New from the people who bought you Scottish Referendum comes the EU referendum. These things normally come in trilogies so look forward to the vote to see if Europe leaves the Northern Hemisphere in 2018 and the inevitable crossover movie the Ukraine Crisis in 2020 (watch out for a cameo from Putin at the end of the BBC Referendum results show credits is all I'm saying).
In fact there's an interesting crossover between English people who hate being run by some meddling central authority in another country and English people who would have been devastated if the Scottish had chosen to leave us.
This is a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to have your say on whether we remain in Europe or not. Unless you were alive in 1975, or end up living until the next time the Conservative party make a silly promise because UKIP are popular in an election year.
There are two main camps who get to be the official campaigns for remaining and leaving Europe. They are Vote Leave and Harder Better Faster Stronger by Daft Punk (Well, that's not their proper name, their proper name is something like 'If we stay together there's nothing we can't achieve' or 'Something inside so strong' or some shit that sounds like a song from High School Musical), these campaigns are given £7million of tax payers money to make their case. In the case of the Vote Leave, spending £7million of your money to convince us that the EU is a complete waste of money poses a more interesting challenge than any of the newspapers have yet commented on. This is probably because most of the press want to see us leave the EU too as ruling Britain and interfering British freedoms is, in their opinion, the job of a Australian-Victor-Meldrew Rupert Murdoch.
There is also a third campaign called "Grassroots Out" (abbreviated to GO, even though GO is a good enough name in itself) who want to maintain England's green and pleasant land by replacing all the grassroots with Astro-turf.
GO should not be confused with GOVE, an evil robot who has returned from a Utopian future to ensure history plays out differently this time.
Boris Johnson campaigning to overthrow our unelected leaders in Europe as a power play to become the unelected Prime Minister of this country is the type of thing only he can get away with.
So should we stay or should we go? Here is a transcript of the first debate between the parties that should help clear things up.
HARDER, BETTER, FASTER STRONGER: We want to see a positive campaign, talking about the issues in Europe that affect British society, we will not resort to name calling like the ninkompoops on the other side.
ON YER BIKE CAMPAIGN: We too pledge to debate the issues rather than resort to name calling or making jokes about how he stuck his dick in a pig.
COME TOGETHER RIGHT NOW OVER ME: Galloway, Farage, Johnson, IDS are you going to side with that shower of bastards? Really?
IAN SMITH: *Cries* Did you hear what he called us?
DUNCAN SMITH: *Cries* Yeah. We're just trying to be nice people. I can't do this anymore. I quit.
LET'S STICK TOGETHER, COME ON, COME ON, LET'S STICK TOGETHER: The opposition are resorting to fear mongering. That is shameful. They're only resorting to fear mongering because they can't tell us what a Britain outside of Europe will be like. Who can say that when we leave Europe there won't be monsters under the bed, or an increase in big spiders or a new series of Piers Morgan's Life Stories?
PULL OUT AT THE LAST MINUTE: The other team are resorting to scare mongering, and resorting to scare mongering is just what the terrorists want, the terrorists have won.
OH NOW GO, WALK OUT THE DOOR, JUST TURN AROUND NOW, YOU'RE NOT WELCOME ANYMORE: There will definitely be more terrorists wanting to attack Britain if we stay in the EU.
YOU KNOW WE MADE A VOW TO LEAVE ONE ANOTHER NEVER: There will definitely be more terrorists wanting to attack Britain if we leave the EU.
WE ARE NEVER EVER EVER GETTING BACK TOGETHER: IMMIGRANTS
oooh.
Now the idea that we should close our borders to prevent terrorists getting here is a whole other debate. Actually we have slightly more border controls than most EU countries, but they are still a bit open which is nice when we want to go open a chippy in Benidorm but a cultural disgrace when someone opens a Polish foods shop in Luton.
