Sunday, 17 January 2016

Stop problematising Brexit

If we leave the EU, will I have to sleep on the other side of the bed? Can I still wear trousers on Wednesdays? If we leave, is Whipsnade Zoo still allowed to keep giraffes?

Eventually, that's how ridiculous the propensity to problematise Brexit is going to get. We might even be there already. Undeniably there are technical questions to answer and there are matters of serious concern and that's why we have offered our own Brexit plan, but there comes a point where the minutia becomes unknowable.

If such a granular level of detail is informing your decision, you have missed the point. If the question of whether pet shops can still sell hamsters on Shrove Tuesday is clouding your choice, then there isn't much we can say. It's really about two competing ideas.

On the one hand we are set to see a supreme government for Europe in which we will have peripheral status as a non-euro member, deferring decision-making - and outsourcing our trade, aid and foreign policy, or we can be a voice in our own right in a global community of cooperating nations.

One is the continuation of the status quo, graduating to further transfer of powers away from the people. The other is that we can have it a different way, with the flow of power going in the other direction. The right direction. Yes, in that, there will be problems to work out. That's what our politicians and civil servants are for. That's what we pay them for. We do not pay them so they may offshore their jobs.

In the end it is just one simple question. We always complain that it doesn't matter who you vote for because nothing changes. Well this is the one vote that most definitely will change something. So the question is, do you want political change or not? If you do, vote to leave.

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