The United kingdom and the EU: Sovereignty

Increasingly it seems that the majority of those supporting an exit from Europe are doing so from a thinly veiled position of xenophobic distrust and dislike of immigrants. A BBC Radio Four interview with a London blue-collar worker took me back to my childhood as they talked about the 'foreigners' coming over here and 'taking our jobs, our benefits, houses, health care and other stuff'. Were we to replace the word 'foreigners' with 'darkies' it would have sounded exactly like someone from the post Windrush London I grew up in voicing their views - in fact it could have been my Dad, a man who moved away from his native London to escape all those foreigners!

But to suggest that to people is to have them protest that they aren't racist at all and quickly move the conversation on to the issues of sovereignty and/or corruption.

So let's look at these and try and find the facts rather than the posturing - today we will try sovereignty.

In 1972 our Parliament passed the European Communities Act - an act that implicitly recognised the primacy of EU law over UK law.  We accepted that EU would generally apply but held the position that Parliament could overrule and set aside EU laws from having power here should it be felt to be detrimental to us or to be an area where the EU has exceeded its authority.

The last credible figures I've seen (2010 - House of Commons) regarding EU law says something around 15% of UK law and around half of the laws which influence our economy comes from the EU.

Just over half of the laws have to do with the way we trade outside of the EU, agriculture and fishing  - the remainder (40%) deal with immigration and the like. But sovereignty means that defence and the way we operate as a nation are left pretty much to us to decide and where we think EU laws are not in the public/national interest then we have the power of veto.

Were we to leave the EU but continue to trade within it, we would have to accept and implement the relevant laws without any ability to bring about change or veto - trading from outside would mean we would become significantly disadvantaged and would become a minority nation bending the knee to a greater power! Don't sound that acceptable to me!!! Not only that but an 'outside the EU' UK would find the freedom of travel Changes (we'd be the people in the queues at airports and docks) and would be to make of significantly less interest to the US and other supposed special relationship nations as we love influence internationally.

Waving Union flags and singing 'Rule Brittannia' is all well and good but we'd have to change the words to 'ruled the waves' and celebrate us becoming more like Albania than a player at the world table - but of course we wouldn't have all the foreigners because they would all be off somewhere with a future!

And interesting postscript came in the form of a conversation with a 'leave' campaigner' who volunteered the fact that were we to leave the UK would still need to offer up some of the sovereign power and would need to pay out ," Perhaps as much, perhaps even a little more!' for the reclaiming of our right to rule as we would need to compensate the farmers who would lose their EU subsidies. But that aside they would still need to comply with the EU regulations should they wish to trade with Europe so the only change would be the loss of subsidies - doesn't sound like a 'win' to me if I'm honest! 

Not only that but apparently if we leave we can have Genetically modified crops without 'Europe' interfering!

But it gets to be more fun as we could opt out of the 35 laws the EU has brought in (we used our power of veto to bin the other 100 we didn't consider to be relevant) but since we thought they were worth having perhaps we will decide to hang on to them after we've gone? One of them stops drivers banned in Europe from driving here, can't see why we would want to keep that one; another is about monitoring corruption - but if we leave there wouldn't be any because we all know it's only the foreigners what are dodgy (bird house and pond anyone?) - so that's cool too!

But we could perhaps decide to opt out of the Human rights things, write our own constitution and disband anything we consider to be against the public interest - which will isolate us and make us a worse nation than Zimbabwe if some of the legal stuff I've been reading (which was neither 'stay' or 'leave' relater, it was about human rights) is correct.

You know what - I am coming to a place where I am pretty convinced that we won't gain much in terms of regained sovereignty but will lose much in terms of being an influential member of the world political and economic scene.

And to leave might mean that we have to accept that racism, bigotry, injustice and the like are the values we value most, because that appears the bottom line and the underlying theme from the majority of those with whom I have engaged thus far. How long before we rewrite our constitution to please the lunatics?

