Ian B
There is in my view one very simple reason for any libertarian to need to vote Out. Or maybe two. I’ll see how I go.
Liberty is an abstraction, but in practical terms fighting for liberty always means fighting some particular authoritarian cabal. It depends on place and time. In the USSR, a libertarian would be working to take down communism. In mediaeval Europe, he would be fighting perhaps the Church, perhaps a Monarchy. In 1930s/40s Germany he would be opposing Nazism. In this sense, libertarianism is always an oppositional movement, since if one has liberty, there is no need to be a libertarian. One would simply get on with life and enjoy one’s liberty.
So a Libertarian is always opposing some particular form of power, some particular group (or groups, plural) of powerful interests, some form of the State, not just “the State” in abstraction (a mistake many Libertarians I think make. We live in the real world, not an abstracted model of it on some other Platonic plane of essences).
In our place and time, the enemy is Progressives, which I have characterised as derived from an extremist post-Protestantism implementing a post-Marxist structural model. One of the most powerful methods of the Progressives is the use of “higher powers” to impose their will. International treaties, the UN, the EU, the Federal Government in the USA. And so on. The EU whether purposely designed to be or not is, along with the UN, perfectly modelled to fit into this, with its version of “democracy” as consultation with NGOs and other lobbyists, its private decision making and presentation of laws as fait accompli, its “regulatory” and “harmonisation” justifications and, perhaps most importantly, the implementation of government by “consensus” rather than by adversarial systems.
Bringing down the EU is not worthy because Westminster is in any way admirable, but because it will deal a body blow to the enemies of liberty of our time, the Progressives. If on the other hand the vote is “Remain”, they will be further strengthened. It is an essential step towards the goal of liberty.
And if that doesn’t convince you, simply imagine the smug gloaty faces on Cameron and Osborne if they’ve won on Friday Morning.
