Richard Taylor

Why I Voted for the UK to Leave the EU

Map of Tweets and Flickr Photos by Eric Fischer. (Licence)

I voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.

I want lightweight Government so individuals have more money and freedom to spend as they choose, and so there are more resources available for essential public services such as the National Health Service and to support those in our society who need public assistance.

When we need Governments to work together they can do so without the expensive bureaucracy of the European Union. We can hold inclusive conferences, and agree treaties on things like say fishing in the North Sea without the overhead of an institution like the European Union. Often there’s no need for Government intervention at all to prompt international collaboration, for example it was cell phone manufacturers who first prompted standardisation of chargers even though the European Union jumped in to impose regulations and take the credit.

I want us to work together, as humanity, when we need to, to keep this planet habitable, I just don’t think the institution of the European Union is efficiently helping us to do that.

The European Union does not function effectively as a democratic body; it is too remote, and it’s too hard to scrutinise what is being done. Large multi-member constituencies for the European Parliament mean we don’t have a close direct relationship with our representatives.

I don’t think the European Union has a significant security, safety and defence role, that wasn’t a factor in my voting decision.

We do need to continue to support our neighbouring countries when they need it; we all benefit from stable and secure countries and problems such as mass unemployment, or conflicts cross national borders.

Something which coloured my impression of the European Union was the abuse of science funding for politically motivated social engineering – with jobs and research funding given preferentially to those prepared to move from one country to another; echoing a soviet policy of encouraging movement within the USSR by offering financial incentives to students who move.

Immigration wasn’t a factor in my vote. I would though like to see the UK taking a more global view of immigration; we should make it easy for anyone who is able to at least support themselves, or better, contribute positively to our society, to come to the UK. What we can’t afford as a country is to have completely unrestricted access to our health services and benefits.

The European Union has imposed many regulations affecting our lives from grocery specifications and data protection, to working hours. I think we in the UK should decide on these important matters for ourselves. For example we should not have been forced to re-organise medical education in response to European Union limits on working hours.

We in the UK should make our own laws which support our own vision for our country’s role in the world. We now have an new opportunity to define that role.

The electorate in the UK is roughly split equally on the question of the UK’s membership of the EU. Effectively, overall, the nation was indecisive.

As for Cambridge, where 40% of jobs in the city are in the public sector 74% of those voting in the referendum voted to remain in the EU I suspect there is a connection between being on the public payroll and supporting an institution which, for example, wastes around £100m per year moving European Parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg.

I think it is excellent that the UK has dented, and perhaps derailed, the aspirations of those who support the “European Project” and want to create a European superstate. Had we seen the European Union start taking on direct tax-raising powers, and more policing and defence roles, given its lack of a solid democratic foundation that would have been highly alarming.

Richard Taylor

19 responses to “Why I Voted for the UK to Leave the EU”

  2. I understand your point of view as I also voted for the UK to leave EU. Although, I am not so sure that it was a good decision, I was very conflicted, to say the least. I just hope that it will turn out good for my business(distribution of padded envelopes) and that the breakdown of UE (let’s face it – it is imminent) will not start a war.

    Michael

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  5. Justin “Besides which, how democratic is it to narrow down a set of complex issues in one yes and no answer? ” – given the strength of two party politics over the years that has pretty much been the choice for voters in every UK parliamentary party election in living memory bar maybe one. To paraphrase an old tory – it’s bad, but the best of a bad set of options.
    I don’t think dictatorships give much opportunity for any kind of voting unless the dictator offering the chance to vote is already very confident of the outcome – which makes this referendum a shining beacon for the democratic process.
    What passes for democracy in the UK is pretty crap, but is at least exposed to much more active scrutiny by our own media and legal authorities, and certainly much better than what we are (were) forced to accept from the EU. Having said that, I think what drove much of the dissatisfaction that powered the pro-Brexiters vote was the feeling that in recent years neither the Conservatives or Labour have offered sufficiently different policies to provide voters with a real choice, both having resorted to fighting over the right of center ground, largely accepting the status quo economically and hence also politically.
    I think most pro-Brexiters probably realise that the UK can’t just shut the door on immigrants, but at the same time know that having a rapid and ever growing population in this country is just unsustainable for a whole variety of reasons. If your family, friends and acquaintances only see and feel the “sunny” side of EU policy, of course you might feel outraged at any curtailment of the conveniences and benefits EU membership seems to have brought you.
    The flip side of those benefits has been a real and continuing decline in standard of living and quality of life for a large minority of UK citizens in various professions, trades and low end retail work. Complaints from these sectors of the population have been summarily dismissed (in a way suggesting echos of Stalinism) as an unavoidable consequence of global trade, from which, we are told, we all ultimately benefit (although the benefits appear to be accruing much more to those who are already very well off, in the form of cheap nannys, builders, plumbers, shop workers, villas in remote parts of Europe etc.).
    When these several millions of people directly affected are factored in with their friends, family and acquaintances, plus those who have other less personal reasons to be dissatisfied with the EU, the result of the vote is not so surprising. I think very very few pro-Brexiters were motivated by the prospect of ill-gotten gains to be made from privitisation of the NHS as a result of leaving the EU- though you could imagine certain characters from both main parties who might fit the part of beneficiaries, if only indirectly.
    Just as there is a savage and bullying minority in the pro-Brexit camp, as shown by the actions of a small number of ant-Polish racists recently in the news, the Remain camp have also shown they have supporters who can be savage and bullying, though in different, less physical ways. Extremists on both sides are determined to take advantage of the situation to sow confusion and discord post-referendum in the hope of gaining some advantage from the mess that follows.

