federalism, it’s about being mutually enriched, economically, socially and culturally. Political cynicism is growing; many are just fed up with the infinite political status-quo that encourages greed, tax avoidance and envy while seeming unable to tackle big issues such as pollution, climate change, women’s rights and the feeling the current generation is leaving behind a scorched earth of huge debt and less opportunity. But there are glimmers of hope: wealth creation does not have to mean greed; social tolerance means more personal freedom; there’s never been a better time to start and build your own business, to challenge even the biggest and most established of companies. The EU helps with all of those from green policies to freedom of movement of goods, capital and people; from harmonising consumer rights, to reining in more extreme governments. (Yes, the UK government could have legislated for cleaner beaches, but they didn’t. It took the collective will of 28 countries to force through the rules.) Yes, EU can and we all benefit. That’s what the millennial generation want and deserve: a liberal economy with opportunity and social justice. And we should give it to them. It’s their future, not ours. Vote remain.

I’m ashamed of our politicians. They’ve done a terrible job of preparing us for the EU referendum. But there is something we can do to rein them in. Geoffrey Crowther, former editor of The Economist, advised journalists to “simplify, then exaggerate”: it makes for good headlines and for excellent reading. But politicians shouldn’t Simplify and Exaggerate when campaigning or worse, when running the country. Let’s start with David Cameron and Boris Johnson. They are both mildly Eurosceptic, seeing the benefits of membership, but recognizing the EU’s deficiencies too. That was yesterday; today they’re on the extreme opposite sides of the debate. The “Simplify and Exaggerate” mantra requires them to appear black and white, to choose one side over the other. Soundbites become lies. Take the ‘£350 million a week sent to the EU’ claim. We imagine someone in the Treasury sending the EU weekly cheques for the gross, rather than the net amount. It’s a widely discredited lie. We’re soon deeper into the pork pies. Remember the talk of benefit tourism: floods of EU migrants popping over to collect their benefits cheque? IDS of all people confirmed last week benefit tourism is zero or near zero. How about the nonsense EU regulations imposed on us, from bent bananas to not recycling teabags? Well, it turns out that’s all lies too, with the EU itself publishing this helpful Euro-myths guide: http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ (Michael Gove’s lie that David Cameron’s EU renegotiation was not legally binding, despite Donald Tusk confirming it was, at least produced one of the funnier lines of the campaign: Chris Patten said he doubted Gove had “ever even read a paperback on law”.) Lies have ratcheted up. Michael Howard said recently, "There are three facts and pretty well everything else is guesswork. Number one: If we leave the European Union, we won’t have to pay billions of pounds a year into their coffers. We will be an independent self-governing country again. Number two: If we leave, we can control immigration into this country. Number three: If we leave, our parliament and our courts will no longer be subordinate to the European Court of Justice.” Let me de-lie that for you: Number one: If we leave the European Union, we’d likely not reduce our net contribution, because it would hit economic output. Duh, of course we’ll remain an independent self-governing country. Number two: Leaving wouldn’t reduce immigration, as most is from outside the EU and we haven’t controlled that, have we? Number three: If we leave, we’ll no longer have the protection of an international legal framework from over-zealous politicians. Oh and Number four: British citizens will lose the right to live and work in other EU countries. So here’s what this means for our vote on Thursday: let’s not give liars more power over our lives and the lives of others. Trade barriers, with or without tariffs, mean border controls and customs regulations; Immigration control means more paperwork and reduced civil liberties; replacing EU with new UK legislation creates disruption and bureaucracy. Recent experience proves the very last thing we should do is let our politicians Take Control.

