BREXIT OR NOT ?

The reasons for disenchantment with the EU are plentiful, not only in the UK  where P.M. Cameron wages an uphill battle to convince the British voters that the arguments in favor of continuing UK's membership in the EU are valid. Elsewhere in Europe indifference is spreading.

If I were a British voter I would find the mostly "shopkeeper" reasoning for staying in, utterly unconvincing. The Commission is seen as lacking any form of legitimacy or intellectual, creative appeal. After the Greek crisis fiasco came the migrant crisis which is transforming the Mediterranean into a gigantic mortuary. The Brussels undertakers approach this human tragedy like pastry chefs handling some kind of nefarious cake, which will be allotted slice by slice to the member states. The socio-cultural dire consequences, meanwhile, are taboo for reasons of political correctness and dysfunction among and in member states.

On the opposite side, the anti-Brexit camp in the UK lauds the added value of trade, the big open market, and London's role as financial Metropolis. Both the P.M and his (brilliant) Chancellor of the Exchequer wage a difficult fight, overshadowed by Boris Johnson's merciless, often funny attack line.

Personally, selfishly, I would like the UK to remain in the EU because this unappealing union, without the UK, risks becoming even more morose under the stewardship of the Franco-German Vaudeville. The Commission looks like some class reunion of have-beens with no love lost in their midst or outside. The European Parliament is a gathering of unloved zombies. At least London was able to infuse some form of pragmatic input into this dogmatic purgatory. Many member states want more Union or more power to the Brussels machine for the simple reason that this allows them to delocalize their shrinking initiative and thinking potential. They want more EU to hide their own lack of imagination.  The UK is the only member sate which brings in some form of "otherness", a window which opens to the world, rather than to the Brussels Grand Place.

If I were British however I would vote pro Brexit, without turning my back on all things European. Bridges can be created between London, a world hub, and Brussels. Ad hoc arrangements can replace ideological bla bla. The European anthem (Beethoven deserved better) sounds surreal in this deflated Utopia and does not resonate over the non Euro / non Schengen shores.

Since I am not British however, I want the UK to stay in.  In this "minestrone" of nations--authoritarian, failed, failing, semi-normal, footnotes--the British distant marks of interest, and indifference, are a welcome change from the repeated Brussels banalities and sad wakes supervised by the most uncharismatic Hollande/Merkel pair.  

Britain's entry into the then Common Market was mared by the infamous Brussels incident, wherein the British P.M. Ted Heath ended up covered in ink, after having been snubbed by de Gaulle's "empty chair" policy.  I hope that, exit or not, another stain may be avoided.