Why I voted for Brexit

Some colleagues and friends were surprised by my voting for Britain to leave the European Union. I have tried to explain my reasons to them but, invariably, disappointingly, revealingly, they choose to ignore my arguments. It's not lack of interest in the topic: it's that they just know they're right. I agree with them that the European project began as a noble, well-intentioned and extremely successful way of anchoring democracy and helping keep the peace in Europe. I also value its helping to free trade within Europe and its promoting democracy in eastern Europe. Where we differ is that they think the EU retains its noble character and continues to be a force for good. I disagree and these are my reasons why.

First, as I wrote here and here: the persistence of the Common Agricultural Policy, in the face of four decades of its environmental depredations, its raising of food prices for European families (by around 17%), and its subsidies to the extremely wealthy:

Greenpeace analysed the top recipients of CAP subsidies in the UK for the first time. Some 16 of the top 100 are owned or controlled by individuals or families who feature on the 2016 [UK's] Sunday Times rich list, receiving a total of £10.6m last year in “single payment scheme” subsidies alone, and £13.4m in total farm subsidies.... The Queen, aristocrats and Saudi prince among recipients of EU farm subsidies, the 'Guardian', 29 September

Worse than all this is the CAP's crippling of trade opportunities for Africa, with the tragic results that we are seeing in the Mediterranean. Some would say that the EU's refugee crisis is largely self-inflicted. Bad karma.

Now the EU, again led by France, wants to do to Latin America what it did to Africa:

But 13 European countries, led by France, want to scupper the talks [about a trade pact] because their farmers are scared of Mercosur [a trading bloc whose core countries are Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay], the world’s most competitive producer of grains and meat. They forced the EU to withdraw, at the last minute, proposed tariffs cuts on beef. A trade pact between the blocks would make shopping cheaper for 750m consumers. Mercosur's missed boat, the 'Economist', 14 May

This is no small matter: the Common Agricultural Policy, still swallows up 40 percent of the EU budget. The EU has had 40 years to solve the CAP problem, but it has failed. The persistence of the CAP, in the face of all the evidence of its destructive insanity shows very clearly that the EU is systemically incapable of reforming itself.

The EU's Common Fisheries Policy is another disaster, also with grave environmental implications.

The EU, meaning Brussels bureaucrats, knows the CFP is crazy. Top European Commission officials say the current quota system is indefensible. The problem is that certain key national governments, eg, France, Italy, Greece, Malta, Poland (it is a long list), are adamantly opposed to any reforms that would lead to wholesale restructuring and consolidation of fishing fleets. Britain and the EU, Bagehot's notebook, 13 January 2011

Again, the real problem is not simply that the CFP is deranged, corrupt and environmentally disastrous. It is that, even knowing this and having known it for decades, the decision-makers at the EU won't reform it. Worst of all we, the common people, cannot even identify who's making these decisions; still less boot them out of office.

Nor are the Eurocrats addressing the problems caused by a common currency - including high unemployment in southern Europe - or immigration.

I regard these two statements as axiomatic:

• Big government is remote government, and 
• People in power always overplay their hand. No exceptions. 

The EU has morphed into an unaccountable, anti-democratic, opaque, self-interested, coercive body. Its structure and activities are creating precisely those most poisonous forms of nationalism that it was supposed to eradicate. The consequences of this threaten to negate all the undoubted good that European integration has brought about.

Divorce is always painful but sometimes it's necessary. Relationships, however glorious their beginning, frequently turn sour or abusive. Brexit might just be the shock that stimulates the EU to reform itself. I hope that happens, but I wouldn't bet on it.