I FIND myself very uncomfortable with key figures within the leadership of the Leave camp, particularly Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Michael Gove.
A lot of the stuff I read from Leave supporters on social media is unpleasant and, in many cases, just pure bile.
I certainly don’t buy into the argument that “foreigners are ruining our country.”
The claim that the United Kingdom would become some sort of economic powerhouse if we leave can only be tested by actually leaving; meaning that leaving represents a huge risk for every single citizen, worker, saver, taxpayer, pensioner and beneficiary of our entire welfare state.
The notion that we would be better governed outside the EU can’t be taken for granted, either—because we had an awful lot of bad, inefficient governments before January 1973.
Yet, here’s the odd thing, even with all of those concerns and discomforts I will still be voting to leave on June 23.
And, if opinion polls are to be believed (although a week is a long, long time), millions of people who were undecided a few months ago will also be voting to leave.
Why is that? Well, it is clearly the case that people are concerned, maybe even frightened, by the ‘immigration question.’
I accept that the issue has also been tied into the whole Isis/Islamaphobia crisis dominating news agendas around the world, but it is stupid to dismiss those concerns as something that is just a priority for ‘racists and bigots.’
It isn’t: and the Remain camp should have taken a more grounded, less moral high ground approach to the issue.
Most people don’t understand the intricacies of the economic argument and are genuinely confused with the statistics being lobbed from side to side.
But most of those people will still be aware of the serial crises that have dogged the EU since around 2006.
They know about austerity agendas. They know that Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland needed bailed out.
They know that other countries needed rescue packages. They know that billions were wiped off the value of pension funds and savings; that millions of people were made redundant; that deep, deep cuts were imposed across the EU.
They know that the UK also took a massive hit, even though it wasn’t part of the Euro.
And yet, knowing all of this, the Remain camp still tried to sell their arguments on the back of the bizarre argument that the UK would, unquestionably, be better off in than out.
That cannot be taken for granted. The entire Euro project has been dogged by one crisis after another and there is no reason to believe that it will improve.
Indeed, since political/monetary/fiscal expansion and integration seem to be the continuing goals of the EU then it seems likely that ongoing crisis and uncertainty will remain the order of the day.
There is no ‘safety in numbers’ when it comes to the EU; yet many reasons to believe that ‘going it alone’ makes much more sense.
I’ve written before of my personal concerns about EU empire building: a flag, an anthem, a commission, a president, a single currency, a foreign policy, a nascent army, and an obvious determination to bring individual national budgets and tax systems under central control.
People keep telling me I’m wrong about this and yet the Topsy-like growth and integration continues. As Angela Merkel put it five years ago:
“The task of our generation is to complete economic and monetary union, and to build political union in Europe, step by step. Not less Europe, but more Europe.
Everything is at stake. If the Euro fails, then Europe will fail. And with it fails the idea of European values and unity.”
As I see it, Remain has failed to provide coherent responses to genuine concerns raised about immigration, economics and EU integration.
And in failing to provide those responses they have allowed Leave to gather momentum (which is fine by me, of course). Instead, they have concentrated on what often seemed to be scare tactics, aimed at browbeating rather than inspiring.
Surely, after 43 years of membership, Remain could have come up with a refreshing, positive, progressive agenda for continuing membership?
Arguing that EU membership is the best way of stopping war always struck me as a peculiarly fatalistic way of selling the virtues of membership.
The Leave camp ran their own version of the scare tactics campaign, which did trouble me; and I think they have been pretty cavalier about the consequences of a vote to leave.
But for many people who are still undecided it boils down to this: we can’t be certain what will happen if we leave, but we can be certain that nothing will change if we stay. Hmm.
Next Friday is shaping up to be a momentous day.
