Brexit Party candidate says that leaving the EU will have an effect on the economy for '30 years'

[Soph0571]

Harris:

I think people have different priorities in this conversation and I think that the average person that voted leave, their priorities were to see democracy reinstated and know that their vote meant something but simultaneously, they wanted the sovereignty of their country back and I think at any cost they want that.

Campbell:

At any cost? What does that mean?

Kay:

This claim that the UK did not have it's sovereignty inside the EU is ridiculous. It says in the Brexit white paper that we never lost sovereignty.

These laws from the EU aren't dictated to us. They are made collaboratively.

Femi:

I'm really hung up on something that you said earlier. You said 'Brexit at any cost'

Please tell the people who are struggling in this country, that you want Brexit at any cost.

Campbell then asked Harris to try and elaborate on her comment and it wouldn't exactly fill your heart with hope and prosperity, even if you were the most staunch of Brexiteers.

Well...I don't...I mean...are you looking for a number...or?

I think short term there will be an effect on the economy. Short-term yes.

Campbell:

How long is short term?

Harris?

How long is short term? I don't know. The next 30 years?

I think short term there will be some effects on it.

A flabbergasted Campbell seemed shocked that she would predict such an extensive length of time, who quickly figured out that things wouldn't start to get better until three years before his 90th birthday.

Harris replied again:

The price of democracy and the price of sovereignty is high. People have died for this.

The economics of this sometimes isn't as important as the principle of it.

[link:https://www.indy100.com/article/brexit-party-eu-elections-lucy-harris-economy-30-years-8919786|

And therein lies the problem - how the fuck can you get through that level of bollocks? How can you argue rationally with such irrational nonsense.

[Denzil_DC]

1. "Effects" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Such ideas are nothing new - prominent Brexiters have been saying much the same or worse for several years now - and aren't confined to Farage's current ramshackle bevy of lowly loose-lipped footsoldiers. Here's an article from last July:

Two, 50 or 100 years: when do leavers think Brexit will pay off?
Jacob Rees-Mogg says the benefits of leaving the EU may not be felt for 50 years – and he’s not the only Eurosceptic asking the people of Britain to wait patiently

According to one of the most prominent Brexiters, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, we should see the benefits of Brexit in about half a century. “We won’t know the full economic consequences for a very long time,” he said. “The overwhelming opportunity for Brexit is over the next 50 years.” So, not long to go now! Amid the overwhelming predictions that our exit from the EU – slated for 29 March – will be disastrous, others have been marginally more optimistic. Here are some of the leading Brexit cheerleaders’ forecasts for when Brexit will finally pay off.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2018/jul/24/two-50-or-100-years-when-do-leavers-think-brexit-will-pay-off

And since he's regained such prominence in recent days:

Nigel Farage never promised that Brexit “would be a huge success”, he said on LBC radio. “I never said it would be a beneficial thing to leave and everyone would be better off,” said Farage – who has repeatedly said we would be better off – “just that we would be self-governing.”

The idea of Brexit "paying off" is a way of spinning the fact that all the evidence points to a sustained period - from the characteristically reality-divorced wishful thinking of David Davis's estimate of 2 years to Digby Jones's 100 years - when it won't be "paying off".

Which leaves the yearning for "sovereignty". The inevitable descent of the US's predatory free-marketers (among many others) currently waiting to pick our bones clean means that the UK will certainly enjoy the fruits of democracy - that of another country a few thousand miles away.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. "sovereignty" basically means "cutting down EU immigration"

That's been the one thing that Brexiteers really hated - free movement of people. That's the bit of "sovereignty" most of them wanted - to be able to tell Europeans they can't come and live here unless they have a specialist skill the country's short of. But the politicians know that people don't want to be labelled "anti-immigrant", or, even worse, "racist", so it's been talked about, since the referendum, as "sovereignty". Remember Farage's poster of refugees? That's the fundamental point of Brexit. Repel The Others.

(I think the joy over British passports becoming blue again was about them being able to hold a tangible object that said "we're not Europeans" )

[Doodley]

3. There is some truth in that, but you can't label all Leave supporters

as racist.

The EU has become a law-making factory that the people never voted for. More and more power has been transferred to the EU, undermining UK democracy, and the people have been lied to by lawmakers for decades. Without all that, there would be no Brexit.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. People did vote for it.

The 1975 referendum. In contrast, we never voted to form the United Kingdom. It just came into being. We vote for the EU parliament as well as the House of Commons (not, of course, the Lords - appointed (like EU commissioners, but Lords are for life), plus a few hereditaries, and clerics). The main power in the EU is the heads of government of the countries - all elected, directly or indirectly (as in our case).

