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Two committed BREXITERS on bad hair days.
Donald wants to break up Europe. Boris wants to be famous.
Neither cares what happens to the UK. Both are demented. |
3rd January 2018 (Lord Adonis resigns from UK Government national infrastructure committee, saying the government's Brexit policies are incompetent). Mel Cooper wrote to Lord Adonis.
Dear Lord Adonis,
I want to congratulate you on your principled stance in your
letter of resignation. I would love it if you could use the publicity this has
generated to point out some things to the British public in general.
GETTING BACK SOVEREIGNTY
We never gave it up. We pooled it with the other members of
the EU. Just as we have pooled it by joining the UN, NATO and other
international organisations where you agree to compromise in various. If we
really believe in individual sovereignty in this arcane manner, we had better
break up the UK as well because that is a pooling of the sovereignty of four
countries.
GETTING BACK THE MONEY
Yes, we will, in time, stop sending money to the EU. That
£10-£12 billion a year amounts to less than 1% of government spending annually.
How is that supposed to cure all the problems of the NHS, education, housing,
etc? Meantime, that money is buying us freedom of access to more than 50% of
our business needs and freedom of movement in a huge market for all our businesses,
including many financial services. Do we really want to give this up?
WHAT WE CAN DO FOR EUROPE
It is not about what Europe does for us. We are part of
Europe. look at the Geography! Look at the history! Why are we not asking about
our position over the last 43 years in influencing international decisions,
writing EU legislation, and so forth? Why are giving up our standing not just
in the EU but in the world? And are citizens of the UK really so unaware of how
betrayed and angry they are making the rest of Europe?For what? Is it so that when
Rupert Murdoch walks into Number 10 Downing Street they will do what he says?
PRESENTING THE POSITIVE MESSAGES
After 43 years of an irresponsible Right Wing Press and
Eurosceptic Conservatives, it is time to put together a strong presentation
about why the EU matters and is a good thing, and what the benefits for us are
of staying in. No deal we get by leaving is going to be as good as the one we
have now - and even the best deal would leave us weaker and more exposed
economically and strategically. But above all this is a MORAL ISSUE and instead
of addressing that, and the reality that it is a betrayal of our neighbours, we
are concentrating only on the venal.
EU DEMOCRACY
Of course there is a large EC bureaucracy in Brussels. What do
you expect with 28 countries involved? But it is still a smaller one than in
Whitehall and has fewer employees than Oxford City - to serve 28 Member States across Europe. And who says that the EU is undemocratic? Where does this nonsense
come from? Is it not time to educate the UK public about the way the EU
actually functions in terms of democratic votes by the parliament, etc?
Furthermore, if there are flaws in the system, would the intelligent thing not
be to fix the system? The philosophy behind having an EU seems to me to be
perfectly sound. Hey, even Nigel Farage got elected to the EU parliament to
represent the UKIP point of view. That must show how democratic the EU is!!!
If we really believe in democracy,we should be concentrating
more on what is going on in Poland, Hungary and other places that are swinging
to the Right again; than on Brexit. Also, Brexit is an appalling distraction
from the real problems of the world: refugees, global warming, wars, threats
from North Korea, economic blips. I am appalled at how wasteful and consuming
the whole Brexit process is, and what a mess it is. The mendacity of
politicians who are supposed to be putting the good of the country ahead of
their own careers, self-interests and their parties is simply outrageous.
But I have very little hope that Brexit will not happen
simply because that seems to me to be the way the world is heading again. I
despair that there is a general zeitgeist will to relive the 1930s - and a
total, sad lack of awareness of history. People should be reading Hannah Arendtabout the rise of Totalitarianism; and John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty
where he talks about the tyranny of an ill-informed majority.
Anyway, good for you for trying.
Best wishes,
Mel Cooper
1st July 2016
Mel Cooper writes to Nicola Blackwood MP for Oxford (UK) West constituency:
Dear
Nicola Blackwood, MP,
I write to you again to make an appeal that you take
action to protect our country and its citizens by actively working to stop our
leaving the EU.
