No deal Brexit looms. Britain will be leaving the EU. Nationalist Prime Minister Boris Johnson promises the use of the Royal Navy to protect British fishing boats and to keep foreign vessels out, even though the EU emphasized inclusiveness. There’s no place for friendly sentiments among ethnocentric Tories.
Britain going it alone also means attacking the countryside. A large area of agricultural land in southern Kent is ploughed to build a lorry parking lot in anticipation of traffic jams as customs tariffs will be imposed on goods entering and leaving the UK. All this in the name of a worn out, war mongering notion of state sovereignty.
The world needs different priorities: nuclear disarmament, policies to deal with global warming and a devastating pandemic. Respect for interdependence, multilateralism, cooperation, dialogue and peace with justice is imperative, not Prime Minister Johnson and his colleagues shouting about sovereignty, and on the streets the masochistic Brexit supporters waving their union jacks.
Two issues need confronting. The first concerns the self-destructive referendum decision, previously canvassed in Pearls and Irritations, March 28, 2019 ‘Brexit, A Democratic Absurdity’. The second concerns the value of saying the Brexit decision can be respected at the time it was made but has passed its use by date.
Democracy surely does not mean that a vote influenced by false claims and by emotive repeats about sovereignty and the will of the people should hold for ever?
The referendum to determine whether the British people wanted to stay or leave the EU, was held on June 23, 2016. Voters were fooled by fear, deceit, racism, foreign interference and holier than thou arguments that the referendum was an example of democracy at work. Slogans on Boris Johnson’s Leave Campaign bus said that 350 million pounds per week would be returned to the National Health Serviced if Britain left the EU. This was a lie of Trumpian proportions, yet as with any conspiracy theory, a large proportion of UK citizens believed it. Aided by Murdoch tabloids, the sovereignty for-ever chorus aimed to anaesthetize voters and leave them groggy with enthusiasm for an independent Britain.
The fear card was played by an openly racist demagogue Nigel Farage, photographed in front of a poster depicting hordes of non-white people attempting to invade Britain. These invaders were said to be EU members from Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. None were members of the EU, but in the sovereignty or nothing era, who cares about facts? Like an apprentice to the US bully boy President Trump, opportunist Prime Minister Johnson says and does anything to brand Britain great, even though his cherished Brexit looks certain to leave the UK isolated and impoverished.
The second issue concerns the so-called democratic principle that because four years ago, 51.9 % of the people voted to leave the EU, their vote mut be respected for ever as an unchallengeable expression of the will of the people? Based on lies confirmed by a criminal conviction imposed on the Leave Campaign, why should this vote be given the status of ten commandments, carved in British granite, always to be worshiped, never discarded?
To save Britain, the Brexit vote needs to be re-evaluated and the records placed in a museum. There are many precedents for reconsidering and reversing significant decisions.
People make investments in stocks and shares, then change their minds, reverse the decision, invest elsewhere, or withdraw from stock exchange speculation entirely. No financial adviser says a decision once made holds for all time.
People get married, make oaths, sign marriage certificates and years later decide that in the interest of all the parties, divorce may be a better option. Circumstances had changed, so had minds.
People decide to migrate and may spend years in their new home country. On reflection and after different experiences, they decide to return to the country of their birth. No-one says that because you once decided to leave, you cannot return to where you came from.
A local Council allows the removal of trees on beach fronts and votes to allow building permits for several high-rise apartments close to a shoreline. A few years later, aware of the consequences of the earlier decision, the councillors vote to protect and promote local amenities and prevent developers from riding roughshod over a natural environment. No-one argues that the initial Council vote cannot be reversed.
As a sailor, I am acutely aware that decisions to sail to a particular point must be reversed when the weather changes, winds become gale force, waves increase in height and frequency. Only the thoughtless skipper says carry on. Britain is also facing wind and waves and should turn back.
The UK is being warned of the consequences of leaving the EU with no deal, or only a paper thin one. Leaders in food distribution, in farming and business have said that no deal would be catastrophic. Even with a flimsy deal, food prices are predicted to rise by 5 to 15% and 13,000 goods are expected to attract import duties. Because of antagonism to Europe, and to defend bogus UK sovereignty, the smooth delivery of goods to and from ports will end.
John Harris, writing in the UK Guardian of December 14, says that after withdrawal from the EU, Britain will finish up like the country bequeathed by Margaret Thatcher, only far worse: ‘shabby, fearful and run by people who keep telling us that if we only work harder and dream bigger, something world-beating will sooner or later materialize.’
Clothes to camouflage the referendum decision have been made from hope and glory threads and ragged home spun lies. Once removed, they reveal a government naked, hastily trying to cover up with red, white, and blue fig leaves labelled sovereignty. To avoid that cold, embarrassing and self-destructive outcome, it will be necessary to admit the Brexit decision was disastrous, and negotiations will start to re-join the EU.
Stuart Rees AM is Professor Emeritus at the University of Sydney & recipient of the Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize.
Comments
9 responses to “Cancelling Brexit, the only remedy for a disastrous decision”
Almost all of Stuart Rees assertions in his article need challenging. The political debate preceding the Brexit vote may have contained its fair share of furphy’s, what political debate doesn’t, but in the end the British voter got it right. Britain is better out of Europe now rather than later, for the following reasons.
