It feels as if I am waking from a nightmare; a nightmare where we have turned out backs on our friends, we have turned our backs on cooperation over trade, culture, science, care of the environment, security and the control of crime. We have turned our backs on our neighbours. Worst of all we have turned out backs on an organisation that has promoted peace and the peaceful transition of totalitarian states to democracies.
And then I wake and realise that it was not a dream, we are living that nightmare.
I promised to come back with some thoughts on the outcome.
Some commentators, in an attempt to appear balanced have criticised the lack of honesty in both campaigns. The remain camp were accused of scaremongering. They said the pound would fall and the value of shares would fall. They said that the financial credibility of the UK would suffer. All three things happened. In addition we have plenty of anecdotes of small businesses and creative projects suffering either because EU grants have been withdrawn or customers from France and Germany have disappeared.
Some of the claims made in particular by the Chancellor seem to have ben exaggerated. He threatened us with an emergency budget that would need to increase taxes or cut spending. That has not happened yet.
The Leave campaigners promised an additional £350 million to the NHS. Despite being
What lies at the centre of the Leave Campaign!
challenged repeatedly over the figure itself (a large chunk of the notional £350 million is never sent to the EU at all, and even of the amount sent a large proportion comes back to the UK in grants) the leave campaign continued to make it a central plank of their campaign. It is perhaps of note that they also promised to spend that money on Cornwall and the regions, on farmers, on scientific research and on removing VAT
Iain Duncan Smith claims he never promised money to the NHS
from domestic fuel bills. They now acknowledge that such promises were ‘a mistake’.
They promised to control immigration. They talk of a points system, which we already use for non-EU immigration. They said that we would never reduce net migration to below 100,000 if we stayed in the EU, conveniently ignoring the fact that we already have 180,000 non-EU immigrants, and they were claiming that in a post-Brexit UK migration from outside the EU would be easier. They now admit that they will not and cannot deliver this.
They claimed that Turkey was just about to join the EU and that millions of Turks would flood into the UK.
They promised more fish for fishermen. That too seems to have been a chimera.
And Lastly, they promised that the people of the UK would take back control, would return sovereignty to a democratic government in the UK from a non-democratic one in Europe.
Almost every part of this assertion is false.
The UK like every other State in the EU is already a sovereign State.
The System of government in the EU, whilst a little complex is notably more democratic than that of the UK.
And far from giving control to the people of Britain we seem set to transfer the reins of power from one product of Eton, Oxford and the Bullingdon Club to another one.
Before I move to what might come next, there are two more predictions that, sadly, have come true.
Scotland does not wish to leave the EU. If the Scots’ wish to remain part of the EU is stronger than their wish to remain part of the UK we shall see the break up of the united Kingdom.
The second thing is even more sinister. We have seen, as predicted, a rise in hate-crime, xenophobia and rascism. After months of politicians talking about threats and possible violence some of the basest instincts of our compatriots have been released. Some of our citizens seem to have been given permission to give expression to their nastiest feelings.
If I now talk of dire threats and possibilities it is not because I believe or know that these things will happen, but because I believe that these things might happen, that history should teach us how to avoid making desperate mistakes, though history, alas suggests that we are poor learners.
I have made much of the EU as an organ of peace. No-one claims that the EU is perfect, but while we talk we do not fight. No-one would claim that all the nation states of the EU will always have nice liberal governments, but while the EU exerts a moderating influence the risks of extreme governments of either Right or Left is greatly reduced. The existence of the EU does not prevent one of the European Nations electing an extremist leader, but it would prevent such a person abolishing the democratic institutions of their country and setting up a dictatorship and it would almost certainly be able to contain or limit extremist behaviour. To put it in stark historical terms: the EU would not prevent a country electing another Hitler, but it would prevent him setting up a dictatorship and declaring war on his neighbours.
So what might happen?
We might see the collapse of the EU. There are other break-away groups would would love to hold referenda in their own countries.
We might see the rise of extremist far right governments.
We might see the rise of extremist far left governments, though I suspect that that is less likely.
We might see Russia flexing its muscles more aggressively and with Europe in disarray we would be less likely to stand up to such threats.
We might see the the rise of the far right in the UK, particularly as those who thought that Brexit would bring jobs and homes to everyone.
We are almost certain to become poorer as a country.
If we continue to have neo-liberal governments such as those of the last thirty years there will be a continued run down in public services, with Health and Welfare the first to go.
This contest, like all wars of the past has been fought with the lives and livelihoods of the poor to satisfy the ambitions of an elite. The ambitious politicians have played the same game as ambitious politicians for thousands of years. They have encouraged to poor to blame all their difficulties on the even poorer. The gap between the rich and the poor in Britain has been widening. Instead of the obvious explanation (that the rich are taking from the poor) somehow the elite have managed to peddle the myth that the poor of Hartlepool are poor because there are starving, homeless Syrians.
The Rich are getting richer, while the poor pay the price.
I shall leave you with two maps and a plea.
First a map of where the UK voted to leave.
Secondly a map of the ten richest and the ten poorest areas in Northern Europe.
And the plea? We have done a monumentally stupid thing. We must now all be constantly on oug guard against extremism, against hate-crime, and against simplistic attempts to blame ‘the other’ for our own misfortunes or disappointments.
Eu Referendum results
Rich and poor in Northern Europe
Charles West 