Okay, look, this is just stupid. We’ve got people on both sides of this acrimonious divide screaming lies at one another and generally making things up, we’ve got racists getting agitated and a focus on immigration that’s making this country a worse place to live. What the hell are we supposed to think? Are we supposed to argue about the Schengen agreement or try to tell everyone the history of the Maastricht treaty? This is the route most remain voters and campaigners seem to be taking and it’s doing no good.
The problem is that the leave campaign has an emotive message and the remain campaign does not. Saying ‘our country is broken because of immigration and foreign interference’ resonates far more than ‘yes the EU is imperfect but it’s better to be on the inside than the outside because the benefits it brings far outweigh the risk of leaving.’
The truth is the EU is a mess. It’s a mountain of bureaucracy which occasionally makes some terrible decisions and its secretive, undemocratic incompetence makes it difficult to defend. Add that to a generation of hostile right wing press and we have a general ambivalence towards the EU that seems insurmountable.
Perhaps the distaste began in Sarajevo. Perhaps the failure of the EU to get its act together and actually do anything about the disgusting war crimes being carried out in its back garden began the slow slide. I don’t think so though. I don’t think most people in Britain know anything at all about the EU, what it does, how it works, its history, its purpose… anything. All we ever hear from the press and politicians is how awful the whole thing is and how bureaucrats from Brussels are ruining our way of life. It’s a joke, a failure of the press that weighs on us now.
So what can be said? What positive messages can we reduce to sound bites in order to convince wavering voters that remaining in the EU is a good idea?
Well for starters we could remind them that the member states of the EU are our friends and allies, not some international coalition of somehow anti-British plotters. Spain is our friend, as is France and Germany, and the rhetoric of the Brexit campaigners is the turgid mutterings of pre-war nationalist thinking.
We could remind them that land wars in Europe have barely happened while it exists. I’m not suggesting, as the prime minister has, that a continent wide conflict would be the inevitable result of Brexit but if you think the prejudices and discontent that precipitated two world wars have somehow gone away then you just need to have a quick look at some of the darker corners of the internet. I don’t want to be drafted in to a conflict that would end in nuclear annihilation anyway, do you?
Talking about the working time directive or the increase in food standards or the cleanliness of our beaches doesn’t seem to be doing much good. I’m mainly voting to remain part of the EU because I don’t trust the political establishment in this country to govern fairly without the checks and balances the EU provides. Do you really want to see Prime Minister Boris Johnson enacting legislation with nobody to stop him? The only people who would have any way to block his choices would be the House of Lords or the Queen, do you want to live in a country where they, inevitably, have greater power? Do you want to live in an even less democratic society?
For all its faults, and they are many, we are better in the EU than out. It, like all governments, does some good things and some bad, but our political establishment are chomping at the muzzle, clawing at power they cannot be allowed to have.
theanarchogoth 
You must be logged in to post a comment.