Post-Referendum Blues

                                                                     

It’s a complicated story. Prime Minister David Cameron was continuing to have long term problems with so-called Euro sceptics within his party and an emerging threat of losing votes to UKIP. He thought a good way to quieten the Euro sceptics and minimise vote loss to UKIP would be to have a referendum on the European Union. This promise was made before the last election and was probably an important element in the Conservative win.  

Most unusually, the Great British Public was invited to vote to Remain in the EU or Leave. We have never been invited to vote on other serious issues, like Hanging or Fighting in the Falklands/Iraq/Afghanistan wars or even declaring war in 1914 and 1939, so why choose this subject? The promise of a referendum was a device to save the Conservative party and most immediately enhance their chances of winning the last election.

 Aren’t our politicians voted into power precisely to discuss and attempt to resolve disputes? Now, generally speaking, MPs are well educated and better informed than a large proportion of the public. If they’re not knowledgeable about a particular matter they work to acquire the facts and their advisers, including a large band of public servants, help them to understand.

There are some MPs I respect who stated that leaving the EU would be good for the UK. I don’t understand their reasoning.  Very little has been explained concerning the outcome of their solution to leave the EU. It is difficult to find any factual basis for the assertions that we would be better on our own, without the support of the other nations in the EU, that our trading potential would be greater, that we would be able to regain control of our country and our borders.

Here are the ten points made by the campaigners for Leave.

1.        Freedom to make stronger trade deals with other nations.

Apart from other members of EU we already trade with Russia, China, Canada, USA, Japan, South Africa, Algeria, Brazil . . . need I go on?

 We’ll need all that rather illusory freedom since our EU departure means we will cease trade agreements with the whole of the European Union nations. Moreover, trade agreements take considerable time so it will be quite a while to get back to where we were before Brexit even assuming that such an outcome is possible in the long term.

2.       Freedom to spend UK resources presently through EU membership in the UK to the advantage of our citizens.

This doesn’t even make sense! I think there’s a verb missing.  

3.       Freedom to control our national borders.

We already control our borders, possibly not well, but much of that is due to our poor Border Agency performance not Brussels. On the matter of immigration, Brexit is critical of the numbers but repeatedly fails to give answers about what they think are the right numbers.

4.       Freedom to restore Britain’s special legal system.

A system so ‘special’ that is it full of outdated and anachronistic laws. EU legislation and policy is the main driver of UK law and policy in agriculture, fisheries, external trade and the environment. In other areas, like welfare and social security, education, criminal law, family law and the NHS EU direct influence is far more limited.  Brexit fails to mention that the vast majority of these laws are wholly acceptable and we played a major part in their creation. Moreover, the move towards EU common law enhances trade since it reduces the complexity of commercial legal matters and cost. Brexit also fails to mention that leaving the EU will involve a huge legal task that will affect both Westminster houses with the obvious impact on time available for other important legislative measure and that all this legal retrenching will require civil servants with their host of expensive private sector consultants, mega quangos which the overtaxed British public must pay for. Recent press reports suggest that it will take ten years to unravel EU laws.

5.       Freedom to deregulate the EU’s costly mass of laws.

See above.

6.       Freedom to make major savings for British consumers.

The argument here is that British money from British taxpayers should be spent on British interests. We will no longer receive money from EU. The argument is pure blind assertion with no supporting evidence.

7.       Freedom to improve the British economy and generate more jobs.

This is a very woolly statement and does not explain HOW. It is wholly at odds with the views of most business leaders.

8.       Freedom to regenerate Britain’s fisheries.

The Common Fisheries Policy sets quotas for member states stating the amounts of each type of fish they are entitled to catch. Fishermen claim it threatens their livelihoods, although fishing stocks were in decline long before the policy was framed. The CFP was created to manage fish stocks. Isn’t that a good idea?

9.       Freedom to save the NHS from EU threats to undermine it by harmonising healthcare across the EU, and to reduce welfare payments

It will cost the NHS more to continue in its top-heavy, over-managerial ways. The NHS needs overhauling.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/15/brexit-save-nhs-vote-leave-europe

Moreover, the NHS has considerable catching up to do to equal many of its EU equivalents.

10.     Freedom to restore British customs and traditions.

This is ludicrous. We still have cheese-rolling, Easter egg hunts, Maypole dancing, Morris Dancing, Guy Fawkes (usually called Bonfire Night), ceilidhs, Jack in the Green, well-dressing, wife carrying, pancake races, ferret racing . . . I suppose that some want to see fox-hunting restored, then why not cock fighting and dog fighting, and let’s import a few bears for bear baiting.

The young people in UK who will have to live with the fall-out from the decision by the so-called Brexiteers to leave EU, are rightly angry, for they will be affected for the rest of their lives – job prospects, housing, pensions, freedom to work in Europe.

The Referendum Leave campaign relied heavily on scare-mongering about immigration. I don’t know why they didn’t simply say, ‘Charity starts at home  . . . and that’s where it should remain’ for when (some of) those who voted to leave were questioned it was immigration that they all mentioned. I am reminded of Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech in 1968. The full text is here and his reasoning is chilling.

Nothing much has changed. Great swathes of people fear and despise those they do not understand. When will the penny drop that Great Britain is and always has been a melting pot? We have been invaded, occasionally enslaved, for centuries. There is no such thing as a pure-born Brit. When will we appreciate the rich diversity of our ‘new’ countrymen and the things they bring for us to savour?

