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| SIR JOHN VINCE CABLE MP |
From: Mr Mel Cooper mel@melcooper.co.uk
22 February 2018 17:32
To: vince.cable.mp@parliament.uk
Leader of The Liberal-Democrats Party
Subject: Message for Vince Cable about Brexit
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| MEL COOPER |
I admire and totally agree with your position on Brexit.
I never thought that I would find myself on the same side as Anna Soubry or Ken Clarke or Michael Heseltine, but I agree with them and you that this is not about Party Politics. I am very alarmed by both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn and their refusal to be clear about what Brexit really means.
I am also very concerned because the people who can see that Brexit is a disaster waiting to happen are not running a positive campaign to educate the nation about what is to be gained by remaining fully engaged in the EU. Instead of telling Brexiteers and the undecided about how dangerous Brexit is, which they do not want to hear, how-about creating a narrative about what staying in the EU will do for the UK; about all the benefits we have because of it.; about all the things that have happened and enriched this country because of being in the EU for the past 43 years?
For over 3 decades the irresponsible and self-serving Right Wing Press of this country have been blaming everything they can on the EU to deflect attention from their own greed and power; and ordinary people have been unable to engage with being Europeans or even with voting for their MEPs. No one has publicised all that the EU has given to underprivileged areas like Wales and Cornwall in the UK; no one is publicising the good that is being done in scientific research, education, human rights, workers' rights and assuring minimum levels of safety in terms of food and drugs.
All this is under threat if we leave the EU!
Is it not possible to counter this lack of positive publicity and create a narrative that people will be able to appreciate?
Also to point out that 12 billion pounds a year is merely our membership fee and represents less than 0.5% of the annual spend of the government once you add back all the rebates and contributions from the EU? No one did the maths represented by Boris's and Farage's bus.
Even if we did not send this 10 or 15 billion a year to the EU, it is not going to solve all the problems of the NHS or anything else! However, because we send that pittance to the EU we have total access to one of the largest markets in the world, a market with which we do nearly 50% of our business freely and easily. What kind of trade deals with the USA, India, China and Australia or Canada will we have to do to replace all that? And what will those countries demand of us as the price of the trade deals?
Also could you please change the narrative about “getting our Sovereignty back!” We never gave away any sovereignty. We pooled our Sovereignty for good and sufficient reasons to do with the "strength in numbers" narrative. Also, Brussels has no more bureaucrats than, say, Manchester; and the EU civil-servants serve 28 countries. Finally, please explain how the EU is actually a very democratic system.
Yes, the EU has flaws. Yes, we can face these flaws. But no deal that we get from the EU if we leave it, is going to be as good as what we get by being in it. And how browbeaten are we by the EU when we have managed to stay out of the Euro, out of Schengen, etc?
I fear that too many Brexiteers are in the main simply delusional xenophobes and quasi-racists who are dreaming of a return to a Great British Empire that actually never really existed. Is it not time to straighten the narrative? The worst of them also have a kind of Fascistic belief in a racially Pure British Person that echoes that old Nazi belief in a pure Aryan race. Surely the genome and all the experiments since then have proved that there is no such thing as a pure race of any sort; and that the more there is a mix, the healthier for everyone!
Well, I wish you luck. I fear that the world wants to repeat things like the Dreyfus Case and nationalistic hogwash of the 1930s in new guises. Brexiteers would much rather think about leaving the EU and arouse fears about a United States of Europe than think about solving all the urgent problems internally and externally that this country and the world face. They also clearly believe that you can reverse globalism. The only way they will understand the error of their thinking would be if we do go ahead and exit the EU and live through all the bad consequences. But that would/will be damned hard on the 48% who voted for REMAIN; and on all the people who really did not understand what they were voting for at all. It is a recipe for potential disaster for everyone; and a risk to the Irish peace accord.
So is it not time to find a positive narrative to convince people that it would be in everyone’s best interest to stop the whole Brexit process and simply stay in the EU and deal in a mature way with all the problems that that would entail? As well, of course, as enjoying all the benefits we are about to lose?
With all best wishes for a successful campaign to wake up the British Nation to the folly it is about to commit,
Yours sincerely,
Mel Cooper,
OXFORD, UK
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