The news media in the United States are just beginning to pay attention to an important election, which is scheduled to take place this week in the United Kingdom.
On June 23, 2016, British voters will take to the polling booth to decide whether or not to remain in the European Union (EU).
The electoral process at hand is known as the Brexit referendum, with opposing sides being categorized as the Remain and Leave campaigns.
For a number of significant reasons the intelligent decision would be for Britons to opt in favor of the Leave campaign.
Brexit is one component of a geopolitical movement that is nothing short of a worldwide phenomenon.
Populist constituencies and their attendant candidates are leading insurrections against political establishments and elite institutions.
The citizenry of the U.K. and the U.S. have in common some powerful overarching themes: anger and frustration over severe cultural dislocation, stagnant wages for workers, and open border immigration policies.
Additionally, in both the U.K. and the U.S. a breakdown of traditional political allegiances to two-party systems is occurring. Voters in the U.K. are defying the political elite's standard method of operation in much the same manner as are U.S. supporters of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Those who wish to preserve the status quo and the EU's entrenched power structure have been attempting to manipulate voters in Britain by predicting various doomsday scenarios should Britons dare decide to exit the EU.
Leaders of the Remain campaign have repeatedly claimed that an affirmative Brexit vote will be a catalyst for a global crisis in which workers will be unemployed, pensioners will forfeit life savings, and property owners will lose homes.
In an example of the fear-mongering approach that is being used by those in the Remain camp, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne made dire predictions of an upcoming “do-it-yourself recession,” a sizable drop in wages, a loss of as many as 820,000 jobs, a decline in the GDP, and an increase in inflation.
The Remain scare campaign has used reports generated by the International Monetary Fund, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Bank, British government, and Bank of England to paint a dreadful picture of the economic calamity that will purportedly descend upon an EU-free Britain.
The British electorate's support has nonetheless maintained enough strength to make a Leave campaign victory a distinct possibility.
Britons understand that the success of the U.S., Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, Australia, and other independent economies, not to mention the fast growing economies of China, India and Brazil, demonstrates that a post-Brexit Britain can flourish in the global economy.
Once Britain is freed from the constraints imposed by Brussels, the U.K. will be able to negotiate trade directly with the U.S. and the other aforementioned countries. The idea that the fifth largest economy in the world would be ill-positioned to form lucrative trade deals with these countries on its own is wholly inaccurate.
The truth is the EU needs the U.K. more than the U.K. needs the EU Ironically, the EU will be first in line to negotiate a free trade agreement with the U.K. should the electorate vote for Brexit.
Two salient sets of figures illustrate why the EU-U.K. relationship is out of balance:
1. In 2015 Britain made an annual payment to the EU of £13 billion. In the same year, the U.K. received £4.5 billion back from the EU.
2. The EU exports £60 billion more than it imports from the U.K. In return, the U.K. receives tariff-free access to the EU markets, but in return over 60 percent of the laws impacting the U.K. are made in Brussels rather than London.
After weeks of discussion, it is becoming increasingly clear that the debate has essentially come down to two distinct and contrary positions: on one hand, there are those who embrace a global economy with the rapid removal of borders; and on the other hand, there are those who believe in sovereign nation states cooperating and trading with one another.
By eliminating internal border controls without implementing external border patrols, the EU left Britain and other European countries vulnerable to the refugee crisis, which has inexorably altered everyday life for millions of Europeans.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU President Jean-Claude Juncker made their positions clear when Merkel invited into Germany large-scale immigration from Syria and Junker supported her actions. This was followed by a promise to fast track the accession of Turkey to the EU
These decisions have a direct impact on the U.K., which now has an immigration rate of 600,000 per year, resulting in an overburdened health care system and a chronic lack of new housing due to the population pressures.
Former mayor of London and leader of the Leave campaign Boris Johnson correctly advocates for the removal of the U.K. from the EU so that Britain will once again become an independent sovereign nation with control of its borders and the capacity to negotiate trade agreements freely and directly with the rest of the world.
James Hirsen, J.D., M.A., in media psychology, is a New York Times best-selling author, media analyst, and law professor. Visit Newsmax TV Hollywood. Read more reports from James Hirsen — Click Here Now.
Paul J. Wright, Esq. OBE Chair, British American Business Council Los Angeles co-authored this column.