I am shocked to read in your Comment and in a letter a wish for Parliament to make the decision on membership of the EU rather than for it to be made in a referendum… What an abdication of citizenship! Self-respect demands that we make decisions for ourselves. When democracy was invented in ancient Athens all the citizens could gather in an open space, discuss current issues and decide by a vote, which they did quite frequently.
That is not possible for whole countries and in the days when news took days or weeks to travel and the fastest way of getting about was by horse or boat it made sense for localities to elect representatives to meet in the capital city and act on their behalf. Those days are past and modern communications make it possible for true, direct democracy. Referendums of the current kind are a very grudging, timorous, first step toward a just system in which we can be genuinely citizens, participating in a real democracy.
What are all these cries about “wanting the facts”? They have been out in the public domain all the time and updated in the media on a daily basis. Anyone with any awareness of the world around them, anyone who takes any notice of what they encounter in work, in shops, in business dealings and general conversation must be informed about the impact the EU has in all aspects of life.
We are hearing doom-laden prophecies about the consequences of a vote to leave the EU, all very short-term and easily dismissed. If we vote in June to leave, nothing at all will happen immediately except a few ripples in the money market which will be as much to the advantage of our exporters as to the disadvantage of importers.
It will simply be an instruction to our government to negotiate what we really want – a genuine customs union and friendly association with Europe without all the political straitjacket of the EU. Can we trust Cameron to do that? Probably not but since he has associated himself so much with the Remain campaign, with luck he will step down and someone more robust will take over.
Regards,
David Sage
