The evening's chores can be a time of amused observation
or, in this case, an irritated rant running in my head as I shovel
goose poo. My thoughts were circling the EU Referendum and
the regular festival which I both dislike and cherish, and I call it
the Moron Exchange.
So, confession up-front, I am a reluctant brexit
supporter. According to all the analysis I have come across in the
media, I ought to be a remainer, other than the fact that I live in
Cornwall which overall voted for out.
As a brexiter I am apparently worried about immigration
and deeply opposed to freedom of movement. Send all those immigrants
home... Err... no. So my great-great-grand parents don't count as
immigrants, do they – Britain ruled all of Ireland back then.
Freedom of movement within the EU strikes me as no worse
than the natural freedom of movement within the UK – giving us
cities in the north with empty houses, and over-crowding in the
south-east. You can't blame people for heading to the places where
they think the money and the jobs are.
Personally, I blame successive governments for not
addressing the economic imbalance, but the freedom of movement is
something I support. Otherwise we are back to medieval serfdom -
you want to go to the next county? Put your hand up and say
'please, sir' and I'll consider it.
As a brexiter I am sure that the UK will be able to make
much better use of all the money we have been sending to the EU.
Err... no. I won't be holding my breath on that one.
Of course, I naturally believe that we will be freed
from the burden of excessive regulation... or not. Take cover,
winged pigs incoming. Bureaucrats and their love of regulation is
not a special, EU phenomenon. And relax about the pigs, because I am
sure there are regulations on their minimum altitude and safe-flying.
Getting desperate here, but surely I am going to be so
much better off outside the EU? At the time of the referendum, my
suspicion was that I would be worse off with brexit, and the
post-referendum fall-out just reinforces that view, but I am still a
brexiter.
Starting to run out of big issues now... so why not vote
remain? My problem with the EU, one of the issues barely touched on
from what I saw, was the relationship between the European Parliament
and the European Commission. It feels to me like the tail wagging
the dog. The Eurocrats, as they've been dubbed, determine policy,
the MEPs apply the rubber stamp, and that troubles me.
Over a serious number of centuries in the UK, we have
gone from absolute monarchs to a parliamentary democracy (please
pardon the up-coming fast-and-loose analysis of history – I'm a
physicist). Go back a handful of centuries and Parliament was still
just there to do the Monarch's bidding (according to several monarchs
of the period) and if they chose not to then Parliament was invited
to think again. Or a few members were imprisoned and asked to think
again. Or accused of treason and asked to think again. Or executed
as an example to the others who could then think again. Or, if all
else failed, Parliament got dissolved and the Monarch went it alone.
Now, the Eurocrats don't do the imprisoning, false trials and such
like, but if the EU Parliament doesn't apply the rubber stamp, they
get invited to think again.
So which is better, a trained, professional, expert
Eurocrat, or an MEP whose only qualification is they got enough
votes? I've been a technical expert myself, and I wouldn't trust me
as the final arbiter of how things should be done, other than the
seriously technical and unequivocal ones such as which way round the
batteries go. Equally, you can find examples of elected officials
who shouldn't be allowed out without parental supervision. Frankly,
you can get a dangerous moron either way around, but my personal
preference is for the elected official.
All of this brings me round to my Moron Exchange – or
the election in more formal parlance. With elected officials
determining, debating and deciding you can still get the most awful
outcomes, but if it is that bad, and enough people agree how bad it
is, then in a few years time you can fire those elected officials and
pick a new moron to screw up your life. The Eurocrats come up with
the best policies, the expert policies, and they take away the
fundamental, unwritten right in a democracy – the right to vote for
a less perfect solution because you feel like it. After all, if the
bureaucrats were fully in charge I probably wouldn't be allowed to
chose something detrimental to myself even if I signed waivers
agreeing that I knew I was doing something against the expert advice.
I like the whole concept of the EU, but until it is
governed via the Moron Exchange, I will be a brexiter. Anything else
is just tyranny in disguise.
