Manifesto of the Oxford Independence Party (OXIP)
For centuries, Oxford has been a centre of learning and culture. For centuries, Oxford has welcomed scholars, teachers and students from all over Europe, and Oxford scholars, teachers and students have travelled to Europe to live and work there.
Oxford continues to benefit enormously from its ties with Europe. Its motor industry has gone from strength to strength thanks to European investment, its many language schools thrive on a steady influx of European students, its tourist trade has boomed thanks largely to European visitors. European citizens have found work in our hospitals, in our two universities, in our restaurants and cafés, and they contribute greatly to the cheerful multicultural mixing pot that makes up Oxford. Our many scientists and researchers enjoy free, unimpeded co-operation and exchange with their fellow scientists and researchers across Europe.
On 23rd June 2016 Oxford voted overwhelmingly to stay IN the European Union, by a factor of more than 70% to 30%. The great majority of us in Oxford were appalled and saddened that through a combination of lies ("the EU costs us £350 million a week"), promises that have already been broken ("We will spend the £350 million on the NHS") and blatant appeals to xenophobia and racism (the UKIP 'immigrant' poster), the people of Britain (with the notable exception of Scotland) voted narrowly for Britain to leave the European Union.
The Oxford Independence Party seeks no more, in the context of Britain outside the EU, than the UK Independence Party sought in the context of Britain within the EU: we want sovereignty, to determine our own future without being forced to follow an agenda which is increasingly being driven at best by xenophobia and at worst by racism; we want democracy within Oxford and for Oxford; we want control over our future WITHIN the European Union.
Our young people in particular have seen their futures hi-jacked by backward-looking, narrow-minded and fearful Little Englanders, for the most part far older than they are. They want no part of it - they have friends in Europe, they travel in Europe, they may themselves have been planning to migrate to a European Union country to widen their professional experience and further their careers.
It is of course constitutionally unthinkable that Oxford should ever be in a position to make a unilateral declaration of independence from the rest of the United Kingdom, however much we might wish it - though the voters of Scotland have a good chance of doing exactly that if they set their minds to it, and it seems that metropolitan London would follow them if it could.
The Oxford Independence Party can provide a focus for the views and voices of all those who want a future for Oxford WITHIN the European Union. All are welcome, support for independence for Oxford does not entail withdrawing your support from other parties who want to remain in the EU. The ideal of independence for Oxford will concentrate minds, generate publicity, stir up controversy, ruffle feathers, make it clear to the anti-Europeans that they are not going to have it all their own way. We'll make a lot of noise, and maybe play a role in changing history.