Jacob Rees-Mogg MP speaks for Warwick Brexit Campaign

Warwick Brexit Campaign hosted an evening with Jacob Rees-Mogg MP on Thursday May 5.

Speaking to a packed lecture theatre in the Ramphal Building, the MP made the case for Britain to leave the European Union. His argument centred around the case for democracy.

The EU, he said, is a “failed project that won’t respect democracy”. “Your vote”, he told students, “counts less because things are decided by the European Union and not your parliament”.

He argued that the EU’s trade tariffs actively harm developing nations, lead to higher prices for consumers, and that EU red tape is a barrier to British producers.

The Euro, he said, is symptomatic of the failure of Europe as a political project. He lamented the “unelected Eurocrats” in Brussels, who, in response to policy failure, say “the answer is more Europe – when monetary unions fail, they want fiscal unions too”.

More of a medicine that has practically killed the patient… is not going to revive the patient.

Some points in the talk felt like a charm offensive. “You are the intellectual cream of this nation”, Rees-Mogg swooned to students. “Your chances of getting a job with a good degree are incredibly high… but it’s lucky you’re not Greek.

“There, youth unemployment is nearly 50%. Why is there enormously high youth unemployment? Because the Euro was entirely unsuitable for their economy, and then when the system collapsed they were offered remarkably little help.”

Britain, he warned, is at risk of having to foot some of the bill if the EU were to collapse in the coming years. If we were to leave now, Britain might suffer in the short term but would be more prosperous in the long term, he claimed.

Interview

I spoke to Rees-Mogg after the talk, and asked him why students should vote to leave.

“I think the key argument is the democratic one,” he said, “because other things flow from that. You can only get economic success because of the constitutional set-up you’ve got. I think there may be more work to do to promote the argument to students. People of all age groups are saying the one thing they want more of in this campaign is information.”

I also asked whether his argument, calling for further economic deregulation, was the best argument to make to convince left-leaning voters.

The left, he replied, “can win an election and regulate us, and that’s absolutely up to them, and to the British people. But I don’t think we need to be told what to do by the EU. The Labour Party can win elections, and then it can follow its economic policy. And that would be more regulatory than the economic policy I would want to follow, but that’s how democracy works.”

Priyanka Bhupalan, a PPE third-year student, said: “He hasn’t convinced me to vote out, because I’m still not sure that he’s provided a strong enough answer for what that would look like. But I thought it was refreshing to hear non-xenophobic arguments for Brexit. He has made me take pause and I am more undecided than I was before.”

Denis Magee, a History second-year student and one of the leaders of the Warwick Brexit Campaign, said: “Warwick Brexit Campaign would like to once again thank Mr Rees-Mogg MP for taking the time out to give such an engaging talk. The level of interest shown was fantastic and we hope that such events will convince people that a Brexit is both the more positive and the safer option, and vote Leave on June 23.”

The deadline to register to vote is June 7, and can be done online here.