Jacob Williams https://jacobwilliams.com

The UK has never expressed any appetite to be part of a United States of Europe.

But that’s just what the EU’s movers and shakers aspire for us all to become – member states of a federal union – and it’s the direction things have been heading in for quite some time by way of under-the-table intrusions and, some less concealed.

Some may think there’s nothing wrong with a USE – or even a world government – but our consent could never be assumed or implied.

The case would have to be made for what it is, and knowingly endorsed by constituent countries’ informed populations – which a Remain vote tomorrow wouldn’t achieve.

But the EU untouchables would never be so upfront. It thrives in the dark. There’s no coincidence the EU cloaks itself in rich blankets of peace, progress, unity and diversity – with democracy’s stained and threadbare.

In Britain David Cameron has already said we’ll never adopt the Euro currency, that our sterling is safe – there is of course zero appetite to scrap the pound, not even among the Bremain economists who once campaigned for us to join the Euro – but where does the UK draw the line on this through-the-back-door political union that none of us thus far has voted for?

A federal army?

It’s easy to dismiss Eurosceptic questions over the European army as irrelevant, or even conspiracy theories.

As easy as it is to shout ‘racist’ to ‘win’ a debate on immigration concerns, one of the key threads of the whole debate.

According to the prime minister a European army “is not going to happen,” but that’s exactly what the EU’s bureaucrat-in-chief hankers over.

Jean-Claude Juncker also wants the EU to have a unified foreign policy as part of its increasingly centralised rule.

Whether it happens or not – and we could veto such a proposal – this club of which we are a member is churning out these sorts of proposals knowing full well they unease the British public and other nations.

Yet UK plc is throwing everything at the Remain debate.

It might have been expected that Wales – the UK’s sole net beneficiary nation – would roll over in support of the EU, but opinion polls suggest a picture with no runaway side emerging even at this late stage.

Which desperation has seen over the past fortnight Cameron insinuate our departure from the EU could lead us to a World War III.

And who could forget the chancellor’s post-Brexit punishment budget bombshell? It went down like a mug of microwaved diarrhoea.

Seeing the scare tactic for what it was, even some of George Osborne’s fellow Tory Bremainer MPs said they would refuse to vote through his punitive knee-jerk 2p income-tax rise.

You could say they told Osborne 2p off.

The less said on soon-to-be ex-President Obama’s intervention, the better. This was a trigger pulled far too soon – who remembers his scripted lecture?

Even locally we haven’t been able to avoid unhealthy state interference in what is supposed to be a free debate.

No more of an establishment figure in our county can be found than Pembrokeshire County Council’s leader, Cllr. Jamie Adams.

He of pro-EU plagiarism fame.

The last time I wrote about our dairy farming supremo he was pushing a motion (if you’ll excuse the pun) through the county council which would have ‘urged’ Pembrokeshire residents to vote to remain in the EU.

Jamie’s supporting statement was written for him by his farming union chums, as exposed on this blog. Unfortunately he denied us the chance to hear his own views.

When it was his turn to kick his political football, Jamie tripped on his laces.

At the May full council meeting, the leader bottled it, saying he was withdrawing his notorious proposal so not to prolong the meeting.

I raise Cllr. Adams though mainly for his double standards, because his was, among many, a strong voice to be heard railing against the Welsh Government’s proposals over recent years to reorganise Wales’ 22 local authorities to around 8 or 9.

More specifically, he was aghast that Pembrokeshire was, under the blueprints, to be merged with Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion to form the pre-1996 Dyfed local authority.

Jamie and co heralded Pembrokeshire’s valuable and historic brand which would be lost if we reverted to Dyfed.

But Jamie’s biggest line of argument against the merger of the three counties was one he knew sounded good and noble – that decision-making for us electors would be remote, unwieldy and unaccountable.

Ever the democrat!

In this Pembrokeshire Herald article alone, Cllr. Adams says:

“there is a danger of making decision-making (sic) too remote from the people we serve.”

“if the decisions are made miles away how are you going to be able to hold the decision-makers to account?”

“There is a considerable advantage to the fact that if you make a decision you believe to be right but is unpopular then you can be voted out.”

“So much of the funding that should flow down is instead being filtered down and sticking to the sides.”

“you have to have a touchable, reachable democratic body.”

European Union, anyone?

In discussions with Brexit-wary folk it’s been suggested to me that we can’t be certain the UK government will continue the same subsidies, grants and funding channels the EU administers.

Or, as it was actually put: Would you trust that Tory shower in Westminster to carry on sending Wales more than we contribute?

Vote Leave says post-Brexit Britain will have more cash to splash in any case – which Boris Johnson says should be spent on the NHS.

But most importantly on whether we could trust the Westminster government of the day to distribute our post-EU money fairly, by its very definition, the decisions would be in the hands of the MPs and government we elected and could fire.

Definitely not unelected bureaucrats who are only there because their faces fit, none of whom we could lobby, kick out or even name.

