The EU has LCD traits but suffers from LSD effects

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 70

When Leave-voting Brits look at the EU, some confuse LCD traits with LSD effects. 

EU rules are the lowest common denominator (LCD) for 28 member states: northern and southern; western and eastern; right and left; rich and poor. For the Single Market to function, some basic regulations and policies need to be implemented across the continent. Without common rules, the "race to the bottom" in taxation or environmental protection, for example, would skew the level playing field. Britain detests being given regulations from Brussels, but without them the Single Market could not exist.

On the other hand, when some Brexiteers look at the EU, they see things or hear voices that do not exist, as if they were under the influence of the hallucinogenic drug LSD. The mirage list includes, for example:
- the phoney threat of migration of millions of Syrian refugees;
- a double-digit tax take and budget redistribution by Brussels (while the EU actually takes only 1.2% of the GDP of the member states);
- a laundry list of 700 myths about the EU that British tabloids have been spreading for decades.

Sadly, exposing the one-letter difference between mathematics and hallucination is probably too little too late to counteract four decades of misinformation.

Mirage (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 70 have been posted so far and another 91 Brexit Metaphors will be published every day until the planned Brexit date of March 29, 2019.
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