Last I heard British people were leaving in droves (the newspapers word not mine) to join ISIS after being groomed on Twitter. We don't have a problem with foreign terrorists. We're making our own. We have too many if anything! We've started exporting them! And it's going to be harder to export things if we're not in the EU coz all the big countries will not give special rates to our little country. The In campaign say leaving will open the doors to terrorists, while the out campaign say remaining will open the door to terrorists. To be honest I'll back whatever side wants to put one of those little chains on the door so we can only open it a bit of the way. It'll be slightly amusing to see the whole of the UK on fire as Jihad Joe stands on the Isle of White saying "you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" That's the thing about terrorists though, they're crafty buggers, they'll sneak in through the window and neither side has made a provision for that. Terrorists aren't going to care about our borders. Maybe remaining in the EU is the equivalent of David Cameron leaving the back door key under a flower pot, but we have so much more border controls than any other EU country that we're really the equivalent of the guy squinting at a tiny photo on the intercom screen trying to read the ID of the guy outside the gates at the end of the drive. We are as secure as we can be.
Money and people go both ways. Yeah we give a lot of money to Europe but we get a lot back in one way or another. Equally a lot of British people choose to go and live overseas.
Let's look at some of the issues in the EU debate. The Daily Express reports that the EU is trying to ban something British at the same rate that the Daily Mail reports that something gives you cancer. If the EU really were a force for good they'd ban the same things the Daily Mail says gives you cancer.
Last week's EU Banned Item Of The Week is British Kitchen Appliances.
What they actually want to do is introduce new laws to make electrical equipment more energy efficient and friendly to the environment, so all new kettles will have new standards they have to meet. Of course there will be the unpleasantness of Angela Merkel sending the Gestapo round to every British home with a mallet to smash their pre-existing toasters but what can you do about that?
'How can they take away our British Kettles (made in Taiwan)?' we cry.
This story has a vague sense of truth about it, even if it's not quite law yet and is never going to affect toasters that have already been made. But what about other bans? Where are these straight bananas that we're supposed to have? Here's how that works:
BENNY LUX, MEP for Luxemberg's Monster Raving Idiot Party: Hey guys, I can't fit this banana back into my lunchbox without moving my twix. Wouldn't it be so much better if all banana's were straight and not curly?
PAUL TUGAL MEP for Spain: Yes Benny. Ignore Benny he's mad, we're never going to do that.
DAILY EXPRESS: EU WANT TO BAN OUR PROPER BRITISH BANANAS
NORMAL PEOPLE: Do the British even grow bananas?
The same kinda story arose in the papers when the EU suggested changing to energy saving lightbulbs which was reported along the lines of "EU TO FORCE YOUR GRANNY TO SIT IN THE DARK."
The EU at one point also threatened to ban British number plates on cars.
As someone with a 2:1 in creative writing I have to be impressed that they make people this emotional about their number plate. I wish I could generate as much national pride by making up a short story about how someone plans to change the font of those little numbers you get on telegraph poles - if I could you wouldn't have to read this shit.
Fucking EU! Trying to make us have horrible foreign number plates instead of proper British ones! We invented the number plate (maybe. It's plausible at least) on all our British manufactured cars! An Audi with a European number plate, the idea would make Henry Ford turn in his grave!
This means when you see a C on a number plate, for example, it wont be an English C but a French C. And the worst thing is, because there is absolutely NO SODDING DIFFERENCE, you wont even know its happening. Come on EU! Isn't it hard enough to remember 7 random characters anyway without having to remember that it starts with la or un, or whether it's male or female. Bloody French. Who won the fucking war!!
And what about the Italian ones?! "Did you get his number plate?" "Yes it was Y...VIII IX III IVXCC"
It's political correctness and health and safety gone mad.
What really annoyed Vote Leave was Barack Obama visiting, which if you listen to Boris was definitely a plot against him. Barack Obama poked his nose in and we all politely and patronisingly told him, "I don't think someone from the United States could understand what this is about, we're trying to work out if we are more powerful as part of a whole group of states or individually." Obama warned Britain that the US would be less interested in trading with us if we left the EU, which is awful as we think the US has a shiny we want. Meanwhile the senator for Colorado said....nobody knows, because in the 21st century on the world stage we don't care about one tiny little state. England are like Hawkeye, nobody really cares about us, but if we're part of the Avengers we have a little street-cred.
Much of the debate on both sides seems to be based on emotive meaningless crap. David Cameron likes to remind us that World War 1, World War 2, Bubonic plague, The Great Fire of London, the Ice Age and slavery all happened before we were in the EU. While Mike From London wrote the Metro to say "If Britain left the EU then it would become Great Britain again." It's opinions like that that require no more factual justification. If Mike from London is correct, before we risk everything leaving the EU why don't we give Great Yarmouth it's independence and see if it's any less shit.