UK democracy has not been 'undermined'. The EU is just as democratic as the UK. Sure, our MPs lie to us, but that's not the EU's fault. It's because we elect such crappy ones at Westminster. They lie far more than the average MEP.

[Doodley]

6. We voted for the Common Market, which was basically a trading agreement among wealthy nations and ha

no resemblance to the EU now. Tony Blair promised us a referendum. Didn't happen. It isn't a question of racism for many Brexiters, by the way I would vote to stay, it is about being betrayed by those we have elected who have transferred power wholesale to mainland Europe, and it is about who rules us. The EU commissioners who initiate new laws for Euro MPs to vote on are not elected. The EU president doesn't have a single vote from the people on the street, represents the interest of over half a billion people. You tell me How the people of Britain can use democracy to change laws made by the EU? They can't. Of course our democracy has been undermined. Barely anyone can name their MEP. There is no connection with the people, no way to change what they don't like. They never voted for this. It is corrupt to the very core.

[Denzil_DC]

7. You started your post with a myth and ended in a rant about the EU being "corrupt to the very core".

Don't take my word for its being a myth, here's a column from that bastion of Remain, The Telegraph:

No, Britain wasn't lied to when we joined the EU. We knew what we were getting into

Nowhere has grievance festered more than over the contention from some Brexiteers that implications of EU membership for British sovereignty were deliberately concealed from voters by deceitful 1970s politicians.

Columnist Melanie Philips has asserted that Edward Heath "knew full well that if the British public understood the implications for national self-government, they would never agree to membership of the European club.”

Echoing her, commentator William Cash, son of Conservative MP Sir William Cash, attacked “the treachery and political deceit of what really went on in the political backrooms on London and Brussels...it is clear that our senior politicians knew more than they were letting on about the sovereignty implications when they negotiated to join the EEC."

But a cursory read of the actual parliamentary debates tells a different story

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/03/29/no-britain-wasnt-lied-to-when-we-joined-the-eu-we-knew-what-we-w/

If you read through it, it shows that the question of pooled versus national sovereignty was prominent in parliamentary debates in 1971, so it was always framed as more than a "trading agreement".

Here's a summary of a Chatham House paper that discussed UK sovereignty in the EU in the run-up to the 2016 referendum:

Britain, the EU and the Sovereignty Myth

The question of sovereignty lies at the heart of the UK’s upcoming EU referendum. Many in Britain believe that the process of EU decision-making has undermined British parliamentary democracy, and that leaving the EU is the only way for the British people to regain control of their sovereignty.

This ignores the fact that successive British governments have chosen to pool aspects of the country’s sovereign power in the EU in order to achieve national objectives that they could not have achieved on their own, such as creating the single market, enlarging the EU, constraining Iran’s nuclear programme, and helping to design an ambitious EU climate change strategy.

Apart from EU immigration, the British government still determines the vast majority of policy over every issue of greatest concern to British voters – including health, education, pensions, welfare, monetary policy, defence and border security. The arguments for leaving also ignore the fact that the UK controls more than 98 per cent of its public expenditure.

...

In a world that is more interdependent today than it was when the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973, the notion of ‘absolute’ British sovereignty is illusory. It is also worthless if it limits the ability of future British governments to ensure the security and prosperity of their citizens. Judging from the UK’s experience and its future prospects, the opportunities from remaining in the EU far outweigh the risks of doing so, and the risks of leaving far outweigh the opportunities.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/britain-eu-and-sovereignty-myth

The summary touches on the issue of EU immigration and the social pressures it can cause, but doesn't expand on the fact that successive governments have chosen not to impose allowable limitations on EU immigration, partly because it would involve relatively costly bureaucracy, but not least because such immigration is a net benefit to the country, as is our reciprocal freedom of movement.

I'll leave Muriel to decide whether to pick up on your other points since you haven't bothered to respond to my suggestion below that you research just how much influence the UK has had on EU legislation over the years.

[Denzil_DC]

5. Here's a little bit of weekend research for you.

Try finding out how often the UK has gotten its own way when any EU legislation has been drafted.

The answer, judging by what you've written, may well surprise you.

If people aren't happy with that state of affairs, it's partly because the EU has been a handy scapegoat for UK governmental shortcomings over the years (so, yes, lawmakers have lied to the public, but maybe not in the way you meant), and partly because they don't bloody turn out and vote when we have EU elections.