In February, I wrote a post about referendum, about whether or not the United Kingdom should remain or leave the European Union (EU), and about the scare tactics leaders on both sides of the issue, of the Brexit and the Remain campaign, are employing to get voters to see things their way and vote accordingly. Sadly not much has changed since then.
I had held out high hopes that the campaigns, closer to the actual referendum which is to be held on the 23rd of June, would mature and develop more positive visions for the future of Britain after the referendum if you voted their way. Well, it’s less than a month away, and all I’m hearing in the press is all about the dire consequences of voting one way or the other. According to the Brexiteers if I vote to remain, the consequences are dire! Immigration from possible joiners of the EU, like Turkey, will flood the nation and its resources, destroy the NHS and life as we know will be finished. Similarly, if i were to vote to leave, there will be a recession as bad or worse than the one in 2007-2008 and the bottom will fall out of the housing market and me and my family will be substantially worse off, etc. It’s all gloom and doom. Where is the positive vision of either side to cast a hopeful, robust future where greater flourishing of the nation, it’s people, Europe and the world, is possible?
In an attempt to be better informed on the pros and the cons of both stances, earlier this month I went to a policy debate on the Referendum, held by Women in Public Policy . I had vainly hoped for some perspectives that would inform my vote. All I got was a version of the scare tactic arguments mentioned above (which I realize I have made caricatures of in order to drive home my own points! ). I left not feeling any better informed and rather dismayed by the arrogance I saw displayed by those presenting on both sides of the argument.
You know what, after the result of the vote, leave or remain, the period to follow will be one of uncertainty. I’m not sure there is a right or a wrong answer per se. This is because I think people are substantially asking and answering the wrong question. To me the better question is what positive vision of the future do we in Britain want to have? What kind of future do we want, leave or remain, and then we can vote as to which argument has the best vision of a post-referendum future.
I had vainly hoped that the public discourse and debate would be a time to review where Britain has come as a nation since World War II and what it views its place in the world going forward. Post War institutions, carved in the defeat of World War II and the early days of the Cold War (which ended in 1989) such as NATO, the IMF, the UN, the World Bank and eventually the European Union, were a response to post World War II conditions. With the end of the Cold War, globalisation and its impact, the economic rise of former developing countries like China, India and Brazil, have a massive impact on the world we live in today. So how do these institutions, including the EU, need to be revised, and are they fit for purpose? If not, can they be made fit for purpose or do we need new institutions that better reflect today’s realities?
Ironically, the Remain campaign, is the most conservative politically and that’s politics with a little p, not big Tory politics P. People advocating to remain are saying let’s don’t rock the boat, life without the EU is too uncertain, let’s have more of the status quo please. Most disappointing is Cameron’s failure prior to the referendum to negotiate a better bargaining stance vis-a-vis making Europe more democratically accountable. If it’s better to be in the tent being a gadlfy rather than trying to make the EU reform by being outside the tent and lobbing verbal grenades for it to reform back into the tent, then what kind of change would we like to see? What is our reform agenda to make the EU fit for purpose? Cameron tried and failed. Will future efforts succeed once we no longer have the leverage of a referendum to force change?
But the Brexit camp is short sighted as well. They do not seem to understand how the world has changed either and what is needed to best position Britain for the future. One leaflet I was given is that to save the NHS, I need to vote to leave. Really? That begs the question of whether or not the NHS is going to survive in its current state given the demands already placed on it. What we need is a separate conversation about the future of the NHS and the social contract around what kinds of medical care we want to pay for as part of a public good and what can be paid for privately by people beyond the minimum who have the means. The NHS was never designed to deliver what it is currently delivering now, never mind an influx of more immigrants should we remain. Immigration is already an issue, what are we doing to solve it? Leaving the EU is not the magic bullet either. We need an intelligent public conversation about immigration that involves not labeling either side as racist as is the current practice.
I know that I’m simplifying the pro and con arguments but the purpose of the blog is not to rehearse them. You can find them elsewhere and decide for yourself as I have done. This blog is a plea for all of us, not just policy makers, to think about what kind of future we want. What is a positive future? What collectively will we do after the 23rd of June that we didn’t do before to shape the future? Who is planning for a future beyond the referendum, what are the plans? That is what I want to hear more about and to discuss.
Disclosure here, I am probably vote for remaining in the EU, albeit reluctantly. As an internationalist and a globalist, as frustrating, rule bound, bureaucratic and messy as I think the EU is, it’s the best the United Kingdom has for now for remaining globally relevant and for having a say in trade and international affairs beyond our borders. That said, no one can persuade me that the EU is not in need of reform. It does need to be more democratically responsive to its peoples but so do our individual governments—a subject for another blog. Sadly I don’t think any governments in power in Europe or Britain are genuinely democratic and representative either and I think we’re in desperate need of a transformation of our politics. The debate around the EU referendum is symptomatic of a larger political problem we face where experts and professional politicians are out of touch with the people. They pontificate patronizingly and scare and treat ‘we the people’ as children who don’t know what’s best for us.
So regardless of how we British (and I count myself as a British citizen although I have dual British-American nationality) vote on the 23rd of June, I think the result will not be clarity but future uncertainty. I don’t think there are concrete answers out there and the data that is out there will be interpreted by people based on their own world view and predispositions to support these views. I also don’t think there is one perfectly right and one perfectly wrong answer. I think one response marginally the better option, so I will vote for that, but I don’t expect that it will magically solve every problem that Britain faces in today’s world.
We need to be prepared, whatever the result, to hold our leaders accountable, and actively work with them cast a more positive vision of what we want Britain to be going forward in the future and then work with them to achieve that vision.
But, whatever you do, go out and vote! People died for the right to vote and if you don’t vote, you don’t have a right to moan about the consequences. The first thing about renewal of democracy is people need to care about it and to participate. So make your voice heard! I don’t care how you vote, just do it. You need to register by June 7th, so go find out how to register and then vote. Young people, especially, as this is your future and here’s a once in a generation chance to have a say even though the process has been flawed and messy.