in response to an article on the bbc website:
in my opinion, the referendum is quite a bad idea for the country, but popular in terms of pr. It also distracts from the otherwise poor performance of the coalition… (although i think a labour government would have been much more disastrous)
the referendum puts the decision of an eu membership into the hands of people who do not know all the details and consequences of such a move. It’s easy to blame the eu for some of the less welcome legislations they force on it’s member states and we should all fight against that, but an exit of the eu might have a lot of unintended consequences when the uk won’t receive it’s benefits any more.
given that this country has a trade deficit, it is, in the long term, advisable to be part of a bigger community of countries where some of the countries have an export surplus. the eu is definitely a long term investment, which may only start to pay dividends in 25+ years.
we might not like some laws that are imposed by eu, but we can and must diligently influence the decision making on eu laws and how eu laws will effect member states laws when there is conflict. a general rule of ‘eu law supersedes country law’ and the idea common employment laws, just causes grievance. we should aim to align laws and resolve conflicts on a case-by-case basis. over years we will iron out the issues between the laws, in the meantime we should just make humanitarian decisions to resolve conflicts.
But an eu exit is dangerous and would be reversed within living memory, no doubt. i’m trying to find an analogy to this problem, but it proofs difficult…