The scaremongering has started, I see.
David Cameron suggested back in October, that if we leave the EU, the price of air fares could rise.
Since then, airlines have been vocal in claiming that a Brexit would damage the aviation industry as the conditions that helped create cheaper flights would no longer exist.
Today’s affordable trips to the Continent might well be unsustainable should a Brexit occur.
And, apparently, we won’t be able to manage our economy, we won’t be able to defend ourselves, we won’t be able to trade. So, what about that plague of locusts, then?
“If Britain was no longer part of the EU, new air service agreements might have to be negotiated,” Nick Trend, our consumer expert suggests, “competition could be reduced and fares could rise again.”
The emphasis here, being on the might. There is no reason whatsoever that a similar agreement cannot be negotiated in the event of Brexit.
Apparently, our sovereignty would be an illusion if we leave. Okay, fine. Given that’s what it is now, and we wouldn’t be having millions of pounds lifted from our collective wallets by a supranational, unelected and unaccountable oligarchy, we would be better off.
I’ll even take the plague of locusts.
Rubbish and puffenstuff! Project Fear rolls out again…
Given how vociferously Cameron has come out this weekend for the “remain” side you have to wonder how hard he was actually bothering to negotiate last week.
From the looks of his concessions, not that hard would seem to be the answer.
The emphasis here, being on the might.
Yes, there’s a lot of ‘mights’ and ‘maybes’ and ‘coulds’ in the campaign to stay in. The fact that the EU machine is a massive bureaucratic behemoth that swallows eye-wateringly large sums of money for no discernible benefit doesn’t seem to occur to the ‘In’ crowd. For the life of me, I really can’t see that anyone actually gains anything from being a member of the ‘club’.
I live in Greece, and I have also lived here well before they joined the ‘big boys’, and then the Euro. And my observations are that the EU has been an unmitigated disaster for the Greeks, even before the Euro shit hit the fan a few years ago. It suits me personally, as it meant I was able to live and work here with much less hassle than before, and made buying property much easier, but in the greater scheme of things, my personal situation aside, the EU, and more particularly the Euro, have turned Greece from a somewhat quirky paradise into an alter boy for Brussels, passing down its arcane rulings to the hoi polloi. Fortunately the Greeks don’t take all the garbage too seriously (Smoking ban? What smoking ban?), but it has changed life for the worse.