Letter to the Editor, Thursday June 30, 2016

The great escape

I sat up all night of June 27, fascinated and excited as the results of the 'in or out' of the European Union came in. The decision was made according to the total number of votes but was organised on a local government area basis, with the votes of each area added together and displayed on TV as a running grand total.

The north's major city, Newcastle, was the first to declare, with a large majority in favour of remaining in the EU. But the Newcastle vote had been expected to be even more in favour of Remain, so what's going on? Next came a few Scottish islands' votes, all in favour of Remain. Hmm, not looking too good for the Leave campaign.

Just up the road from Newcastle is Sunderland, and there was no doubting where they stood with their massive out vote when it arrived. That set the scene for the rest of the night, with the Remainers valiantly trying to catch up with the Outers, until the final total gave victory to the Leave campaign, who could not believe they had won.

Their leaders had a distinct air of, "What the hell do we do now" about them.

Since the vote was announced we've had innumerable academics, politicians, self-professed experts and loud-mouthed know-alls telling us why it had gone wrong, in their view. Not one of them has so far stumbled on the real reason, which is that based on the experience gained over many years of EU membership. So many Brits have become totally disillusioned at having their lives run by politicians like Jean-Claude Juncker, Angela Merkel and the rest of the EU elite, to say nothing of the vast expense of EU membership.

These Brits don't want their taxes spent on the entire EU establishment shifting from Brussels to Strasbourg, and back again, every month, just because France wants a slice of the action. They don't want to be governed by people they haven't elected and don't know who they are or what they stand for, except it's become so clear that these people want everybody to give up their national identity and to become an amorphous mass of Euros.

So, given the chance to get from under this arrogant mass of bureaucracy, the Brits have made sure they did not waste the opportunity, and to be sure, other countries will follow.

The head of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, must be an arrogant fool. He wrote an article in a British paper saying many EU countries were watching Britain's referendum, and if it succeeded the population of these countries would also want a referendum on their EU membership, and that could lead to the collapse of the EU itself.

Jean-Claude was presented with the ideal opportunity to prevent this collapse when British Prime Minister David Cameron went to Brussels earlier this year to try to negotiate better terms for Britain's EU membership, but was sent home virtually empty-handed.

One of David Cameron's arguments for staying in the EU was that he could negotiate better terms inside. British voters noted that he had spectacularly failed to achieve better terms when inside, and armed with the threat of a referendum on membership.

The Juncker big-boots trampled on Cameron again by writing yet another letter in British papers, asserting there would be no further negotiation because Britain had got as much as it was going to get. His letter appeared in British newspapers two days before voting day.

Thank you Jean-Claude, you achieved success for the Brexit campaign, and that happens to be exactly what I preferred.

DEREK ELLIS

Kerikeri (and England)