Until seven or eight weeks ago I viewed the Brexit/Remain decision challenge from a fairly ambivalent perspective, if anything leaning towards Remain, but also considering abstaining. I was both turned off by and cynically adjusted to the distasteful rhetoric of both campaigns. Overall I was broadly comfortable with the status quo.
But then something changed. Maybe it was one too many corporations, typically multinationals, writing to warn employees of Brexit’s risks to their jobs1. Maybe it was the latest “big gun” voice from a core establishment figure threatening mayhem if Brexit comes to pass.
It struck me that these voices, usually comfortably embedded in the top 1%, were over-pitching to me. Maybe I just instinctively felt greater sympathy for the underdog; the Brexit campaign I thought clearly needed to do better. Also, I’ve felt for some time that the steep and rising inequality within societies, was not just heavily correlated with globalization, but rather directly caused by it.
Now only in tooth and claw can I in any way be considered red ! As both an investment actuary and entrepreneur, capitalism courses through my veins and from all angles it looks to me like the best model for our times…bar anything better as yet unknown. On the contrary, I’ve spent my whole career at the heart of the capitalist system. As I say “broadly comfortable with the status quo”.
“Bono. Question everything!” said Larry Mullen Jnr, U2’s drummer and resident philosopher to his more famous band mate. “Why?” Bono, a fast learner, replied. [The Observer: 29.5.16]
Then Barak Obama (an heroic figure among my family) visited the UK and used the phrase “back of the queue”. I was struck by the significance of his visit and welcomed his right in the interests of the American people, 1.5million of whom gave their lives for peace in Europe, to give us his insight on the debate. I was also struck by his unusual (for an American) turn of phrase, “back of the queue”. I’ve never heard an American use it before; most use the US standard, “back of the line”. Whilst I shrugged off as standard practice the conclusion that the President’s host might have had some part in his speech, my interest was more than piqued. I was definitely being over-pitched.
So now I really was engaged. Inspired by the US President, though not I suspect as he intended, and with the referendum drawing ever closer, I too wanted to be a fast learner. So I decided to take a deeper look at Brexit through one of my most comfortable lenses – from a pensions risk perspective. Partly I did this so I can apply a long-term risk understanding of the key issues impacting UK pensions. But more immediately and more importantly for me personally, I wanted to examine very critically whether I really should vote Remain, a position which hitherto seemed like my own best personal short term option, or indeed cop out of the responsibility and abstain.
1 9.6.16: I see now, just pre-publication of this essay, that the chairman of JCB has written to its employees and pensioners explaining his pro-Brexit position.