Should Britain Leave the E.U.?

The real purpose of the E.U. is not economic, but political. It began as the ECSC, which was geared to making sure that Germany would not re-militarize by extracting iron from the Rhine region. The purpose of the E.U. is to obviate the sort of bloodshed that Britain saw in WWI and WWII. If the British people don't want to be in the E.U., then you should leave. I don't believe that even your own government should keep you from deciding such a matter as a people, directly. That said, with great power comes great responsibility, and this applies to popular sovereignty. In other words, the people taking up the mantle of direct democracy in a constitutional referendum should make an informed decision, looking beyond even the people's own immediate interests. The stakes are much, much higher than whether being in the E.U. is an economic net loss or gain to Britain on a yearly basis, or even whether the City is crimped or inconvenienced. Much more is at stake.

From: "Should Britain Secede from the E.U.?"

A British Referendum on the E.U.

Legislators can make the task of getting instructions from the popular sovereign, the people, unduly difficult. In November 2012, the Florida legislature confronted its people with several proposed constitutional amendments written in legalese that even some lawyers found difficult to navigate through. The next month, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox of Britain pressured their state’s legislature to put forth a referendum that, unlike that of Florida, would present the people with a clear choice.

The flags of Florida and the United Kingdom. 

   

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.

The African Customs Unions and the E.U.: On Currencies

The East African Community (EAC) is Africa’s “most advanced regional trade bloc,” according to the Wall Street Journal in 2011.[1] The EAC was already a customs union that guaranteed the movement of goods and the right to work across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. The parliaments were working at the time on synchronizing immigration and tariff laws. “We want to develop this corridor vigorously and collectively,” Mugo Kibati, director of a Kenyan government program, said.[2] But the EAC and other trading blocs in Africa, such as the Southern African Development Community, were “backing away from one prominent aspect of Europe’s economic union: a common currency.”[3] Aside from any vague similarities that the fiscal differences between Greece and Germany may have to those between Zimbabwe and South Africa, the currency question itself is out of place for a NAFTA-like trade agreement.

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.

1. Patrick McGroarty, “Africa’s Goal: EuropeWithout the Currency,” The Wall Street Journal, November 21, 2011.
2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.