Our leaving the EU after 43 years of membership would in effect be a divorce. We entered into a contract when we acceded to the Treaty of Rome on 1 January 1973, and now we want to exit the contract. Divorce is a tragic reality in our modern world, and it happens for all sorts of reasons, but that does not make it God’s ideal. On the contrary, he wants us to do everything we can to honour the contracts we freely enter into. ”˜When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said’ (Numbers 30:2). The leave camp argues that the EU has morphed into an undemocratic monolith which is a totally different beast from the loose ”˜Common Market’ which we joined in 1973. But this a specious argument. As a nation we signed up to the rules of the club (including its voting rules and their amendment over the years) and we have put our name on those treaties (particularly Maastricht in 1992 and Lisbon in 2007) which created today’s EU. If a marriage is struggling, our first duty as Christians is to work to save it, not to rush headlong for the exit. So too should be our attitude to membership of the EU.
As I say, many Christians will take a different view from mine. But what is clear is that our membership of the European Union has a moral and theological dimension as well as an economic and political one. Christians must consider this dimension before they cast their vote on 23 June.
Read it all and it can be found elsewhere also.
I see this is on a site called “Christians on the Left.” No kidding. No, whether to stay in the EU or leave it is not a theological question. Good grief.
So, Christ would have told his followers to vote to keep the Roman Empire [United States of Germany] together – really?
I shall be glad when this week is over… and we thought the Scottish Referendum was bad-tempered!
How interesting that a civil treaty between supposedly sovereign nations being exited is compared to a marriage entered as a covenant between a man, a woman, and God, who decreed that what He joined together must not be put asunder. So the Remain people thing the EU is a law of the Medes and the Persians, which may not be revoked. Surely they are blind to the implicit lowering of God to the self-exalted status of man in their words and hearts?
Pageantmaster, I was hoping it would be over by now, until I read on the BBC that polls will be open until 10 p.m. UK time. So you may not know until you arise tomorrow, and even I might not know this evening, depending upon how the counting goes.
#5 Katherine
Yes, you are right, the polling stations have just closed at 10 pm here, and unlike General Elections there will be no exit polls to compare with previous results, because the referendum on us joining what was the Common Market [and what we thought we were joining] took place in 1975.
I have read that some of the banks have commissioned surveys of their own so may have some advance feel for the result. If so, the way the market in sterling moves in the next few hours may give an indication.
As far as the polls and betting odds have been going, things do seem if they are to be believed on a knife edge, with Remain gaining a slight lead in the last week or so.
It is always to make oneself a hostage to fortune to make any sort of comment ahead of the figures coming out, but just anecdotally, I have not spoken to many people who have said they would vote to remain, and I have made a point of asking those I come across from friends to taxi drivers. A family member who served in the forces and maintains regular links with his ex-forces association also reports that the almost universal feeling of the ex military and current military is to leave – if this represents the views of their families and communities across the country, then Remain is in trouble. A few of the current senior officers have made a point of arguing to Remain much as senior clergy have. So, everything will be down to the silent majority who floor the pollsters almost every time. One more factor, is like I perceive in the US, there is a desire to give the current political class a good kicking.
So, it will be very interesting to see what the result is – in a few hours time.
Pageantmaster, is it thought that a Leave vote would send the sterling market up or down?
I have come to have less and less faith in polls. In recent elections both here and in the UK polls have been wrong. Your anecdotes may be at least as reliable. It all depends on who decided to vote.
#7 Thanks Katherine
We are now coming up to 4 hours after the polls closed. Based on the private polls commissioned by the financial institutions showing a lead for Remain in the EU, Sterling rose. Since then, there have been some shock results in the North-East of England [the Geordies]. There were surprise leave surges in several council areas there reflected in several other areas around the country. Sterling lost a lot so the financial markets who regard Leave as a bad result for the UK economy, and who hate instability, sold Sterling.
