What Brexit Could Mean To A Bristolian In Sardinia (Almost Three Years On)

Although I was concerned when I wrote this blogpost What Brexit Could Mean To A Bristolian In Sardinia just after the EU referendum in June 2016, I consoled myself with the thought that perhaps very little would change come the UK's exit from the EU. How naive I was. When I wrote in that post that "there will always be winners and losers" I had no idea how much I was likely to lose out myself. I have since discovered that because foreign properties are taxable in Italy, and properties outside the EU are taxed much more severely than those inside the EU, it could cost me around £1,000 per annum. Now, with very little time to go and the possibility of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal, I'm faced with the prospect of my driver's licence and insurance no longer being valid as well as losing reciprocal rights regarding health care. As I wrote in the earlier post, I voted remain mainly for personal reasons. Now, I have much stronger feelings about the whole debacle and the extent to which those EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens living in the EU have been ignored as if we are of no consequence.

To be honest, I had not researched the EU in any depth at the time of the referendum and, although I've learnt a lot more about it since, I still don't consider myself an expert. Many people, most of whom are only familiar with a handful of EU laws and procedures, do consider themselves to be experts. Among those are people who have gleamed a lot of their information from the British gutter press, seeking anything they can find that is negative in order to feed their cognitive dissonance. It's well worth reading this tompride blogpost See 20 years of FAKE NEWS about EU by UK press in which many myths about the EU are debunked. Before anyone firmly in the 'Leave' camp wishes to dismiss it, it's well worth reflecting on the contrast between the language used. The British tabloids tend to use intemperate and hysterical language while the reponses from the European Commission would appear to lay out the facts, as impartially as they can, in language that is moderate and sensible.

Nevertheless, some of my reservations about the EU, which I wrote about in the aforementioned blogpost, still stand. I can accept that EU rules on fishing quotas may have had consequences for the UK fishing industry and that many sub-post offices may have closed, directly or indirectly, as a result of EU law insisting on making postal services more competitive. Furthermore, I am also uneasy about the influence that the European Central Bank has had with regard to overseeing polices like austerity in dealing with member states that were in difficulties, like Greece. Although, it must be added, that the austerity measures in the UK were introduced by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition Government and the the EU had little or nothing to do with it.

Any reservations I may have about the EU, however, are dwarfed by the concerns I have about how disruptive Brexit will be to so many people's lives. Of course I am thinking about myself and the worry and uncertainty that this wretched situation has created. I am also thinking of other UK citizens living in the EU and EU citizens living in the UK. Most of us made the decision to move in good faith and with the belief that our rights would not be affected. Suddenly, a great many of us are faced with a minefield of troublesome bureaucracy to deal with which for years, in some cases decades, were of no concern. Many have far worse problems to deal with than I have and among the UK citizens living in the EU there are those whose livelihoods depend on freedom of movement, as Laura Shields of British In Europe, the group that lobbies far our rights, articulates far more clearly than I could.

 

It should be emphasised that freedom of movement is not just about the movement of people which, in some people's minds, should be restricted in order to "keep the immigrants out". It is also the freedom of movement of goods, services and capitol. Ending freedom of movement will have a hugely negative effect on industries like the music industry as extra controls, delays and tariffs will discourage British musicians of all kinds from organising European tours as the overheads will mean that such tours are no longer financially viable. 

You may or may not remember Ciaran Donovan the van driver, who gave Jacob Rees-Mogg such a difficult time on an LBC phone-in programme, when explaining how the removal of frictionless borders could destroy businesses like his. He also spoke from his own personal experiences of the difficulties and the enormous inconvenience he had to suffer when crossing over into Switzerland. An article that he wrote for the Daily Mirror, and that was quoted in Somerset Live, is quite illuminating. Many leave supporters dismiss talk of how Brexit could disrupt just-in-time supply lines, and cause huge damage to businesses and the economy, as mere fear-mongering. They seem to overlook the fact that these concerns are not being voiced by politicians with an agenda or an axe to grind, but by people directly involved in industries that would be most affected, such as Britain's biggest supermarket retailers and those in car manufacturing. This conversation  that James O'Brien of LBC had with a fruit and vegetable buyer for a major supermarket, about the huge problems that would result should the UK leave the EU with no deal, is very revealing. The stories of falling investment, the number of firms moving their operations from the UK to other EU countries, as well as those closing their existing plants in the UK, have been so widely reported that I hardly need to mention it here.

