Oh Britain, what have you done (part ∞+2)?

[SteveS1]

The irony of course being that the ardent remainer paints the UK as a rather poorly and hopeless little thing, the population (by majority vote in the largest ever turnout, remember) denying itself the opportunity of being a supplicant to the mutti EU and casting itself into a vast ocean inhabited only by far better, stronger and cleverer nations than our own, a victim, no less, of it's own rather stupid voters.

The UK isn't a 'victim'. It is one of the world's most powerful economies, even more so in relation to its size, and a substantial net contributor to the EU's cash bunkers. The only 'victims' in this game are the poor, hard done by residual remainers, who simply can't imagine a future separated from what they (counterintuitively, given that we are the cash-cow) perceive as the EU teat.

The UK is constantly being painted as a victim here even though this is totally an act of self harm. It's no good keep on about the size of the UK economy without context of who owns those businesses and corporations and why they are here. We went into the EEC because post colonial UK was very much on the slide both in economics and as a player on the world stage. Both of those aspects have been enhanced as members, to deny that is just plain stupidity.

Unfortunately the post colonial bit came with another downside which our media have fanned for decades. An innate feeling of both superiority and entitlement. You see it in your posts quite often that we are somehow special, well we're not. We are a desirable addition to the EU that's true, but we are by no means essential. Our arrogance over the years has indeed hampered EU reform and our influence has been diluted by the 'petulant child' act we bring out at the least provocation.

Tusk's observation that I quoted yesterday about our 'demanding opt-outs while members, now wanting opt-ins as non-members' was amusing but not without justification. You could argue that some of our belligerence has paid off in the past. We had a very good deal that contained enviable consessions compared to others. But this lunacy is the worst type of arrogance and the EU can hardly be blamed for tiring of it.

 

[eternumviti]

Exactly so. Just as Cameron dreamt up this steaming pile, looked horrified at what he had done, and tiptoed away, so will May..

Cameron didn't dream it up, he threw the voter a rather stingy bone, as one or another government was going to have to do sooner or later, the lot of them having repeatedy denied the electorate a say through 40 years of progressive outsourcing of sovereignty to the increasingly unaccountable institutions of the EU. If it hadn't been Cameron, it would have been someone else. Cameron was just too arrogant to see how badly he had misjudged and mismanaged it.

 

[wacko]

Talk of the USA's culpability has to be tempered by some consideration of the fact that a presumably unknown and probably substantial proportion of the migrants are certainly economic, rather than political, and as such it is a problem that was massively excacerbated by Merkel ostentatiously, and without first consulting either the voters in her own country or the governments of the other EU nations which would inevitably be affected, throwing open the doors of Europe. It is nonsense too to state with such certainty that the protest is specific to immigration. It isn't. Italy's economy has been stagnant since it joined the Euro, what, a quarter of a century ago. Virtually zero growth. The EU imposed austerity, and at one point its own technocratic government, and is deeply unpopular, the Euro even more so. This is a crisis that is owned by the institutions and policies of the EU and of Germany, and it is one that isn't going to go away anytime soon.

It is not 'tempered' because those illegal wars enabled economic migrants as well as the war-zone migrants.

Merkel knows what it is like to live behind a wall: her only other option was to build one against the migrants, sink their boats from the air; or more humanely put them in EU boats and return them to Turkey/Libya. Perhaps she also thought an influx of low paid (but some highly educated Syrians) mostly young could benefit Germany economically. And if it helped wipe out vestiges of WW2 and enable Germany to claim the high moral ground that was a bonus.

The timing of the jump in vote in Italy points to immigrants being the trigger, especially votes for (northern) League. 5 Star proposes (just about its only policy) a minimum salary of €780 so not surprising it got some votes in the south ! It is easy to be critical of the EU to garner cheap votes in opposition: if either get into power reality will change all such chatter.

Italy had a weak economy before it joined the Euro. The north of Italy is as strong as any area in the EU but the south remains weak.

Austerity was the wrong answer to the 2008 crisis but the UK got that wrong too. Germany was scarred by the hyperinflation of the 1920s that brought the Nazis to power in the 1930s: it is fiscally conservative to this day.

IMO Europe is stronger as an EU than divided for bullies like Dotard to pick off in bilateral negotiations.

 

[HairyHaggis]

Cameron didn't dream it up, he threw the voter a rather stingy bone, as one or another government was going to have to do sooner or later

i'm not sure i can entirely agree with this. aiui he agreed initially to the ref because of the howls of protest he was getting from the lunatic right within his own party (at that point in the ascendancy after 40+ years of howling). after the ge he was then further convinced of the need to go ahead with it because of the hemorrhaging of votes to an even more insane ukip fringe. i can't quite see how any other government would have felt itself subject to such pressures?

 

[SteveS1]

Quite right. Cameron's referendum was pure Tory party electoral self-interest. Nothing to do with throwing the electorate a 'stingy bone' as ET puts it.

 

[Joe Hutch]

i'm not sure i can entirely agree with this. aiui he agreed initially to the ref because of the howls of protest he was getting from the lunatic right within his own party (at that point in the ascendancy after 40+ years of howling). after the ge he was then further convinced of the need to go ahead with it because of the hemorrhaging of votes to an even more insane ukip fringe. i can't quite see how any other government would have felt itself subject to such pressures?

I dunno; to my surprise I found out recently that the suggestion for an in/out referendum was first mooted by Nick Clegg(!). Labour were also losing votes to UKIP, and there had been an internal spat between Blair and Brown over a possible referendum re Britain joining the Euro.