There have been extraordinarily large turnouts across the country, much higher than for General Elections, and Ian Duncan Smith noted that his reports were that there were big turn outs from Council Estates [Social Housing]. Rather as I thought, we are seeing engagement for Leave from the white working class areas who have suffered from the driving down of wages and absense of opportunities as jobs have gone to overqualified immigrants from the EU willing to work for minimum wage. That has combined with strong Leave decisions in the postal votes cast over a week ago which tends to be from the older generation who are more skeptical of the EU. The older generation is more willing to make the effort to vote.
The unknown so far is the London area vote, where a quarter of the population live. Many work in business, are well educated and tend to favour staying in Europe on which their jobs depend. As against that the London population tends to be younger and less bothered about voting, and may have been dissuaded from voting by weather and transport challenges today.
So it will be interesting to see whether the London factor will outweigh the working class and country Leave vote going on.
Just a few of the fascinating things going on. The jury is still out on the moment, but Remain do not appear at this stage to have the lead, so something rather remarkable may be happening which may or may not be countered when the London vote comes in.
Thank you for that report, Pageantmaster.
Now, if this were the USA, and London were Chicago, we’d be thinking that Chicago was waiting to see how many Remain votes needed to be manufactured. I hope that is not the case in London!
Well, it appears that something rather remarkable has happened Katherine. The BBC now reports that Remain cannot make up sufficient votes from the remaining undeclared results to win. The predictions are for something like a 52/48 per cent win for Leave, though final results will take a few hours.
There is market volatility from the Far East and Tokyo, and the London Market is about to open, but the volatility in the futures markets have shown how deeply unsettled the markets may be today. It wasn’t in the Plan, so I expect it will take a bit of time for people to really think about what it means, which is immediately, not a lot. Things will continue as usual in the EU, while an orderly exit is negotiated if all sides are sensible.
Meanwhile there is considerable shock in the UK and EU political class. The reaction from Brussels appears to be uncertain whether anger or fear predominate, and the impact for the EU project could be serious indeed. Britain is one of three big net contributors to the EU budget [remarkable considering how little say we have in Europe] and most of the rest of the 26 countries are takers. That is a big hole in their budget, so they may have to reconsider handing out money to Italian mafia olive businesses in subsidies, and charging private jets, luxury hotel rooms, toys and chocolates to their expense accounts.
Meanwhile it is a different world from yesterday for us, and one which will take a bit of getting used to and some hard work, but there are definitely some problems which will be easier to solve, and it is looking like a bright new day.
By the way, Katherine, I wouldn’t like you to think that this was all about immigration, working class disatisfaction and older voters or the desire to give the EU and UK political class a good kicking.
There is real anger and frustration about belonging to a club where it appears we just pay but have no say, and where the incompetance, waste and corruption is just unbelievable, topped off with a class of officials who are officious, rude, arrogant and out of touch. It is a monstrous planned state that they seek controlling all aspects of our lives.
Those I have known who have worked in Brussels have reported back on just how rotton the whole thing is.
That is ultimately, for all the ‘economic arguments’, experts from Obama to the head of the IMF [a French lady] who have threatened, warned, and prophesied that the UK will fall off the edge of the world, the reason why the decision has been made today. It is not an abberation, down to the weather or because people are stupid, ill informed or deranged. We have been in an abusive marriage, one in which there is no future other than total submission, and that ultimately is why for the short term pain there will no doubt be, there is also a sense of relief around.
Of course whether we can actually leave or whether like the Hotel California we can check out but never leave, remains to be seen.
Watch out for the hystrionics and whining from the liberal elite to go full flow today – Keith Vaz did a hilarious blubbing act an hour ago. More to follow. Sit back, open up the popcorn and watch it all happen, and do please pray for us.
Prayers being said, Pageantmaster. I do think this initial hysteria is overdone. My feelings about this are much as you have described, and I am so pleased that my British cousins (both politically and in blood) have taken the step to reassert their control over their own affairs. Well done, UK!
Political leadership here, as well, may be shuddering.
Well done, UK!
52-48, the margin of the last polls, but in the reverse direction. Pass the popcorn, indeed.