To a certain extent I can understand people having ideological objections to the way the EU operates. While I don't personally believe that the EU is a neoliberal project, it has aligned itself far too closely to the kind of neoliberal policies that millions of people are uncomfortable with. Having said that, in my opinion the EU is no more corrupt, bloated by bureaucracy, dictatorial or less democratic than the British Government is in its present form. And as more information has come to light over the last three years it should be clear to anyone who tries to remain objective, and base their opinions on fact-based research, that the practical benefits of staying in the EU far outweigh those of leaving. Leavers continue to talk about a betrayal of democracy if the referendum result isn't respected, but it's a strange kind of democracy when millions of those most likely to be adversely affected by the vote - EU citizens living in the UK, many UK citizens living in other EU countries and young people whose opportunities to work, study and live in other parts of the EU will be made far more difficult - weren't eligible to vote in the first place. 

When leavers bring up the subject of democracy remainers often respond with, " yes, but 'Leave' lied." Well, it's certainly true that their leading campaigners gave lots of false assurances about 'the easiest deal in history' and 'all your rights, all your privileges will be respected'. Take a look at this video of Michael Gove in this twitter post. "All your rights, all your privileges, are carried on and are respected," he says. I don't think it will feel like that for many EU citizens in the UK who have had to suffer a significant increase in racism and xenophobia and told that they will have to apply for settled status, including some who have been settled happily in the UK for decades. 

With the possibility of the UK leaving the EU without a deal becoming ever more likely, the public have latched on to the phrase 'no deal' and many leavers are insisting that is what they voted for. I am sorry to disappoint them but had they read what was written on the Leave Campaign leaflets before the referendum took place they would realise that they voted for no such thing.

Remainers are fond of pointing out how the Leave Campaign were fined for breaches of electoral law but, to be fair, so were remain, although considerably less. Far more concerning is the misuse of personal data that Leave.EU were fined for. Furthermore, there is the mystery surrounding the source of the huge sum of money donated by Arron Banks, the Leave Campaign's largest personal donor, and the fact that Theresa May, when she was Home Secretary, may have blocked an investigation into Banks in the run-up to the referendum. There are a huge number of unanswered questions, even if nothing is proven, as yet.

In the previous blogpost, that I link to in the first paragraph, I wrote that: "For me the saddest thing about the whole affair has been the divisions created by the hyperbole, scaremongering and exaggerated claims by both the Remain and the Leave camps." That was written at the end of June 2016. Things have got far, far worse since then. In fact, read any comments thread on Brexit and before long the exchanges become increasingly toxic and hysterical. What surprises me is how many people post comments, about subjects on which they're rather ignorant, without doing any fact checking whatsoever. I wrote about this in another post in this blog with regard to quite a different matter: houses for sale for just €1,00 in Ollolai (if you were prepared to commit to spending around €20,000 to restore them), a town not all that far from where I live in Nuoro in Sardinia. The comments linking to articles in Yahoo and the Daily Mail Online on this issue were astonishing in their ignorance and stupidity. As I live in Sardinia I am far better placed to know that it is not the home of the mafia and it is not situated on an earthquake fault line! But to return to Brexit, leavers tend to come up with the same well-worn clichés and soundbites when being abusive towards remainers. Remainers delude themselves into thinking that being arrogant and condescending will somehow get their point across to leavers, while being equally abusive. There is a sense of people not listening and not wanting to listen. Whatever you may think of Caroline Lucas MP, at least she had the courage and courtesy to visit areas that mostly voted leave and listen to their reasons for doing so. Is it really so hard to be civil towards people that you disagree with? If we have exchanges of opinions they should be civil and based on assessing information as impartially as we are capable of. Yes, I voted remain. Yes, I would vote remain again if there were another referendum. Yes, I still cling to the vain hope that the UK won't leave the EU, because it will make my life so much simpler. However, I know people that I like very much who voted leave and I am not going to fall out with them because of a difference of opinion over Brexit. When we allow such things to damage our family relations or our friendships then we need to question how intelligent we are in terms of emotional and practical intelligence. We all need each other. There is a unifying force that can create something new and far better. It's called listening.