The legally non-binding, consultative referendum of 23
June 2016 should be looked upon, perhaps, as an important step in creating a
sophisticated national debate on the fate of the United Kingdom. It also could
ultimately help the EU Parliament and its members to focus on the
dissatisfactions with the EU of some of its members and encourage changes and
reforms to the way business is done in Brussels and Strasbourg.
But as you are aware, because it was a non-binding, advisory
poll, Brexit is not inevitable until the government activates Article 50 of the
European Union Treaty. This should not be done in haste or without continuing
to inform the British public of the consequences on both sides of the
debate.The referendum should be treated as the start of a national dialogue;
but it would be a travesty of democracy and good sense and a betrayal of your
responsibility as an elected official to let this narrowly won and contentious
one-off vote determine everything that follows. This crisis is an opportunity
to educate and inform the British and all our neighbours about what the EU
actually does, how it works, and why we must not abandon it at this stage
whatever its flaws. This crisis needs to be treated as a chance to stop using
the EU as a scapegoat for our own governmental malfunctions. It is also an
opportunity to stop putting the emphasis only on the venal advantages or
disadvantages of being in the EU and to start considering that larger,
philosophical and non-quantifiable, issues.
While the decision for Britain to leave the European
Union has not yet been taken, its probable consequences are now clear. The
worst predictions of the Remain campaign are coming true and it seems to me
that only the blinkered can any longer doubt the gravity of the situation and
the extreme dangers of Brexit. If the government now follows through with
Brexit without working for a pause to reconsider, the United Kingdom will
unravel, the economy will fall back into recession and millions of livelihoods
will be at risk. Furthermore, our long held high moral and political stature in
the world will collapse, our European neighbours will be destabilised and the
special relationship with the United States will be damaged, and with it the
international order that it upholds. It is difficult to imagine higher stakes
riding on a decision by the government.
It is widely agreed that the 23 June referendum was not
designed, prepared or implemented appropriately. Indeed, it is now looked upon
as an international embarrassment. It is now clear that the promises of the
campaigns were riddled with falsehoods, impossibilities and even lies and the
public was neither properly informed nor properly prepared to make such a
momentous judgement.
The public should not now be punished for taking this
vote when it was a situation created by our elected officials, who imposed this
referendum. The public cannot be blamed for what follows. There was a lot of
talk during the campaign about Sovereignty; and Sovereignty resides in
Parliament. We have created in the UK a system of Representative Democracy. The
representatives now have to listen to the confused and fearful messages that
this Referendum has produced; in our system, they have the responsibility to be
the ones who make the legal decisions. They must not simply be followers.
Worst of all, due to the dynamics of the campaign, the
circumstances of the vote and its aftermath, it is entirely possible that
the government is about to enact a decision that the majority no longer
supports. There are widespread reports of ‘leave’ voters regretting their
decision, and by Sunday 26 June the Mail on Sunday had conducted a
survey that suggested that around one million ‘leave’ voters already regretted
their decision. Furthermore, only approximately 37% of registered voters chose
‘leave’ on the ballot, winning by only 1.9%. Are we going to completely redraw
40 years worth of political and economic structures based on this alone, with
so much at stake?
Every other advanced democracy in the world has checks
and balances in place to ensure that constitutional changes neither lead to a
collapse of public trust nor trigger rampant internal instability. Leaving the
EU is arguably greater than just a constitutional change, and we must protect
our political system, the unity of the United Kingdom and our economy by
following the same good sense. A one-off, poorly planned, poorly implemented
plebiscite (in a democracy not based on plebiscites), won with a simple and
slim majority on an issue that could ruin the livelihoods of millions and even
end the United Kingdom, must not be the only basis for taking this decision.
This is not democracy in action. It is simply poor leadership.
The truly democratic next step is not to blindly carry on
and leave the EU. It is to pause. It is democratic to reflect on the new information
we have. It is democratic for our elected officials to continue to consider
what is truly best for the country and to continue engaging with the public on
this question as more information on the consequences of this step emerges.
When historians write this chapter of history, will they
explain that this world-changing event occurred because of a political stunt
gone wrong, without democratic checks and balances deployed? Or will they say
it happened due to a deep process of considered national dialogue on what is
best for all citizens in all parts of the country, enabled through careful
planning? Based on the government’s current intentions, the latter will not be
the case. Future generations will never forgive our leaders for this. And
neither might the EU countries be able to forgive us.
