Report comment

Please fill in the form to report an unsuitable comment. Please state which comment is of concern and why. It will be sent to our moderator for review.

Comment

True, Anon 10.15. And let's also hope the public debate (if there ever is one) will range beyond the "economic" argument, which ultimately can never be resolved one way or the other because it necessarily pits "what is" against "what might be" or "might have been". When we joined the Common Market the proponents of membership made the air ring with all the wonderful economic benefits that were going to accrue to us. They never did. Now they have changed tack and are focusing upon the dreadful calamities which will befall us if we leave. Maybe these won't happen either. Most probably they won't - since the world of business and commerce will still be carried on whether the EU exists or not, or whether we are in it or not. And as for the supposed benefits of "free trade in the biggest market in the world", do you imagine that we don't pay for them already - and have been paying for the last 40 years - possibly more than they are worth?

On the other hand, the question of allegiance is very concrete and of crucial importance - by no means one of those "bleaker and smaller picture issues" as you call them, but virtually a question of life and death. I raised a couple of scenarios in a previous posting which I notice neither you nor other Europhiles have deigned to address, no doubt because you think them too fantastical for serious consideration. Fine. But at a lower level of significance, just ask yourself what security we have for those putative economic benefits when we will have no more control over the future direction, policy and ideology of our government than, say, the people of Massachussets have within the USA.

Your details

Cancel