Small is beautiful, they say. They also say keep it in
the family. When we were kids our dad used to protect us from harm. For
instance he taught us that the filling in a Cornish pasty was poisonous to small
children, so he ate that bit for us, leaving us with that delicious bit of
folded pastry at the edge. Exactly the same danger awaited us with all forms of
joined-up meat, so he made sure that steaks and chops never displaced the nutritious
mince and sausages on our plates. To safeguard our delicate hopes he kindly
pointed out, too, that when the ice cream van jingles played it was an
announcement that he had run out of all but those nasty, bitter, cheap, raspberry
lollies.
It’s easier to command and control a small tribe, when we
all know who is who and where everybody’s allegiance lies, but the bigger it grows
the greater the potential for dissent. And the kids eventually outgrow parental
control, leave home and strike out for independence and individual success. It
seems to be the same with business; as a corporation grows, so does its
distance from the individual. For every karma-controlled, new-age hippy success
that looks after its evangelists there are a thousand lumbering faceless
behemoths with a huge turnover of unloved minions.
That facelessness reaches its pinnacle with state-owned
monopolies where fat-cattery is high, worker drone malcontent off the scale and
accountability nil; at least with private enterprise you can, nominally at least
, stop buying what they’re selling. Of course big business is corrupt; even
where continued success depends on keeping the buyers sweet the temptation to
engage in forming cartels, hiding profits, avoiding tax and posing as a kindly
uncle is strong. But even the biggest can and do fail, taking millions of
shareholders down with them.
So why do European governments seem so wedded to an essentially
failed business model? Did they not see what happened to the former Soviet
Union, a union only held together by force and fear? Even within a single British
political party the whips only keep a lid on revolt by the gathering of
personal and damning information and the use of threats of disclosure against its
own members who rely on election to stay in office and favour to stay in post.
So why would we imagine a largely unelected legislature, using the apparent
democracy of powerless MEPs as cover for ever more enlargement and ever more
power, would be a thing we would want?
The only reason the British Chambers of Commerce is
calling for an early referendum on EU membership, should the Tories win in May,
is that they think the fear and ignorance levels are currently high enough to
ensure a vote to stay in. But a delay until 2017 would enable a newly
confident, conservative-minded electorate to rally support for an independence bid.
Calling for an early ballot is nothing to do with calming market jitters and
everything to do with furthering the aims of the big boys; pick your battles,
they say.
Where's George wen you need him?
I have never made a secret of where my loyalties lie. It’s possible an independent Britain might control its borders, police
its population appropriately, root out those who use our tolerant ignorance
against us and become British again. I want out of the inefficient, wasteful, costly and controlling European Union. Small is not weak,
small is human. And why shouldn’t we get to eat the filling, instead of just
the pastry?
Great post again, I agree on every point you've made.
ReplyDeleteI know Farage is an extremely intelligent man, especially when it comes to the inner workings of the European Union, and the Commission. He usually has limited amounts of time on TV to speak, and he will usually dig into his mental archive to deride them as much as possible in the time allotted.
Given a longer time to speak and exercise his knowledge, we see what he did to the EU puppet Nick Clegg over two debates. He effectively ended Nick Clegg's career to all but the mentally deranged white sock and sandal Lib Dem that, to be fair, would probably still vote for Cyril Smith if he were alive.
Nigel Farage has not been wrong yet. He can and will guide the UK out of this corrupt, institutionalised, unaccountable debacle at any time, now or 2017. This is because he is completely correct on every point he makes. Each time he's been given a platform to prove it, he's convinced the people that matter, the people that put him there.
If the British Chambers of Commerce and the CBI protectionist corporate arseholes could kiss my arse as hard as they kiss each others, they'd take the skin off it. They can piss off with their ex-President that stole Christmas for millions of kids and STILL somehow didn't get disqualified from being a Director.
Only one group worth listening to, and that's the Institute of Directors and they want OUT.
... and breathe.
For me the issue is one of trust and faith. If our leaders trusted us they would have offered a referendum by now. As they don't trust us to do what they want, you can whistle as long as you like for that referendum but it won't come. Or if it does, the question will be along the lines of "do you want to stay in the EU or do you want to remain in the EU?"
ReplyDeleteAs for faith, you would think British people at the top would have faith in the British people lower down the ladder. You know, the ones who can make things and deal with problems on a local level. But there is no faith is us to do anything, so the gangs at the top put their faith in Brussels rather than us. Better to take orders rom fat cats like them than expect the British to sort their own problems out.
Of course, I am not stupid here. A Britain run by the current ubergangs would require them to do some work, and that would mean spending less time on big lunches and agonising over how to carry on making up expenses. Heaven forfend they would have to actually debate something and then pass a law for this nation...