The divide has split the Conservative party with the BBC reporting on the date being set for the referendum by saying "Downing Street today looks much the same as it always did..." What were you expecting? Cameron to erect an Eiffel Tower? Builders to start work constructing the Sagrada Familia on the steps of number 10? The Berlin Wall down the middle of the street with Cameron writing rude graffiti about Nigel Forage on one side and Ian Duncan Smith shouting "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! LEAVE! LEAVE WHILE YOU STILL CAN!" on the other
Boris wants to leave the EU, his dad wants to stay. Someone at BBC4 is putting together casting notes for a bio-graphical drama and phoning Jamie Laing from Made In Chelsea to see if he's free to audition.
The EU is terribly corrupt and inefficient and how democratic it is is really up for a lot of debate. It's almost deliberately confusing. There's a European President, a European Parliament, a European Commission, a European Council, a European Council of Leaders, a European court, and my whole A Level politics exam was based on which of those did what and who got to turn up to meetings. It proves a universal rule that if you don't want people looking into what you're doing make it boring.
There are hopeless inefficiencies such as the famous butter mountain, which is a tragic waste because it's not even used for sport.
As both sides have been overwhelmingly awful and negative I thought I'd do one positive thing for both of them: In, we have great transport links to the EU countries, a lot of fees and admin usually associated with foreign travel. It's cheaper and easier in the EU than elsewhere and as of 2017 data roaming costs will be a thing of the past meaning we can take cultural holidays cheaply and snapchat the lot, and people of different cultures can come here with their selfie sticks.
Out: We have a greater say on how we're ruled, a more transparent system and direct accountability of our leaders, plus the only unelected spongers we have to pay are the House of Lords and the Queen.
The Out argument above seems to make more sense, and it involves a lot of fundamental freedoms and is more principled than 'cheap holidays,' but I think we are able to stay in Europe and do both. It'll be hard work, but we can. The systems of the EU are not great for transparency and direct accountability. In part that's our fault. We struggle enough to work out what's going on in the House of Commons (what is that noise they make when they agree on something? Why is it the same noise as a cow who has just had some very tasty grass?) so learning a whole system of EU voting and mooing is a daunting and confusing process. I got a B in A Level Politics and all I can really say for certain is whoever gets the most votes from the jury doesn't matter because the public votes will cancel those out and the winner of this year's Eurovision hosts next years. It is complicated, and nobody is doing much to make it any clearer. Let's be honest a breakdown of the EU institutions wont sell a newspaper and even as I type about apathy, I don't know the name of my MEP, I could google it, but I wont.
If we stay in, we're part of a big party of all these countries - and look if we vote out it doesn't mean we'll have a terrible time because we didn't go to your party, sometimes we just like being on our own watching Strictly. The EU will continue anyway, so I'll probably vote to stay in. Let's learn how the system works, lets do the hard work, and let's shout when it's unfair and silly and obstructive, that way we make Europe better. It's worth pointing out that all those things we shout at the UK parliament for too, and I'm sure we'll still have immigrants coming here and we'll just have to find another scapegoat other than the EU to blame for that. And in my idealistic, unrealistic, barely-thought-through, hippy, commie way, I like the idea that anyone can go live and work in another culture somewhere else in the world that suits them, and a line some Roman drew on a map a couple of thousand years ago shouldn't dictate our opportunities in 2016.
If it's a question of whether we're outside the tent pissing in or inside the tent pissing out then I say we stay in. Because EU regulations will force us to build toilet facilities a hygienic distance from the tent which is surely better.
Maybe we should have a referendum every few years to get all the Xenophobia out of some people and all the everyone-in-the-universe-can-work-together-united-federation-of-planets Star Trek crap out of liberals. Deciding we want to leave the EU is a decision between being ruled by people we don't really know or being ruled by Boris Johnson, it's bloody Sophie's Choice. We could have had a big debate that highlights all the issues in Europe and then turned up to the European Commission and said "here's what we're not happy with, sort it out," rather than whatever David Cameron was discussing behind closed doors with the European leaders before we had a referendum. Equally we could have found out the names of some or the faceless bureaucrats who are making the decisions and who disappointingly have faces - the liars. But I guess two teams of politicians loudly shouting racist at each other was worth the £7million.
Either way the most convincing argument I've heard in the last couple of month is this:
