BREXIT - UK PARLIAMENT DEBATES - 26 APRIL 2018

P.M. MRS MAY, DAVID DAVIS -v-  EU'S BARNIER

from Brian Hardy FCA, Oxford;

to Leyla Moran, MP for North Oxford.

25 April 2018

Dear Leyla Moran

BREXIT

Although you will know all the arguments (pro and con) concerning Brexit, I would nonetheless like to set out what I see as being the 'big picture' issues, and to express my wish to see a second popular vote on the subject.

 - The EU-part of Europe has not been at war with itself since the beginning of the EU and its predecessors in 1957.  This is unprecedented over the last several centuries - no coincidence to my mind.

 - The UK has been diminishing as a world power for a century or so and, indeed, because of its declining economic position, became known as the 'sick man of Europe' before it joined the EU.  This suggests the need for the country to be associated with a bloc of like-minded countries, for political, economic and military purposes.

 - The EU, being the UK's closest neighbour geographically, a serious force in world political affairs, a successful economic unit, and with reasonably similarly positions on democracy and human rights, is the best bloc for the UK to be associated with.

 - The USA's economic and military position has been declining relative to other large countries for decades, and it is beginning to show isolationist tendencies. It no longer has any meaningful 'special relationship' with the UK, and we cannot rely upon it to be as close a partner and protector as it has been in the past.  It is even possible to envisage NATO's role as European 'military shield' (currently led and largely financed by the USA) starting to erode, and perhaps eventually replaced by the EU building up its own separate military capability.

- The EU is incapable of granting a partly-associated or fully independent UK better terms of trade than it currently obtains as a member.  This would cause itself an existential problem, as other members would undoubtedly press for similar improvements in the terms of their membership.  This in itself suggests huge caution in thinking of abandoning our membership.

 - It is difficult to see how he UK on its own will be capable of negotiating better trade terms with the larger countries of the world (in the big picture, the only ones that matter).  Those countries can be expected to use their bargaining strength to negotiate better terms for themselves rather for the benefit of a supplicant UK.

 - The unity of the UK could be placed in jeopardy by Brexit, as Northern Ireland (whose demographics are moving inexorably towards a Catholic majority in their population mix) as well as Scotland could well vote to leave the UK and seek to rejoin the EU.

 - Straws in the wind suggest that a non-EU-fettered UK government might have a less rigorous attachment to human rights, ecological standards, and worker and consumer rights, than the EU.

 - Finally, while many youngsters sadly failed to vote in the 23 June 2016 Referendum, a significant segment of them view Brexit as a denial of the European identity they believe they have acquired.

The 2016 Referendum was held when the real issues and consequences arising from Brexit were unknown. It is therefore essential that its outcome - to leave the EU - needs to be confirmed, amended or rejected by a second vote, in the light of knowledge as to Brexit's terms and consequences.

This decision should not be left solely to the already-agreed vote of the 650 Westminster MPs, whose party allegiances will in reality shape the way that many of them will vote.  The final say on such a constitutionally-important decision as Brexit should be with the UK population as a whole.  Indeed, it is hard to see how a Parliamentary vote could override the Referendum result, even though this was only advisory, without a popular backlash.

I hope I have laid out my position clearly, and that it might help you in supporting it.

Yours sincerely,

Brian Hardy

Oxford, UK

brian@hardyinter.net