Are we EUman?

Nobody knows anything when it comes to what would, might, may, could happen post the EU referendum. Some say that leaving would put at risk the inward investment which creates jobs, but others point out that such investment represents a fraction of what we pay in each year for the ‘benefit’ of being a member. The free movement of people, we will be told, is a fundamental principle which has brought prosperity to all, yet many in the richer nations blame the open borders for their own lack of opportunity and the poorer countries are leaking talent like giant national colanders.

The one thing everybody except David Cameron and those loyal to him appear to know, though, is that there will be no ‘reformed’ European Union. At the end of supposed negotiations DC and the IN campaign will be pleading for us to vote for an unchanged and undemocratic system of over-arching rule driven by ideology. There will be no concessions yet Cameron will plead for us to stay under a supposedly better deal. We’ve been trying to get this deal for over forty years; what makes him think now is the hour? Or, that he is the man? This may, however, be the last time we will ever get an apparently democratic free vote as upcoming generations may not even understand the question.

Project EUman continues apace as impressionable children are stamped into cookie-cutter good citizens by the willing hands of artisan teachers. Labelled ‘gender champions’ they continue the good work of eradicating any differences between the sexes; the sign on the Ministry of Truth says “Uniformity is Diversity!” How soon before the abolishing of gendered names altogether? Recent years have already muddied the waters and the interview panel can no longer assume the sex of the next Alex, Drew, Hayden, Billy or Morgan to walk through the door. Does it matter? Well, it might. Just because girls can become engineers it doesn’t mean they must. And just because boys can become midwives, it doesn’t follow that they should.

Operation square peg/round hole will see yet another generation of confused teenagers, already uncertain of their roles in jobs and wider society and now gender-ambivalent, embark on distracting quests for self-discovery right at the time when they should be getting started on fulfilling careers. Selection processes will continue to favour quotas before competence and aptitude and while the best and the brightest will get on as they always have, the second tiers will be awash with also-ran fishes out of water, gills gasping as they wonder how they got washed up on those shores.

The first cuckoos of the Euro spring...

Meanwhile it is said that Cameron has reiterated his threaten to sack cabinet ministers who had planned to campaign for an exit from the EU. Given Lord Ashcroft’s mysterious and sudden illness the dissenters may be well advised to keep their counsel. A political class held on-message by force; an upcoming voter base unable to envisage a future without Captain Euro to tell them how to think. I don’t want to set the conspiracy nuts tongues a-wagging, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the referendum results have been decided already.