On the weekend I was approached for a comment by the Western Telegraph, as I believe other local representatives were, for an article in today’s newspaper previewing tomorrow’s big decision.

Even if I wanted to, in so few words I couldn’t detail, only highlight why I believe Brexit is right for the country and why I support it – and the WT didn’t publish it all.

For those with remaining uncertainties (no pun intended) this close to polling I can highly recommend the BBC’s concise guide to the referendum.

Titled “The UK’s EU referendum: All you need to know,” as the days have progressed it’s been updated with answers to correspondents’ various questions.

One of the weaker arguments I find for opposing Brexit, addressed in the BBC’s article, is this oft-repeated claim that we’d risk going back to the stone age on issues like workers’ rights.

These arguments, if we can call them that, sanctimoniously assume the EU originated all good things like holiday pay and has a monopoly on issues people hold dear.

But many of the cited safeguards afforded to EU citizens originated in governments long before the EU was dreamt up, including the UK’s very own as a leading light.

Essentially it’s a view that the EU protects us from ourselves.

In response to Ged from Liverpool, who fears ‘red tape’ is a “euphemism for employment rights and environmental protection,” the BBC states the simple fact: “There is nothing to stop a future UK government reproducing these regulations in British law, if the country left the EU.”

The post-Brexit risk to basic rights the country takes for granted is the unlikely scenario of our politicians going on the rampage. That’s assuming they would want to, they could muster the votes, and that we would sit back and let it happen.

Lots of ifs and buts – and as unlikely as us allowing bank holidays to be scrapped to boost the economy to the tune of £19bn per year, as predicted by the Centre for Economics and Business Research in 2012.

The then GMB union leader, Paul Kenny, joked in response to this think tank’s report: “We could send kids down the mines again too and go back to working six days a week again as well.”

Four years later, some Bremainers aren’t laughing and really want us to believe this sort of doom and gloom vision of post-Brexit Britain.

My own view, whilst hoping for Brexit, is that the EU is on its last legs, whatever happens tomorrow.

Described by the author of that other website as an ‘economic carcass’ that we’re ‘shackled to,’ it’s hard to see the EU reform from within, even considering that the UK is by no means the only nation with a healthy Euroscepticism.

My comment to the Western Telegraph, in full below, says that despite the very one-sided show on the economy from so-called experts, one explanation for the Remain side’s failure to walk away with the debate so far could be that the British public simply have higher priorities, or, at least, a lot of us do.

Even the most passionate Bremain voters offer little to answer the charge that they’re endorsing these shady institutions carrying on their business as usual, in their tyrannical ambition for deeper federalisation and centralisation.

Perhaps there is simply no argument, and burying heads in sand is easier than facing up to the EU’s well-documented track record.

Or, perhaps they, like me, say their camp places far more importance on things like cheap mobile roaming charges, unrestricted access to the EU’s less than fantastic economy, unlimited inter-EU migration and illegitimate political alliance with other member states than they do for democracy, openness and accountability.

But when the issues we’re talking about are all funded by the people’s money, I could never accept such a compromise.

I’ve always been cynical of the EU, and “let’s stay in, sit around the table and push for reform” is just meaningless insincerity and unbecoming of such a key moment in our history.

Even its biggest supporters admit “the EU isn’t perfect” – and refuse to give up hope for improvements despite the EU’s clear bureaucratic inertia.

For all of this, and more, my vote is to cut the shackles and leave this undemocratic, shady outfit.

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My comment for the

I’m backing Brexit. Despite the UK, Welsh and Scottish establishment’s best efforts to scare against leaving the EU, the sceptical British public doesn’t seem convinced.

The Remain camp frames the debate on the economy, believing it’s the fundamental issue. If all experts’ projections and press releases are to be believed – including Barack Obama’s ill-judged intervention – there must be a reason the public isn’t uniting behind Remain.

My own explanation is that these doom and gloom mongers aren’t being blanked out, there are simply more important issues at stake than the economy for the public, who are prepared to put up with the short-term pain for what they see are the long-term benefits for our country of coming out.

For many, immigration and control of our borders is the foremost concern. David Cameron made promises he knew he couldn’t keep – and to artificially reduce immigration numbers he’s now suggesting a clampdown on the non-EU immigration we do have control over. Which begs the question, why discriminate against potentially skilled non-EU labour when we have unrestrained unskilled labour from the continent?

Most important for me is regaining our sovereignty. To have our politicians setting our own laws and our own judges making decisions in line with them.

UK politicians may be seen as a lousy bunch, but they are at least our very own and we can hold them to account and vote them out. Unelected EU bureaucrats are untouchable yet hugely influential.

The elected MEPs are such small fishes in big, murky ponds, that even the best are extremely ineffective when it comes to standing up for Britain – a country which, whether you are patriotic or not, has a huge economy, heritage and world standing many EU member states could only dream of.

As for ‘going it alone,’ I say a non-EU Britain will still lead the way.

On my Facebook page I conducted a straw poll: