The Case for Brexit.

by Daryl D. Tan

Today marks a momentous occasion in recent history. Today is the day that the British people chose to leave the leviathan supranational State known as the European Union. As a huge supporter of the Brexit movement, I am absolutely elated that the British people have finally stood up against the abomination that is the EU and have voted instead for independence, national sovereignty and self-government. Granted, the procedure to actually leave the EU is a laborious one and will take at least 2 years, but the important fact remains that the British people no longer wish to be subjugated to the whims and powers of a bunch of unelected bureaucrats sitting in Brussels with no semblance of what the commoner’s desires are.

The British people are sick and tired of an over-regulated society under the European Union. As 2016 Mises Institute Fellow Louis Rouanet pointed out, there are 50 EU laws regarding duvets and bedsheets, and even a tax on tampons, among other equally ridiculous regulations. Such regulations have the effect of hurting smaller companies and benefitting large corporations. It comes as no surprise that the Remain campaign was heavily funded by such big corporations that desire to keep such regulations in place to hurt smaller companies that cannot afford the compliance costs associated with these regulations.

The Leave campaign or the Brexit Campaign has been smeared by the mainstream media as being a project of the Far-Right. This has contributed to a complete mischaracterization of the Leave campaign. While many people on social media have fallen into this trap, I am glad that the good and decent people of the United Kingdom did not. In fact, Sunderland, a port city that is predominantly a Labour constituency voted largely in favour for Brexit. Why is this so? Because the working class have come to understand that the EU doesn’t work for them. To borrow a passage from an article written by John Mills, chairman of the Labour Leave movement, “These people worry about the cost of the EU because they are outraged to see huge sums being paid to Brussels while their local services (such as the NHS) are being cut. They don’t like mass immigration not because they are racists but because they suffer from what they regard as unfair wage competition as well as being squeezed out of services to which they feel entitled.” While I do not necessarily share the same views as members of the Labour party (myself being a staunch advocate of the free market), I do find it ironic that most of the people I know who are in favour of the Remain campaign share the same views as this Labour member, despite having voted to the contrary. Instead of doing their own research, they rely on the mainstream media as their sole source of information, fed with propaganda from celebrities such as actors and musicians favouring the Remain campaign, and not realizing that the EU is in fact an unaccountable force that is essentially driven by big banks and big corporations - the very same entities that self-proclaimed liberals seek to hold to justice so that the commoner on the street can have a decent chance at finding economic success.

What is even more alarming about the UK’s membership in the EU is the utter lack of legal sovereignty as a result of its membership. As correctly pointed out by Lord Howard and Sir Richard Aikens (formerly a judge sitting in the Court of Appeal), the Lisbon Treaty gave the European Court of Justice (ECJ) sweeping powers to adjudicate upon and oversee domestic laws not just on commercial disputes but also laws on defence, foreign affairs, immigration, justice and home affairs. The EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights which is intended to mimic the U.S Bill of Rights has overriding legal force in the UK despite arguments to the contrary. This was evident in the case of N.S. V Secretary of State for the Home Department which involved an Afghan seeking asylum in the UK. Here, the ECJ ruling on the case held that the UK did not have a right to opt out from the Charter and that its provisions were capable of being binding, thus overruling the UK government’s decision in what was a nationally sensitive matter. Also in 2013, the UK government sought to refuse entry to a known terrorist carrying a French passport, yet the ECJ ruled in his favour after it was argued that his rights under the Charter had been compromised. With such cases commonplace and scattered across EU Law textbooks, it boggles the mind how one in favour of the Remain campaign can dare make the claim that the UK retains its sovereignty despite being a EU member state. It is no wonder that EU Law scholar Leonard Besselink has likened the ECJ to being a kind of 'Supreme Court of Europe' and is of the view that the ECJ acts as the ultimate arbiter on the scope of national constitutions. Furthermore, while the Charter of Fundamental Rights seems innocuous in that its aim is to protect the rights of EU citizens, in reality it essentially serves as a vehicle or instrument being driven or utilised to steer the EU into ever closer integration.

This is also alarming because the EU was originally intended to be a purely economic entity as reflected in the name it previously went by - the European Economic Community. Unfortunately it evolved into more than just an economic entity, far surpassing whatever it intended to be in the first place, replete with laws that dictate way more than just economic policies, and rights that are to be objectively adhered to and so on and so forth, not realizing that the ideal of a ‘United States of Europe’ as Winston Churchill envisioned is practically impossible to achieve, seeing that there's so much cultural differences between the different European nations, as well as language barriers, and entirely different legal frameworks (i.e. the Common Law legal system in the UK and the Civil/Roman law system in continental Europe) which has proven to be problematic. Economically speaking - The EU isn't doing so well either, it remains economically stagnant as reflected in the Eurozone’s growth this year, which stands only at 1.7%. Yet, the naysayers of the Leave campaign talk about how economically efficient European states are or can potentially be as a single united bloc.

Pro-EU proponents have also made the case that without the EU, the UK would find it far more difficult to engage in trade deals and agreements. I find this argument to be sorely lacking in substance. Previously, the UK could not outsource Information Technology related work to Indian companies in Hyderabad without first considering Eastern European interests and priorities. It should be noted that the UK has far more in common with India than it will ever have with Slovenia. Both share the same kind of legal system, Indian nationals are twice more likely to speak English than Slovenians, and their accounting methods are practically alike. Yet, stuck in the EU, the UK is obligated to outsource such contracts to citizens from Slovenia instead - a country that has little cultural connections with the UK and which has an entirely different legal system from that of the UK. After today and within a period of time (the sooner the better), the UK will finally be released from such restrictive shackles and will be free to negotiate its own trade agreements and deals, according to its own terms.

Finally, I don’t aim to deny that the UK’s existence in the EU is entirely detrimental. Granted, there are certain benefits of being in the EU which cannot be ignored. However, I hope one looks at the bigger picture and consider long term interests instead of short term ones. While some of the regulations and directives that the European Commission enacts into law may possibly be beneficial to the UK in certain areas, the majority aren't, and the inescapable fact remains that the European Commission is made up of unelected lawmakers - the single most troubling aspect for me. For an entity that claims to protect the fundamental principles of democracy, this is immensely antithetical to such an objective. It doesn’t matter if the policies that are enacted are actually beneficial. We have to also consider the means to the ends, and not simply the ends alone, for as De Tocqueville perfectly understood: caring about the outcomes and not the process is a precondition of tyranny.