So St Theresa of May has
finally signed the dratted letter to invoke Article 50. We’ll be
into that Red-White-and-Blue Brexit any time this afternoon, then.
Possibly even before cucumber sandwiches are served in the Hice
of Commons, accompanied, or not, by a handsome silver pot of Earl Gwey.
Even now, despite That
Letter having been signed and ritually hand-delivered, the UK is
still part of the European Union, and we will still be a member for
something like another 2 years. All the directives and regulations voted on by our MEPs
(sometimes even by N. Farage) that have been adopted by our British
Parliament, will still be in force, even after the EU agrees to the
terms of our exit from the Union. There will be years of legal work
to be done to extinguish those laws and
replace them with solely British ones.
Until the boot finally hits our red-white-and-blue backside:
We still have a rebate
on EU membership fees.
We still have a say,
via our MEPs, about what directives and regulations are passed by the
EU Parliament.
We are still not in the
Euro.
We are still not
signatories to the Schengen agreement (ie, – we ALREADY have the
tight control of our borders that many Leavers shouted for).
We still don’t have
to give benefits to immigrants who’ve just arrived here, even if
they are from the EU – not until they have worked for some years
and paid into the system (and we then give them less than many other
EU countries do).
We still share
information with EU states about criminal activity and terrorist
organisations via the European Criminal Records Information System.
People still have the
right to time off and limited working hours, parental leave, and
equal opportunities for men and women.
We still have the right
to live, work or study abroad in any of the 27 other EU member
countries.
UK students can still
(just) study or work in Europe on the Erasmus exchange programme.
Academic research
projects are (still, just) funded by EU subsidies.
Rural and deprived
areas could still be supported or funded by EU subsidies.
There are still Common
Agricultural Policy subsidies for farming (~55% of farm incomes), and
green incentives for adopting environmental measures such as tending
to wild grassland.
We still have laws to
ensure clean seas and beaches, good air quality, protection for
endangered species and strict guidelines on the use of genetically
modified crops and certain chemicals.
Using a mobile phone
doesn’t cost more in fees in other European countries.
20% of our energy should come from renewables by
2020.
What could we be going back to?
Signs saying “No
Blacks, No Polish, No Irish, nofuckingimmigrantsofanysort”? We
already HAVE tight control of our borders for legal immigration. If
what Leavers want is simply No Immigrants at all, umm, the word you
need to worry about there is ILLEGAL. Leaving the EU isn’t going to
stop illegal immigration.
No EU nationals working here, for instance,
in our health service? Or no non-EU nationals? (See the same link.)
No legal equality for
LGBTQ and disabled people?
No right to residency
for EU born partners of British citizens?
Restoring the use of
Imperial measures? I’m of a generation that learned originally to
use them, and then had to convert everything to metric (including
understanding distances in kilometres and metres for sporting
competitions, although car drivers even now still get away with
odometers and roadsigns labelled in miles). But we’d already begun
metricating before we joined the EEC and we’ve rubbed along all
right under a mishmash of measures for the last forty-odd years. It’s
hardly worth falling out with the EU over them. Are we now going to
re-adopt 240 pennies to a pound and 12 pennies to a shilling; ounces,
pounds, stones, hundredweights; acres, rods, poles and perches; pints
and gallons; Imperial (or even Whitworth) specifications for
engineering? Even I am not old enough or daft enough to try re-imposing
that lot on a decimalised population.
Restoring the death
penalty for murder? I’m not kidding. A straw poll suggested there
are Leavers hankering for its reinstatement, even though we’d
already got rid of it well before we joined the EEC (1965).
All right, that one was silly... but...
But...We Want Our Country Back!
See above...I haven’t
been able to fathom out exactly what “our country” might be, that
the happy band of Leavers expect to get back. Asking the question of
them usually elicits remarks about escaping the rule of “unelected
Eurocrats”, ignoring the irony that in Britain our Parliamentary
system is topped by an unelected Monarchy and an unelected Hice of
Lords, and the fact that all British voters have the right to vote
for the MEPs who will represent their region in the European
Parliament. If you don’t know who represents your region there or
how to ask them to work on your behalf, or how the EU structure
works, whose fault is that?
At the moment, the lack of precise, detailed forward vision in our national policies worries me quite a lot. St Theresa of May needs to do more, for me, than to attempt Churchillian rhetoric at PMQs.
