I have been following the Brexit debate for way too long, and on the day of its referendum have come to realise that I no longer believed in any of it.
The arguments put forward from both sides have been about messages of fear, about what Britain would become if we stayed in/voted out. Most of all, it’s about whether we want to be part of a team, or want to go solo and do things our own.
For the Leave campaign, it has all been about immigration and gaining back control. Their belief that Britain is no longer Britain reminds me of the many arguments in Australian politics to stamp out immigration and co-operation with other nations with similar statements.
Essentially, they are the band member that believe they can do it better if they go solo.
They want to go back to the days when Great Britannia ruled the waves.
For the Remain campaign, well, it’s been about being ‘stronger together’; about keeping the wider opportunity alive for our next generations.
It’s about using team work to build a better future.
Well, that’s the points of view of those in the known. Many Britons (and Commonwealth citizens who live in Britain, like myself) don’t completely understand how EU works and what it does for the country, not enough to make an informed decision.
So, a lot of us are using our ‘gut instincts’.
Sadly, human beings are not really in for team work. We are all selfish. We all want the best of something without giving something back.
We like freebies and cashbacks.
So when one person hears the slogan ‘We want control back!’, without finding out what sort of control and why things are controls, it is immediately assumed that we don’t have control of our lives in the EU, and so begins to chant the same thing.
Does it matter that Westminster actually put more regulations to our lives than the EU? Does it matter that most of the arguments to do with the NHS and public transport in the country has nothing to do with the EU?
No. Because all it mattered was the slogan sounded important, so let’s go with it.
I’ve learned that no matter what argument is being put out, it is the ones that target our human selfishness that always wins. None of the ‘we work better as a team’ and ‘EU (and non-EU) immigrants help fill the gap in Britain’s skills gap’ seem to break through, simply because we are just not team players.
They play on the human vulnerability to react to large amount of the money. So much millions we pay the EU apparently could go to fixing up the hospitals for one.
Do they really believe, if the government actually had this much money they could play with, with all the budget cuts in civil services in the recent years, that they’d chose to spend it on hospitals?
Now that’s just wishful thinking.
And for the economic factor. Why would any nation want to sign up for a trade deal with one country over a collective group of countries with 500 million consumers in its market?
Why is it that we can’t think as a team?
The EU needs a reform. It has some obvious flaws it needs to fix, but doesn’t every football team, every corporation and every family? Isn’t it better that we are in it to have a say in how it evolves than to pull out of the world’s biggest economic project only to regret it later when it prospers?
