The EU Referendum: Wake Me after the Defeat
Sean Gabb
Though I no longer read newspapers or watch television, I see the British Government has published its Bill for a referendum on our continued membership of the European Union. I suggest that anyone who believes in eventual withdrawal, and who sees a referendum as a means to that end, needs to have his head examined.
Let me explain.
First, my own belief in eventual withdrawal is tempered by an awareness of present benefits. I agree with Richard North that complaints about harmful regulation from Brussels are often misplaced. Much regulation comes via rather than from the European Union. A growing number of regulations – the Codex Alimentarius, for example, or further laws on money laundering – are agreed at a higher international level before being transmitted to Brussels for incorporation in Directives. If we left the European Union, perhaps we might have more control over the making of these regulations. Perhaps we might have more scope for quietly ignoring them. But leaving would not in itself free us from giving effect to these agreements in our own laws. This being said, the economic benefits of leaving may be overstated.
Turning to the present benefits of membership, there is no doubt that leaving would subject us to the unrestrained power of our own ruling class. Our constitutional arrangements have proved inadequate over the past century for the protection of our historic rights. The Judges are working hard to provide us with one. As yet, however, we still have no body of fundamental law that can be used to strike down incompatible Acts of Parliament. Therefore, if we want to stop the Government from turning the country into a freakish police state, we must look ultimately to the European Court and to the separate but associated European Court of Human Rights. I want eventually to leave the European Union – but not with our current political arrangements still in place.
But let me now address those who want to leave the European Union, regardless of how this might empower the British ruling class. The overwhelming probability is that any referendum held in the next five years will be lost. This is partly because the referendum will be fixed in various ways. Business and the mainstream media will line up for continued membership. The Conservative Party will ultimately join the Yes Campaign. Somehow, ways will be found to give the Yes side more money than the Noes. The referendum question is already slanted, so far as anyone wanting to leave must vote for a negative rather than a positive.
However, the real imbalance is entirely fair. The Yes campaigners will be united on essentials. Doubtless, they will disagree on matters like membership of the Euro and on the meaning of legislative subsidiarity. But they will be united on the need to stay in and to argue for whatever they conceive to be in British or wider European interests. If we look at the Noes, there is no agreement on anything except the need to leave.
How are we to leave? Should we simply repeal the European Communities Act 1972, and then denounce the Treaty of Rome as amended? Or should we use the leaving mechanism set forth in the Treaties? If the former, what will be the status of all the delegated legislation made under the 1972 Act? Should this be allowed to lapse with the repeal of its enabling statute? Or should it be retained for phased amendment or repeal? What should be amended or repealed? Once we are out, what trading arrangements should we seek with the rest of the world? Should we try for the relationship Norway or Switzerland have with the European Union? Should we try to join the North American Free Trade Association? Should we follow a policy of unilateral free trade? Should we bring in selective protection of key industries? What kind of country do we want once we are out of the European Union? Do we want a fairly libertarian place – a sort of Hong Kong? Do we want a British ethno-state? If the latter, do we want an ethno-state like Israel – liberal on all matters not regarded as existential? Or do we want something rather Burmese? Supposing England votes to leave, but not Scotland? What new and hastily-made arrangements will this require?
The problem is that everyone who wants to leave has his own preferred answer to these questions. Even before the possibility of leaving came onto the agenda, most Eurosceptics were barely on speaking terms. After decades of agitation, nothing had been agreed. I doubt if anything will now be agreed. There is certainly no agreed leadership for the No Campaign. A leadership will probably have to be imposed by the Government if the referendum is not to become an open scandal. Doubtless, the leadership will be a pack of thirty-something apparatchiks obviously in it for the money and fame. But, even otherwise, it will be denounced by its supposed followers for alleged treason and incompetence.
To win the referendum, the Yes Campaign will do best to say very little that cannot be handwritten on a postcard, and to watch the knives come out on the other side.
I do not know how I will vote. I do not even know if I will bother voting. But, unless something wholly surprising happens between now and the vote, I predict that the Yes Campaign will win decisively, and that the question of our membership of the European Union will be put to bed for another generation.
So there it is. We shall have the referendum that has been demanded at least since 1992. It will be lost. Why, then, pay any further attention to it? I hope I shall pay none.
Written as “Richard Blake,” Sean Gabb’s latest novel, Game of Empires, was published on the 15th May 2015. It is available on Amazon and from all other booksellers.
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All of the questions about the “kind of country we wish to be” are matters for the British people to determine, not a supranational treaty body.
Yes, leaving the EU will entail some kind of compromise.
The ECHR is associated with the Council of Europe, not the EU.
