It is crunch time for Britain. A referendum is round the corner. This should decide whether Britain should leave or remain in the European Union. In an exclusive poll carried out for the British online newspaper ‘The Independent’ last Saturday revealed that 55 per cent of UK voters intend to vote for Britain to leave the EU in the 23 June referendum. The campaign to take Britain out of the EU has opened up a remarkable 10-point lead over the “remain” camp.
Concurrently England’s football team is in France for the 2016 European Championship tournament. Well, I look forward to a favourable result in the coming referendum with UK voters disregarding the anti-EU stance, while Wayne Rooney lifts the Euro 2016 title on Sunday 10th July 2016.
Since Malta’s squad has not managed to qualify for the 2016 European Championship final tournament many football enthusiasts would opt to give their support to others. On my part I have always supported England and have no intention to stop now notwithstanding the poor performances and mediocre placings in the different tournaments they participated in the past fifty years. I do not have any recollection of the 1966 World Cup Final. In 1966, I was six. I can only try to understand the feelings and the emotions from the captured photographs available. Indeed, the photograph of Bobby Moore, then captain, receiving from Queen Elizabeth II the Jules Rimet Trophy at Wembley Stadium after beating West Germany is momentous.
Last Saturday England started on a rather shaky footing against Russia. Let’s hope England’s performance will improve. But England is facing a more serious test. Brexit is not only nerve-wrecking but it may well be a serious crack in what the founders of the EU laid down in 1950.
It all started in the heat of the last electoral campaign in 2015, when Prime Minister, David Cameron promised to hold a referendum if his party won the election. This clearly shows that leaders cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. He made this pledge in the light of Conservative and UK Independence Party MPs claims that UK voters did not voice their opinion since 1975, when UK voted to stay in the EU in a referendum. They claim that since then the EU has changed substantially. This argument I reject on the basis that it was and still is imperative for the EU to shift and adjust to ensure that globalisation is neither faceless nor ruthless while harnessing the current political and socio economic environment.
I am quite certain, all UK leaders, like all other member states leaders participated actively in the process which led to the changes in the EU and thus the current state-of affairs in the EU is a result of long hours of discussions. The EU is a collective responsibility. To my mind it is not honourable for political leaders to shift their wrongdoing onto the EU thus portraying the EU in bad light.
In an attempt to rescue the situation the TUC has stepped-up the campaigning to persuade voters to remain part of the EU. Frances O'Grady, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress did not mince words - Britain's place is within the EU however imperfect the EU is. It's better than the alternative models of capitalism dominated by China, Russia and America.
In the 1975 referendum the TUC campaigned to get Britain out of what was then European Economic Community. But this stand was changed in favour of pro-Europe in the 1980s when Brussels promised to combine the allure for business of a single European market with strong protection for workers, something that contrasted with the bitter industrial conflict raging at the time between unions and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
But what is striking in the current Britain in/out EU debate is a recently published report prepared for the TUC entitled “Better Off In: working people and the case for remaining in the EU”. The report shows that a decision to leave the EU would hit negatively British workers who would be £38 a week worse off outside the EU by 2030.
Incidentally this reminds me of the days, weeks and months when with many others I was heavily engaged, campaigning for Malta’s EU accession. Gladly, that was yesteryear. Malta accession to the EU has proved to be a unifying factor. Perhaps England can seek Malta’s counsel and follow in our footsteps. It might be too late to rectify if the British workers decide to break ties with the EU.
Good luck on both counts!
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