Given the treatment Italy is receiving at the hands of the EU it is astonishing that anyone in this country can still believe that the UK should remain a member. In the face of the clearly expressed desire of the Italian people, as expressed at the ballot box, to put an end to rule from Brussels, the Italian president Sergio Mattarella, an unelected place man, obeyed the EU and Berlin in overriding the wishes of the electorate in order, as he puts it, to prevent investors being upset. The equivalent in this country would be to deny Jeremy Corbyn the premiership, should he win an election, on the grounds that it would upset City financiers. The mindset of Brussels can be seen from the comments by Gunter Oettinger, the German EU commissioner for budget and HR, who said ”The markets will teach the Italians to vote for the right thing”, a blatant anti democratic statement illustrating the contempt with which the EU, and in particular the Germans, hold the wishes of the people.
Despite all this, and despite the ever increasing resentment, in large parts of the EU, of the diktats emanating from Brussels, it looks ever more certain that the British political elite will override the result of the 2016 referendum, and effectively keep the UK within the EU. In view of this it might be instructive to consider the various scenarios which may play out during the next few years.
So far the Tory rebels have not yet succeeded, but their mindset is clearly illustrated by the comments of Phillip Lee, MP for Bracknell, a junior minister of whom no one outside the Westminster bubble will have heard, when he resigned. He has explained his decision in the chamber, saying it was a "matter of deep principle" and that "A Government's first responsibility is to protect its citizens. This is usually understood in military terms but I believe it applies more generally. It means that sometimes when a majority of our people want something that is against the good of society, government and parliament has a responsibility to protect us. This was the case with the death penalty, when for decades politicians went against the majority view and refused to reinstate it. Now I believe it needs to be the case with the Brexit process." Could there have been a more arrogant statement by someone elected to represent the voters? Who is he to say that supporting the death penalty or Brexit are against the good of society? On the former perhaps he might like to explain to the relatives of the dozens of people murdered on our streets this year why the perpetrators must not suffer the ultimate penalty 'for the good of society', while it is sheer stupidity to claim that remaining in what is in effect a bureaucratic dictatorship is anything other than an affront to freedom and democracy.
What is now the most unlikely scenario was also the best, that the UK achieved a clean Brexit, confounded the nay sayers, turned back to the world and took once again the road it should never have left, of being a truly global, free, democratic, sovereign state. This could have been our future, but those Remainers in both Houses of Parliament, their fellow travellers in the media, and the unelected bureaucrats who worship Brussels have totally undermined these hopes. Probably for the first time in its history the Lords is nothing more than a depositary for failed members of the liberal establishment, where the Liberal Democrats, a party which commands almost no support in the country, nevertheless controls hundreds of votes, which they have no hesitation in casting in opposition to the clearly expressed will of the people.
The next most unlikely is that we are wrong, that the EU will resolve its problems, that the single currency will be a success, that the democratic deficit will be addressed, that the apparatchiks of Brussels will be reined in, and made the servants, rather than the masters of the people, and that Europe will enjoy a prosperous future. One only has to list these requirements to recognize that there is an almost zero chance of such an outcome, as it would need an almost total reversal of the situation that now exists, and a sea change in attitude by the governing elites. Stupidity, selfishness, apathy and inertia will ensure that it just doesn't happen.
Perhaps the most likely future will be one where the contradictions and failures of the single currency will pull it apart, that the dysfunctional system for dealing with migration will anger many smaller states, particularly in the former Eastern bloc, so that they will choose to put country before support for the creation of a single European state, that Germany will finally decide that the fact that it would have to commit to take on the sort of immense financial liabilities necessary to save the economic union is unsupportable, and that electorates everywhere will increasingly turn to parties who are fundamentally opposed to the creation of a United States of Europe. These trends would then create a perfect storm, which would eventually see the demise of the whole project, although no doubt some of the original core members might decide to try to carry on.
Unfortunately this process would take a long time, as the fanatics who put a belief in the survival of the EU before anything else will not give in easily, and it could be several decades before the inevitable collapse. The damage done to the UK if it is still trapped in the EU, and to the other member states, would be tremendous and long lasting and, what is worse, unnecessary. One can only hope that all those Remainers who will have brought it upon us will then receive their due punishment for their actions.
The last scenario, and the one truly to be feared, is that the destruction of the EU, as detailed above, will be met by force, as the dictators of Brussels abandon any pretence of creating a democratic organisation, and resort to the kind of methods all too familiar in Europe. This they probably could not do at present but, should they proceed down the same road they have followed for decades, we shall see unified police and defence forces, whose loyalty would be owed to Brussels, and the unelected apparatchiks who rule the EU, and which would then be called upon to suppress all efforts by nations to break away from their control. This would be met with fury and eventually armed resistance, and we should see Europe once again torn apart by conflict. The EU would lose in the end, but many would die before that happened. What a legacy the morons who conceived the whole vile project would have left for humanity.
The architects and rulers of the EU operate within the same paradigm as Lenin and his Bolshevik party, where practical realities were not allowed to change the course they had set, no matter how many people had to suffer in order for the project to continue. The argument that the ends justifies the means led to the horrors of the Stalinist purges, and now the determination of the apparatchiks of Brussels to create a single European state is sacrificing the people of Greece, Italy and other Southern European states on the altar of the Euro and will, if unchecked destroy democracy itself.
Brexit is our means of escaping this fate and we should grasp it with both hands.