I swore that I wasn’t going to mention anything about the EU referendum here but that scunner of a man Michael Gove has annoyed me so much that I’m sticking my head up over the parapet.
I’m for staying IN Europe although I think that our position in it is far from perfect, but then what is perfect? Every country in the EU has their gripes over it and I really think that they will eventually have to curtail the freedom of movement within the EU and keep it only for people who have skills that are required.
So what enraged me about Michael Gove yesterday? It was the fact that he has dragged his elderly parents into the campaign and what they are saying is just completely WRONG. They are arguing that their family fish merchant business went down the drain in the 1970s due to Britain entering the EU. What rubbish!
As it happens my family had exactly the same business experience of being fish merchants (my grandfather and uncle) – my father had a fruit/veg/flower shop. They all went out of business in the late 1960s, before Britain entered the European Common Market and the reason they went out of business was the huge upsurge in supermarkets at that time.
As a ten year old I witnessed their conversations about being squeezed out of business due to not being able to compete with the supermarket prices. The same thing happened all over the country and small shops like theirs slowly gave up the struggle to compete with the supermarkets, it just wasn’t possible. Some hung on longer than others but as you know an independent food shop is a rarity in a British High Street nowadays and has been for a very long time.
So why is Michael Gove dragging his elderly father into the argument? Gove is quite a bit younger than I am, too young to know what was actually going on – whatever, it was nothing to do with EU fishing rules.
Never forget that Gove was one of the MPs who merrily charged us the British taxpayers for his family’s holidays at very expensive spa hotels and he also “flipped” his mortgage at our expense. If he had been anything close to being a gentleman he would have found a hole for himself and stayed down there, instead of carrying on regardless, like someone who has nothing to be ashamed of. If any of us had stolen like that we would of course have been banged up in jail.
I’m voting IN on the 23rd because I’m sensible enough to realise that you can’t turn the clock back and I know that we will be ‘done over’ by everyone when it comes to making separate trade deals. Even if the OUT vote wins we’ll still have to adhere to all the EU rules to be able to trade with those countries, and we’ll have absolutely no say in anything.
Working conditions will plummet and Gove and company will do what they really want which is to dismantle the welfare state. You can wave bye bye to the National Health Service, and that’s another piece of Brexit duplicity that’s enraging me – they speak as if this mythical £350 million would be given to the NHS. But they KNOW that that is a mythical and in fact just plain non-existent amount of money, and they also know that they intend to whittle away at the health service until that is non-existent too.
I blame David Cameron for this whole debacle, he should have had the guts to stand up to the more eccentric and bullying members of Parliament who howled for this referendum, because the very last thing that this country needs is more instability but that’s exactly what he has given us.
As for Boris Johnson – he’s just on a Boris for PM campaign and if that comes to pass there’s just no hope for any of us.
I don’t know much about UK politics, but it sounds like it is just as big a mess as we have in the US!
Paula
Paula,
I’m dreading the US election almost as much as this referendum outcome. I hate what Trump has done in Scotland, particularly at his golf course in Aberdeen, he treated ordinary people living there like muck. They say we get the politicians we deserve – but surely WE haven’t been that bad!
I forget that Trump’s influence extends all the way to Scotland. Sorry about that. I’m still in shock that he has been taken seriously as a candidate and actually has a chance of winning! I just try to keep my attention on better things.
Paula,
The Scottish government should never have allowed Trump to build a golf course near Aberdeen, it was an area of ‘special scientific significance’ with rare plants there, but it seems that his money was more important than that, but he just told lies about bringing jobs and such to the area so he could get his own way. Originally US friends said to me – don’t worry about Trump, he’ll drop out of the race soon. Sometimes I just have to stop watching the news as it’s too depressing!
Ooooh, this is brave, Katrina! I try my best never to discuss politics outside my own four walls – far too risky!
I have found this referendum a very difficult one; I’m still unsure which way I’ll vote but if it were today I’d vote to remain – which was my position originally until I decided I should read more about and educate myself. Since then, every time I read something I’m more confused and less convinced about anything. Frankly, I shall be mighty glad when next Thursday has been and gone – although then we’ll have weeks of post-referendum analysis saturating the media (sigh). I suppose I’ll just have to stick my head in a book even more, rather than listen to the news or read a newspaper! 😉
On a literary note – you’ve introduced me to a new word; I’d not come across ‘scunner’ before. You Scots have some brilliant words; you just know what scunner must mean from the sound of it. I love ‘blether’ – especially now I know the meaning is a little different in Scotland to the standard dictionary definition!
Sandra,
The trouble is they all lie but the Brexiters are living in cloud cuckoo land as far as I can see, they seem to think we’ll be ‘great’ again, but we needed an empire back in those days to be great so it was on the backs of poorer people.
I love ‘scunner’ too and I just recently realised that John Steinbeck was of Scottish descent because he used that word in East of Eden, although he spelled it with a k. I think ‘blether’ in Scotland often has that feeling of – they’re speaking nonsense, much the same as the Scottish word ‘haver’.
I blame David Cameron too – what a weak man he is. I can’t stand all this fear mongering on both sides and I’m with Sandra getting more confused and less convinced day by day. The latest poll I saw is that it will be 50% for In and 50% also for Out! How stupid and costly it all is.
Margaret,
It’s just exactly as it was up here during the independence campaign – and that went on for two years! I keep thinking that all the money spent on all of these campaigns would be so much better being spent on – the NHS or just about anything else. I think we’ve had more than enough instability recently and I don’t want any more.