There have been two weeks since the campaign for the referendum on June 23 started and I have been carefully listening to both sides. But the more time passing the more I find the entire situation almost embarrassing. Now, I am Romanian and I spent 10 years of my life learning and working in politics. Yes, I know, you can`t compare Romania to the UK. But the principles of democracy and the principles of down-to-earth political game are the same everywhere. Experience and political will in implementing them make the difference and there is where the gap between Romania and the UK appears. However, looking from my Romanian political background, here is why I think the entire BREXIT thing is becoming grotesque:

NO VISION FOR THE FUTURE

• The BREXIT supporters started a campaign without have a vision for the future. They simply say:” Get me OUT of here, I can`t stand it anymore!”. And if you are a Nigel Farage fan, you want out from everything. Just a quiet, peaceful island, ideally. Because realistically, the OUT side has no clue what is waiting ahead. Here is the Sage UK debate about small businesses and Brexit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKo_0MVrWGk Watch it and be amazed at the fact that the OUT side have no coherent plan for the future outside the EU.

IRRATIONAL ARGUMENTS

• It is incredible the level of irrationality in the OUT side. Try to explain to its supporters about the downside of their option and you will end up with a series of irrational and often hysterical platitudes. This campaign should be a public debate based on reason and correct facts and figures. The figures and facts coming from the OUT side are seriously misleading, to say the least. In this respect, the interview given by Boris Johnson during Andrew Marr`s show last Sunday was the peak of manipulation. You simply can`t twist what the German Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble, has just said two minutes ago about the future of the UK outside the EU just to fit your misleading argument.

MISLED SUPPORTERS

• The OUT side intentionally forgets to tell its supporters that once outside the EU, it will take years and years to negotiate new trade agreements with each of the EU 27 members. It will take years and years to negotiate trade agreements with the non-EU members as well as the trade with countries outside the EU takes place now via agreements signed by the EU on behalf of its members. The EU is a market of 500 million customers who currently buy British. Why would you jeopardise this?
• The OUT side intentionally forgets to tell its supporters that once OUT of the EU, if the UK still wants to trade with the free EU market, it will have to accept the same conditions as today: free movement of goods comes with free movement of human resource. The only difference will be that the UK will have to put up with all the rules governing the EU market, without having any saying at the table of negotiations. It will be on the principle: take it or leave it! That`s the great Norwegian or Swiss model the OUT campaign cries for so loudly.

WRONGLY THOUGHT PROBLEMS

• The OUT campaign is fed up with the immigration from the EU. It happens that I know that 20,000 Romanian health care professionals are currently working in the NHS. They are the doctors that treat pneumonia in your little Johnny, nurse the end of your dear mother and take care of the last years or months of your father while you are busy having a life. As in Romania, these people, especially the nurses, are badly paid. They come here for a better wage, but once in the UK they are hit with the reality of much bigger costs for pretty much everything. So probably some of them will apply for social securities, exactly as your badly paid employees. So, do vote for the BREXIT, send all these people back home and then get your people off benefits and train them to work in your hospitals!

THE NEED FOR POLITICAL REFORM

• The entire BREXIT madness is the doing of an old political party which cries out for reform. For the simple reason that no matter how bad your internal politics is, you do not mess up with the future of your country and you do not undermine those fundamental ties that have helped it become the success it is today.

NOT UNDERSTANDING THE BROADER PICTURE

• Some of the OUT supporters say:” I lived in this country before the EU and we were fine. We shall be fine again!”.  The lack of vision is mind-blowing. The EU was born as a direct result of the World War Two. It was built to prevent another catastrophe of that magnitude. The reason Europe has been peaceful in the last 71 years is because the leaders of the member states sat around the table in Brussels and talked, negotiated, instead of fighting again for each piece of land or economic provision.

So, dear UK, my adoptive country which I love very much, where are you heading to?

The post Brexit or How to Shoot Yourself in The Foot appeared first on BRC.