Cameron’s latest EU election ploy has been more catastrophic than anyone could have imagined
When campaigning for re-election, David Cameron pledged that Britain would be given a voice over its membership of the European Union. We were to be reformed in our involvement, well-educated on our position, and primed to decide, as a nation, on our fate concerning this institution. That was how the story was meant to go. When Cameron announced his plans back in January of 2013 to, ‘give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice’, he couldn’t have been more out of sync with the realities that his pledge concerned.
The left-wing is split, the right-wing is split, and we are given various strong arguments from each side. Long gone are the days when party politics meant some sort of unified or coherent idea. As traditional allies to the EU, Corbyn is guiding Labour in the Remain camp 41 years after he voted to leave the EEC. But others in his party are attempting to make ‘The Socialist Case for Brexit‘, orchestrated by veteran Vauxhall MP, Kate Hoey. This split within Labour extends far beyond the referendum, starting with Corbyn’s leadership victory which left many MPs feeling disenchanted with his far-left thinking.
Fragmentation on the right has also been evident. The Conservatives have now resorted to calling themselves ‘neutral’ in the hope of masking the fact that they are as fragmented as Labour. Cameron’s rhetoric about ‘stronger in a reformed EU’ is less than convincing, and Boris Johnson’s leadership of the Brexit campaign is ambitious at best in its hope that we can, ‘be like Canada’. Gove’s patriotic case is honey to the nationalists’ ears but misses the fact that we are no longer particularly special within the dimensions of the new globalised world.
We are told the NHS is stronger in; we are told the NHS is stronger out. Britain’s economy would supposedly boom if we took control over it, but the IMF and World Bank have issued constant statements about impending collapse. British law should apparently not be determined by Brussels, but then we are told that European legislation is fundamentally our own legislation. Everything seems to boil down to people’s inclinations and patriotism over how ‘Great’ they perceive Britain to be in the twenty-first century. Quite frankly, this entire referendum has been mismanaged, rushed, and ill-informed.
Since the Blair years party politics has been under question, however, neither political party is coming up with any sort of coherent argument. Within the Labour and Conservative parties there is evident fracturing. Even in the Brexit camp, socialists and conservatives are sparring on why precisely we should leave the EU, in turn undermining each other’s argument and weakening the general ‘Leave’ case. There is simply no cohesion anymore between the left and the right, and to prove this you need look no further than the impending referendum that Cameron only offered to get himself re-elected.
Whatever the outcome on June 23rd, voters should remember that it is in the EU’s best interest to make withdrawal as unpleasant for Britain as possible. This is a point that even the In campaigners are missing because they don’t want to demonise the very institution they are trying to save. If the withdrawal process were to be harmonious, soon the ever-present far-right emerging across Europe would guide its countries down the the same path as we take on the 23rd.
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Joseph Howe
I first began writing for Shout Out UK in November 2015 while in my first year at university. In February 2016, while studying at the Charles University of Prague I was appointed SOUK's Politics Columnist. Since then, I have conducted interviews with MPs and civil rights activists from the U.K. and other places in Europe.
Since graduating from the University of Liverpool, I have taught current affairs in two colleges in Vienna, and am about to start a new adventure in the Houses of Parliament. Among other things, I love to travel and enjoy a very hectic social life.
