Maxx said:
1. Was this even a binding referendum? I heard on one of our Sunday political shows that it wasn't. Why all the hubbub? Here, the ruling elites would ignore it just as they did California's referendum on gay marriage. That one was binding, too, if I remember correctly....
No -- I don't think it was legally binding. Just an election "promise" from David Cameron.
There are a lot of murmurs about the possibility of just ignoring the result, or having a second referendum, but I think the implicit acknowledgement by the ruling classes that democracy is dead would cause riots! The idea would have to be sold to the public very carefully, so even if that's what happens, the ruling elites couldn't publicly admit that. I'm curious to see how that develops...
Maxx said:
2. There's a problem with uncontrolled migration in Europe, just as there is in the U.S. Before political correctness, this would have been called "invasion".
Nonsense! Invasion is when an organisation attempts to overthrow a region's political system.
Maxx said:
In the face of an invasion, a bit of xenophobia is a good thing.
Ha ha! You did not just say that?!
Why is it good to hate people based on the geographical region of their birth?! That's just silly! Do you discriminate against people due to skin colour or hair colour too? Damn brown-eyed people! Always drowning puppies!
Anyway, I thought you were into freedom and libertarianism? Why let a tiny number of the aristocratic elite divide the world up into lines where people (depending on birth) can or cannot go?! Surely there's an inherent freedom for people to go wherever they please?
It's British imperialism that's to blame. The old geezers wanted to divide up the world into neat boxes, and enslave people to the box of their birth.
Maxx said:
Just ask the American Indians how uncontrolled immigration worked out for THEM.
That was an invasion.
Maxx said:
3. Economically, the EU, and its predecessor the Common Market, is a sound idea, and exit is likely to work out badly for the UK in the short term. However, it seems likely to me that the EU organization, like any organization granted power and authority, tried to expand its little empire and sphere of influence. If that is true, I would likely have voted for exit under the assumption that the long term bad consequences of another ever-expanding layer of government would ultimately trump <pun intended> the short term bad economic outcome.
I sat on the fence for most of the debate because neither side seemed to make a convincing argument. I swayed towards remaining because I think the EU is a great concept and, although it's long overdue a review/reform, we could have fought to steer it in a slightly different direction... but... maybe I'm being a little optimistic here.
European leaders have (quite rightly and understandably) said that they won't discuss negotiations until Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is invoked (committing the UK to leave the EU within two years). At which point, they can hold the deadline (at which all trade and political agreements automatically expire) like an axe above our head. And if they make it easy for us, other countries will leave, completely disintegrating the EU. :-/
John Major did a great job at getting us an exemption from adopting the Euro. That was a crazy idea -- I can't believe so many countries agreed to it. The idea of a single international currency is great, but regions need control of fiscal policy to reflect localised trends.
Concerning immigration, I think even the little Englanders and xenophobes were quite happy with the EU until the Eastern European and former Soviet countries joined in the mid-1990s. Regardless of your views on free movement, the financial situations in the new member countries was markedly different to those in the West, and large numbers of people suddenly wanted to come to Britain. It all happened too quickly for society.
If we'd never had the concept of borders restricting free movement, the world would have adapted to becoming a fairer place without the dramatic changes and upheavals we intermittently experience. The past few hundred years of imperialistic and individualistic aristocratic policies have left the world with an obvious and inherent imbalance of power and resources. There's a gaping chasm between rich and poor that continues to be unfairly exploited. The most visible form of this discrimination is in preventing free movement. Why shouldn't people be free to make a better life for themselves? But now we've got ourselves in this situation, we can't fix it overnight by sudden changes to social and financial systems.