Sean appears to advocate taking no action prior to the dawning of a new liberal ethic. I suppose that this will just come to pass while we sit on our hands.
I am not saying what we should do. I am saying what will happen.
Very grand.
It may be a better plan to vote to stay in, let the EU subsequently collapse under the wright of its own internal baggage, then leave amid the falling debris, hoping that this crude material takes-down some of the British-PoliticalEnemyClass with it.
We are thankfully not in its currency-union, and now it’s improbable in my lifetime that we shall be thus so. Thus the economic damage to the UK from EU-collapse while we are inside the thing will be minimal.
We seem to have moved on since the turn of the century
Unfortunately, the referendum will rule the issue out of discussion for the rest of our lives. That is maybe why it is a bad idea to have the referendum when no associated package of policies to deregulate and slim down the civil service has been agreed by the Eurosceptics. We are left unable to explain why and how exit would be best – as we have not agreed a package of measures to make it work – and so those who fear exit will win. The issue will trundle on into the 22nd century.
So why can’t we then demand a new Referendum a year later or so, on the basis that the first one “delivered the wrong result, that was suggesting that The People had misunderstood the message communicated by the media, and actually they really wanted to leave”?
Well at least if the half-hearted sort of message Sean has just revealed is anything to go by we shall lose.Some leadership.
The mere satisfaction of the “ruling class” having it thrown back in their faces would give me enormous satisfaction as I remember all those dear patriots who gave so much of their time and who are probably to some considerable extent responsible for the current anti-mood. I don’t give a stuff how hard it is to unravel it all after we have left – that is not our fault, we did not create the mess in the first place.
May I inform readers that the long-existing patriotic movement the CIB (Campaign for an Independent Britain) (Google)has something on the go and when their leaflets are prepared for distrivution what would it cost just to go down a couple of your local streets and put out theirleaflets? In theri leaflets and on their website are links to videos from leading business opponents of the EU like Stanley Kalms former boss of Dixons, Curry’s etc.
Years ago Imet a young chap at BathUniversity hwo had voted “yes” in the 1975 referendum and he said he wished he had not. There may be thousands who also wished they had not.
Come on chaps – don’t hand it on a plate to the bastards.
Get on your local radio station “phone-in”, write a letter to you local paper. Do something even if it is only to say you tried!! At least the bastards are having to put the question. Get outside all your local secondary schools where some of the 6th formers will have a vote, having voted first time this time. Build for the future if not for now
Yes, but what are we supposed to be arguing for?
Britain’s continued existence as an independent nation-state.
A clear assertion that we wish to be a country in which laws are made by elected representatives whom we have the power to turf out of office.
An end to governance via supranational treaty and the subordination of our global representation to 1/8th of a qualified majority vote.
A great prod in the eye for those who would deign to impose all of the police state apparatus to which we are all opposed.
I broadly agree with Sean, though I’m probably a little less aware of benefits; any which may have accrued to us in the past from a more liberal, in some social aspects, of Europe, no longer exist as the EU has entirely been subsumed under Neoprogressivism (not least because of having an Anglosphere nation inside it as a launch pad).
The general tenor of the article I entirely agree with though; if there is one primary reason that The Enemy win, it is because they are broadly united, a coalition of interests who “logroll”. Opponents are not united and have fundamentally different ideas of what is wrong, and what we should do or be instead. This is much like many “revolutionary” situations in which a broad opposition only agree that The King Should Be Deposed, but then instantly fall into civil war once he is gone, even if they can hold their fragile coalition together long enough to achieve that. Unless and until opposition to the Establishment and their Neoprogressive ideological platform can be united around some common set of alternative values, there is in my view little headway against them likely to be achieved. As one example, libertarians and nationalists might share a disapproval of the EU, but cannot even agree on whether the borders should be effectively full open (most libertarians) or fully closed (most nationalists). As a supporter of Libertarianism In One Country, this is to me possibly the worst of the incompatible red lines between opposition formations.
But anyway, I am sadly confident that this referendum will lead to a resounding defeat for “No”. I will vote “no” anyway, but I will be truly amazed if we leave. I think the whole, long-standing demand for a referendum has been woefully politically naïve and virtually suicidal from a strategic perspective. I just hope I will be able to bear the sight of Cameron and his cronies preening themselves in the glory of a “yes” vote without projectile vomiting.
I’m hoping that people like UKIP are gong for the Long March Through the Political Institutions, and thus not worrying that all they have done up to now is dust and ashes. God knows where the new people and money will come from, when the current lot die or get bored and join the PoliticalClass, magically-transmogrified as “someone else” in each case.
