From financial letter "Capital and Conflict",author Nikolai Hubble

The nitty gritty details of a Brexit are starting to emerge. Anatole Kaletsky, the chief economist and co-chairman of Gavekal Dragonomics and former columnist at The Times of London, has pointed out that the World Trade Organisation would have a lot to say about British-EU trade under Brexit:

 

Britain would need to negotiate access to the European single market for its service industries, whereas EU manufacturers would automatically enjoy virtually unlimited rights to sell whatever they wanted in Britain under global World Trade Organization rules.
 

That’s a whopping argument in favour of Bremain. But where is the estimation of how trade would boom once Britain were free to make unilateral trade deals with countries the EU doesn’t like?

 

One Capital & Conflict reader emailed in an excellent analysis of the constitutional implications of leaving the EU. The problem is, as for every other argument about Brexit, I’ve heard a persuasive argument on the same issue made for staying in the EU.

 

Having a supranational government with a developed human rights system reduces the ability of a single government from abusing your human rights. This applies to the UK’s terrorism laws especially. But as reader Dr. D.B. points out below, the British constitutional system is better than the EU one in some or many ways. Of course nobody can agree on what’s better or worse anyway.

 

Here’s Dr. D.B.’s thoughtful take on this, and thanks for sending it in:

 

Dear Nickolai,

 

Thank you for your interesting email.

 

The key difference between England in the EU and out of the EU is: The Legal and Constitutional System.

 

Within the EU, there is no Habeas Corpus (i.e. you can be arrested without evidence and imprisoned indefinitely without trial; on release, you have no possibility of compensation). Under the European Arrest Warrant, you can be arrested in Britain (and people have been) and imprisoned in the EU.  Outside the EU, however, we have the English legal system to safeguard our individual liberties.

 

Within the EU, the individual exists for the benefit of the State. Outside the EU, however, the State exists to serve the individual.

 

Within the EU, we are powerless to remove those in charge, and the European Parliament is powerless to do anything other than vote on what it has been asked to by the Commission. Our own parliament becomes a rubber-stamping irrelevancy. Outside the EU, however, we can (and often do) eject those in power from their positions by our votes. Our parliament determines the bills that are enshrined into law – and those that are rejected.

 

Within the EU, our monarch is an irrelevancy: by signing the treaty that took us into the EEC [European Economic Community], she (perhaps traitorously) abdicated her role as the guardian of the rights of the people against any impositions on those rights by government. Outside the EU, however, she would (we hope) resume her constitutional role as representative of the rights of the people against unconstitutional incursions by government.

 

The structure of the EU is very similar to that of the old USSR. The EU could thus easily slip into a totalitarian dictatorship. If it could... it probably will!

 

As for our mode of exit, we should forget about Clause 50, and simply declare, unilaterally, that our membership of the EU is unconstitutional, and thus was never valid.

 

These issues are all (it seems to me) of far greater weight than any of the issues that you mention.

 

I hope that this is helpful!

 

Best wishes

 

Dr. D.B.