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    • Looks at wall of text, what the fuck? I’ll keep this quick and simple for you. Political parties arose from a need to represent class interests. These parties allow that class to better organise in its class interests. And these parties also have elaborate manifesto’s, in other words, even if two parities dominate, when you vote for a party, you’re not only voting for your class interests, you’re voting for a whole set of policies that are subject to debate. Of course, I admit, this is not so much the case with the Conservative party, at their conferences there are no debates over policy, just rubber stamping of policy.

      In parliament, legislation of the government that won has its policies scrutinised. If you don’t agree with the incumbents, you vote them out. This theoretically keeps them accountable, however, I readily admit that FPTP is a problem and less democratic. Nor, unlike in Taylor’s weasel words, do I think there should be reform of the Lords, it should simply be abolished with no replacement!

  6. ‘I want a functional democracy because having control over your destiny is something which makes people happy.’
    Lol. That doesn’t even make any sense unless you specialise in mysticism. Plebiscites give you no control over policy, and let’s face it, people for voted for all sorts of reasons other than the simplex yes/no question. As far as I can see, the Brexiters are split four or five ways, they won’t admit it yet because they would have to admit the undemocratic nature of plebiscites that were tools of tyrants like Bonaparte.

    What do Brexiters want? As the FT Weekend put it, Divorce talks open up with ‘a million mad questions’.
    1. European Economic Area for Britain.
    2. European Free Trade Association agreement for Britain.
    3. For Britain to be a member of both of the above.
    4. A customs union deal with the EU, like Turkey, which has an accord that governs manufactured products, but not services or agriculture.
    5. Rely on WTO rules to get access to the EU market – could include customs duties.
    We’ll leave aside the Remain vote for a minute, but all I’ll say is it didn’t reflect the Europe I wanted, yes, this referendum was wholly undemocratic and illegitimate!
    The decisions are rubber stamped, we’ll get no say.

    So what next? Don’t ask Boris, that’s too complicated for a simpleton.
    ‘ Boris Johnson fails to provide a concrete post-Brexit plan’
    http://uk.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-addresses-the-nation-in-his-telegraph-column-2016-6
    And this you’ll call a ‘functional democracy’, whatever that is (which can also mean different things to different people). You truly are fucking deluded!

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  7. “On the one hand, the legislation which set up the referendum did not specify what value we have to place on it or a road map of what happens thereafter. All it did was offer a binary choice: leave or remain. The reason it did that was because you couldn’t have specified the detail of all that a Leave vote would require. So it couldn’t be binding. But MPs on both sides of the Commons say they regard this vote as a mandate.”
    http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-a-brexit-could-be-blocked-according-to-constitutional-expert-dr-peter-caterrall-2016-6

    The method of leaving was not on the ballot paper!

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  8. Re: Eliminating a layer of government. How about parliamentary democracy? You either take it seriously or you don’t? As David Allen Green said, ‘having a referendum means you don’t.’
    https://twitter.com/DavidAllenGreen/status/748157670146850816
    And adds, ‘So this is what it all looks like when those who want to “take control” take control.

    Yep, I felt the same way about the referendum, Bullshit on both sides! Why did both sides imply that it was binding when in reality, it was merely advisory? Functional democracy? Sure!
    https://twitter.com/DavidAllenGreen/status/748093196706680832

    Farage, Cameron, Boris, Gove, all need their heads banged together, what a fucking shambles!

    Reply

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