EU Referendum


EU Referendum: Flexcit for dummies


01/07/2015



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It has been put to me that Flexcit, with its six-stage structure, is too complex for the tender flowers of Westminster. These darlings can only handle one idea at a time, and can only read a maximum of two pages, as long as the text is double-spaced and in bullet-point format.

Seriously, these are the people who would have us believe are capable of running the country, and of building policies that are supposed to keep the machinery of government functioning.

Interestingly, though, this seems to be a one-way problem. A well-structured document of 419 pages is far too difficult to read, but us plebs are supposed to suck up 1000 pages of error-strewn, inchoate garbage and, presumably, come back for more.

However, for those tender flowers for whom even an 800-word, two-page summary is just too difficult, here is Flexcit in a nutshell, written with homage to the style of Joyce Grenfell.

We start with a thing called the European Union, but we can't use horrid words like "supranational treaty organisation". We will call it "Europe". It isn't Europe, of course - that's a continent. So when we talk about Europe, we don't actually mean "Europe", but the European Union.

Now, in order to leave "Europe", we have this thing called a Treaty. Yes, a "treaty", dear, not a treat. It's not your birthday. That's a name for a thing that grown-ups who run countries make. It means they promise to be nice to each other, or nasty in a nice way.

And in this Treaty thing we have another thing called an "Article". Actually, there's lots of these article thingies, but there is one very special article called Article 50 which we want the people in charge of the country to play with.

Yes, dear, I know this "Article" isn't actually an article. No, you can't pick it up, suck it ... or throw it out of a pram. I don't know why it's called an article – it just is. It means a lot of words strung out in a particular order, which lets you do special things.

Look, I'm telling you, the words have to be in that order. If they were in a different order, they wouldn't be Article 50. They might not even be an Article. They could be an order for ice creams. But as they stand, they make up Article 50, and that's our "get out of jail free" card.

Yes dear, I know we said it was an Article. So no, it can't be a card as well. That's just a figure of speech. And no, we're not in jail, as such – although a lot of people think we are. Believe me, we're not in jail. I've been in jail, and "Europe" is not a bit like it. You can get ice cream in Europe. Well, yes, you can get ice-cream in jail as well, but not as many flavours. So it really is different.

Anyhow, with this Article 50 thingy, we can get out of Europe. We give the nice men (yes, and there are some mummies as well), our Article 50 "card" and then talk about leaving for two years, and then we get out.

No, we can't just leave. Don't be silly. And no, we don't talk all the time for two years – this isn't like Mummy and Daddy having a row. We still get to go to bed, and we have to have our dinners, and we even get holidays. And yes, if you insist, we do have plenty of time to use the potty. Yes, number twos as well.

So, what do we talk about? Not that's really quite difficult. You know I said we have this Treaty thing? Well, that is what keeps us in Europe and in order not to be in Europe we have to have another, different Treaty thingy. We just call an agreement, although it is a treaty really - that's what treaty thingies really are.

Now, when we are in Europe, we can sell them lots of ice creams, and they can sell us lots of motor cars – yes, just like daddy's, except his comes from Japan. No, Japan isn't in Europe, dear. Yes, mummy's iron comes from Europe as well. If we just left Europe and didn't have a new treaty thingy, mummy couldn't do any more ironing. Your clothes would be all wrinkly and scrunchy, and that wouldn't he very nice.

So, for mummy to keep on ironing, we absolutely must have this brand new treaty. Only then can we keep selling ice-creams to Europe. Yes, we could sell them cars as well, only they like their cars better.

Right. Now there's a tiny problem here. The nice people in Europe won't give us this nice new treaty unless we promise to let lots and lots of the nice people from Europe come to England (yes, and Scotland, dear, except I don't think any of them want to go there), so they can take our jobs and fill the doctor's, and so all their nice little boys and girls can go to your nice school.

Look, let's not get into an argument here. If we want to sell them ice-creams, we have to let them come here, so you'll just have to put up with having classes in the playground and waiting for your dinner.