We must make sure that if the decision to trigger Article
50 is made, it is done after giving the public proper information and education
about its consequences and therefore, finally, with no regret.
All our futures and our children’s futures depend on you.
Please stop this madness. Please put the brakes on Brexit.
With best wishes,
Mel Cooper, Oxford
.......
THE
SMALL-ISLAND MENTALITY CLUB: get your SIM card here?
Mel
Cooper - 29 June 2016.
Given the response not only of the 48% of shocked British
voters who perceive how important it is for us not to leave the EU but also of
the entire rest of the world, could you please consider continuing the REMAIN
campaign and ramping it up to the level where it should have been all along?
By the way I am part of that 48% and also part of the 39% of
Oldies who voted to REMAIN in the EU.
It seems to me and to many other people that the LEAVE
campaign won that vote because they lied to the voters or told half-truths and
broadcast over-simplified messages were actually offensively patronizing..
Personally, I have faith that most of the British public
would understand the complexities of the vote if anyone actually took the
trouble to address and explain them; and that the Brexiteers are not the only
ones who should be ashamed of themselves for underestimating the levels of
comprehension of the British people.
Also, I contend that it is not Democracy when gullible
voters are manipulated emotionally and intellectually by people who are
effectively behaving like demagogues with covert agendas. So perhaps there is a possibility of
continuing the debate properly, even if it does not put a brake on the process
of leaving the EU.
Do we not have a responsibility to point out to the 52% what
they have unleashed? Not just the quantifiable and inflationary consequences,
but also the anger at us in Europe, and the encouraging of the racism and
xenophobia that we are already experiencing? People say that it is not statistically
significant. I suppose therefore that you would rather wait until it is great
and therefore even harder to stem?
I believe that either a web site should be created to
educate, inform and even entertain the British people with articles and possible
podcasts on the subject; or that seminars need to be set up around the country
to which anyone of any persuasion could come to vent their anger, discuss how
misplaced it is to blame Europe for problems that are really under the control
only of the British government, and maybe learn something. Here is a notional
agenda of topics I would like these seminars, podcasts or articles to discuss:
SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS THAT WE HAVE OUTSIDE THE EU
The reason that the USA and Canada and other countries work well
with us is precisely because we are in the EU, where we have political and
moral weight and also a veto. If they want to lobby for something in their
interests, we are a very easy first stop because of language, some shared
history and culture and so forth. Having left the EU we are no longer in that
position and their interest in our well-being will be diminished. Remember what
Goethe said: You can only tell what kind of character a man has by the way he
treats those who have nothing they can do for him. This applies to Michael
Gove, Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson as well. What will they actually do for
the British people now that they have “won” their vote? Already they are
backtracking on promises given.
RESPONSIBILITY TO OUR NEIGHBOURS
We have been in a union for 43 years that has seen slow but
decided progress in many ways, economically, socially and in the sphere of
handling international mutual problems such as global warming and human rights.
Our leaving this club will not only diminish our voice in Europe but in the
world, and it shows great signs already of destabilising the rest of Europe.
This will lead either to a complete dominance of the German approach to things
or to the complete disintegration of the only voluntary experiment ever for
former allies and enemies to try to solve their problems by negotiation and
discussion rather than dropping bombs on each other or waging war to win power
and territory. I would advise that you should try to see the clip of Sheila
Hancock from the Jeremy Paxman debate last Wednesday on ITV, 22 June 2016, and
make it go viral on the internet on You Tube and Facebook. And then get Sheila
Hancock to make a few speeches! She is the only person whom I heard talk about
larger issues and not just the venal ones in this debate. Simon Schama’s
support was also appreciated, so maybe have him as a backup.
ECONOMICS AND IMMIGRATION
There is nothing like the amount of money going into Europe
that the Brexit promoters claimed we would get back. Who says we are not in
control of that money? Who says that we are living under imposed laws? We voted
for and discussed everyone one of the EU laws that we accepted; our parliament
accepted them; the EU parliament had to pass them. There are no Impositions. Also,
after Brexit there will be far less money available for us to use according to
our own discretion if we leave and nothing coming to our farmers, scientists or
fisheries, to name but three, that we can rely on since we will now be reliant
and the policies of changing governments. Already the LEAVE campaigners are
saying they cannot promise what they promised a few days ago about funds for
the NHS, education, house building or anything else.
