10 Reasons Irish People in the North of Ireland, & Britain, Should Vote "Leave"

international | eu | opinion/analysis Tuesday April 12, 2016 21:13 by Anthony Coughlan - National Platform for EU Research & Information janthonycoughlan at gmail dot com 24 Crawford Avenue Dublin 9 +353 (0)1-8305792

Don't buy into "Project Fear" being sold by the usual suspects

On 22 January the Financial Times reported that Goldman Sachs, Wall Street, was donating £500,000 towards the anti-Brexit campaign in Britain. This is the same Goldman Sachs as is behind the threatened Tyrrelstown evictions in Dublin.

1. Northern Ireland ... Economy

The EU subsidies in the form of Regional Grants, Structural Funds, Farm Payments - especially for large landowners - and money for local “Peace Process” activities are, in fact, UK taxpayers’ money being recycled through Brussels. The UK is a major net contributor to the EU Budget, so that local EU projects which people tbink Brussels is funding are really being paid for by UK taxpayers. Voting Leave would in principle make possible increases, not reductions, in all such funding.

2. Northern Ireland ...The Peace Process

Claims that a "Leave" vote would endanger the Northern Ireland peace process are wholly unfounded. This is part of "Project Fear". Remember 1999 and the threats of job losses and economic ruin if Britain did not abolish the pound sterling and adopt the euro? Or 2011 when Germany's Chancellor Merkel claimed that peace in Europe was under threat if the Banks were not bailed out to protect the euro-currency?

3. The Anglo-Irish Common Travel Area

The long-established Anglo-Irish common travel area, which goes back to 1923, is a matter exclusively for the British and Irish Governments and is not an EU matter. Irish people will continue to move freely between the two islands and across the North-South border inside Ireland as they have always done.

4. Social benefits and Wages

If people vote"Remain" David Cameron's EU agreement will be implemented, which means that new immigrants to the UK will have lower social benefits than those already there. It will be impossible under EU law to differentiate between Irish immigrants on the one hand and non-Irish ones on the other. So that new Irish immigrants to the UK must face cuts in social benefits too.

Under EU law any of the 500 million people who are citizens of the EU can come and live and work in the UK if they wish. This leads to cheap labour, lower wages and reductions in social standards. This is the main reason why so many employers, especially big ones, want to remain in the EU.

5. National independence

Remaining in the EU means obeying EU laws made in Brussels by unelected bureaucrats without the ability of either Britain or Ireland to change a single one of them. These laws and regulations serve the interest of EU-based Transnational Banks and Big Business, not the ordinary people of Britain or Ireland. Brussels can impose heavy fines on any State that disobeys. Is this "the unfettered control of Irish destinies" which the men and women of the 1916 Easter Rising aspired to in the Proclamation? Is this democracy? Irish people have a proud record of standing for the national independence of whatever country they are living in. That is why they should show solidarity with the British people by voting "Leave" in the June referendum.

6. Free Trade

Free trade does not require the supremacy of EU law. Free trade will continue between Ireland and the UK under all realistic “Leave” scenarios, so there will be no customs posts on the North-South border within Ireland, no passport controls or anything like that. Such claims are simply scaremongering. If the "Remain" side wins it means the job-destroying TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) is inevitable. This was negotiated by the EU on behalf of its 28 Member States, with its dangerous Private Investor-State Dispute Settlement Tribunals - instead of Britain independently negotiating its own trade treaties with the 170 States in the world that are outside the EU.

7. More money in your pocket

Over the past decade the UK paid over £150 billion to the EU budget - far more than it gets back. It sends £350 million to Brussels every week. This is about half the English schools budget and some ten times the Northern Ireland schools budget. If we vote "Remain" it will make this payment permanent and we cannot change it. Why not put this money back in your pocket by voting "Leave"?

8. This is where the jobs are

Only 1/10th of the UK economy is involved in exports to the EIU. The other 9/10ths are involved in domestic UK business and in exporting outside the EU. This is where the jobs are - in the domestic economy, freed from job-destroying EU regulation, and in the export business, with Britain trading with the five continents and with the far-flung English-speaking world. The EU is an inward-looking shrinking market mired in recession, with a disfunctional currency and hugh unemployment. The EU is far more dependent on the UK economy than the UK is on it. By taking back control from the EU Britain can become an economically booming Singapore of Europe.

9. Hamstrung indefinitely or free?

Do you want to be part of a manifestly failing experiment in continent-wide federalization to be run by non-elected committees in Brussels? Or to regain control over our fishing industry, tax, economic regulation, energy and food bills, migration, crime and civil liberties by voting "Leave"? By voting "Remain" you copperfasten control of your life for the indefinite future by an increasingly German-dominated EU. By voting "Leave" you bring back control to the democratically-elected centuries-old British Parliament. You regain the right to make your own laws which Britain helped restore to the rest of Europe in two World Wars. In these circumstances voting "Leave" is clearly the safer optiom.

10. Human Rights Courts

Membership of the European Convention on Human Rights, which 55 European countries subscribe to, underpins various freedoms but has nothing to do with the European Union. The European Court of Human Rights is a separate body entirely from the EU’s Court of Justice, so that voting Leave will not affect the human rights protections of people in the UK and Ireland.