Popular crime novelist John Burdett holds strong opinions on Brexit, and with good reason. Born in England, the creator of the bestselling detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep series divides his time between his homes in the south of France and Thailand.
A strong advocate of the UK staying in the European Union, Burdett, who worked as a lawyer in Hong Kong for 12 years, offers candid opinions on the divisive topic.
The Brexit referendum will be held on Thursday. What camp are you in and why?
I am firmly in the Remain camp, but not because I have any illusions about the European Union. I have owned a house in France for 20 years, so I know very well how rule-bound and sclerotic the system is. Everything its critics say is probably true: non-democratic, control obsessed, inefficient, run by PhDs incapable of breaking out of the world of convenient abstractions in which they reside.
What the Brexiters do not acknowledge is that the UK is really not much different, but I promise that everyone brought up in the UK understands the subtext of their passion: they ferociously oppose immigration into the UK. As the former Conservative foreign secretary William Hague said in The Telegraph on June 7, the policy of the Brexit campaign, when faced with an intelligent discussion of the economic consequences of Brexit, is to "talk about immigration quickly".
However the Brexit ego may posture, the id is all about xenophobia. This has enabled its campaigners to attract the likes of Nigel Farage and his coven of irrational loathing.
That a bunch of old Etonians have succumbed to an atavistic mythology which puts England (read: them) in an heroic light, evoking deeds of derring do in far-off and hyper-challenging lands, should not surprise us. The reality is that the only time the UK has been truly wealthy was during the period of slavery and opium trading.
Our colonial forefathers were simply world-class gangsters who thought in a similar way to the kingpins of the Medellin cartel. There is no possibility at all that the world will allow us to behave like that ever again. The last breakout from this bunch (one thinks particularly of Tiny Rowland and Jimmy Goldsmith) destroyed the British manufacturing base and brought on the hell of corporate raiding, which spread to the US and has led directly to the economic chaos of the present time.
I am in the Remain camp because I am a European and it is important for the world that Europe remains intact. The Brits have forced some very useful reforms on the EU. They need us, we need them.
You mentioned what the Brexiters do not acknowledge, what biases might they have?
While I grew up the UK turned into "the sick man of Europe". We had very little money, most people were poor compared to today. When Harold Wilson [prime minister from 1974-76] tried to fix the inequality, he forced the country into bankruptcy and had to borrow from the IMF. It is largely thanks to Europe (which accounts for 60% of UK trade) that the country has prospered recently.
It is no accident that the Leave campaign is struggling precisely because the middle-aged, middle-class vote, which would like to be in favour of leaving, has been alienated from the Leave campaign because no Brexiter has been able to come up with a coherent plan as to how the UK might continue to prosper after the exit. As I implied in my first answer, the Leave leaders are selling a highly romanticised and atavistic view of the UK, entirely for their own benefit. They want to be lords again, in the old style.
President Barack Obama went to England to make his pitch as to why leaving the EU would be a bad idea. This seemed to upset a lot of people. Did it bother you?
If people were upset, it's because they have trouble looking at the full picture. Many Brits suffer under the delusion that there is a special relationship with the US, which will always save us. Obama and probably the whole of the American political class want the UK to stay in Europe, because we provide a convenient commercial and political base from which America can influence Europe. Common language and customs make this a good, easy fit for both parties.
However, if the UK loses influence in Europe big time, as will certainly be the case if Brexit happens, then America will have to court another, better-placed country, which will inevitably be Germany. The switch will not cause too much disruption to the US: plenty of leading Germans are fluent in English and we can expect cadres in the State Department to learn German and/or French to fluency level if their careers depend on it.
I tend to believe the bookies more than the pundits when it comes to politics. The bookies have staying at very short odds. A $3 bet will return $4. Have they got it right; do you feel confident there will be no Brexit?
No, I do not feel confident there will be no Brexit. If I were not culturally and economically involved, I would look on the situation as a fascinating battle between Humans and Neanderthals. The mythology of the UK is its major weakness. People still think in terms of "splendid isolation" even if the phrase is too embarrassing to confess to out loud.
As I explained above, we never grew prosperous from isolation, our greatness and fortune were based on gangster tactics overseas (emulated in their entirety by the other European empires). In reality we never were isolated. We have been part of Europe since Roman times and now the only friends we have left are in Europe. But try explaining that to an old Etonian whose fundamental conviction is that he does not want to see his village green and cricket pitch taken over by a tent city of immigrants.
A large proportion of the arguments in favour of Brexit make sly reference to the village green (read: the threat of immigration). This illustrates the problem of national attention deficit. The vast majority of native Brits do not have and never have had a village or a green or even a cricket pitch to live next to. We are in the same position as the immigrants. But that's not something you learn on the playing fields of Eton. n
Kevin Cummings is the author of Bangkok Beat and blogs about the people, places and literature of Thailand at www.peoplethingsliterature.com.