Britain’s being on its own is like saying that you do not
have to pay your taxes into the common pool any more but if you want a road to
run from your front door to the shops in your town you have to pay for it all
by yourself. And if we leave the EU there won’t even be a Polish or Hungarian
workforce to build the damned road, even if you do pay for it privately!
DO UNTO YOUR NEIGHBOURS …
Why is there this reluctance to contribute to a pool of
money out of which everyone in the union can benefit according to need? Why
does it matter to a farmer in Wales that some tax money is also coming out of
the common pool for farmers in Spain or Greece? What is it that makes Britain
unhappy about being in a situation where we are trying mutually with 27 other
nations to raise all of us to a certain level of prosperity—which also promotes
peace? Is it not time to stop all the venal arguments about money and
contributions and greedy immigrants? Why shouldn’t people want to come to the
second richest country in the EU to work and live? How do you think the United
States became so powerful and rich? What is the proportion of the GDP of Great
Britain that actually is paid to the EU budget?
PAY YOUR TAXES
The money in dispute is made to sound as if it is some
terrible burden on our economy and a drain. In a country that is complaining
about rich people and corporations who will not pay their taxes, that is quite
ironic. Why can’t you see this money as our fee for being in a club? It is a
tax, not a salary. The tax is then used for all kinds of things that the UK
agrees to. So far the club has liked us so they have given us all kinds of
concessions and rebates. If you leave the EU, you will not have to pay your
fees. But you will have to pay for many things that you have not had to worry
about for the past 40 or so years.
EDUCATING PEOPLE ABOUT THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND SYSTEMS
Is it not time that the cant about the EU being so
undemocratic was examined? Don’t we have a Parliament for which we are supposed
to be voting? Isn’t the European Commission more like the Civil Service of the
EU? Does the Commission actually have any power to impose a law? How is it
different from having the advice of the Civil Service or committees set up in
Parliament to study an issue and then advise the Parliament? Does the EU have
an appointed or unelected House of Lords? Do they have proportional
representation? How does that make them less democratic than the UK? Has there
ever been a law imposed in the UK; or have the laws been voted for in the
parliament?
The Three Brexiteers, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Nigel
Farage (All for None and None for All! )
claim that 40% of our laws are imposed on us by the EU and 52% of the
British public believes this. My understanding is that no laws can be imposed;
we vote for them like everyone else; and actually the laws from the EU that we
have accepted amount to about 13% of our laws. Most of these laws address
social issues of great importance and we are going to have to trust the current
Conservative Government to redraft them without diminishing them.
COST OF LEAVING THE EU
Apart from the collapse of the pound, the collapse of the
property market, being out of the single market, and so many other things,
think of the cost of the lawyers who will have to redo everything locally and
internationally. Also, given that the pound is now back to its 1983 level,
where is all the money going to come from? We are also giving up subsidies such
as those to our very important research programmes in science and education
where we actually get back a lot more money from the pool than we put into that
branch of it. There is also the political cost of the disaffection of Scotland
and Ireland. If I had just voted, like Scotland, to stay in the UK on a promise
that involved continued membership of the EU, I would now be exceptionally
angry. And this is from a British public 52% of whom would have had a fit if
Scotland had voted to split away from the UK. Scotland is the perfect example
of why it is safer and better to stay together and work together – where would
they be now if they had left and then the oil prices had plummeted? Where are
we going to be if we leave the EU and have no access to its resources or a
considerable amount of its market without penalties, tariffs, etc.
