EU Referendum: The Independent Deception

With the front page of the Independent on Sunday we see a good example of what to expect during the referendum campaign; copious FUD, fear and what can only be generously described as misleading details. On a slightly optimistic note we are being forewarned explicitly as to what Brexiteers can expect in the forthcoming campaign. Such is the poor quality of the Independent's article that it's no surprise EUReferendum is prompted to rightly criticise it.

The immediate agenda of the piece can be seen as a reaction to the start of the Conservative conference, attempting to highlight so-called divisions in the Conservatives for the newspaper's partisan reasons. Like the BBC on so many occassions- as per criticisms by its own Wilson Report - the question of how our country is governed by our membership of the EU is always reflected through the prism of Tory splits. With this in mind we can see that the wider agenda of the Independent becomes obvious.

The wider agenda comes with the usual tediousness, which eurosceptics are familiar with, that makes the same old tired arguments of the supposed fear of leaving which apparently would "threaten millions of jobs". The failing paper tries to make its case with deception,

In campaigners say this would not be so easy, claiming technical rules for EU withdrawal mean, should Britain vote for “Brexit”, the remaining 27 states would negotiate between themselves to determine the terms of the new relationship. They have warned that this would risk disadvantageous rules being “dictated” to the UK...

The procedures for EU exit are outlined in Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which states: “The member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing member state shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.” 

It's disappointing, to say the least, that a national newspaper struggles to comprehend the full concept of Article 50, the realities of which has been well rehearsed here. It's interesting that the paper left out the initial part of Article 50 (4) as highlighted below in bold:

4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.

It's omission meant the Independent was able to insinuate that the UK would be excluded from EU institutions entirely upon invoking Article 50. In this context we wonder why the full paragraph was not included.

The missing sentence makes clear that paragraph four only means the UK is excluded where EU institutions are discussing the UK's exit and this is entirely logical otherwise the UK would end up negotiating with itself regarding its exit. Article 50 forces the EU to negotiate with us with both being on opposite sides of the table.

The paragraph four exclusion is entirely consistent to Article 49 where accession countries are also absent from the European Council and the Council, by virtue of not yet being EU members. The UK will still partake in EU institutions where decisions are unrelated to its exit. In addition Article 50 (3) makes explicit that EU treaties will fall after two years regardless if no negotiation is successful so no terms can be "dictated" to the UK.

We are thus tempted to conclude that this is less a newspaper's ignorant and lazy conclusion and instead a rather cynical and deliberate attempt to encourage eurosceptics to fall into territory where the argument is confined to be all about tedious irrelevant detail to the detriment of the bigger picture. Concentrating on such tedious detail will put of the electorate. Conversely we could also conclude the Independent is probably not that clever but the outcome of its article is the same.

Yet this is not entirely the Independent's fault. Significantly a great deal of failure must lie with the eurosceptic movement, particularly UKIP, who have consistently, and largely failed, to provide a credible exit plan which would comprehensively negate the legacy media's falsehoods.

In contrast Flexcit drives a coach and horse through such europhile's shallowness and lack of substance. In addition it provides the foundation for the real battle, not tedious detail, but instead a new relationship with the EU. Cameron is very likely to offer one very weak form of relationship with the EU by Associate Membership. But Flexcit is a better offer.

Our real battle is with Cameron - we have a better offer than he does, and with this we can not only completely outflank Cameron but the likes of the superficial and dishonest Independent.EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum