An open letter to a high-profile remainer

If we all write to our opponents, they may start thinking a bit more seriously about future membership of the European Union, giving us a far better chance of winning the coming referendum.

The following letter highlights risk management. There is a strong case for spreading its message  because we traditionally are far better at risk management and the EU is a failing political/bureaucratic experiment that encourages irresponsible behaviour and mutualises the resulting problems making them far worse.

Dear Mr Cameron,

I read with some concern a transcript of your recent speech (9^th May on strength and security) which supported remaining in the European Union (EU) and highlighted the risks of leaving.  Whilst to paraphrase Mark Carney on the Andrew Marr Show, 16^th May, highlighting risks is necessary in order to mitigate them, nothing is being said about the risks of remaining.  Could this be that whilst we traditionally are rather good at risk management, the risks arising from remaining within the EU are beyond our capabilities of risk management or mitigation? Thus the Public could be unaware of serious risks of remaining which cannot be effectively mitigated, whilst also being fearful of leaving under an erroneous impression regarding its riskiness?

I find developments within the EU, as reported recently in the Daily Mail  and the Daily Telegraph, rather alarming; hence my raising the subject of risk management and mitigation. We are not being asked to remain in the EU as it is now, but an EU which is highly unstable and on a trajectory to create a superstate.

From a risk management perspective, the EU, by extending its powers and adopting ‘one size fits all’ policies that apply to all member states, faces serious risks whereby some Member States will be extremely adversely affected. Some examples of this are the €uro and mass migration. Also there is a tendency to mutualise local issues or problems to all Member States making the results far worse, where previously these problems did not exist, such as with certain ECJ rulings.  It would appear, then, that the EU is inherently much poorer at risk management and mitigation than we are.

Can the EU become much better at risk management or even reform?  Professor John W Hunt, concluded on the basis of his studies of organisational behaviour in the EU and other international bodies, that reform always gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. He noted: “International bodies rarely have a power base of their own….. To justify themselves, these highly paid, often initially idealistic staff spend their time developing yet more ideas that can’t be implemented. The result is the worst of all worlds, there being nothing more cynical than a bunch of rich, demoralised ex-idealists.” Thus it is reasonable to assume the EU will largely remain unchanged, unreformed and poor at risk management.

I would be happy to discuss this further because we really do need an intelligent debate on all the serious risks not just those of leaving (which can be mitigated), but also those of remaining (which cannot).

You should, after an examination of all risks and their risk management, including those of remaining, heed the words of a great former Conservative Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury:- ‘The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcasses of dead policies. When a mast falls overboard, you do not try to save a rope here and a spar there in memory of their former utility. You cut away the hamper altogether. It should be the same with policy, but it is not so. We cling to the shred of an old policy after it has been torn to pieces, and to the shadow of the shred after the rag itself has been torn away.’