What do the British go from

It is known: that the Russian is good, then the Germans are death. The Germans used to call all foreigners in Russia, the Germans are not us. In the current situation, it looks like this: Russia or, for example, to Ukraine, staying in the European Union is good, and Great Britain is not very good.

Everyone looks at the world from his bell tower. From the Russian bell tower, participation in the European Union promises a lot of advantages - pulling up civil society institutions, law and state practice to European standards, stabilization of economics and finance, protection from many risks inherent in isolationist states.

Therefore, the thinking part of Russian society is at a loss: how can one voluntarily leave this European paradise?

The United Kingdom is in a completely different position. The oldest European democracy does not add glasses in the European Union. The country was ready to carry a certain load related to staying in the European Union, for the sake of the idea of a single Europe. However, recently, according to English EuroSceptics, the European Union has been pulling Britain back, and some are quite definitely saying - to the left. Socialist trends in the European Union are not only strong, they are growing.

One of the foundations of a socialist lifestyle is the regulation and distribution system. In totalitarian socialist countries, it was brought to the point of absurdity. In the USSR, the level of production and prices for everything - from tea spoons to cars - was determined by the highest state bodies. The European Union, of course, did not reach such an absurdity, but moves in the same direction. A huge, expensive and self -sufficient Brussels bureaucracy, obsessed with mania of regulation, issues incredible circulars, such as instructions relatively maximum permissible sizes and forms of cucumbers in the market, minimum condom length (160 mm) or proper feeding of cows that give milk. For example, the EU directive number 1292/81 establishes that "in one package, the difference between the largest and smallest eggplant should not exceed 20 millimeters for oblong eggplant and 25 millimeters for round." A great indication for rural workers! Who will now say that the European officials are folding back and in vain eat their bread?

The independence of Great Britain will help preserve the focus of democracy in Europe in the event of an even greater roll of the European Union to the left

In general, the idea of integration is both attractive and dangerous. On the one hand, coordination in areas such as defense, finance, migration, foreign policy is simplified. On the other hand, uniformity leads to the loss of alternative models of state development. The countries who are forced to pull up to European standards are useful. For those who are above these standards, why is it needed?

Skeptics complain that the socialists, having suffered a crushing failure with the Soviet Union project, relied on another union - European. Even if this is an exaggeration, then it was not born from scratch. Socialist trends in many Western European countries are obvious. Who needs a socialist European Union?

Brexit opponents rest that the divorce from the European Union will respond with great economic problems primarily in the UK itself. It is doubtful that these problems will be insoluble - in conditions of democracy, business will find optimal development paths. But the main thing is another, and this is quite difficult to understand to people who grew up on Marxism and brought up in a primitive materialistic culture: not only economic prospects determine the choice of free people in a free country. The independence of Great Britain will help maintain the focus of democracy in Europe in the event of an even greater roll of the European Union to the left. It is clear the desire of the British to establish some distance between their island and continental Europe.

It is also clear that Brexit voted mainly the older generation of the British, who still remember socialist experiments in Nazi Germany and in the communist USSR. In contrast, the young generation of the British perceives such threats abstractly, in the book-historical version. With the departure of the British, the European Union will weaken to some extent, but it will receive an incentive to think about proper development. The EU has already started talking about the necessary flexibility in relation to pan -European programs, so that those countries that consider this unacceptable for themselves could not take part in them.

Putin, of course, will be childishly rejoiced at the weakening of the European Union and build further plans for its disintegration. However, the bell tower with which Putin looks at the world is no higher than the basement of the St. Petersburg house. All he sees from there and what he hopes for is profit and power. He does not understand that the weakening of the European Union is not a weakening of Europe, not the devaluation of democratic values. Preserving the reference British democracy in purity and protection against socialist corrosion, Europe will only become stronger.

Alexander Podrabinek - human rights activist and journalist, host of the Radio Liberty program "Dejavu"

Opinions expressed under the heading "Law" may not reflect the point of view of the editorial office