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This idea “we will damage ourselves but we will damage you more unless you accept our demands” is thoroughly irrational unless, of course, EU’s real aim in not “universal happiness” as it claims but building an empire. This is, in fact, the same argument on which Napoleon’s
Continental System was based; it was damaging to France but was supposed to damage Britain more and bring it to its knees (it didn’t work as it was supposed to). There main argument to justify the EU hard line stand is that no country should be allowed to be better off after
leaving than it was while it was a member or, in a slightly more reasonable sounding version: a non member should not enjoy better conditions than a member does. But this is again thoroughly irrational: the only consideration should be whether overall the agreement makes the EU
U.K. better off than no agreement. In fact, the attitude of many anti-Brexiters from the EU reminds me of nothing as much as the attitude of much of the public of the Warsaw Pact countries to the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The truth about has been largely hidden, as is usually
with such embarrassing truth (collaboration with German occupation being a better known example) but actually it was not the case that the Czechs and Slovaks enjoyed overwhelming public support among the populations of the other Warsaw Pact countries. A quite common attitude was
hostility because “they wanted to live better than us” and satisfaction that they failed. And that satisfaction was found even among anti-communists. One feels that all those predictions of the disaster that Brexit will bring to the U.K. (including even its break up) have a
big element of malice and wishful thinking: it would be unbearable if they were allowed to leave and be better off than we who remain. Another false argument is that the EU cannot make “special deals” with individual countries - if it grants something to the U.K. it will have to
grant the same thing to everyone else. But that is patently false. First, the truth is that not all countries are equally important to the EU and no amount of pretended “equality” will change that. Secondly, one can formulate such agreements so that they don’t formally apply to
only one country. For example, the “freedom of movement” rule allowing unrestricted right to live and work in all member countries could be limited in cases of countries where the population density is above a certain limit, say 260 persons per square km. In any case, where there
is a will, there is a way. The fact that there is no way, means that there is no will, or more exactly, that there is a will but to achieve something quite different from what is claimed.
