Pro And Con And Ho Hum

[poliphilo]

Jeremy Paxman was explaining the EU last night.

The sun was shining in Europe- as it does. Nice buildings they've got there in Brussels and Strassbourg. Then we came back to London and the sun wasn't shining- as it doesn't.  Obviously Europe is where we need to be.

Young people like the EU because they get to travel all over Europe without passports. Happy, thoughtless young people!

But old people dislike the EU because, you know, Maggie Thatcher and straight bananas. Stupid, thoughtless old people!

We met some busyworking MEPs and a UKIP goon and David Cameron's top man in Europe who is a PR guru and has that laugh they teach you at Eton and Michael Gove who looks just like that children's TV character POB who used to spit on the camera lens. Gove talked about sovereignty and made me think of wigs and dusty law books. Nick Clegg came on and bounced around like Tom Cruise on Oprah's sofa, proclaiming his love for the EU.  Oh God, has he no shame!

No-one had anything much to say about Greece and austerity or the refugee crisis or the Ukraine or any of that bad stuff that's going on a long way away from sunny Brussels and its handsome architecture. And no-one had much to say about the Euro and what a pickle it's in.

I watched in the hope someone might say something that would clinch it for me- but nobody did.  The EU is anti-democratic and plutocratic- but the little Englanders are much the same. Did we ask for this referendum? No, we didn't. It's a Tory thing- a regrettable tiff in the House of Mammon. The millionaires are squabbling about the best way for them to get richer- and about whether the plump Etonian or the very plump Etonian should be Prime Minister- and it's clearly of great importance to them- but I don't know why any of the rest of us should care.

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I find myself, somewhat uncharacteristically, without a defensible opinion on the matter. I suspect your friend Veronica is quite right about the economic impact of Brexit. There is also the strong suspicion that, insofar as Europe can be united in any meaningful sense, it's probably stronger united than divided. A stronger Europe might have been able to make a more meaningful stand against the naked aggressions of the Cheney-Bush junta, for example. It's also quite possible that the EU might be a more staunch defender of human rights than, say, a Tory government that answers to no one but its own.

However, the fact remains that what was once merely a joke has revealed itself to be the simple truth. The European Union is Germany achieving, economically and politically, what it twice failed to do on the field of battle. That might not necessarily be a bad thing, except that Greece strongly suggests otherwise. German leadership has proven itself heartless, bigoted, and frankly short-sighted and stupid.

My gut tells me that staying is better than leaving, but I'm unable to convince myself that's true.