But, we do need to make sure that too many people don't come. If we don't,  all the schools and hospitals will be too full and you'll have to wait until supper time to get your dinner. What's more, that nice Mr Farage won't be able to drive to Wales on a Friday evening.

Well, that's why we need stage two of Flexcit. In stage one, we work out how we're going to leave Europe and still sell them ice-creams – yes and irons, as well. In stage two, we work out how many people we will let into England and how we stop too many coming in. And no, dear, I don't think they'd let us just send them to Scotland.

So, we have two stages now. But we need another one. Why? Because there are some horrid people in Europe called bureaucrats – no, bureaucrats, darling, not burrow-cats. No, they're not cats, darling. There's an "r" in there, crats, as in bureau-crats.

Alright, don't cry. We'll call them burrow-cats. And yes, I'm quite sure they look like the meerkats on television. Ok, we'll call them meerkats, then. These meerkats make rules for ice-creams and things. When we were in Europe, we had our own meerkats, and they helped make the rules, but if we leave Europe, our meerkats go home and only their meerkats make the rules.

Yes, it does, matter. If they make all the rules, we could end up with nothing but raspberry ice-cream and no strawberry ice-cream. And daddy's car might have to have pink tyres instead of black ones. No, he wouldn't like that very much … although mummy might.

And that's what stage three of Flexcit is all about. We have to get all our meerkats together, so we can all make the rules together, their meerkats and our meerkats, just like we used to do before we left Europe, only in a different way.

Just different, dear. These are the things grown-up do, they make rules – you know: when you go to bed and how much pocket money you get. And they make rules about ice-cream as well. And in stage three of Flexcit, we ask UNECE to do it. No, not Eunice, dear, UNECE, U-N-E-C-E.

Well, I'm sure Eunice would make a jolly good job of it, but she's gone to her granny, so we'll have to ask UNECE to do it. No, she isn't a "she", she's an "it". Yes, you're quite right, it's an "it".

Where were we? Right. Now we come to stage four. In this stage, we look at all those things that we messed up while we were in Europe – you know, things like fishing and farming, and energy and all the rest of those things.

Well, we mess them up with policies, dear. So in Europe we have policies for little fishes in the water, and we have policies for all the little baa-lambs you saw in the field yesterday. And yes, we have policies for daddy's car.

No, they're not like wing mirrors. No, you don't stick them on. Think how silly baa-lambs would look if you stuck policies on their ears. Those are ear-tags, dear, not policies. Stop being silly. We put them on because of European policies.

Please, can we now move on? We get rid of all those silly European policies, and make our own. I'm quite sure they won't be silly, because our own meerkats will make them. Then our MPs will insist they are really clever policies, not like the silly ones we get from Europe.

What are MPs? Well, they're the people who … oh, never mind. And yes, I'm afraid the baa-lambs will still have to wear ear-tags. But they'll be British ear-tags, not European ear-tags.

So, we've now got four stages of our lovely Flexcit, but we now have to have another one. You see, while in Europe, those horrid European meerkats make all the rules for us when we want to buy and sell things to countries outside Europe. Yes dear, we sell ice-creams all over the world.

So now, under stage five, our nice meerkats will make all the rules for selling ice-creams to other countries in the world, so we can sell lots more ice-creams to lots more people. Don't worry dear, they'll still be plenty left for you.

And that brings us to stage six. That's all about those naughty MPs who took us into Europe in the first place, and let all those nasty foreign meerkats make all our rules for us. So we want some new rules to stop our MPs ever taking us into Europe again. Then our meerkats can keep making rules to keep our ice-creams nice and cold, and none of those nasty European meerkats will ever get a look in.

So, that's what Flexcit is all about. Six-stages: one to leave and trade; two to stop too many people coming; three, common rule-making; four, new policies; five, global trade; and six, to stop the buggers doing it again.

Yes, dear, we know we shouldn't say "buggers", but they really are buggers, and that's why we need Flexcit. Simples, really.