A changing world

  

Subject: A changing world.

In a world vastly changed from the days Harold McMillan tried to get us into the European Coal and Steel Area made up of  West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium,Netherlands,and Luxembourg  and was excluded with the infamous "Non" pronouncement by the dictatorial President De Gaul. 
An alternate area, the limited Free Trade Area, EFTA made up of European states unable or unwilling to join the EEC such as Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland and the UK came into being with over time only Norway and Switzerland not being drawn in to the ever more powerful EU.
The essence of it all was to create blocks of common interest which economically would prosper better than a nation standing on its own. 
With the Brexit decision we are returning to the 50s again, standing apart in the hope we can negotiate a special deal and maintain some sort of connection to the EU 'Big Brother', and gain access to their huge market. It all seems a forlorn hope given that the politics can not condone a country leaving and still retain the benefits. 
Perhaps 'money' could persuade, although great play was made of the costs we were burdened with in the persuasion to vote out. The money we make by being in would, one assumes, have to be greater than what we pay but with our rapidly decreasing currency brought about by the mechanism of quantitive easing and our inability to keep pace with modernisation and the training required to equip our workforce with the skills it needs to compete, our "productivity" is way down at the bottom of the European league.
There are no, of old, titans of industry, in fact the industry's now sit in countries who hire people for a fraction of what we are permitted to offer and who enforce labour practices which went out of fashion here in this country in the 19th century.
Niche markets where our talented designers can sell products not yet thought of is an option for highly specialised manufacturing but it won't feed the masses.
What will the country, as our 'older generation' grows in numbers and lives ever longer and the 'working generation' have a myriad of claims to make on the Exchequer to support them "in a way to which they have become accustomed". 
It's a blind alley into which we shall have to accustom ourselves. The politicians will wriggle their way out of it with fine words and promises. Their get out clause will be the Referendum, a decision made which was out of their hands and whilst they willingly added material to the flames along with the 'press' who further ignited the spirit of rebellion,  no one from the Establishment will do a mea culpa.
Of course one can uphold that it was the correct thing to do. The European Union has many faults not least that it is becoming increasingly non democratic or accountable.
This democratic principle and the belief that the people matter and can be counted at the ballot box lies longer in our history than most others. Many European nations have only a fleeting experience of parliamentary democracy, many have had dictatorships many simply had aristocratic families deciding their fate. 
As the EU began to proclaim the need to Federalise and remove the instinct for nationalism which is seen as a danger for an amalgam of nations with disparate cultures and very different historical assumptions, we took fright believing our specific type of governance was valuable in the long run.
Our conception that we count for something as a nation a nation with its own values and priorities led many, including myself to vote to leave. 
The treatment of Greece, particularly by Germany was an omen. The sight of dictatorial power running rampant over the human beings who make up a society, people who had had no part in the financial mismanagement but were the flotsam and jetsam of the behind closed doors meetings with no sense of democratic scrutiny. It was this which persuaded me enough was enough.
Yes we were not told of the economic straight jacket which the EU weaves, particularly in Banking and it was not spelt out the effect of potential lost markets and the difficulty of trying to get into trading with those other monoliths the USA and China but never the less the freedom to make ones own decisions and spin a cloth which represents ones own values was more attractive.
Of course I am an old man with one foot in my historical experience and the other in the grave. It's different for someone young who have only experienced this new world of global contracts and an internet that transforms our ideas of individuality. They are the ones who will carry the burden of lower living standards which initially at least seems to be the outcome of our leaving the comfort blanket of the EU.   Only a few will concern themselves with being limited to employment within the Sceptred  Isle. They never had the vision of working in Germany France or Italy or even trying their luck in the wider world. The barriers have slowly come down to emigration to Australia and New Zealand The comfort of the Welfare State made them assume that their basic needs would be covered by the State and so long as Arsenal beat Tottenham all is well in their world. Perhaps in this brave new world of independence, the worth of a person will be seen once more by his or her inventiveness to keep afloat and for those who don't there are visions of a truly desperate poor on the streets of Mumbai to compare with.