[SystemSafety] Off Topic

[Andy Ashworth]

Sent from Andy's iPad

> On Jun 25, 2016, at 02:39, Peter Bernard Ladkin <ladkin at rvs.uni-bielefeld.de> wrote:
> 
>> On 2016-06-25 00:57 , Ross Hannan - Sigma wrote:
>> Although nothing has been decided yet I very much suspect that Britain will
>> go down the EFTA route
> 
> Joining EFTA involves not just Britain wanting to join, but others deciding to want Britain in.

Interestingly, the UK was a founder member of EFTA - the UK's membership, and that of a number of other countries too, was allowed to lapse on accession to the EEC. Given the UK was a founder member, denial of membership now would seem to be punitive and spiteful... if the EU et al are going to establish punitive policy because of feelings of rejection, then I would question whether that's an organisation that any country should want to join.

The impact of this referendum is far reaching - the underlying reasons for the "no" vote are complex and the media has, on the whole, done a terrible job at reporting objectively. We need to look deeper at the systemic issues of society faced by the working class - wage erosion and movement of skilled and semi-skilled jobs to other areas of Europe has hit traditional industry hard; the educated professional class, on the other hand, is typically mobile and able to benefit from European Union.  That the EU is something that brings benefit is undisputed - the problem is that the benefits are not equally distributed and there seems to be a huge disconnect between politicians at the national and EU levels and the working families being hit hardest by the impact of the EU. 

If the EU is to succeed in the long term, the Eurocrats need to take their head out of the sand and start listening to the everyday impact of the EU on EU citizens. The UK referendum result may not be the result we want to hear, but rather than evoking spiteful punitive responses from member states or for parts of the UK to secede and rejoin the UK in their own right it should be take as an opportunity to reflect on why the majority of the UK population wanted to leave.

Andy