Rule Britannia or Fool Britannia?
Ruling the waves or waiving the rules!
YOUR CHOICE

Still, I have corruption and whatever biblical indicators to look at yet - so there's always a chance that I will change I guess. But from my 'haven't a clue' position I am now finding myself as a resounding 'remain' person.

Perhaps I might have a conversation where it doesn't descend into another diatribe about how much we pay for foreigners to rule us - or about how foreigners come and take our homes, jobs, benefits and health service - or about how we are a great nation (which I think we are) whom everyone will want to get into bed with (because I fear they don't).

Still - onwards and upwards I guess ...

Fool Britannia - Britannia waives the rules!

The United Kingdom and the EU: European Law

The next stop on the debate is the claim that by leaving the EU we would be free to govern ourselves and would no longer be shackled by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) or any of the laws the EU come up with.

LEAVE

One of the more popular areas of conversation I have had relates to the 'fact' that leaving the EU will set British citizens free from EU laws and will guarantee our sovereignty and national identity. Leaving will enable us to break free from the shackles with which the EU binds us.

The European Union has no military might and none of the member states are occupied by force, or consent - it is not federal (even though that Naughty Ted Heath had that in mind when he duplicitously took the UK in to it!) and has no overarching government either - just a talking shop!

There are both the European Commission and the European Council, but the UK plays a major part in the debate and deliberations of both. So what is the root of this desire to break free from the chains of unwanted legislation?

Could it be Boris Johnson's bent banana and square strawberries (not a metaphor for his naughty bits) and the claim that peanuts must have "contains nuts' labels (mind you, might be useful on the door of the House of Commons) have helped people to think that we are wasting millions on silly legislation?

Perhaps it's the fact that (as me dear old Dad used to say) the EU makes the UK comply with laws whilst the rest (with Dad it was always Italy) just ignore them, subsidise their companies and act in a generally dodgy manner.

Generally this 'freedom'  is about sovereignty and parliamentary powers - we are not the masters of our own nation - which is the reason Henry VIII booted Rome out and created the CofE - so why should there be any doubt that this is a right move? Why should we let Johnny Foreigner meddle with us and our laws? After all, the European commission creates all sorts of directives, demands and laws; all of which we have to implement. If we were free then we would be the masters of our own destiny - Rule Britannia and all that stuff.

The same goes for all that civil rights tosh - the stuff that stops us acting as we see fit rather than toe the line because a load of liberal, tree-hugging types say so (a quote from a conversation with a 'Better Out' person). If we want to send a terrorist to the US then we should be able to - anything else is against our security and sovereignty.

Yes indeed - we are better off out because then, "We will be free to act however we want with no one to tell us what to do!" (another quote).

STAY
The first response has to be to quote that last statement:
"We will be free to act however we want with no one to tell us what to do!"

I hate to say it but it sounds like something a child might say when baulking against parental influence - but then again, if we could have divorced ourselves from our parent, wouldn't that have made our life great? We could have done whatever we wanted with no interference or comment - sounds like hell rather than heaven to me!!!

But  let's not get personal - let's look at facts:
first and foremost with regard to EU directives and laws, these have to be to be approved by the council, and voted on in the EU parliament and Britain plays a major part in this - it has a voice that is heard and (generally) respected . If we were to leave and yet still seek to do trade with the EU (our biggest market) then we would need to comply with EU laws and regulations. But being outside we would merely receive them rather than shape or influence them - so what we have is no less a submitting to EU legal things, merely a removing of any power to influence them.

With regards to human rights - we were one of the founders of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and even were we to leave the EU, we would still be bound by its ruling. As to being freer, who in their right mind would want to see anything that protects their human rights limited? Surely a no-brainer of a question!

Bottom line is that to leave does not take away the warrant of law or the decision handed down by European Courts of Justice or Human Rights, it merely takes away any potential for our nation shaping them. Seems to me to be a negative rather than anything positive in this area of consideration.

Vote whatever you like
BUT
You'll still be subject to decisions made here!