Brexit Legacy (what did the EU actually do for us?)
The hoo-ha over Brexit is still going on, despite it being almost 10 years since we left. This is not a political post, simply a plain English guide to make sense of things, and also to give reasons why some people voted to leave, which had nothing to do with the (then) UKIP or Nigel Farage.
In fact, many of us think that the EU is just a big faceless entity, which has allowed live exports of innocent animals, ridden over the small independent traders (remember the man who could not sell fruit in UK measurements – he died early after all the stress of the court case).
If you want a community and local shops, the European Union does not have your back. But neither does Reform UK (it would bring back zero hour contracts and its environmental policies of drilling for oil and using rewilded land for farming would likely bring us more floods, heatwaves and wildfires, and send our native species like hedgehogs, dormice and seahorses extinct).
What’s never asked much in the media is what the EU is or does? Its main aim is to provide access to a single market (freedom of movement) to over 500 million people, and create ‘economic growth’ (which is destroying the planet – it basically means buy loads of crap to make money for businesses) through trade.
Its obsessed with making it easy for people to import and export things (like plastic and sausages – if you eat meat, then eat local from free-range organic certified farmers).
And has lots of very important politicians who fly around the world in aeroplanes, to attend meetings on how we should be more eco-friendly (forgetting that economic growth is a course of climate change) in order to save the planet.
The EU even gives subsidies to farmers who breed bulls for bullfighting, where many of the bulls drown in their own blood.
It has also been criticised for its Common Agricultural Policy, which dumps subsidised food in developing countries, which harms local farmers in Africa, who would be better practicing climate smart agriculture, to avoid starvation.
The EU violates just about every green principle going. It is the opposite of local; it is destructive to the natural world; it wipes out cultural distinctiveness; it is anti-democratic; it puts the interests of banks and corporations before the interests of its working people. Why – when – how – did the green movement abandon its commitment to localism and democracy, and jump into bed with a beast like this? Paul Kingsnorth
No liberal wants Reform UK to get into power. But likewise why are people who are into local communities, zero economic growth and stopping climate change, still harping on about a massive institution that seems to do very little to improve life for people, animals or the planet, despite spending billions?
