Irony of the Island

“Leave, leave, leave” is what I heard at the train station this morning overhearing a conversation of a few people on their way to work. How to make a decision which is right not only for the now, but for generations to come? What will safeguard our own, and also broader interests of the world. As Boris Johnson put it, this is our ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ to put our future in our own hands. In whose hands? There is clearly no silver bullet when it comes to governing a country. If the UK leaves the EU, the business world is already warning of tip over into a ‘technical recession’. Whether this is founded or not is under debate, and how it would automatically cause a recession is also to be seen. On the economic front, whether businesses and the nation would be able to agree multiple bilateral trade terms with foreign counterparts as easily, is the primary determinant. The ‘EU Passport’ which the UK holds and now many UK branches of banks use as the basis of having a European HQ in London, may or may not be available as easily. Either way, work would need to be done on the part of businesses to plan for this should the UK leave; and arguably should have been researched to the full extent in order to give the voters a definitive view on impact and not a speculative one. It isn’t something they want to do for understandable reasons; capital is low, another feasibility analysis which doesn’t lead to profits, may not be so appealing. The claims that the sterling will drop by 15-30% in value if we leave, again is an estimate; the basis for which is yet to be made clear. Savings made from less regulation, and less payments to fund other parts of the EU have been cited by the leave camp also. The UK has coped relatively well with terrorism given threats vs incidents, therefore anything that may affect the way we are kept secure, scares the average person and understandably so. Are there any ‘un-mitigatable’ security threats arising from leaving? The UK’s membership of NATO and the UN secure a baseline of involvement and intelligence, and agencies would have to ensure continuity of the current measures in order to mitigate. Is this impossible? Probably not. Immigration is the largest topic for many voters, and its impact on social security, healthcare and so on has been large of late. It’s clear given the current economic condition, various kinds of inefficiencies in public services, that large numbers of the types of migration we have experienced are difficult to justify.

 

Economics v Politics

 The EU has its roots in the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and then the European Economic Area (EEA) in the 1950s. Before we knew it, human rights, justice, and freedom think-tanks on a supranational level were in place, and regulations ratified in those domains. There are almost ½ a million EU bureaucrats employed. Essentially no aspect of a country is entirely managed out of Brussels, and highly likely never will be. Nor do they go out on peace missions like NATO or the UN. What have these ½ million people been doing? Facilitating the trade, which they say the EU is responsible for? Trade between nations has been happening perfectly well for millennia. Human desire for control is so strong that where there is avenue for it, it will generally be taken. Children, when in an active state of mind, if they have a toy rattled, they may likely try to clasp it with their hands. If you move the toy they may try to follow your hands again, until ultimately you hand over the toy. Once the child has the toy, they may start waving it around, look at it and analyse it, or just start playing with it. For a kid to just sit there and let the toy be, may not be so normal. The reality as history often has shown is that people prefer personal legacy over pragmatism. The mentality that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, often doesn’t prevail, and people want to do things to leave behind their own legacy can also come into play.

 

 

Responsibility

In a team sport such as football, a loss is often difficult to attribute to an individual. Therefore exacting lessons may be more challenging. The smaller the team, the easier it is to identify where the shortcomings were, and with an individual sport, it is yet easier to identify individual actions which led to defeat. Being part of the EU and having directives driven by a central body, has given the avenue to place blame and say certain rules are out of the UK’s hands due to majority voting. Leaving the EU would firmly place responsibility back to the UK government. Making decisions on issues such as immigration may be easier. Regulating a competitive financial market, and controlling it may be easier. Realistically, the world is still suffering from the financial crisis that dates back before 2008. An economy where the only indicator on the rise is house prices, and everything else going down, is not promising, nor easy to manage. The number of double edged swords increase in such a situation, and it is unfortunately something symptomatic of irresponsible behaviour that creates a cyclical effect. Taking responsibility would mean to be extremely bold, weed out the root causes, not be afraid to address them, and uncompromisingly progress towards eliminating them and replacing them with sustainable processes that don’t give rise to high volatility cycles as we have seen, in a way that is entirely transparent.

 

Truth

 The issue with doing the above is that politicians are often more concerned with their own beliefs, success, and well-being rather than the objective, collective good. I recently came across a note between a spiritual teacher and his students where the teacher was outlining what was important to him. He said “truth.” There are many aspects of ‘the truth’. Truth means what is reality in terms of our position or situation, our strengths, and our weaknesses. There are a few obstacles that result in a blurring of the truth. These are i) people’s self driven agendas, ii) the willingness to go to great lengths to secure these. We have seen many campaigns where statistics have been selected, moulded and presented to back up particular bias points of view on either side of the campaign. Where both parties have such strong personal motivations, they will not care for the audience and what situation they are put in by having contradictory sets of information put in front of them. When own agendas are on the line, the primary concern is the motivations of the politicians, and not those who they are supposed to protect and govern. Bhishmadeva, the great ancient warrior said in his treaties on leadership that a King should know his subjects like a mother knows a child. There is supposed to be care for the children. In this presentation of data which is incorrect, contradictory, and just serving agendas, care is the last thing on their minds. At any stage, it is never too late to salvage something. However, the first step to turning a situation around is to take stock of the truth. Telling one lie, requires more lies. If the truth is then systemically lost, it becomes very difficult, and sometimes even undesirable for those benefitting, to disclose it. We hope that voters will be able to decipher what is being presented, and diligently weigh this up in order to make an informed decision free from bias views.