The first half of my article quoted from a recent Economist article and suggested that the writer had failed to answer the Eurosceptic case. But what about the great issue of this debate – immigration?
The Economist observes, in a rather superior way, that “If Britain leaves the EU it will be precisely because a lot of voters mistrust foreigners and globalisation.” Our discussions with people on the doorstep confirm that immigration is indeed the most important issue in people’s minds and the polls confirm that. Free movement of labour is one of the cardinal principles of the EU and for that reason alone, if for no other, we need to leave. But let us spell out for benefit of the Economist, why the voters are right. It’s not prejudice – it’s basic economics.
All employers have to keep their costs as low as they can. Free movement of labour means that employers can cut wage costs very considerably, because immigrants are willing to work for lower wages. You can’t blame the employers. They have to make a profit. Nor can you blame the immigrants. They come from countries where wages are far lower than they are in the UK. But because immigrants are willing to work for lower wages, the general level of wages in Britain – for everybody, whether resident or immigrant – is lower. It is also more difficult to get a job, because there is more competition.
The ordinary voter is not an employer; he or she is more likely to be an employee. It’s not surprising that there should be a reaction amongst British employees, who are also voters, against excessive immigration from the low-wage countries of Eastern Europe. And now there’s a real emergency, because the open-door policy of the EU is allowing large numbers of people from Asia and Africa – many of them from even poorer countries – to come into the EU as well. Once they’re established in the EU, there’s absolutely nothing that our government can legally do to stop them coming into Britain and competing in our jobs market. And what concerns British people even more is that ISIS are boasting that they have used the uncontrolled flow of people to infiltrate their terrorists into Europe.
There’s no way that the British people are going to allow this kind of uncontrolled immigration. The problem is getting more acute all the time and the longer the referendum is postponed, the more certain does it become that the result will be a vote for us to leave the EU. Brexit would of course mean no further free movement of people from the EU or from anywhere else. Immigration would be carefully controlled and would be on a much smaller scale.
Scotland
The Europhiles are losing the referendum argument and they know it. The Economist sounds at least half convinced by the Out case:
The Utopia of globally minded Eurosceptics is a British economy set free from burdensome Brussels regulation, retaining access to Europe’s single market, no longer paying into the EU budget, trading freely with the rest of the world and setting its own limits on immigration.
And the writer fails to answer the Out case. The only troubling argument deployed byThe Economist is that Brexit might lead to a replay of the Scottish independence issue.
And it is a very troubling argument. It’s true that the result of the Scottish referendum showed that the SNP does not fully represent Scotland. But Brexit at the cost of the Union would be a tragic mistake.
At the time of the Scottish referendum, the Auld Alliance with France (now with the EU) sounded like a good way of avoiding isolation after independence. The full implications of EU membership were not being considered. The independence issue had prevented EU membership from coming to the top of the political agenda in Scotland. Let’s face it – the argument that Brexit would tear apart the United Kingdom is based on the premise that the Scots are too stupid to notice that there is no sense in jumping out of the London frying pan into the Brussels fire. The Scots have their moments of hysteria (so do the English) but they are not stupid. The Economist thinks they are; but then the the Economist probably thinks that English and Welsh voters are stupid too.
Nevertheless Scotland is currently the weakest point in our case. It needs our full attention.
Nice article(s).
Let’s not forget that the Economist is a prime globalist mouthpiece. It is never going to produce anything that even resembles balanced and impartial journalism. And, when all was said and done, Scotland did vote to stay in the UK, so another vote to stay in doesn’t seem that unlikely.
Perhaps we need to re-examine our relationship with Scotland on a less paranoid basis. After all the last referendum was held under a ‘cannot lose at any cost’ banner which is never the best way to cut a deal.
Half cocked devolution has created more problems than it solved. Designed to shore up the Labour vote it has spectacularly backfired and perhaps the options for Wales and Scotland should be independence or union without overmanned parliaments or assemblies. I suspect, at the moment, that the SNP doesn’t really want independence as they have the best of both worlds now; taking the UK shilling and blaming all the bad stuff on the English.
May I reply to both Davids. Firstly, I would rather stay in the EU than lose Scotland. We can always come out later once we have made it up with the Scots. If we come out now and yet lose Scotland, the EU may turn into an aggressive military power on the other side of our land frontier. Strategically, we shall cease to be an island.
Please Nigel, concentrate on the Scottish vote. That way, you can increase the Out vote and save the Union at the same time.
Secondly, David, please don’t bracket Wales with Scotland. I am part Welsh and I live in Wales. Wales is not a bit like Scotland. Welsh devolution has proved to be a great mistake. It would never have happened if the Welsh had not jumped on to the Scots bandwagon, encouraged by English people who don’t know the difference.
You’d rather stay in the EU than lose Scotland? Good grief. If the Scots are daft enough to prefer the EU to the UK, they’re not worth worrying about. The SNP has got Scotland in its grip, but things could change if people see that they are in danger of being shackled to the Euro instead of gaining an illusory ‘freedom’from those awful bill-paying English. Our freedom from the EU as soon as it can possibly happen is the be-all and end-all, and the Scots had better ‘think very carefully about the future’ as the Queen put it.
If the price of our exit from the EU is letting Scotland become independent then so be it.
At least the border is not so long (94 miles I believe) that it cannot be protected, although we must not ignore the possibility of migrants slipping around it by sea.
Hopefully enough will have the common sense to rid themselves of the SNP before it is too late.
Well, someone must be pretty dammed stupid because currently we are still in the European Union with no sign of a Referendum occuring anytime soon enough !
Why?
Our politicians should be all over this ‘not fit for purpose Union’, like a rash.