In praise of Brexit

I have to laugh at the SA press. Jumping on the Brexit doom and gloom bandwagon when clearly few, if any, have a grip on the matter ( Cover Story, June 30-July 6). In just a few weeks we have a new prime minister, two months ahead of schedule, the pound has just rallied, the stock market is higher than before the referendum and the EU is in meltdown.

Emergency meetings were held to try to save the Italian banks, the IMF declared that the EU was unsustainable without rapid change, Portugal and Spain are to be fined for financial mismanagement of sorts, France is economically stagnant and led by a dead man walking with little public support, Greece is a lost soul, Germany is facing a huge crisis; in short, it is the EU that is in confusion and financial shambles.

The lower pound is advantageous at the moment (we are bracing for a tourist boom) and our exports are doing very nicely thank you. Incidentally, we export more to the rest of the world than to the EU and our exports to the EU have been declining as it becomes more moribund.

I am an ex-South African and live in York. I am a trained economist though I have always run my own business, which I do here. I voted to leave the EU as I felt it was better to be on the UK lifeboat rather than the EU Titanic . Contrary to what people think, it is people like me who voted out as we did not like a nameless, unelected bureaucrat in Brussels telling us how much water we can have in our toilets, for instance.

Near York is Harrogate, about 3½ hours’ drive north of London and probably the wealthiest area in the UK (which in UK terms is far from London), and Harrogate voted out. They voted out because, like me, they had lost faith in the EU. I am a staunch capitalist and a firm believer in free trade but I do not believe a large contingent of overpaid office workers can run a country, never mind 28 of them.

I felt it was better to survive the shortterm uncertainty rather than suffer the long lingering expensive death of the EU.

I am really surprised the UK has turned around and bounced back so quickly.

Of course there is a rocky road ahead but the people of Britain have an unfathomable knack of succeeding in adversity. Which is why it is such a great nation and why I am so proud to be British.