Leaving the EU has been a disaster for the UK

[ChristineM]

You'd think, but we have entered a strange period of parochialism, and I suspect an argument will be made that the Vatican has the same power as any other nation of a thousand. Like Tokelau. Same impact. I'm sure if a travelling roadshow from Tokelau turned up in Poland, 2.5 million people would go watch.

Will 1.3 billion Catholics behind him he does bold considerable power.

 

[Flankerl]

Boris Johnson’s Covid WhatsApps: ex-PM ‘can’t remember iPhone password’

Boris Johnson has been unable to give WhatsApp messages from his old mobile phone to the Covid inquiry because he cannot remember the passcode, The Times has be

www.thetimes.co.uk

What a surprise!
Is there a site where I can bet whether the Covid or Lebedev messages are worse for him?

 

[exchemist]

Boris Johnson’s Covid WhatsApps: ex-PM ‘can’t remember iPhone password’

Boris Johnson has been unable to give WhatsApp messages from his old mobile phone to the Covid inquiry because he cannot remember the passcode, The Times has be

www.thetimes.co.uk

What a surprise!
Is there a site where I can bet whether the Covid or Lebedev messages are worse for him?

Yeah, it's all at the level of "Please Sir, the dog ate my homework". Bozo, the Billy Bunter of modern British politics.

 

[Flankerl]

Wow don't be so mean!

Look at his ruffled hair!

He's such a lad!

 

[Zwing]

So, after over 6-years since the referendum, most of Project Fear is proving to be Project Reality.
Recent polls are showing 60% in favour of rejoining.

The Tories are still in denial and Labour are scared to talk about it. The right-wing media is going quiet about it - blaming everything on COVID and Putin (To be fair, he did help promote and fund the Leave campaign)

Since I’m not British, I have no dog in this fight, but my thought is: “just what you need, another layer of government”. If you are all so hot to unite as a “Europe”, then why the hell don’t you do it right instead of taking half measures…unite into one single federal nation-state in which none of the constituent nations has any right to secede?? If it were me, I would value my identity as an Englishman and my individuality, as well as a reasonably sized nation, over economic prosperity. The English are a singular people, in character, in temperament, in outlook (there is a reason for England’s historic success which is attributable to more than geography), and you stand threatened to lose all of that by uniting too closely with others.

 

[Heyo]

Since I’m not British, I have no dog in this fight, but my thought is: “just what you need, another layer of government”. If you are all so hot to unite as a “Europe”, then why the hell don’t you do it right instead of taking half measures…unite into one single federal nation-state in which none of the constituent nations has any right to secede?? If it were me, I would value my identity as an Englishman and my individuality, as well as a reasonably sized nation, over economic prosperity. The English are a singular people, in character, in temperament, in outlook, and you stand threatened to lose all of that by uniting too closely with others.

Yep, next up: getting rid of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. After that the English will be really free.

 

[exchemist]

Since I’m not British, I have no dog in this fight, but my thought is: “just what you need, another layer of government”. If you are all so hot to unite as a “Europe”, then why the hell don’t you do it right…unite into one single federal nation-state in which none of the constituent nations has any right to secede?? If it were me, I would value my identity as an Englishman and my individuality, as well as a reasonably sized nation, over economic prosperity.

Actually, multiple layers of government are what you need to keep the people feeling they are governed with understanding. So long as it is clear which powers come from which level and they do not duplicate or conflict. Every society has a hierarchy like this. Parish, town or borough, county, region, state or nation.

It's not a question of being "so hot as to unite as Europe". That would be a strawman. The idea has always been the pooling of sovereignty, so as not to diminish national identity. EU laws must be signed off by the Council of the EU, in which nation states agree to any measures adopted. The great advantage of the EU is freedom to work, travel and trade in a group of allied democracies, with between them half a billion people, with the necessary supporting regulations and standards being created once, and once only, for all. That is what Britain has so foolishly thrown away.

 

[ChristineM]

Since I’m not British, I have no dog in this fight, but my thought is: “just what you need, another layer of government”. If you are all so hot to unite as a “Europe”, then why the hell don’t you do it right instead of taking half measures…unite into one single federal nation-state in which none of the constituent nations has any right to secede?? If it were me, I would value my identity as an Englishman and my individuality, as well as a reasonably sized nation, over economic prosperity. The English are a singular people, in character, in temperament, in outlook, and you stand threatened to lose all of that by uniting too closely with others.

More a cooperation of nations rather than a federation.

BTW, i am English but consider myself European. Loosing Englishness to gain the freedom of Europe suites me fine

 

[Zwing]

The idea has always been the pooling of sovereignty

Imagine, if you will, a vastly more populated Germany, within which the population pressure has caused extreme economIc hardship and a surge of nationalist feeling as Germans regard to the east all those territories that it lost as a result of WW2 as being a good place to put all the excess population. Now imagine a strongly nationalist leader is elected, who begins to make all kinds of remonstrations about how “Poles are living on German soil” and “Slavs are living in our Bohemia”, etc., etc. As the German military presence on its eastern borders became more and more manifest, what do you think would happen to Europe’s “pooled sovereignty” then? This is by no means an impossible scenario. Just look at human nature, and at what is happening in the Ukraine right now. Do you think that war among Europeans is a thing of the past after they have occurred since the beginning of human history in Europe? The EU would seem to be a very fragile system under certain conditions.

