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THE LION DEBATES: THE EU - part two With less than a week to go until Britain votes to define, or re-define, its relationship with the European Union, The Lion will be running a series of articles, written by Heythrop students, as a contribution to that great debate. More is better: If you’re for Leave, Remain or have yet to make up your mind, we want to hear what you have to say. (And we offer a free drink to any and all contributors.) Get in touch with a member of the Lion team, or find us on Facebook, for more information. Next up: President Holdsworth’s case for Remain.
IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID OLIVER HOLDSWORTH Alumn i
T
he discussion on ‘Brexit’ seems to have settled on two issues: the economic future of Britain, and issues concerning sovereignty. Furthermore, there is a perception that the economic argument has been won by the remain camp, however the issue of sovereignty serves as a justification for leave. Of course, these are by no means the only important issues in the campaign; however, they seem to constitute the majority of the discourse. It is very easy, perhaps particularly for philosophy students, to be drawn to high minded ideals. It is a lot easier to appeal to a principle blindly, even a fairly sensible principle, than it is to seriously weigh up the
pros and cons, and save oneself the difficulty of delving into the practicalities. An obvious case of this is the stance of the NRA in America’s gun debate, although I’m sure you can think of cases closer to home. And who could possibly care about boring practicalities such our collective economic future in the face of the principle of sovereignty! Well, me. More importantly, you should too. Firstly, the nebulous creature that is the economy has a vast impact on people’s lives. Now, this may well not affect you to a great extent. Many of you will find yourselves in the bubble of education, and with a guarantee of a student loan whatever
economic hardships you face are unlikely to be made better or worse because of the economy. After all, it would simply be sensationalist to suggest that the UK is going to go the same way as Greece following Brexit. However, for those who do face severe hardship, this really does have huge impacts. Not only are those who struggle to gain employment faced with a greater uphill struggle than ever, but in the face of financial burden people are less inclined to give to charity. As such there is a double effect: on the one hand, more people are forced into desperate situations due to the lack of jobs. On the other hand, the public is
less inclined to give to charity because of their own financial situations. Furthermore, Government will likely proceed with even greater cuts. Irrespective of the soundness of austerity as a policy, the fact of the matter is that it will be pursued to an even greater degree than is the status quo, should the economic situation deteriorate. At this point, I doubt I have done enough to convince you. After all, we will be told, any consequentialist argument which is made will no doubt collapse on its own metric compared to the disaster of the European dictatorship that will inevitably occur should we not the leave the EU this instant.
Yet what exactly is this mysterious thing that we’re giving up? The Leave campaign’s argument seems to suggest that it is binary: you either have it, or you don’t. Drape yourself in a Union Jack and sing God Save the Queen, or accept the immediate slippery slope to serfdom. I am, of course, being facetious, and a fairer definition might be ‘the ability for a population to select their own rulers’. For as long as we are in the EU, this is simply not the case (we are told).
Yet this strong sense of the word sovereignty, whilst adequate for a Caveman-esque society, or perhaps an island state that pursued isolationism with North-Korean vigour, it is surely inadequate for our purposes here. Firstly, the fact that people are content with the House of Lords (attempts to reform it throughout the years continuously fail) shows the slight importance the public attaches to sovereignty. Secondly, quoting from a Law
lecturer at Birkbeck, “in 1921 the limits of sovereignty were framed in very different terms to the limits of sovereignty in 1996. The increasingly complicated framework of trade agreements and regulation from international organisations such as the WTO upends conventional notions of sovereignty found in great theorists of international law in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” The fact of the matter is that we
don’t get complete control over what happens to our country. If self-determination is truly the crème-de-la-crème of all principles, then the logical extension of this would be that every man and woman is entitled to their own state where they can make their own rules. Just as we as individuals are happy to yield some self-determination in return for a much greater quality of life, so it is with states.