Tuesday 21 June 2016

#EuRef - a case for staying? Comments please!

Been having a long discussion with a mostly reasonable Leave-er on Twitter. Was interesting. The general conclusion I came to, though, is that we don’t stand to gain anything by leaving.

We’d still be the 5th biggest economy (though might not be if we leave) and 4th military power (for whatever that’s worth), and would still play a central role in NATO, the UN, the G7, the G20 and the Commonwealth. We could play an even greater central role in Europe if we stay but no role at all if we leave. Yet we will still have to pay them bucketloads of money and abide by their rules and regulations (the way Norway does) while having NO influence over any of it, which sounds like madness.

In exchange for what?

Control of our borders? We have that now as we are not in Shengen.

The freedom to engage in a race to the bottom by lowering wages and tearing up workers rights to compete with China and Pakistan in cheap manufacturing?

The freedom to go back to shit floating up on our beaches, 200,000 deaths a year from air pollution and the destruction of our countryside due to unrestrained fracking?

And … Er …. That’s it.

Oh and our currency and the banks will crash again, which will be lovely, but at least houses will be cheap for a while ;-)

Doesn’t seem like that good a deal to me.

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