 

[exchemist]

Imagine, if you will, a vastly more populated Germany, within which the population pressure has caused extreme economIc hardship and a surge of nationalist feeling as Germans regard to the east all those territories that it lost as a result of WW2 as being a good place to put all the excess population. Now imagine a strongly nationalist leader is elected, who begins to make all kinds of remonstrations about how Poles are living on German soil, etc., etc. As the German military presence on its eastern border became more and more manifest, what do you think would happen to Europe’s “pooled sovereignty” then? This is by no means an impossible scenario. Do you think that war among Europeans is a thing of the past after they have occurred since the beginning of human history in Europe?

What is the point you are trying to make with this scenario?

 

[Zwing]

.BTW, i am English but consider myself European. Loosing Englishness to gain the freedom of Europe suites me fine

I could not feel similarly, if it were me? “European” is not an ethnicity. I would not know how I am defining myself.

 

[Zwing]

What is the point you are trying to make with this scenario?

That “the EU would seem to be a very fragile system under certain conditions”.

 

[Estro Felino]

Imagine, if you will, a vastly more populated Germany, within which the population pressure has caused extreme economIc hardship and a surge of nationalist feeling as Germans regard to the east all those territories that it lost as a result of WW2 as being a good place to put all the excess population. Now imagine a strongly nationalist leader is elected, who begins to make all kinds of remonstrations about how “Poles are living on German soil” and “Slavs are living in our Bohemia”, etc., etc. As the German military presence on its eastern borders became more and more manifest, what do you think would happen to Europe’s “pooled sovereignty” then? This is by no means an impossible scenario. Do you think that war among Europeans is a thing of the past after they have occurred since the beginning of human history in Europe? The EU would seem to be a very fragile system under certain conditions.

Yes.
It's a thing from the past.
Because all European commoners, no matter where they are from, have understood that back then, they were so stupid fighting each other, whereas the masters, the élites were sipping champagne in their own mansions, safe and warm. After sending commoners to die in that war.
So they understood that the real enemy is the financial and banking élites of Europe.
If a war ever takes place in Europe, it will be commoners vs élites. Not Europeans vs Europeans.

 

[ChristineM]

I could not feel similarly, if it were me? “European” is not an ethnicity.

I don't do ethnicity. I go by how i feel.

 

[exchemist]

That “the EU would seem to be a very fragile system under certain conditions”.

That it might founder under a set of very extreme and unlikely conditions is not evidence of great fragility.

Actually it seems to me the chief risk to the future integrity of the EU is absorbing too many new countries that may not be ready, in terms of institutional and democratic stability. I'm thinking of the former Warsaw pact countries that are currently candidates, and Ukraine. There is potentially a conflict between the original objective of closer union and the new geostrategic one of enlarging the alliance against external rivals and enemies.

 

[Zwing]

Yes.
It's a thing from the past.
Because all European commoners, no matter where they are from, have understood that back then, they were so stupid fighting each other, whereas the masters, the élites were sipping champagne in their own mansions, safe and warm. After sending commoners to die in that war.
So they understood that the real enemy is the financial and banking élites of Europe.
If a war ever takes place in Europe, it will be commoners vs élites. Not Europeans vs Europeans.

Not to offend, but this sounds a bit naive. That is not how mob politics works.

 

[Estro Felino]

Not to offend, but this sounds a bit naive. That is not how mob politics works.

Right, but the Europe of 2023 is not the same as the Europe of the forties.

 

[Zwing]

Right, but the Europe of 2023 is not the same as the Europe of the forties.

Has human nature changed in any fundamental way? As for your warmongering “elites”, that sounds like a propagandizing narrative. We’re the “Brownshirt” leadership in Germany of the ‘30’s “elites”?

 

[Altfish]

Since I’m not British, I have no dog in this fight, but my thought is: “just what you need, another layer of government”. If you are all so hot to unite as a “Europe”, then why the hell don’t you do it right instead of taking half measures…unite into one single federal nation-state in which none of the constituent nations has any right to secede?? If it were me, I would value my identity as an Englishman and my individuality, as well as a reasonably sized nation, over economic prosperity. The English are a singular people, in character, in temperament, in outlook (there is a reason for England’s historic success which is attributable to more than geography), and you stand threatened to lose all of that by uniting too closely with others.

We've done that already, and we are poorer, isolated, laughed at.
I am English ... I'm not singular ... I identify as European.
Please do not characterise us all as like Farage or Johnson - it's like calling all Americans Trump supporters

 

[Zwing]

Please do not characterise us all as like Farage or Johnson - it's like calling all Americans Trump supporters

That’s not what I am suggesting. What the heck does it mean to “be European”? What is the “European language”, the “European culture”? European is a geographic, and not an ethnic identifier. Hell, sometimes I even wonder, “what exactly the hell is ‘an American’?”, and “American” is much closer to being an ethnicity than “European”, the constituents at least being fairly united in language and culture. Sorry, but I think that ethnicity, that ethnos is very important. It is a source of pride. Maybe that is only because of the milieu in which I grew, but that is how I feel.

It is good you brought up Trump, because the Trump drama suggests what kind of abberations can happen due to prevailing sentiment within a democratic system.