This all makes interesting reading.I cant sensibly comment on the re-organisation proposals because I am not familiar with the present set up. But there are other issues here of regulation as in child protection / safety clothing and of involvement with the MSA.
If you think about it, increasing regulation / reducing freedom is an issue in all aspects of our daily lives. Everything from the work that you re allowed to do on your home electrical system, to waste disposal, to the care of children, to dog mess,to financial regulation, etc etc. And it doesnt just occurr at national level - we do it to ourselves locally. Times many I have seen new rules proposed at club annual meetings, often the result of someone with a bee in his bonnet , often carried and then usually ignored. So we can hardly blame the politicians at national level for doing exactly what we do when left to ourselves at local level. Or can we?
Membership of the MSA is a separate issue. I would be very surprised if the MSCC wasnt able to run a club only event on private land without being an MSA member. But it isnt as easy as that for two reasons. The first is that if you want to take advantage of MSA services like the insurance, you need to be a member. The second is the legal issue where if something goes t*ts up in a private event, the courts will look for expert advice on how you should have done it and they will turn to the MSA for that advice. I have seen that many times in an entirely parallel situation with yachting and the RYA.
We mostly are "mature" not to say old people here. Inevitably we will have a rose tinted view of what things used to be like, back in the days of our youth when the survival rate of unprotected F1 drivers was 30% and we used to snigger about "vicars and choirboys" rather than do anything about it. Not to mention my own personal bugbear of the disappearance of de-restricted roads under a blanket NSL. But if someone came along and offered to cancel all these safety nets and return to the bad old days, most of us wouldnt want it to happen.
What instead we need is participation. If you dont support the MSA and I dont support the RYA, then the field is open for pressure groups like the Ramblers or the RSPB or the NT to influence government into actions that harm us. Most of the UK circuits are under threat from nimbies and noise limits for example.The land used is more valuable for building houses than for motorsport. Walking away and ignoring the national body isnt a good idea.
