What do you know about the European Union? Not much, I bet. Yet we are all going to be asked to vote about staying in or leaving.
It will be a decision made of ignorance for what do we know of the EU? Do you know how to contact your representative or even who they are and what problems they may be able to help with?
Politics
The political parties will tell you a little truth but they will also obfuscate, promise, predict and tell you only the things that matter to their cause. I will not say that they will lie to you but it is not in their interests to tell the whole truth.
We have some very gifted political journalists but their employers, the newspaper editors, will be following the ‘out’ or ‘in’ line. Journalists exist on the chatter from Westminster. When do we hear about events, debates and policies from Brussels? We hear only when the popular press can make fun of a decision or to express Righteous British Indignation.
Just like a club membership
Think of the EU as a club whose members are countries, 28 including the UK. Those countries have 508 million population or 7.3% of the world population.
Like all clubs you bring certain things with you to the clubhouse, paying the subscription is perhaps the most important but so is agreeing to obey the club rules.
You must be approved as a suitable member. In the case of the EU, member countries must be stable democracies, have a system of human rights, free speech an independent judiciary and an orderly and fair financial system.
The club, in return, offers its members favourable trade agreements, a central fund giving loans at good rates for developments and a central currency. The people in the member countries are considered equal and to be treated as equals when in other member states.
Below this level are unifying regulations about professional qualifications, border controls, standards for all manner of manufacturing and agriculture. There are schemes to bring transport between countries into existence, the channel tunnel for instance and the Oresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden.
Representation
The UK has about 70 MEPs (Members of the European Parliament). We have 10 representing our South East region one of whom is Nigel Farage.
The others I had never heard of until I looked them up just now. There are 13 regions to cover the UK. There are 751 MEPs to cover the whole of the EU. Elections are held every 5 years with proportional representation.
The Union or Common Market as it was at first, was set up to encourage trade rather than invasions after the Second World War.
A most important and enduring agreement was that an attack on any one of the countries would be regarded as an attack on all and we will all defend that one country. Otherwise the USSR would have picked us off, one by one, like it did Hungary and Czechoslovakia and now in the Crimea.
Nobody’s perfect
The EU has its faults of course. For 17 years no financial authority of any integrity has felt comfortable to sign off the financial audits.
There are scandals, fraud and other venal activities. There does not seem to be a coherent foreign policy nor defence system; that is left to NATO.
The Euro is not as sound as we would like as we saw with the events in Greece. The Common Agricultural Policy has been a scandal which is changing too slowly and is detrimental to other parts of the world.
Then there are the problems we in the UK are experiencing. Partly due to our own financial success we are generous to ourselves.
Whenever a state decides to give people money, it is no surprise that people line up to receive it. Nor should it be a surprise that there are unforeseen consequences. The rules are that anyone here in UK can benefit so European immigrants come to take advantage.
Given the faults, and there are many. Books are written about them. The governments of the individual countries are not faultless. The UK is not faultless. The euro may not be too stable but then is the pound sterling?
What’s in it for us?
Will the UK stop getting immigrants if we withdraw from the EU? Do we want to stop getting them?
What is really in it for us and what will we miss if we leave? Nobody is saying.
Today’s papers are full of who will rebel against the PM, who is organising the Brexit, who has fallen out with whom. All these ministers and other politicians will be long gone to directorships and the house of Lords in a few years but we will be living with the results of the decision we make in June.
Only one country has ever left the EU, Greenland. Are they any better for it? I have no idea. Are we, in the UK, any better for belonging to the EU? What do you think?
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. George Bernard Shaw.
Countries in the EU
The EU countries are:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
Institutions of the EU
- European Parliament
- European Council
- European Commission
- Courts of Justice of the EU
- EU Central bank
- Court of Auditors of the EU
Members in waiting
Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Turkey.
Non-Members but with extensive trading treaties
Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican, Norway, Greenland, Lichtenstein.
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Great post, Mike. I must admit I wish the EU could get its accounts sorted out properly. Things like that let the EU down badly.
Mike, thank you for the article which whilst factually correct in places is also factually incorrect largely by omission.
If you are going to write something truly unbiased you must commit all the facts to paper and not just the palatable information.
As a result your article is misleading because it purports to be ‘truthful’ and yet hides the truth, rather like Heath and Wilson did in the 1970s when this nation was duped into into joining the Common Market.
What we should be asking as why so many people are ignorant about the EU, its founding principles, it’s history and how we came to be in it. (Some say the French only allowed us to join on the second time of asking after de Gaulle had rebuffed our initial application to join, all while he set the Common Agricultural Policy in place to favour French farmers.) True or False?
As an ex school teacher of GSCE History I can tell you that our national curriculum has until just recently omitted the study of the EU and British social history post 1945. FACT. Why you may ask, if it is so important? Perhaps for our government ‘ignorance is bliss’ (Orwell wasn’t it?). Stalin and Hitler used this ploy of silent propaganda.
My view is that we’ve been kept in the dark for a reason, to keep people ignorant of the truth. Does this sound familiar? This is a crime against society of the highest order, the deception of a nation over numerous generations. Now things have changed at last and the information is available especially on the Internet to give people a free and informed choice, should they feel it worth while to look.
The real truth is we don’t know what next year is going to look like either in the EU or out of it; it’s all up for grabs. But there is much store in the maxim ‘neccesity is the mother of invention’ and perhaps we need to re-ignite that outward looking UK entrepreneurial spirit so dumbed down by being shackled to the EU. Rest assured ‘it is by its fruit’ that we know whether or not something is good or not and bearing good fruit. Or does it need felling to make way for something else? Is the EU a good thing or not? What does the fruit look like?
After 40 years in the EU/EEC we now have some evidence to look at and at this point scrutiny can start in earnest. I would say on balance the record for the UK (and perhaps for some other countries) it is not good. It was never intended to be!
My view is that in my lifetime as a nation we have been deceived and I think we should be looking at the advantages of being out, self determination, parliamentary democracy and prosperous world trade etc.
Looking back at the effect of EU membership we see our farming industry has been ruined by the CAP, fishing industry decimated by the Fishing Policy, coal and steel sectors humiliated, and legal & parliamentary system made subservient to a foreign power with no argument; let the debate begin.
Yours,
Martin Lyon (UKIP) – Hampshire County Councillor
MRICS, FCIArb
Martinlyon.ukip@btinternet.com
I am sure my article is truthful and accurate in its message that we are ignorant of the EU. Thanks the Martin Lyons for adding information to the debate. I could not cover everything in 900 words.
Our ignorance is due partly to Westminster but also the press and the EU itself. Why was there not a MEP on the Question Time panel last night? The BBC knew that the EU in/out debate would be the major topic.
Since joining the EU 40 years ago we are all better off. Is that because of the EU? In spite of the EU? Or nothing at all to do with the EU? Where will we be in 40 years from now if we leave? Or if we stay? I am sure I speak for many when I say that we are not well enough informed to answer these questions.
Mike,
With reference to Question Time last night I think you’ll find that Paul Nuttall is an MEP for the North West of England.
Yours,
Martin