Administrative

Brexit: Being aloof is better than being a fool

27.06.2016

Whether the government overestimated its position in the blunder to call for a referendum, or Britons mistook the opportunity to test out ‘any change is good’, Britain’s proposed exit from the most progressive and and unifying international conglomerations is disappointing rather than hopeful.

The United Kingdom may not lose anything by leaving the European Union proper (when was it ever truly a part), but it knows it has nothing to gain from it.

What are now accepted as untruths by Leave campaigners (NHS funding, budgetary disbursements to the EU and all matters money-related), are precisely the reasons why the UK should continue with the EU. It may cost billions to be part of the club, but the returns are severally more: diplomatic clout, trade deals, economic opportunity, cross-cultural interaction, being the envy of the world.

It can be argued that the lesser prosperous parts of the United Kingdom were foremost for change - feeling themselves untouched by economic development promised by the common market and unable to enjoy the benefits of the EU’s ‘open door’ policies. Perhaps the Leave vote was cast in the hope of recovering low wage jobs and a defocus from the modern day Jerusalem that is London. They will get neither.

Minimum wage jobs existing in the UK were created not in spite of but because of the existence of free movement. These will evaporate just as quickly as the cheap European labour that manned them does. British industrial workers are notoriously hard to appease, and are well known for their brazier handicraft when the unprofitable becomes unsustainable. Whether the government will prioritise time and effort on a less-than-competitive industrial environment of the North and the Midlands over the lucrative commercial dealings of London remains to be seen.

Only as the turmoil in the immediate aftermath of the referendum dies down will people realise that all that’s changed is nothing; and perhaps that should be the legacy of this latest peoples’ vote.

Tags : brexit european union referendum united kingdom

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