Speaking on the dismal future awaiting Britain outside the EU, Dave issued a blood-curdling threat: we could suffer the fate of Norway.
‘You can be like Norway, and you can have full access to the single market, but you have absolutely no say over the rules of that market.’
Crikey. I for one am quaking in my boots. No, what frightens me isn’t the awful prospect of emulating Norway. It’s being governed by a manifestly incompetent nincompoop.
Understandably, Dave didn’t have time to check the facts before issuing his stark warning – he’s too busy trying to push homomarriage through Parliament and down our throats. Good to see that our leaders have got their priorities right.
Yet had Dave found a couple of minutes to study available data, he would have realised that being like Norway shouldn’t scare us unduly.
As I write, Norway boasts the highest Quality of Life Index in the world.
Her median household income is 25 percent higher than Britain’s and in Europe it’s second only to Luxembourg’s.
And her composite Human Development Index (covering standard of living, quality of life, education, medical care etc) stands at Number 1 in the world, with the UK at Number 28.
All in all, one can say that Norway has done reasonably well outside of the EU – this without being able to have a ‘say over the rules of the market’. This second part of Dave’s threat shows that he’s not only a lazy researcher but also a lazy thinker.
We ‘have absolutely no say over the rules’ of the US market either, which doesn’t prevent us from importing more from America than from anywhere else. Our exports to non-EU countries exceed those to the EU – and vastly exceed those to the eurozone. Moreover, our non-EU exports are growing as steadily as those to the EU are declining.
One may get the impression that having a say in the laws of other lands isn’t necessarily a precondition for doing business with them. Nor will leaving the EU result in what Dave calls ‘government by fax’. We’ll be governed by our own sovereign parliament, just the way we were for centuries.
European countries will simply be like any foreign states or, if they so choose, one foreign, sovereign state. As such, they’ll indeed be passing laws over which we’ll have no say. On the other hand, those laws will have no jurisdiction over us. It’s like any relationship between independent political entities in history. They respect one another’s laws without having to abide by them.
If Dave knows what he says isn’t true, he’s a knave. If he doesn’t know it, he’s a fool. Just look at this pearl: ‘I don’t want Britain to leave the EU. I think that we benefit crucially from the single market…’
That may be, but nobody’s talking of leaving the single market, or the European Economic Area as it’s now known. We’re talking about leaving the political setup known as the European Union, which is one treaty away from being a single state. Is our PM aware of the difference?
Referring to the benefits of a single market is particularly quaint in the context of all those Norwegian threats. Norway, after all, ‘benefits crucially from the single market’ without belonging to the EU and, as we’ve seen, it isn’t hurting as a result.
Nor have the Norwegians realised the error of their ways. Only a narrow majority of them blocked an EU entry in 1994, but since then the majority has grown to overwhelming proportions. Norwegians have learned from their experience. Too bad Dave hasn’t.
When accused of dragging his feet on the EU policy, Dave ill-advisedly flashed his humorous side refined at the Bullingdon: ‘This is a tantric approach to policy-making. It will be even better when it does eventually come…’
Good to see that our PM is sufficiently multi-culti to be familiar with Indian amorous techniques. Samantha is lucky, which is unfortunately more than one can say for our country. Allow me to translate for the uninitiated: ‘tantric approach’ means that under Dave’s guidance Britain is being screwed – slowly but surely.
Obscene flippancy may work well at a drinking-club piss-up with Boris and Georgie, but in state affairs it’s a poor substitute for moral and intellectual integrity. You know, of the kind Dave so demonstrably lacks.