Sunday, April 24, 2016

An Alternative American View: Obama is Wrong and Britain Should Vote For Brexit

President Obama eloquently expressed American interests on his recent visit to Britain. It’s in America’s interest that Britain stays within the European Union. But is it in Britain’s? I don’t think so. I have a different view from our president. I think Britons should vote for Brexit in June.

Here’s a thought experiment: imagine we in the US said to the Canadian government, we’ll invite you to join the US and become our 51st state. We’ve run the numbers and we believe that if you joined us, your exports to the US would go up by 10%, and your GDP might go up by around 4% per person, so it would be worth some $2000 to every man, woman, and child in Canada. What do you say?  My guess is that the Canadians would probably say thanks for the offer, but no thanks. They’d probably say: we’ve thought it over and we prefer our Canadian way of life, with our health care system, our mounted police, our politeness, our cute little capital in Ottawa and all the rest.  In other words, the Canadians might vote to keep their sovereignty and their culture.  And Canada’s only got 150 years of culture and history. Let’s be honest, the culture up there is a bit thin. Why then is Britain so eager to trade 1,000 years of rich culture for an institution like the European Union?