The tragic mistake UKIP made was to go for “outing” before “the cleansing of the British Political Enemy Class”. This act, first, would probably have raised the risk of “civil conflict” or worse. Which is why they flinched, and blinked first.
I stand by Sean’s thesis that the _real enemy_ of us all, is the _White Ethnic Leftist-Liberal_ British-PoliticalEnemyClass.It may be better to even stay in the EU. the bastards bow to it for the present.
We should become _really scared_ when this EnemyClass itself “wants out of the EU”. We then shall be North Korea, writ large.
I think whatever way you look at it, the only way anything is going to be achieved will be by the defeat of “The Ideology” that powers the current ruling elites (call it what you like), so it’s not really about particular actions at this stage. I think it was you who coined the term “Libertarianism in One Country” and I personally believe that that is the basis of the reaction we need to create, though probably more “Liberalism In One Country” but to do that we need a shared positive value set that most non-proggies can feel comfortable with adopting, and we don’t have that yet. For me, the fight has become very much not about some political system but the Fight For Western Civilisation, and that’s not really the same (to me) as the Libertarianism of the 20th century. My own view is that this is in turn dependent on getting a good working definition of what Western Civilisation actually is, which I don’t think has been previously done correctly, and that is part of the reason for failure so far.
It may of course as I said previously be too late anyway.
Also by the way, tomorrow I’m going to be attempting something foolishly dangerous; repairing my CRT monitor, so if I suddenly disappear from the internet, I touched the wrong bit and connected myself to too many kilovolts.
I’m still alive and my monitor is now functioning properly again, by the way 🙂
I am relieved to note that.
My view on UKIP is that observing their behaviour, they really still haven’t realised properly what they’re up against in ideological terms and thus keep leaving themselves wide open to attack. If you haven’t got really good ripostes to Proggies, you’ve taken a knife to a gunfight.
I suppose the best strategic path for the leave campaign would be to primarily focus on it as an act of secession- self determination as it were. Then agree a formal exit strategy: repeal of the 1972 Communities Act and leave everything else the same. Then the leave side can branch into different blocs arguing what to do next- the only consistency needs to be UK sovereignty. The only way to win is to take Keith Preston’s model of working with diverse anti-state groups. Obviously this could create some difficulty in providing a clear message although would make the crude stereotyping of the leave campaign far more difficult.
You people are arguing as if voting actually changed anything… I’ll have some of what your smokin’.
Surely the work done on “Flexcit” is the place to start?
http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/flexcit.pdf
Richard North has probably done more on this than anyone else. At the same time, he is hated and suspected in much of the Eurosceptic movement. I haven’t said there are no good answers to the questions I pose – only that there is no agreement on the answers.
North like Farage is an ego man. Less smooth than Farage, more abrasive. To give him his due he is a careful and meticulous researcher and very well informed. His support for BlueLabour because they were “the only game in town” referendum-wise remains badly misplaced. BlueRinse would not have even considered a referendum unless the fix is in.
Must we lose everything because the pygmies opposing us are marginally active (paid for with out tax money) and singing from the same scummy hymn sheet?. Nothing can be done to save this nation and freedom in any area unless the left are first smashed and this should be out first priority.
You are an established writer Sean. A great novel of freedom–a new and better “Atlas Shrugged” is needed now in place of tawdry entertainments.
Mr Blake is not a purveyor of tawdry entertainment. As for the Out Campaign, our joining it would simply add one more voice to the existing babble.
Tawdry is too strong a word. But they are “entertainments” not trying to convey a message. And you put forward, correctly, the idea of the importance of culture.
Read my novel “The Break.” You’ll find that has a message you might enjoy.
Referendum will be a total waste of time. The fix is in already anyway; even a child could see that. I won’t even waste my time voting.
And the EU is not actually the fundamental problem anyway. As Sean says, it’s more of a symptom than anything. In the present authoritarian-corporatist environment, it is actually more likely to act as a (rather unreliable) brake on some of the regime’s excesses than anything else.
But this country will “leave” the EU. Because the latter will gradually collapse under its own contradictions.
The +real+ challenge is to think about what a post-EU England will look like. Very few of the “no” campaigners have really begun to think about that question.
Is it going to be a free, liberal society? Or a modernised Anglo-version of the DDR?
Leaving the EU will not affect our trade with it as the balance of trade is in the EU’s favour. If the EU were to stop trading with us ( as some Europhiles and scaremongers childishly suggest ) in the event of our withdrawal, it would be cutting off its nose to spite its face.
The argument that our ruling elite would have untrammeled powers if Britain withdrew does not hold water as the ruling elite already support EU membership. Secondly, I would far rather our own ruling elite have unlimited powers in Britain than that these powers be restrained by a foreign entity.