Why it's time to leave the sinking ship

After the outcome of the EU draft text was released this weekend, I made a quick post to say that I had decided that we should now leave the EU. I've now found the time to give my reasons.

It has been a journey for me. I thought for a long time that our destiny was better served by being a member of a large trading block, with shared regulation to tackle problems such as climate change. Over time my enthusiasm has lessened as the EU has pushed ever further into grabbing more powers whilst being completely inept at handling the responsibilities it already has. The EU has been pushing my buttons for a while and the renegotiation was the last chance to keep me wanting to stay in.

Initial negotiations

Let's first look at the Bloomberg speech David Cameron in January 2013. In this great oratory the Prime Minister spoke eloquently about how as Britain we had a different outlook but shared many aims of the EU for prosperity and peace. He set out a series of issues on which he wanted fundamental reform.

• Fix the issues regarding the Euro and our place outside the Eurozone should not diminish our influence. We should not have Eurozone policies foisted on us.
• Increase EU competitiveness by restricting regulation.
• The EU is seen as remote from the people

In answer to these issues he made some suggestions. He wanted to limit the size of the EU commission, control its spending, simplify its controlling structures and complete the single market. He wanted flexibility without the same level of integration, and to abandon the principle of 'ever closer union'. He wanted power to be placed back with member states and a more significant role for national parliaments. He mentioned legal judgements of the European Court of Human Rights should be subservient to the EU. 

When I heard this speech I thought "some good ideas, maybe not far enough in some cases but enough to convince me."

When this was filtered into negotiating points by November 2015, it became:

• Protection of the single market for Britain and other non-euro countries
• Boosting competitiveness by setting a target for the reduction of the "burden" of red tape
• Exempting Britain from "ever-closer union" and bolstering national parliaments
• Restricting EU migrants' access to in-work benefits such as tax credits ad child benefit for 4 years. 

At this stage, completion of the single market had become protection, there was still mention of boosting competitiveness and exempting Britain from ever-closer union. But there is no mention of the size of the commission, its spending, the controlling structures, or the position of the ECHR. At this stage about half his proposals had disappeared. 

Outcome

Finally, this week the draft was published which had:

• Removing Britain from the compulsion of 'ever closer union' and red card system for national parliaments to block legislation from the commision (if 55% of parliaments agreed)
• Some words about strengthening the internal market.
• Some words about there being more than one currency in the EU.
• A gradual increase in in-work benefits and child benefit to be paid at the rate of country from where the migrate came

As can be seen, the migrants access to benefits has been watered down, boosting competitiveness has been reduced to the same loose words as previous treaties, and that there being more than one currency in the EU is self evident. We will be removed from ever closer union but the red card system will never fly, not enough national parliaments would ever organise to block a regulation.

A disappointment.

A big disappointment.

I have no reason to believe that the EU would be any better if the draft is enacted. There would be very little change. Rules and regulations would come from on high as now, our parliament would be as subservient as it is now. The EU will be just as un-democratic. They would continue to ride roughshod, in fact I believe more so as I will explain later,

Overall position

We now know that the renegotiation is pretty insignificant so let's look at the overall position of the arguments in favour of the EU or Brexit.

The main reason for being in the EU is access to the single market. But do we need to be a member for access? Norway, Iceland, Switzerland all have access, but still have to adhere to regulations without much influence. Canada has access with not quite so onerous terms. If we were to leave I'm pretty sure that during the negotiations to leave we would quickly have an arrangement for access to the free market. The other countries would not want to put up barriers to the fifth largest economy in the world. 

And how much influence do we have anyway? We've objected to regulations 55 times since David Cameron came to power, and 55 times we've been outvoted. So no influence.

Erm, is there any other reason we would want to be a member of the EU? I can't think of any.

So, what problems would we be rid of or alleviate by not being a member?

• The British parliament would regain full sovereignty
• We would be able to get rid of the hated Common Agriculture and Fisheries policy and stop the crazy incentives for growing stuff we don't need
• We would regain full control of our borders and be able handle immigration in the way we wanted
• We would not have regulations foisted upon us arbitrarily, we would only need to abide by regulations to trade with the single market when trading with the single market
• We would be free of the EU attempts to try to get a common foreign policy
• We would be able to set our own VAT rates in the way we wished
• We would be free of threats to take away our seat as a permanent member of the UN security council and to set up an EU army.
• We would be able to sign free trade agreements with other major trading partners such as the US, China and India (we have been waiting for 40 years for the EU to do such things)
• We would be able to save money being spent by the EU bureaucracy
• Our EU contributions could be spent at home in better ways and we could be forever rid of our EU partners trying to reduce our EU rebate
• We would be able to provide aid to some badly hit industries such as steel
• The democratic deficit would be vastly reduced

There are so many political reasons to leave, but the arguments will inevitable come down to economic arguments. Will we be better off?

The arguments are often made that three million jobs are dependent upon our membership of the EU, which may be true. But they don't mean to say that we would lose 3m jobs they just mean to sound like that. There is no reason to believe that we would lose jobs, many investors in Britain have gone out of their way to say that it wouldn't matter to them.

We are also told that half of our trade is with Europe, which is true, but it is declining. It used to be more than half, it is now less than half. The continent's economy has been in poor shape for far too long and there doesn't appear to be much appetite for change. Do we need to be continually shackled to this aging behemoth?

We need to raise our sights on the rest of the world where new opportunities lie. So I have come to the conclusion being in or out of the EU will not have much of a difference on how wealthy we are as a country or individually in the short term. 

In the longer term though, with increasing globalisation, I think a large organisation such as the EU is doomed to gradually fail while smaller, faster acting countries will sweep all before them. We should be a part of the fast thinking free world, able to exploit new opportunities and not be tethered to the ideas of the last fifty years. I think we will be better off in the longer term being outside the EU.

We have also seen how undemocratic the EU is. Greece and Italy had Prime Ministers foisted upon them. Portugal elected left leaning anti-austerity parties in their election but has been told not to allow them to form a Government by the EU.

When the public has a say, and the EU elite does not like what it hears it either asks the public to think again or finds a way to ignore them completely.

As for Britain, we are seen as trouble makers sniping from the sidelines and are brushed aside as much as possible.

We finally have our chance to have a say. What does it imply that even if we have the chance to leave, we choose to stay? They will then completely ignore us and be deaf to our whinging, even more than now. We will be locked in forever. We will not be able to threaten to leave again and be taken seriously.

I fear staying far more than leaving.

It is time to go.

Squiffy.