Remind Me Again Why We Voted To Leave
- Feb 2, 2018
- 5 min read
So Why Brexit?
According to the hard line brexiteers there are many reasons to leave the EU, I have taken some time to look into a few of these so I can better understand why the country voted to leave our largest trading partners.
I found there to be many reasons behind this outcome….
Many were sold on the promise of more money for our NHS, however, the truth is that even after Brexit there will be no more money available in the short term as the cost of leaving the EU far outweighs the savings
Many wanted to leave the EU as they felt that we were being subjected to EU laws, that is not true as we have always had the choice of which EU laws we wanted to bring into legislation, plus we introduced many of those laws particularly in regards to human rights.
There were many that wanted us to exit the EU to stop immigration because we were told that by stopping immigration there would be more jobs, we even had some right wing radicals talking about deporting people not born in the UK. As a result of this scare mongering many of our EU Medical & Science professionals are leaving because of the uncertainty of their status after brexit
The impact of immigration & jobs was commented on by Vince Cable who stated that, “When I was Business Secretary there were up to nine studies that we looked at that took in all the academic evidence. It showed that immigration had very little impact on wages or employment".
Some politicians argued that we needed to leave so that we could stop EU citizens from coming to the UK & living off our benefits & accessing our NHS. They stated that there were 3.7 million EU citizens living in the UK with full access to our NHS & state benefits system and that this influx of EU migrants needed to stop. Following brexit negotiations the UK has agreed to allow EU citizens to remain in the UK & the EU has agreed to let UK citizens stay in the EU with full rights of citizenship, "We have secured the rights of British Citizens living in the EU" says the government.
Okay, lets do some simple mathematics. 3.7 million EU citizens in the UK, 1.3 million people born in the UK who live in other EU countries, which means that we will have to fund benefits, healthcare & pensions to those 3.7 million people while the rest of the EU shares the cost of 1.3 million brits between 27 member states, that equates to less than half a million people per country. Not really sure if the UK got the best deal here. Look again, we pay for 3.7 million EU citizens to stay in the UK while other EU countries pay for less than half a million Brits each to stay.
We were told that we would stay in the Customs Union & Single Market, that isn't happening either, which means we have to pay more for goods imported from overseas & pay tariffs on goods we export, that effectively puts an end to car production, after all why should someone in Germany pay 20% more for a new car built in the UK when they can get it tariff free from a factory in Belgium
We were told that we would regain our fishing rights, but again that has been short lived as new deals over fishing means that things will remain unchanged as far as the common fisheries policy is concerned and the rest of the EU can continue to deplete our fish stocks for as long as they want.
There were promises of more jobs, yet even before the final debate on brexit has begun we are seeing companies moving out of the UK, this will be even worse after we finally exit the EU as UK based companies will then become eligible for EU subsidies and grants to move production to eurozone member states, plus they will have the advantage of no borders and a tariff free trade.
We are being told that exiting the single market means we can trade more freely with the rest of the world, we can already trade with the rest of the world, there is nothing new being gained here.
So why given all that are we leaving the EU?
The politicians knew that if they tugged on enough heartstrings the British public would get so fired up that they would not only vote to leave the EU but would be utterly convinced that it was the right thing to do.
They played every card in the deck, pulling out the 4 aces that they knew would turn the vote in their favour
Stop paying the EU & fund our NHS
Stop EU Migrants from coming to the UK & living off our benefits
Stop EU workers from coming here & stealing our jobs
Stop Brussels from telling us what to do & give back powers to our elected government
Every single one of those pre-brexit statements was incorrect or misleading, but each one was spun with an element of truth that made it believable, each statement was designed for maximum impact to gain a reaction and allow the public to form the opinion that the EU was bad and we were better off without them and it worked. The British public bought into the politicians spin and voted to leave.
However, to me, exiting the EU appears to be all about the money, not money for the average person but money for the top earners & the richer occupants and companies based here in the UK, what’s more they need us to exit the EU and fast.
Not only do they require a speedy exit but they need to be out before new EU laws on tax avoidance come into force. This is a necessity in order to protect their stashes of cash and offshore bank accounts, and let us not forget that most tax havens are British owned.
But its not just the rich people, there are many multinational companies who need us to exit the EU in order to protect their own financial interests. In 2015, the UK rejected plans announced by Brussels to combat “industrial-scale tax avoidance by multinationals”. The UK has built a corporate tax haven that includes a reduction in corporation tax from 28% to 20%, they also introduced new tax regimes for multinationals with offshore financing subsidiaries, and tax breaks for patent-owning companies. As a result of these tax avoidance schemes, the UK saw a number of large corporations set up headquarters in the UK with a small number of staff in order to take advantage of these tax laws.
These new EU directives are about to put an end to all that, they come into force before we exit the EU and it has caused a major worry for many of our rich lords, politicians and businessmen and this in my opinion is one of the main reasons why the UK Government is so set on pushing things through regardless of the long term and lasting effects it may have on the economy or the British people.
In a nutshell, the government needs to get us out of the EU fast to protect their offshore assets and corporate bank accounts.
Well that’s my opinion anyway…
"Scott4Indy"
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