Brexit and the Fallacy of British ‘Independence’

Nigel Farage of the United Kingdom Independence Party has referred to the referendum that has narrowly seen Britons voting to leave the European Union as marking Britain’s ‘Independence Day’. Brexit was promoted to a significant extent on the premise that the European Union is responsible for Britain’s multiculturalism, and that immigration is threatening the British way of life. There is a certain euphoria resulting from the belief that this signifies the start of a British renascence. There are some serious flaws in these arguments.

Firstly, Britain’s problems with immigration and multiculturalism do not primarily arise from EU membership. According to Britain’s National Office of Statistics: ‘624,000 people immigrated to the UK in the year ending September 2014, a statistically significant increase from 530,000 in the previous 12 months. There were statistically significant increases for immigration of non-EU citizens (up 49,000 to 292,000) and EU (non-British) citizens (up 43,000 to 251,000)’. Most of Britain’s immigrants have never come from the EU. While Britain will see a downturn in immigrants from Spain, Poland, Italy, etc., they will not see any such downturn from African and Asian states resulting from Brexit.

Brexit was promoted on the basis of returning to British independence. What does ‘independence’ actually mean? Independence from whom and for whom? Arguably Britain has not been independent, that is to say the British state has not had sovereign power to make policy based solely on British interests, since the creation of the Bank of England in 1694. Nigel Farage mentioned that Brexit was a vote against the big merchant banks and corporations. It is true enough that these interests wanted Britain to remain in the EU. But how is the power of the financial institutions over the UK going to be diminished an iota by leaving the EU? Britain will still be borrowing from international banks. Britain will still be trading via the world trade system facilitated by the banks. Brexit does not mean that Britain will be issuing its own state credit, or that she will be trading via barter, outside the international financial system. Not even the UKIP has a financial policy which includes banking reform: it is based on tax reform and decreasing overseas aid. Mr Farage even said in his victory speech concerning the Brexit that Britain will be ‘global’. How does such a sentiment square with the ‘independence’ name of his own party? The same situation pertains to the other ‘Eurosceptic’ parties that are now demanding that their nations have a referendum on EU membership. Generally, these parties, so-called ‘Right-wing’, believe in market economies and global trade.

Perhaps there are visions of Britain returning to the old trading preferences of the Commonwealth? This was the ideal of the National Front when it had its heyday in Britain during the 1970s; building a bloc of the White Dominions which would resist international finance. The opportunity for that has long since passed. New Zealand, Australia, and Canada have now succumbed to globalist trading arrangements such as the TTPA, and to free trade with China and other expanding Asian economies which are themselves part of the international financial system.

What of the other major area of ‘independence’, foreign policy? Britain remains in the United Nations Organisation, an international version of the EU’s bureaucracy. Britain is the fifth-largest financial contributor to the UN, providing 5% of the UN’s annual budget and 6.7% of its peacekeeping budget for 2015 (see ‘Assessment of member states’ budgets to the U. N. regular budget for 2015’; and ‘Financing peacekeeping’).

Britain is the fourth-largest contributor to the NATO budget, at 10.5%. Britain is a part of this global military organisation, along with the EU states and many others, for the purpose of maintaining a ‘new world order’ based upon US hegemony. However, of greater importance than the financial contributions to NATO is Britain’s subservience to globalist interests.

In conclusion, Brexit has not achieved anything to establish Britain as a sovereign state, to rescue Britain from the multiculturalist quagmire, or to pursue sovereign policies in economics, finance, and foreign policy. She will be searching for markets within the same globalist system, paying debts to the same international banks, and sending troops according to globalist requirements. There is the added prospect of Scotland withdrawing from the UK to remain attached to the EU. Sinn Fein has also commented that they will demand that Northern Ireland unite with Eire to remain in the EU. In that event, Ulsterman will react, with the prospect of a very bloody civil war. The prospect now is that there will be no UK, for good or ill.

For the sake of some savings in relation to the EU budget by limiting the intake of fellow European immigrants, Britain has not gained anything for her independence or for her cultural integrity. What has been achieved is to give Britons the illusion of freedom and revival.