This article isn't designed to explain the history of this rotten subject to a UK citizen .
Glory be we have lived it every day for for the last 4 years! No, this diatribe is for the outside world whom have little care for the subject and have chanced upon the area by mistake. Let me guide you through the ups and downs of the whole sorry mess.
My aim is that you will be able to provide a bluffers guide to Brexit during any social occasion that may arise.
Lets start with :-
Treaty of Rome (1957)
It is not the very beginning because due to the inter-connectedness of things (as espoused by the author Douglas Adams) that if I were to go to the very beginning I would end up winding past WWII, rise and fall of the Roman Empire, one or two ice ages, an assortment of asteroids the size of Derbyshire and eventually at the big bang event. However, these days that title of "the beginning" is up for grabs. So it is a start but just one of many.
So we have a collective of previously warring nation states that are now trying to cooperate economically so as to build a more prosperous future. And quite probably with a lot less warfare.
Once established it started to become quite profitable and other nations fancied joining. Mostly the UK still believed it had an Empire. The UK had made a large amount of money on the basis of a business model where we took all the Empire's raw materials and turned them into all sorts of stuff which we then forced the Empire to buy - at a premium. After WWII the US fancied some of the action. Considering they largely paid for the whole Allied effort they felt they were entitled to some of it and so the British Empire was slowly dismantled. Much of this was unnoticed in the UK and it wasn't until the 1970's that this once comfortable world was seen to be no more.
Dastardly De Gaulle
Many UK politicians had noticed however. And they made the first overtures to the EEC to get a foot in the door. The UK was famously rebuffed by that old double dealing mildly arrogant of Frenchmen Charles De Gualle, who it must be said was the French answer to Winston Churchill only not as good. He resigned from the French Government in 1969 and sadly died shortly afterwards.
So the door was swung open in 1973 and in we stepped along with the Eire and Denmark. All was not plain sailing. The media, if my memory serves correct was festooned with stories about how it was no longer possible to buy our daily produce in anything but grams and kilo's. I remember Apples went from being red and shiny to being green and tasteless (Golden Delicious - it was neither).
I think that the UK governments of the period watched the 30 years of continuous growth in this area of the world with some jealousy. Thus they intended to be a part of it, and so it came to pass.
The introduction had not been smooth and as we are are only matched in our arrogance and conceit by the French, there were rumblings that maybe we shouldn't of joined.
1973
The UK joins the EEC,or the EEC (European Economic Community) along with Ireland and Denmark.
1975
This was the year of the first referendum on the "Brexit Hokey Cokey" (in out shake it all about). I remember as a child being given the pamphlets to read that had come through the door. Whilst I do not remember the content I do remember being swayed to the remain side. the fact that the country largely voted to stay suggests that the pamphlets were designed for 9 year olds or that the country as a whole had the intellect of a 9 year old.
And so we remained within the EEC
Thatch used negotiating with the EEC as a way of proving her authority and then went on to subdue steel workers, coal miners, teachers and the Falklands. Bizarrely her euro sceptic stance was what did for her in the end, as she was toppled to be replaced by John Major. Looking back I still can't quite fathom how he kept the job for 7 years!
During all this time there was a distinct euro sceptic undertone to many aspects of EEC membership. It has to be said that there were many instances of bureaucratic muddling which I found entertaining. However, as it was startlingly obvious that we were doing rather well out of it, these voices were largely unheeded if not ignored.
European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM)
Like most roads to hell it was started with a good intention. Transporting and selling across Europe was fraught with difficulty. Mostly red tape but exchange rates. It could get very complicated to get paid. If you bought (or indeed sold) some goods or services in say French Francs to convert it into Good Olde British Pounds it may have been benefical to a) wait for a better exchange rate of b) convert it to different currencies that enjoyed better conversion rates at that moment. So your payments may take a while to get back to you. What the ERM did was establish a value of a currency (in relation to other European currencies) and all member states undertook to invest in each other's currencies to maintain them at that level. All seemed well and good. A business had confidence that what ever currency it sold in it knew pretty much what it would get back in return.
Politicians didn't realise though that this became a means by which currency investors would effectively print their own money. If the price of a currency dropped too low governments had to purchase the currency to maintain its price. And boy! did they ever lose some money on that one
Maastricht Treaty 1992
This was the creation of proper free trade within the EU. I will save myself typing by asking you to click this link to dear old Wikipedia. It will give you the giste of the treaty. There was much opposition to this treaty but in the end the economics won out. This treaty set out just how all the free trade was going to happen. It led from the previous Schengen agreement
(Sorry Wikipedia again!) which the UK had not become a part of.
Treaty of Lisbon 2007
The nail in the coffin or a sensible and well negotiated next step for the EU. Depends on your point of view. It was hailed by Europhiles and reviled by Eurosceptics. It also coincided with the economic crash of 2008 the occurring of which has arguably led to the rise of "populism" in politics. The treaty bought the concept of a federal Europe closer.
So that pretty much brings us to Hokey Cokey 2 where the British population were once again asked to choose between Hokey or Cokey and the Cokey's won with the UK finally entering an exit transition period on the 31st January 2019.
We will never know whether we made a good or bad choice. It will be many years before any economic differences show and then to prove that one way or another it was due to us leaving the EU will always be up for debate.