However it would appear that the United Kingdom is less united and more divided than ever. Scotland wants independence, Wales wants independence, Ireland wants reunification, London wants independence. How long will it be before the UK, or England at least, returns to the Heptarchy of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages?

From Wikipedia:

  The Heptarchy (from the Greek ἑπτά hepta, "seven" and ἄρχω arkho, "to rule") is a collective name applied to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of south, east and central England during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, conventionally identified as seven: East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex and Wessex. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms eventually unified into the Kingdom of England. By convention, the Heptarchy lasted from the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th century, until most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms came under the overlordship of Egbert of Wessex in 829: a period of European history often referred to as the Early Middle Ages or, more controversially, as the Dark Ages.

The term has been in use since the 16th century, but the initial idea that there were seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms is attributed to the English historian Henry of Huntingdon in the 12th century and was first used in his Historia Anglorum.

Meanwhile the pound continues to fall, meaning that goods will be more expensive and our standard of living will fall. Mortgages will be more difficult to arrange. The interest rate is falling. We must hope that we do not once more become the Sick Man of Europe as we were before we joined the EU.

Bureaucracy gone mad?

Bureaucracy gone mad or a cynical way to save money?

Sergeant and Mrs Michael Anderson

Image courtesy of Jolene Anderson

The British Army considers itself a caring, sharing family – a band of brothers and sisters – which places loyalty and support among its top priorities. This, at least, is what we are led to believe but is there a limit to the loyalty and support a serving soldier should expect? Apparently so. Consider the case of Sergeant Michael Anderson. He joined the army as a boy of sixteen and served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq. Subsequently he became involved in welfare, supporting the bereaved and the maimed.

It was his expectation that the Military Covenant would ensure that at the end of his military service he would receive a full military pension. The pension is the major financial promise in the recruitment, retention and promotion of personnel and is a resettlement payment to help soldiers make the move from service life to civilian life. For some it provides the wherewithal to secure a mortgage.

In June 2013 Sergeant Anderson was informed that he was to be made redundant – his redundancy will be effective three days before the end of his 22-year engagement, meaning that he will not qualify for his expected full military pension. Consequently, he will lose almost half of his promised pension.

So, at 38, with a wife and two young children, he must think again about his future in the civilian world, a future blighted by a broken promise for the sake of three days.

It is to be hoped that David Cameron will read and act favourably upon the petition Mrs Anderson has promoted and that Michael Anderson, and others like him, will be treated fairly. 

Three days – a long weekend – that’s all, but it’s everything when a promise has been broken and long-cherished plans and dreams have been shattered.

What were you thinking, David – or were you?

It was with great surprise and some fury that the British public, along with many of their Commonwealth and former Commonwealth members, heard David Cameron declare that Great Britain was the 'junior partner' of the USA in fighting Germany in 1940. He seemed to be unaware, or perhaps had 'forgotten' that the US remained neutral until Germany and Japan declared war on it in December 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbour. The US had supplied the UK as well as the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations
with war materials from March 1941 until 1945 through the 'Lend-Lease' law. The UK finally redeemed its debt in 2006.
Nicholas Soames, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, defended the Prime Minister's remarks, intimating that he had been misunderstood, but compounded the insult by omitting to mention the UK's allies. His grandfather must have groaned and pirouetted in his grave!
At the beginning of World War II Great Britain was indeed a 'junior partner' – but to France which had one of the biggest armies in the world. France had 86 divisions, Germany 78, while Britain had 9 and the US just 8.
After July 1940 Britain and the Commonwealth stood against Germany until Russia entered the war in July 1941. Forces from several defeated European countries escaped to UK to continue the fight – Albanian, Dutch, French, Polish, Norwegian, Belgian, Czechoslovakian to name but a few.
Russia entered the war five months before the US and arguably was a far bigger partner than the US in defeating Germany. Russia inflicted many more military casualties on the Germans than the US. Russia had the biggest army at the end of the war with 491 divisions while the US reached 94 including those also deployed in the Pacific. The sheer size of the Russian army was at the heart of the eventual German defeat.
The first important German reversal was in the Battle of Britain in 1940.
The first major land defeats of Germany were by British and Commonwealth troops at El Alamein in 1942 and by the Russians at Stalingrad in 1943.
More British and Commonwealth than US troops landed in Normandy in 1944. The RAF had many more fighters than the USAF for D Day (2172 versus 1311). The Royal Navy was the senior partner at Normandy, providing the majority of warships.
The biggest defeat the Japanese army faced was in Burma at the hands of the British and Commonwealth (especially Indian) armies.
Throughout the war the RAF was bigger than the USAF in Europe facing Germany. In June 1942 there were 9500 British aircraft and no US aircraft. A year later Britain had 12700 and the US 5000. Even towards the end of the war Britain still had the larger force with 14500 while the US had 12200.
When military deaths are brought into the equation, Russia suffered the greatest number of fatalities, followed by Britain and the Commonwealth, with the US suffering the fewest. As a proportion of population the British suffered three times the military deaths of the US.
Britain also sustained far more major warship losses than the US (260 versus 157)
Finally, Britain suffered significant civilian casualties and the US did not.
David Cameron and Nicholas Soames were both expensively educated at Eton (current basic fees are around £30,000 per annum). Is this venerable institute not able to employ effective History teachers or is it simply the case that David (and Nicholas before him) were not paying attention during lessons?
In spite of Hollywood reworkings of historical events much of the statistical evidence aforementioned has come from US Government sources, which are both remarkably accurate and well-informed.