Categories
economics Politics

Brexit Reflections

I was taken by surprise last night to learn that the brexit referendum passed.
It makes little sense to me that the UK would quit the EU when they can get what they want while still enjoying membership benefits.

If immigration is what concerns them most, land-locked countries like Hungary with much less influence have been successful in enforcing their own rules while remaining in the EU.  How much easier would it be for the island UK, a major world economy with huge clout to do the same and get away with it.  Whether it’s keeping out/deporting Pakistanis and Poles or avoiding bailing out broke Greeks, the national government can do what it needs to and the rest of Europe can react as it will.  That’s pretty much what Viktor Orban has done in Hungary.
The “bureaucrats in Brussels” so often derided as international tyrants can’t make Britain do anything it doesn’t want to, except threaten them with what they just did to themselves.

That’s what I don’t get.  If the underlying problem is British national leaders failing to act, then quitting the EU will just make things worse and not solve any of their problems.
If this goes through, England will lose Scotland and maybe have new conflict in Northern Ireland. The English will have to renegotiate trade deals across the planet with far less leverage than they had before. I don’t see how anyone, rich or poor gains from this.
This is a huge mistake especially when much smarter strategies were available.
Hopefully they have a revote or it gets hung up in parliament.

I sympathize very much with the people in the UK voting ‘leave’ since they are reacting to so many problems that are tiresomely familiar in the US. I know how it feels to compete for jobs against foreigners who depress wages and who are allowed to hire preferentially while people of my ethnicity are not. The injustice of being sold out by the elites of your own people is infuriating. But I suspect the British public is falling for a scam by scapegoating a council of paper-pushers in Brussels instead of bending their own leaders to their will. They have much in common with the movement growing around Trump and Sanders style populism in the USA, but I don’t see a pragmatic guy like Trump making stupid self-destructive trade moves that defy common sense just to spite “the globalists.”
That said, I hope this serves as a warning to the EU, especially Germany that it has to change its policies if it wants other nations to cooperate. The Germans are the dominant economic power in Europe but they have overplayed their hand nevertheless. I am hoping this will lead to the downfall of Merkel’s equalist enlightenment school of politics and to the emergence of a “Europe first” mentality.
If Germany and Brussels bureaucrats do not change their ways, they may lose the EU and once these kinds of things fall apart, they cannot easily be put back together.
If this situation spirals out of control, with other nations following Britain’s lead, we need only fast forward a few decades to see the re-emergence of wars between European powers.

By Giovanni Dannato

In 1547 I was burnt at the stake in Rome for my pernicious pamphlet proclaiming that the heavens were not filled with a profusion of aether, but rather an extensive vacuum.
Now, the phlogiston that composed my being has re-manifested centuries in the future so that I may continue the task that was inconveniently disrupted so long ago.
Now, I live in Rome on the very street where I (and others) were publicly burnt. To this day, the street is known as what I would translate as 'Heretic's Way'. My charming residence is number 6 on this old road. Please, do come inside and pay me a visit; I should be delighted to spew out endless pedagoguery to one and all...

7 replies on “Brexit Reflections”

It’s my general impression that the EU is passing all kinds of laws and not just about immigration that people don’t care for. That being said I assume immigration is driving separation whether it’s correct to link it or not.

Whatever “laws” they may make the EU bureaucrats lack any direct means of enforcement. They can’t really force any member state to do anything.
I figured the EU was mostly about economic collaboration where it benefits member states and anything else sort of optional. The UK already opted out of using the Euro. They could have opted out of EU immigration policies while keeping all the trade deals they wanted.
At this point, it sounds like UK elites mismanaged things and now the commoners are angry enough to try to sabotage in any way they can. Evidently most people have things crappy enough, they don’t mind rocking the boat if it ruins the fun for the elites. Maybe they hope it will get them a a better deal, but it could just end up hurting everyone, the lower ranks, of course, worst of all.

I’ve been thinking about your post. You’ve talked about how the middle class is not fit to rule. You may be right about this but when the elites make so many mistakes maybe it’s better that the whole thing fling apart than keep pretending that somehow things are going to get better. Even if it’s not the status quo was just unbearable and flinging mud around at least lets them know you’re pissed.

I came about this idea reading a post on the blog ,
“Bloody shovel”

“We shall drown, and nobody will save us”

which not only is a good blog but has the best name ever. Someone noted that the Church saved Europe during the Dark Ages. Not to argue that point but after Rome had fallen actual life for your average peasant probably got better. Before there were so many agents of the government pestering you people gave up their lands and ran away to the wilderness to get away from them. Men refused to get married. It was a mess.

Maybe like a dog shaking to get rid of fleas will get not all of them off but a few, Brexit will knock a few fleas off the Brits.

I’ve noted before that present ruling order has an upper middle class yuppie mentality, which explains many of their failures.
Enough smarts to get ahead, but always within a sheltered careerist environment where naive idealism is the proper signalling behavior. Never having known a life outside of education and then the office, they really believe in a slew of ideologies that never work in real life.
These are the smart and successful people who when they get into power try to bring democracy to Afghanistan.

Bloody Shovel has a great blog. I subscribe to him on my feedly and you’ll see he’s on my blogroll. He can be rather shrill sometimes about globalist conspiracies, Jewish plots, and NAMs, but his posts on East Asian history are among the best on the web. He’s an insightful guy.

Leave a comment