Glory be we have lived it every day for for the last 4 years! No, this diatribe is for the outside world whom have little care for the subject and have chanced upon the area by mistake. Let me guide you through the ups and downs of the whole sorry mess.
My aim is that you will be able to provide a bluffers guide to Brexit during any social occasion that may arise.
Lets start with :-
Treaty of Rome (1957)
It is not the very beginning because due to the inter-connectedness of things (as espoused by the author Douglas Adams) that if I were to go to the very beginning I would end up winding past WWII, rise and fall of the Roman Empire, one or two ice ages, an assortment of asteroids the size of Derbyshire and eventually at the big bang event. However, these days that title of "the beginning" is up for grabs. So it is a start but just one of many.
So we have a collective of previously warring nation states that are now trying to cooperate economically so as to build a more prosperous future. And quite probably with a lot less warfare.
Once established it started to become quite profitable and other nations fancied joining. Mostly the UK still believed it had an Empire. The UK had made a large amount of money on the basis of a business model where we took all the Empire's raw materials and turned them into all sorts of stuff which we then forced the Empire to buy - at a premium. After WWII the US fancied some of the action. Considering they largely paid for the whole Allied effort they felt they were entitled to some of it and so the British Empire was slowly dismantled. Much of this was unnoticed in the UK and it wasn't until the 1970's that this once comfortable world was seen to be no more.
Dastardly De Gaulle
 |
| De Gaulle |
Many UK politicians had noticed however. And they made the first overtures to the EEC to get a foot in the door. The UK was famously rebuffed by that old double dealing mildly arrogant of Frenchmen Charles De Gualle, who it must be said was the French answer to Winston Churchill only not as good. He resigned from the French Government in 1969 and sadly died shortly afterwards.
So the door was swung open in 1973 and in we stepped along with the Eire and Denmark. All was not plain sailing. The media, if my memory serves correct was festooned with stories about how it was no longer possible to buy our daily produce in anything but grams and kilo's. I remember Apples went from being red and shiny to being green and tasteless (Golden Delicious - it was neither).
I think that the UK governments of the period watched the 30 years of continuous growth in this area of the world with some jealousy. Thus they intended to be a part of it, and so it came to pass.
The introduction had not been smooth and as we are are only matched in our arrogance and conceit by the French, there were rumblings that maybe we shouldn't of joined.
1973
The UK joins the EEC,or the EEC (European Economic Community) along with Ireland and Denmark.
1975
This was the year of the first referendum on the "Brexit Hokey Cokey" (in out shake it all about). I remember as a child being given the pamphlets to read that had come through the door. Whilst I do not remember the content I do remember being swayed to the remain side. the fact that the country largely voted to stay suggests that the pamphlets were designed for 9 year olds or that the country as a whole had the intellect of a 9 year old.
And so we remained within the EEC
Thatch used negotiating with the EEC as a way of proving her authority and then went on to subdue steel workers, coal miners, teachers and the Falklands. Bizarrely her euro sceptic stance was what did for her in the end, as she was toppled to be replaced by John Major. Looking back I still can't quite fathom how he kept the job for 7 years!
During all this time there was a distinct euro sceptic undertone to many aspects of EEC membership. It has to be said that there were many instances of bureaucratic muddling which I found entertaining. However, as it was startlingly obvious that we were doing rather well out of it, these voices were largely unheeded if not ignored.
European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM)
Like most roads to hell it was started with a good intention. Transporting and selling across Europe was fraught with difficulty. Mostly red tape but exchange rates. It could get very complicated to get paid. If you bought (or indeed sold) some goods or services in say French Francs to convert it into Good Olde British Pounds it may have been benefical to a) wait for a better exchange rate of b) convert it to different currencies that enjoyed better conversion rates at that moment. So your payments may take a while to get back to you. What the ERM did was establish a value of a currency (in relation to other European currencies) and all member states undertook to invest in each other's currencies to maintain them at that level. All seemed well and good. A business had confidence that what ever currency it sold in it knew pretty much what it would get back in return.
Politicians didn't realise though that this became a means by which currency investors would effectively print their own money. If the price of a currency dropped too low governments had to purchase the currency to maintain its price. And boy! did they ever lose some money on that one
Maastricht Treaty 1992
This was the creation of proper free trade within the EU. I will save myself typing by asking you to click this link to dear old Wikipedia. It will give you the giste of the treaty. There was much opposition to this treaty but in the end the economics won out. This treaty set out just how all the free trade was going to happen. It led from the previous Schengen agreement
(Sorry Wikipedia again!) which the UK had not become a part of.
Treaty of Lisbon 2007
The nail in the coffin or a sensible and well negotiated next step for the EU. Depends on your point of view. It was hailed by Europhiles and reviled by Eurosceptics. It also coincided with the economic crash of 2008 the occurring of which has arguably led to the rise of "populism" in politics. The treaty bought the concept of a federal Europe closer.
So that pretty much brings us to Hokey Cokey 2 where the British population were once again asked to choose between Hokey or Cokey and the Cokey's won with the UK finally entering an exit transition period on the 31st January 2019.
We will never know whether we made a good or bad choice. It will be many years before any economic differences show and then to prove that one way or another it was due to us leaving the EU will always be up for debate.
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