Brexit for a more democratic EU

http://bit.ly/28TfKlz

Teotonio R. de Souza
To the glee and shock of divided opinons among the UK voters, Brexit was declared the
winner. I wish to congratulate the Britts for their courage to take a hard, risky and historic
decision. I looked forward to Brexit all along, because it will help to make or break EU in the
long run, or perhaps even in the short run.
Probably UK will be better off outside EU. The Britts may enjoy some proud moments of their
past glories, and feel relieved from the growing meddling of the German ghost that they
fought bravely during the two past world wars. However, it does not mean that EU will be
better without UK. I wish to see Brexit hitting EU hard on the nose, so as to provoke a political
shock, leading to a serious soul-searching exercise.
It should serve as an emergency call to the EU engineers to watch the gears and check if their
juggernaut does not require a thorough revision aimed at ensuring if it is not driving us
headlong, causing a whirlwind of anti-democratic chaos, only different by name from the
former USSR that it was eager to destroy. Unfortunately it is replacing it. I believe that only the
victory of Brexit can make such a revision possible.
The president of the European parliament, the socialist Martin Schulz, has already confessed
the need: Whatever the outcome of the referendum, we need a thorough reform of the EU
project with a clarity of guiding rules. But this has been heard from various sides in the EU,
but nothing has changed in the procedures of the juggernaut driven by a neo-liberal spirit.
Promises were made after the Iraq war, after the financial crisis of 2008, after debt crises of
the member states and the austerity imposed upon them, after the refugee crisis set in. The
EU leaders seem to have lost their credibility.
The core of the problem is that EU is not made of equal partners, and it is not an organization
that seeks the welfare of all its member states and their citizens, ensuring the employment
and security of their workers, or in world peace, or in promotion of democracy. All these goals
have been proclaimed since long back to generate fears and win the popular support to
fight the enemies of the capitalist interests.
The EU has become an undercover agency of a small core group that can be identified by
looking for the location of its important institutional headquarters. Like the UN headquarters
in US, they ensure a national supervision and benefits of a lucrative political tourism, largely
funded by compulsory contributions of the member states. As I said and wrote repeatedly on
different occasions, EU is just a new avatar of colonialism, no longer using troops abroad to
ensure its investments and exploring human and natural resources of the colonial world, but
does it better now with digital means of controlling finances, and by checking and eliminating
the protesters.
The EU needs to be denounced as an antidemocratic set-up, governed by bankers, technocrats
and their political stooges, who are not elected neither removable by popular vote. Such are
the administrators of the European Commission and the European Bank. The mechanism was

put together with an ellaborate juridical apparatus of treaties and conventions which
characterise Europes modus operandi over the past several centuries of European
domination.
The foundational treaties were decided largely through inter-governmental commissions,
without providing any clear picture of its implications to the national publics, or seeking the
approval of the elected national parliaments. The net result of this process has reached a point
where the people at the end of the line are feeling the squeeze, and have no mechanism to
voice effectively their discontent or channels to demand a change. UK has provided a drastic
way out: Brexit.
The EU and its institutions have become a kind of shock troops of the world financial power
and its neo-liberal ideology, under democratic mask, but imposing undemocratically upon the
citizens of the member states an asphixiating agenda which curtails and scuttles the political
will of the national politics as expressed by their elected representatives.
The EU proclaims itself as a high quality club of democracies and human rights, but in reality its
functioning can be best described in the words of the Orwells Animal Farm, which was
conveniently used by the Western capitalist interests as a weapon of ridicule against the
former Soviet regime.
In the political discourse of EU we find today better illustrations of the Orwellian double-speak.
It has no problem in welcoming among its collaborators with the wink of an eye, the countries
like Saudi Arabia, or others that show no respect for basic human rights. In its international
relations the EU follows a Realpolitik that promotes the buyers of its lethal goodies, and close
the eyes to the violent aggressors, unless they go counter to the core interests of the EU core
members.
Obviously, even outside EU, UK has always been a pet puppy of USA and holds an arsenal of
Trident cruise missiles. It will continue to play an important role through NATO as a veteran
figther for the security of Europe, which is essential for its own island security. However, we
may soon see a new configuration of Europe, while Putin grins happily, and the Portuguese
Goans pray for and prey upon fresh and devout patrons.