Along with economics and sovereignty, immigration has been one of the top Brexit issues. It’s easy, isn’t it: with open borders, we can’t decide who comes in and who doesn’t: grafters or spongers, contributors or criminals, they’re all welcome. The problem is, that’s really just a collection of soundbites that don’t accurately reflect what’s happening. In the 40 years of EU membership, net EU immigration has been about zero. There are about two million UK citizens living in other EU countries (HMG does a horrible job tracking citizens living abroad) and about three million EU citizens in the UK. There was net emigration in the earlier years; while the UK economy was a mess, we moved to places like Germany to work (remember the TV series Aufwiedersehen, Pet?). More recently, it’s been the reverse, as Italians escape their underperforming economy and Eastern Europeans search for better jobs. It’ll go the other way in the future, when our children will want to work abroad. EU migrants only make up the minority of people coming to the UK. The 629,410 National Insurance numbers issued to EU citizens in 2015 show that they don’t stay long: they come to learn English, earn money, make friends and go home. And there are millions of people currently living outside the UK who could come back and work in the UK even if the issue of new NI numbers to EU citizens stops post-Brexit. The reality: EU migrants come to the UK to work; non-EU migrants come to live. Most EU migrants are not migrants, they’re visitors. They’re young, they integrate and they don’t take “our jobs” or reduce pay. There is almost no benefit tourism. Their children work hard and do well at school. They use the NHS less than they work in it. They enrich our country and our society. Most of all, we should fight to keep the right for us and our children to live and work in other countries without being discriminated against, refused entry or justifying why. We’d all be poorer – socially, intellectually and culturally, as well as economically – if that privilege were withdrawn. 

With the Brexit debate focusing on the economy, immigration and sovereignty, we’re missing something important. And it’s about global balance. Britain has played an important role in the development of the modern world; one could argue that we’ve had the largest impact of any country. We discovered countries, even created them; built infrastructure and trade routes, exported education, political systems, the rule of law, social standards and human rights. We fought wars when needed and imposed our will on the world. We didn’t always get it right, but you can’t deny the impact we’ve had. English is the world’s language; our train systems can be found from the Andes to India and London continues to be the world capital of trading, from foreign exchange to commodities and insurance of world trade. We’ve had an uncomfortable history with Europe (rivalry is not uncommon between neighbours, human or country), with two world wars and many smaller wars before that. So it’s not surprising that many of us feel more at home with Australia rather than Austria, with Canada rather than Croatia and with New Zealand rather than the Netherlands. The EU was set up to stop wars. Trade is better than conflict, cooperation is better than confrontation. It was never just a free-trade zone, but rather the idea that the interaction between peoples fosters tolerance and understanding. On that measure, it’s been a wild success, with now 28 proud, diverse peoples, economies, histories and cultures collaborating for a better future. It’s not perfect by any means; it was never going to be easy. If we Leave, the balance within the EU will be disrupted. It will increase Germany’s influence and perhaps, as we are one of the two largest military powers, encourage the creation of an EU army, or the militarisation of other countries. The EU would have a more protectionist agenda and drift away from the pro-American stance we as a country have championed. We would have no say as to the accession of other countries and no influence on policy. So when you place your vote to Leave or Remain, think about the EU we might leave behind. The UK is best when we act as a world player, working with others to build a better world. Yes, the EU can be annoying, bossy, bureaucratic and expensive. But it's worth it.

Think about it, who really benefits if the UK leaves the EU?

Within each, the arguments are around what you might call the politician’s view: society as a whole, the collective nation, us as the British peoples. So, immigration is good or bad for the country, for the NHS, for housing. Leaving would affect trade for the country, would be good or bad for certain sectors of the economy or sizes of business. But what about us as individuals? What would Brexit mean for children, students, workers or pensioners? How would it affect our chances of getting a job, a promotion or a bonus? Finding somewhere to live or holding onto a job? Going on holiday? Moving abroad? Falling ill? The EU has made it easier to travel around, with the European Driving Licence, Insurance Green Card, air passenger compensation, European Pet Passport, free health care, reduced/no roaming fees, reduced/no bank transfer fees and the right to equal treatment when buying a holiday home. The EU has helped students, with low or no cost undergraduate fees, Erasmus student exchange, no resident or work permits, right to work while studying abroad, European funding of scientific programmes, free movement of academics and post-Doctoral students. And it’s helped those who work temporarily in another country, with S1 health cover, no resident or work permits, transferable social security benefits, no hassle car reregistering, keep your UK driving licence, non-discrimination employment agreements, no double taxation and no limits on the movement of personal effects. None of these personal benefits are spoken about, but every British national can benefit from them, and many do. People are normally selfish; we want the best for us and our families and frankly, everyone else can get stuffed. So when you place your vote to Leave or Remain, think first of your family and yourself. Be a little selfish.

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