Politics should be about policy. That’s how it got its name. And ironically they named it in Greek. Ironic because the Greeks, so influential in our language, represent the best and the worst of the whole ‘Europe’ thing.
Should I stay or should I go now? Asked the Clash in 1979. Don’t leave me this way; I can’t survive. The songs say it all. Ok, they were intended to be about lurve and relationships, but Europe is a relationship. Albeit a rather loveless one with all the sex happening with the French in sleazy hotel rooms in Brussels.
But the in/out referendum is a big thing. On a scale of ‘big things’ and ‘not such big things’. Its massive. And like most people, even most informed people, I don’t know enough to decide. So I need help in understanding the full extent of all the implications of a ‘Brexit’ (pukey term, that one).
Yet what I’m seeing and hearing and reading is so much posturing, positioning and politicians out to make personal gains.
Like Boris. A man I trusted sufficiently to vote for twice as London mayor. Ok, because he’s funny and the others are dreadfully dull, but mainly because he seemed to shoot straight. Yet now, tempted by the lure of potential prime ministership, Boris has turned Judas on his old schoolmate David Cameron and gone to the dark side. The Outers.
“Nothing to do with personal ambition; its the best thing for London” he cried. And yet when you read the letter imploring continued In-ness signed by a hundred very influential business leaders, you kind’a start to wonder.
So I’m starting to fall more heavily on the ‘in’ side of things. Which started the moment George Galloway turned up for the outers. On the grounds that whatever is viewed as in any way beneficial by the world’s most horrible, vile and evil man, must be bad for me.
Thus the ‘debate’ has become one of personalities with their agendas or the emotive issues with their predictable cry to arms of ‘immigration!’ and ‘sovreignty!!’
They gloss over the important issues. Will I have to queue longer to take a flight to Rome? Will my pizza crust get soggy? Will they still subtitle French films in English? And most importantly; will it affect how many Champions League places are given to the Premiership???
Because undoubtedly the very best of what Europe has to offer is on view tonight at the Emirates when Arsenal take on Barcelona. Exemplified by that most European of things: three South American forwards.
Happy Tuesday
A xxxx
I appreciate that you’re sympathetic to the ‘holy trinity’ of Boris, Farage and Galloway, Stevie, because you are a Chelsea fan therefore have little issue with fascists and other horrible people.
But for me… its complicated.
I know we don’t want some smelly baguette-baker from the Bouloigne telling us we aren’t allowed to make new laws because they’re un-Euro, but that’s all part of the emotive stuff once more.
What I want to know is the pounds shillings and pence of what leaving/staying will mean. And no-one’s telling me.
So until they do, I’ll stick with the ‘my enemy’s enemy’ paradigm and stay in.
Voting “in” because there are non-credible people voting “out”, is not the best approach. Nor is listening to “business leaders” whom, while being commercially smart, generally exhibit no evidence of social or democratic responsibility. Nor is listening to politicians much use either, as most are self-centred, self-interested clowns who would say anything to hold onto power. For me “in” or “out” is a democratic and constitutional issue which was summed up fairly well by Boris (despite whatever scurrilous secret motivations he may have) when he talked about too much power/laws impacting us from unelected faceless eurocrats. And I’ve not heard one coherent reason to stay “in”; Ted Heath started the scaremongering in the ’70s with his insinuations that we would all starve, and it’s still going on today with Cameron’s toe-curling comments about the “jungle” coming to Dover if we opt “out”. The man is a nit-wit of the highest order, but that is no reason to opt “out” any more than opting “in” because of George Galloway’s preference.