Hello Austin,

 

Thought provoking piece about the Brexit. Beeing dutch I was pleasantly surprised to see mention of Pim. Also beeing dutch, and therefor probably something of a suspect pinky crypto communist, I do not agree to some of the points in this piece. In my mind the better comparision would be the one with 1861. There were states in the US that were objecting to more control of the federal government (among other things....), and they choose to sever the ties that bound them with the others. Which resulted in a conflict that ended with them discredited, and still forced to accept the changes that they resented. I am very aware that the political, governmental, and  diplomatic differences between the states of the USA were probably not possible to bridge in the assigned courts (namely the Senate and the House) at that time. However I do feel that the UK now could, and should have been active within the EU to change it, or for them even better, to prevent it from becoming that super state that quite a lot of people fear and (already) hate. As the feeling within major parts of the population in the EU is now against "More EU", they more or less left the fight to the other countries that also are agains that. The UK was always one of those countries that was a brake on "more EU". And they had the diplomatic (and economic and financial!) cloud to pull that of. Now, whatever the UK decides to do vis-a-vis the EU, they still have to work with it. But their position is now less strong then it was, as they do no longer have one of the veto buttons. And even if they try to contact their former allies, I am not sure they will still find the willing ear that they found, as the other countries WILL consider them quitters.

Also as all major decisions are still made by the heads of government (all elected officials in their rspective countries, who mostly are (or should be...) aware of the feeling of their respective voters, the move to "more EU" will prove to be harder in the future.

One less positive aspect of this vote is the fact that brexit is seen by rightwing xenofibic groups as an exuse to peste all people they consider foreign to leave the UK asap. This has resulted in quite a lot of hate crimes and intimidation. As an english friend of mine wrote: I am sure most of the "exit" voters are not xenofobic or racist, but those that are, do see this as an endorsement of those attitudes.

What I do want to mention is that this vote is a wakeup call for most other countries and leaders in the EU. Until now they could, and did, disregard popular anti-EU feeling as incidental, and not important. Therefor there was no need to change, or otherwise better the current form of the EU (apart from the call for "more EU"). Also the failure of the pro-EU camp during the referendum shows that the percerption of the EU is no longer positive. When the whole proces started, in the 40's and 50's, almost everybody still had the scars from the previous two wars, which both started in europe, and the overwhelming feeling was "Never Again!". Now that we have had an unprecedented 70 years of peace (at least in the western part of it....), we no longer see the need for more union to prevent war. So the EU also has to work on her public image. Their public relations is mostly about economics and peace. Both of them do no longer resonate as much as they once did. And with a rising tide of "less EU" or at least "stop the more EU", it might, or actually should be a good time to see what europe and the EU really wants or needs.

I'll have to largely disagree with this column. My reading of the campaign is that Vote Leave was fairly dripping with nationalism and bigotry. Much of the facts that were used have also been thoroughly debunked. On the other hand, it resonated with people. There weren't many that were really willing to fight to remain. Selling EU as a product is not that easy, it depends on having a thoughtful and reasoned discussion. Dissing it, appealing to more base human feelings, is much easier. 

 

So the British put "feeling good about themselves" before "reason and cooperation". Ok. Have it your way. From the proud British point of view, the Continent is now completely isolated. Poor buggers. As Nigel Farage put it to them: "You're not laughing now are you!". A pretty childish attitude.

 

The Brits will now be able to feel more in control of their affairs. On the other hand, the EU will now have one Eurosceptic country less to deal with. The EU project will largely continue. The Brits will no longer have any influence over where it goes and they will more or less have to accept what the other 27 countries decide. In the long term, I don't think that is a very smart position to be in. But that's where they're heading. I guess they'll just have to Keep Calm and Carry On. They're good at that. A second Dunkirk. No big deal. 

Well perhaps it might be said that the result of this referendum will help to make the power of the Entity Elites a little less absolute and therefore less than absolutely corrupting. 

 

Why all this suspiciousness against the EU bureaucracy and against supposedly corrupt "Elites"? Why frame it like language that? Classic strawman. Classic populism. Classic ad hominem.

 

Yes, the EU has a bureaucracy. So what? Yes, you can call it an Entity Elite if you want to, but why? It's a bureaucracy like any other, no better or worse or malignant than the US Federal bureaucracy and/or the local UK bureaucracy. Ok?

 

To the extent that it replaces local bureaucracies, to the extent that power is handed of to the EU, then total bureaucracy is reduced. I think that's good. Some stuff is best handled locally, some stuff can be handled the same for all countries. Big deal. In my own country, EU legislation has forced improvements to our own legislation, stuff that really needed fixing.

 

Please note that the EU is something that has been created by democracies, for democracies. Non-democracies are simply not welcome. The basic goals of the EU are peace, prosperity and freedom. I don't have a problem with those. Who has? Looking back, it's been pretty damn successful on all of those.

 

Finally, no one country among the 28 is able to dominate all the others. Should be pretty obvious. The other 27 aren't that bloody stupid and incompetent.