The complications of our decision to exit the European Union has been tender meat to all political commentators and our press moguls.
The introduction of our Supreme Court into the mix by an interdict
from a private individual on the basis that our parliament has to have
the exit procedure placed before it so that a debate and a vote can be
held by the elected representatives, the MPs,
has just been resolved amid much rancour, propagated by our right wing press.
The MPs themselves are the centre of a constitutional question,
whether they are free to act on their own initiative or whether they are
bound to mirror their constituents who put them in Parliament in the
first place. Being elected in our system of
democracy seems to hand over the power to decide on all political
matters to the MP since even the party manifesto is advisory and not
binding. We elect them in good faith to do as they said they would when
on the doorstep but that's as far as it goes.
The question "do we want to be in or out of Europe" was too simplistic since the consequences were difficult to prove
or disprove and remain so. The cataclysm which was foretold by the
Chancellor George Osborn has not come to pass yet, since in actuality
we are still inside the EU and little has changed, other than the
sentiment and the rhetoric from the banks and business.
The issue of whether we can find comparable, equally profitable
markets to trade into has to be seen. The world has moved on since we
last traded with it. It is now more predominantly made up of powerful
blocks China and Asia, the US and of course Europe
We are a minnows compared to them and are at a disadvantage when
it comes to the muscle required of a deal. We clutch at straws when we
place hope in Donald Trumps new "restriction free, American commerce to
give away much of a free meal.
The Chinese are difficult to do business with since they are a hybrid of a free market and an authoritarian centralised
government controlled economy. Their business practices would not stand
scrutiny in the West and for us to expect a quid pro quo I
think is highly suspect. The smaller nations such as Australia and New
Zealand or Canada have populations not much greater than one of our
major cities and so whilst on the periphery, trade with them is not
going to feed the gargantuan appetite of our welfare
expectant consumerist led population, unless of course we all become "tree huggers"!!
And so the reality of what we voted for is pretty dismal unless of course one brings into the equation the probable
collapse of the EU as we know it. The strains are there with the
shameful misappropriation of trust in the land grab which defines the
expansion of the EU to include nations which are inappropriate to
belong to a monetary union without Federal governance and a centralised
control. The national imperative is too strong, the variances between
the economies too great, the temperaments too wide
to make a lasting success of the union and when it pulls apart it were better we were out than in.
Can we scale our inbuilt preference for grandeur to something more modest. Can we enter the ring as middle weight
and not take on the heavies. Can we recalibrate our society to
understand there is no free ride and that if the norms of a sensible
society
can not be met on the cash coming in we can not continue to kid
ourselves that it's business as usual.
Of course with a Tory government in charge the brunt of the pain
will be brought to bear on the most disadvantaged. The business
community will be cosseted and encouraged to exploit the new restriction
free opportunities that coming away from Europe will
bring
and it is perhaps so sad that people here, manipulated by the
press Baron's diet of lies and extremism, were unable to understand that
being close to European culture and ideas was far more healthy than the
new liberalism of America, never mind the extremes
their new president brings.
We are where we are as much because of the intransigence of the
Bundesbank and the straight jacket German finance has over Europe,
evidenced by their treatment of the Greek population, the Irish, the
Spanish, and the Italians. The rise in hard left/ hard
right populist political parties is an outcome of the stricture of the
Bundesbank and its proxy the ECB. Fascism was a response to the
financial strictures we and the French put upon Germany and it would
seem we never learn.
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