The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Many Americans instinctively favour the European Union because it
resembles – from a distance – the USA itself. It’s not
surprising that the citizens of a successful federal superstate
favour the countries their ancestors fled
seemingly copying the model they adopted in the New World.
The idea that Britain might leave the European Project has
therefore been received with surprise by Americans of all
political views – not just statists who favour fewer
partners to deal with in their fantasy world where
governments, not traders, drive trade. 

Few Americans understand that the EU is an anti-democratic
institution based on centralised economic planning. So far from
being a proponent of “free trade” it is a protectionist zone
behind tariff and non-tariff barriers. It may have a
President (seven in fact) but it requires some study to realise
that Europeans can’t throw the rascals out as Americans can
theirs. It may have a Parliament, and that Parliament may be
elected, but it’s not the legislature. It’s a decorative talking
shop designed to fool an inattentive majority of voters far
too remote from the EU institutions to pay them any mind. 

If we look at agriculture as an example the EU is pretty
much a White First World racket to keep Third
World farmers in poverty by subsidising
European farmers who could never compete with them
fairly. It then adds insult to injury by sending any food
surpluses created by its rigged market to the Third
World as “aid.” Aid that might never have been needed if the
recipients had been allowed to trade fairly in the first
place!

When I was a partner in a pan-European law firm, I often heard my
Continental partners speak of their farms and vineyards on the
side. The Common Agricultural Policy allows Europe’s
rich to get subsidies for such “hobby farms” from
ordinary European taxpayers – the very people paying
the resulting higher prices for their food! If that were not
obscene enough, consider the disgusting concept of “set
aside”; paying farmers not to
cultivate land in order to reduce supply and keep prices
high. The “set aside” scheme ran from 1992-2008, when it was
abolished because of shortages after two poor harvests. It
has never been acknowledged to be morally wrong and might be
reintroduced if surpluses returned.

In a world where hunger persists, I can think of few
things more vile than paying people
(including hobbyists and others who would never have been in
business were it not for subsidies) not to
farm in order to keep food prices high. Post set-aside, the EU
still subsidises (sometimes
imaginary) olive groves while denying access to its markets
to Third World farmers who could otherwise have
raised themselves honourably out of poverty while feeding
Europe’s poorer people more affordably! Either the
CAP is a signal of the moral darkness at
the heart of the European Project, or the Énarques
who devised it have proved, as Orwell said, that there are
some ideas so stupid only intellectuals can believe in them.

The EU is sui generis, thank God. However, as
Americans insist on wrongly comparing it with the USofA,
they must forgive me for pointing out it more closely resembles
the USSR. If there is an American analogy for the Brexit
debate, it is with the War of Independence, not the political
miracle that followed. I am happy that the Washington Post has
now published at least one piece that seems to show
a glimmer of understanding.