The Brexit Debate - Reason v Emotion

 Was the decision to leave the EU based on evidence, reason and critical thinking or was it based on an appeal to our emotions?

Contrast these two articles

A selection of the main points 

Richard Dawkins 

(Professor at Oxford University) 

Prospect Magazine June2016  

(Click for full article)

My own answer to the question is, 

“How should I know? I don’t have a degree in economics, or history. 

How dare you entrust such an important decision to ignoramuses like me?”

I, and most other people, don’t have the time or the experience to do our due diligence on the highly complex economic and social issues facing our country in, or out of, Europe. 

That’s why we vote for our Member of Parliament, who is paid a good salary to debate such matters on our behalf, and vote on them. 

The European Union referendum, like the one on Scottish independence, should never have been called.

• You want your surgeon to know anatomy. 
• You want your plumber to know one end of a drain from the other. 
• Why would you entrust your country’s economic and political future to know-nothing voters like me? 

... we live in a representative democracy not a plebiscite democracy. 

 Foxhunting might have been justifiable plebiscite fodder. 

But to call a referendum on a matter as important and fraught with complicated and intricate detail as EU membership was an act of monstrous irresponsibility: 

Even if the referendum goes Cameron’s way, there will be a legacy of bitterness, stirred up by the yelling rhetoric on both side. 

My Scottish friends tell me there are still poisonous enmities that have not died down since the 2014 referendum there.

most of the arguments for leaving are emotional. 

The evidence-based arguments tend to be the ones for remaining in Europe, whether they come from professional economists, historians, business leaders or powerful foreign politicians.

President Barack Obama’s sober warning was widely resented as “Telling me how I should vote.” No, he wasn’t telling you how to vote. He was bluntly informing you—as he is well placed to do—that if you think America will step in and rescue you when you cut yourself off from Europe you are living in cloud-cuckoo land.

[Obama actually said: “They (Leave campaign) are voicing an opinion about what the United States is going to do, I figured you might want to hear from the president of the United States what I think the United States is going to do. ..... maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement, but it’s not going to happen any time soon because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done”.]

Obama also argued that if he were a British voter he would be wary of cutting himself off from the market that takes 44% of British exports and is “responsible for millions of jobs and an enormous amount of commerce upon which a lot of businesses depend”.

Nigel Farage

(Businessman & leader of UKIP)

Daily Express Article Tue, Jun 21, 2016 

(click for online article)

We are just hours away from the opportunity of a lifetime: the opportunity to get our country out of the European Union and in doing so get our borders back, our democracy back and for us to embark upon an exciting future as an independent nation. 

We will exit a failed political union, one which is now a disaster zone. 

• We see a migrant crisis utterly out of control. 
• We see a eurozone crisis causing human misery on a shocking scale.

We must leave the European Union so that not only can wages increase for British workers but so that living standards rather than declining can start going up. 

The wellbeing of those living and working in our country matters to me more than GDP figures. 

The EU’s open borders make us less safe. 

As a bureaucratic club it makes us poorer. Membership of this union stops us acting in our own national interest, forcing us to be represented by unelected old men in Brussels. 

We know that the European Union is hell bent on further, deeper centralisation. 

.. the plans for a full EU army have been put on ice only until the very day after the referendum. 

A few days after the EU referendum it’s the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. We should never forget just how much generations have sacrificed. 

Our democracy is precious and our right to self-determination is one which has been given away by the political class to the EU and bureuacrats such as Jean-Claude Juncker. 

We must seize this chance, this opportunity to take it back. After all, what sort of future do we wish to leave our children and grandchildren? 

David Cameron has said he strongly supported full EU membership for Turkey

To top it all we are also handing over more than £1billion to Turkey and other countries in what is classed as “pre-accession funding”: 

Other countries being funded include Albania and Serbia. 

This year will see Turkey, supported by David Cameron and Angela Merkel, gain full visa-free access to Europe, effectively moving the Syrian border to Calais. 

there is no doubt in my mind that if we Remain inside the EU that Turkey will have joined by 2025. 

Just think what that would mean: net migration would be even higher, perhaps up to 400,000 net per year or even half a million each year. 

This European Union is not one which is standing still. It is expanding in powers, expanding in size and determined to become a United States of Europe.

If we Remain our country will never be the same again. 

Our public services will be pushed to the point of failure and our national security will be greatly weakened as EU open borders expand further still. 

On Thursday we must have the courage to exit the failed EU project and ensure a safer, more prosperous future with us in control of our country’s destiny. 

Together let’s make June 23 our Independence Day.