Striking
similarities with 1861
We now know the date
of the UK referendum on membership of the European Union.
The politicians are
falling over one another to get on the TV and air their views.
I can see some
interesting similarities to the conflict that tore the US apart over
150 years ago. Both conflicts are essentially about “States
Rights”.
Of course, there are
significant differences. No-one is suggesting that the UK might
secede from the EU and declare war on the others. But what is
undeniable is that a UK exit would bring to the fore many of the
tensions in the EU that might leave it fighting for its life.
Try as I might it is
difficult not to see the Brexit campaigners (have you ever seen such
an assortment of idiotic losers as Farage, Galloway and Co.?) as
throwbacks to the political class of the pre-Civil War South. They
have as their basic tenet the idea that they can prevent the rest of
the country (read Continent) from making any progress by simple
obstructionism.
As the Confederacy
found, by simply crying wolf over and over again you may persuade
most of you citizens to follow you over the precipice but the end
result is you are falling a long way and the ending is as painful as
it is final.
The EU, like the
ante-bellum US, is by no means prefect. But, you cannot “stop all
the clocks” nor will friendly bombs fall on Brussels. The fact is
that Britain is part of the continent of Europe. An accident of real
climate change made it so. Until the warming which brought about the
present geological era began, the island was still physically joined
to Europe. No amount of “little-Englander” rhetoric will obviate
this fact.
As with the CSA,
trying to occupy the same continent and peacefully co-existing with
your close neighbours is just not going to be an option. Leave the
EU and they will turn on you with the fury and resolve of an Abe
Lincoln. (Angela Merkel)
Reams will be
written about the up-coming vote. Today's Sunday papers are full of
it (quite literally - in any sense of the expression that you may
wish to append to it).
My bottom line –
rule by referenda is a very poor way of governing a country. Dave
only promised a referendum to (a) placate an implacable right wing of
his party and (b) because all the polls said a hung parliament and,
therefore, he wouldn't really have to provide it.
Events have proven
him wrong. He may find that the price of remaining in is too high
for his political future. He may well win the vote – but in the
process he will become a Jefferson Davis leader – fatally flawed
and fatally stabbed in the back by his “friends”.