COST OF STAYING IN THE EU
First and foremost, the effort and energy of taking a more
pro-active role in getting it to reform. We have already damaged our moral
position in the EU, but hopefully if the 48% not only take a more active role
in trying to stop us from elaving the EU but also in trying to educate enough
of the rest of us into understanding why and getting their support, this could
mitigate some of the damage that the Schadenfreude-style crowing of Nigel
Farage has helped consolidate. (I would call him the Grate Nigel; but after 17
years of collecting a substantial salary from a job that he says he detests
from an institution he claims to despise, the Ingrate Nigel might be a more
accurate title.) So what else will it cost? Whatever it takes keeping the
British public aware of what it is getting and how the EU is working. Some
money. Some effort. What percentage of
our GDP will that be if we still have a similar GDP to the one we had before
the Brexit campaign lied its way to a questionable victory?
IMMIGRANTS v REFUGEES
I want to thank David Cameron for taking his eye off several
balls and distracting the whole of Europe from the really important issues that
might have made us feel upset and given us even more sleepless nights. But what
makes the Brexiteers think we will have any more control over immigrants coming
into the country than we do now? Unless, of course, if we do not engage with
the single market? Except, of course, as Britain gets poorer and nastier fewer
people will want to come here and contribute their taxes, rents, VAT on their
purchases and so forth.? I am told some of them even send money back home to
help their families! How Un-British? Imagine making the decision to give up
opportunities like going out to the pub for the sake of sending some of your disposable income back to your family –
after of course allowing for rent, food and taxes all paid for in the UK! No
wonder there is such a terrible pressure on our culture when immigrants fill up
some of our cities. It is all the fault of the EU. But let us consider if maybe
about 97% of the blame could be apportioned to lazy governments, one after the
other, that never spent enough money of infrastructure for housing, education,
welfare and health care.
FAULTS OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENTS
Instead of blaming everything that makes the British people
angry about life on the EU, you might try making a list of the complaints that
are actually the fault of successive British governments in not planning ahead
properly or acting swiftly enough on issues such as housing.
Actually, you know what … I could go on for a long time.
Perhaps you get the point by now. The vote to leave the EU is based on lies and
half-truths. It is also based on an appeal to a kind of retrograde nostalgia
for a Golden Age of Britain that, if it ever existed, certainly is not going to
be possible in the modern, interconnected global world. Brexit is a flight back
into a past that was dangerous, nasty and mean. It is a flight from reason,
moral duties, interconnectedness, a place where we exercise our sovereignty for
the good of a larger community without losing any of our identity. The Scots
have been tied into the UK for over 300 years. Have you noticed them lose any
identity or even their accent? What about the Irish? National identity is about
culture and history, not about political unions and co-operation. In fact, if
anything Britain has had its identity enhanced. But with this vote we are
throwing away a good deal of how the world has perceived us for decades if not
centuries. We are focusing on our most inward-looking, small-island viewpoints.
The 52% have put their trust in a lot of lies and half-truths.
It is not their fault that they have been underinformed about what they were
doing or what actually happens in the EU. Successive politicians and whole
governments have spent decades blaming everything on the EU. Then REMAIN
expected their use of the EU as their political scapegoat to be overcome when
they reversed the message for four months and didn’t actually even take the
trouble to give any useful facts or details to us. Shame on them!
So my point is simply that we all have the responsibility of
not lying back meekly and going ahead with this dangerous plan to leave the EU
even if we did initially vote to LEAVE.
I believe that we need to ramp up the levels of debate and
of education about the EU and find some way to stop this dangerous lunacy
before the harm we are doing in so many ways becomes irreparable.
I would also suggest considering:
·
Forming a cross party committee to continue
running and informative LET’S REMAIN AFTER ALL campaign
·
Creating websites, podcasts and even broadcasts
finally to inform the British public, all of it, properly – because even the
REMAIN side was often voting with their hearts and fears, not their logic
·
Promoting an ultimate vote of no confidence in any
government that tries to instigate the negotiation to leave the EU
·
Failing that, refusing to pass leaving of the EU
into law in parliament
·
If and
when the Prime Minister or the Opposition is running a campaign (Labour?
Liberal Democrat? Independent Cross Party?) on the basis that if you vote for
“us”, “we” will not proceed to take you out of the European Union, that we vote
for that because we have properly considered the issues, the consequences, the
benefits and the down side and know what we believe
And then, if we do remain, working damned hard not only to
keep the public informed about what goes on in the EU, but also working very
hard and openly to implement whatever reforms are deemed necessary.