1. The United Kingdom joined Europe initially as it believed it could strengthen Europe and help democratise EEC Institutions. That as Margaret Thatcher foresaw would be an impossibility. Thus today Europe, governed as it is by bureaucracy has not developed the political structures to accommodate change.
2. It is impossible in the long term, to conduct a common monetary policy without uniform fiscal arrangements. The end game of such endeavor is developing before our eyes. Some countries in Europe getting richer and richer and others becoming economic basket cases. Given time this will eventually implode.
3. The European Central Bank is not a central bank as we know it. Germany has the best banking system in Europe (on which the East Asia success is modelled). The ECB policies impact adversely on Germany’s banking structure. This is another developing area of conflict.
4, Realising it had made a mistake the UK has extradited itself, just in the nick of time. And now has a withdrawal agreement; a basis for further work. Future UK Governments will be ultra cautious about another referendum on Europe, nor secession for Scotland. And Ireland now has an agreement with no border between north and south thereby protecting the “Good Friday” agreement. This lays the pathway towards a United Ireland. Well done Boris.
the EU is a farce and not even close to a democratic system. It is run by unelected elites who change the rules to suit themselves, while crushing the smaller members with crippling unemployment and trade arrangements which enrich Germany and France at the expense of other members. Monetary union has been a complete disaster and luckily Britain was able to evade that trap and held onto their currency sovereignty. It ran down it’s own economic capacity over decades to be a part of this crooked scheme which is pure neoliberalism. However they did it, Britain did well to get out of the stranglehold of Brussels and pave it’s own future. The present disruption is minor and quite frankly, without Britain, the EU experiment will collapse within the decade as it is an unsustainable system of governance. I find little reality in the point of view in this article.
You could write a similar article about what our Federal Government should do about global warming, but you would be stating the obvious. The knotty problem is how come we are saddled with such a bad faith, myopic governments?
I think the plan is for British nations and colonies like the US, Canada, Australia and NZ to form a racially pure union and lead a coalition of old money nations like Japan and South Korea, and enemy-of-my-enemy nations like India and Vietnam, against threats to British hegemony like China and the EU. Gunboat diplomacy has already started in the South China Sea. Similary withdrawal from NATO is a precursor to divide and conquering the EU threat. When the events of the past two decades are viewed through the lens of the perfidious albion it seems to me that everything is going according to plan. Brexit was masterful and so is the artful perception that it was an unexpected mistake that got out of hand.
I agree with Prof Rees But not surprised at the dogmatic attitudes of the British Torries. Australia is no different as we have our own Tories. Dogma and belief in self superiority rules. We continue to refuse to even contemplate a re imagination of our alliances let alone our place in Asia.
I agree with Prof Rees But not surprised at the dogmatic attitudes of British Tories. We in Australia are no different. Dogma And belief in self and superiority over others rules. We continue to refuse to even contemplate a re imagination of our alliances let alone our place in Asia.
This article contains all the usual smug, out-of-touch assumptions of the “educated” middle class.
The result of the Brexit referendum was never in doubt to me but then, I don’t have a university degree which entitles me to dismiss my fellow human beings as “racist” because they’re sick of seeing their pay undercut by too much immigration.
The “educated” middle class as exemplified by the author of this piece spent years outright denying that unskilled immigration cuts our wages and makes our lives harder. After decades the most they could do is produce an economic study that unskilled immigration “only” reduces wages by 3%.
Every pommy I’ve ever met hated being in the EU but then most of the ones I know don’t have a uni degree therefore they don’t deserve to have a say in society unlike our “better educated” peers hence their fears get dismissed for forty years as “stemming from racism” and people like me warning of an impending backlash which would be exploited by the right are simply not listened to by my “educated” friends until Trump gets elected, Brexit gets approved or Morrison wins the “unwinnable” election.
The author of this piece like all the other “educated” people decrying Brexit elevated denying and dismissing the working classes fears for forty years until it came back to bite them and now they’re resorting to their usual excuse of blaming the working class as being “racist”, and “uneducated” which is their dog whistle for “stupid”.
The “educated” care nothing for the lives of the working class unless its to tell them what to do.
The “educated” don’t care about the lives of the people who voted Brexit so why the hell should they care about the “educated”?
Your pay wasn’t undercut by immigrants. Someone had to do the job at the pay rate that was determined under the robber baron capitalist system over the past 50 years. Your pay was undercut by the people who run the system and employ the immigrants who do the jobs you won’t do. Don’t worry now with Brexit and Ozzexit you’ll get the chance to do these jobs at those low pay rates again. Just don’t blame it on the Muslims.
Thats exactly the attitude that got Brexit voted for genius. I’m certain you’ve never worked in an industry exposed to competition from immigrant labor especially given your rubbish “do the jobs the locals won’t do”. Yeah, locals used to do the job but then employers found they could exploit new immigrants by paying them less than the locals and you defend it because-“Gosh, immigrants! Isn’t it wonderful!”. You’re typical of the Fake Left who, as I pointed out in my original post, spent decades defending the “robber, baron, capitalist system” by denying that immigration levels affect the wages of the working class. No, people like you have gone around parroting the “robber, baron capitalist classes” talking points of “immigration boosts the economy/wages/jobs” all the whie its driven wages down and raised the cost of housing to unafordabe highs you useful idiot.
Like I said in my original post people like you are wholly uninterested in the negative impacts of too high immigration on the working class and its sure been good to see Trump, then Brexit, then Scomo wipe some of the smugness off your faces