Leave the Remains

Sounds like the title of a murder mystery, perhaps… 

As the EU Referendum approaches the closing stages (at long last!) and the hyperbole, scaremongering, idiocy, outright lies, dodgy statistics, self-serving expert advice and all the rest is put away (hopefully never to see the light of day again), what’s it all about, Alfie?

What, indeed. What seems to have been lost in the argument is that the once-named Common Market has grown and grown into the European Union, a dictatorial behemoth administered by unelected individuals paid for by the taxes from the member states’ workforce. They’re profligate with the money, unaccountable, and blatantly arrogant about any edict they wish to foist onto the collective membership (the people who pay their high salaries).

What’s it all about, Alfie?

The EU isn’t a democracy, it’s a bureaucracy, wasting tax-payers’ money on vanity projects to justify their well-paid existence.

What's it all about?

The vote isn't about 'leaving Europe' - it's about leaving the European Union. We're part of the European continent and always will be, communing, sharing, trading; we're also part of the wider world, too.

What do the UK papers say?

Leave                                       Remain

The Sun                                   The Guardian

The Daily Telegraph                The Observer

The Sunday Telegraph            The Independent

The Sunday Times                  The Mail on Sunday

The Daily Express                   The Times

                                                The Daily Mirror

                                                The Financial Times

Undeclared, last time I checked:

The Daily Mail

The Daily Star

The Morning Star  

There are powerful, well-considered arguments to be read, indeed, for both sides.

One argument goes that if the UK stays in, we can effect change.

That doesn’t seem to work. Reports suggest that of the seventy (!) changes the UK has voted for, the EU voted against. The arrogant bureaucrats don’t or won’t listen; they know best. If they had listened, if they had really wanted the UK to ‘remain’, maybe they should have tried harder when Mr Cameron went round with his begging bowl.

If the UK remains, expect to be sent to the ‘naughty step’. 

And that old-fashioned title, ‘Great Britain’ will be removed, since the coinage is tarnished. And it will be self-inflicted – much as it was shamefully removed from British Telecom and British Petroleum and British Home Stores (oh, certain rich individuals took more than ‘British’ from BHS, didn’t they? Their workers’ pensions!) Sorry, got sidetracked there...

One thing we can be sure of: exciting times lie ahead, whether we want the ‘excitement’ or not.

'If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.' 
- Winston Churchill.

Well, the Common Market seemed like a good idea at the time...