 

[TheDecameron]

Those plucky defenders of freedom who’ve stood up to EU tyranny should be recognised- Orban the ethnic nationalist, The hard right in Poland wanting political control of the judiciary, protectionist Trump, Putin and his FSB operatives, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and Islamic State.

 

[HairyHaggis]

I dunno; to my surprise I found out recently that the suggestion for an in/out referendum was first mooted by Nick Clegg(!). Labour were also losing votes to UKIP, and there had been an internal spat between Blair and Brown over a possible referendum re Britain joining the Euro.

this needs some context. clegg was speaking quite some time before the last ge and with reference to the fact that we were into our 2nd generation without anyone having had a direct vote on membership. this was nothing to do with the internal strife within the tory party and/or party self-interest.

and, there was no spat afaicr within labour, merely an extended discussion, at cabinet level and beyond, regarding the euro. and this was resolved...

see https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/may/16/uk.euro3

 

[wacko]

From 2008 to 2016 the UK Govt could have borrowed billions of 25 year money so cheaply and built council houses, schools, hospitals, improved railways etc and the UK would be booming now. Resentment towards EU workers helping to build that infrastructure would have been limited. There would have been no Brexit vote.
Yes it is a bit benefit of hindsight but also fairly obvious. Isn't that sort of vision and leadership that Government is supposed to provide ?

 

[HairyHaggis]

vision and leadership

what are these things of which you speak?

 

[Seanm]

From 2008 to 2016 the UK Govt could have borrowed billions of 25 year money so cheaply and built council houses, schools, hospitals, improved railways etc and the UK would be booming now. Resentment towards EU workers helping to build that infrastructure would have been limited. There would have been no Brexit vote.
Yes it is a bit benefit of hindsight but also fairly obvious. Isn't that sort of vision and leadership what Government is supposed to do ?

Yes indeed. But hang on, you were talking about "the Corbyn left hook" a page back. You realise that austerity is the norm across the EU? That Corbyn's Labour are the only social democratic party to refute austerity, AFAIK? (And also the only one not to have seen its vote collapse.)

 

[wacko]

Yes indeed. But hang on, you were talking about "the Corbyn left hook" a page back. You realise that austerity is the norm across the EU? That Corbyn's Labour are the only social democratic party to refute austerity, AFAIK? (And also the only one not to have seen its vote collapse.)

Refuting austerity is not the entire Corbyn package. When the UK is on its knees after Brexit the rest of the Corbyn package could knock it over.
Borrowing when it was cheap to do so and kicking UKIP in the goolies in 2016 by demonstrating how the EU can work to our advantage is what the Tory Government could and should have done.
Cameron would have stayed to 2020 and a Corbyn win then after an economic boom and secure in the EU would have been quite a different prospect.

 

[bernardhepworth]

If I remember rightly, Merkel took a decision to let large numbers of migrants was based on upon that Germany like lots of countries has an ageing population, she took an economic and political risk in bringing so many people in a short space of time. Who know whether it will pay off, politically, it doesn't appeared to have payed off.

 

[Seanm]

Refuting austerity is not the entire Corbyn package. When the UK is on its knees after Brexit the rest of the Corbyn package could knock it over.
Borrowing when it was cheap to do so and kicking UKIP in the goolies in 2016 by demonstrating how the EU can work to our advantage is what the Tory Government could and should have done.
Cameron would have stayed to 2020 and a Corbyn win then after an economic boom and secure in the EU would have been quite a different prospect.

That would all have been lovely, but...

 

[stevec67]

If I remember rightly, Merkel took a decision to let large numbers of migrants was based on upon that Germany like lots of countries has an ageing population, she took an economic and political risk in bringing so many people in a short space of time.

That's my understanding too. Germany has plenty of work, few people to do it, and a need to raise tax money for the pensioners. Most Germans I have met are sanguine about this, and counter any concerns about raised crime from desperate people from outside Germany with a shrug and "we have the police and prison service to deal with them".

 

[eternumviti]

If I remember rightly, Merkel took a decision to let large numbers of migrants was based on upon that Germany like lots of countries has an ageing population, she took an economic and political risk in bringing so many people in a short space of time. Who know whether it will pay off, politically, it doesn't appeared to have payed off.

The ageing population argument surely fails to take into consideration that the immigrants too will get old. What do you do then, bring even more immigrants in, and so on, ad-infinitum?

If that really was the motivation, it seems to lack something in the field of forward planning. Anyway, my point was that Merkel threw open the doors to the Schengen EU without actually bothering to ask any other Schengen members, and now everyone seems to be fairly fed up of the whole thing, fences and borders have re-established themselves throughout the EU, and the whole thing has led to a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment. How Merkel has managed to retain any credibility at all for so long completely fails me.

 

[stevec67]

The ageing population argument surely fails to take into consideration that the immigrants too will get old.

Not at all. If they have been here working and paying taxes for however many years then they have earned their right to a state pension, same as they would if they had been born there and made a similar contribution.

What do you do then, bring even more immigrants in, and so on, ad-infinitum?

X pensioners need Y tax payers to pay for pensions, unless you raise taxes. The rest is easy arithmetic.

How Merkel has managed to retain any credibility at all for so long completely fails me.

She's currently looking much more capable than our own Rt Hon Mrs May MP.

 

[TheDecameron]

Compared with May and her government? your question about Merkel’s credibility is laughable. Like your view of the human misery of refugees - an inconvenience and an opportunity to attack those doing something to help while your own government whistles and looks in the other direction. Sums the crude, nativist, me first Brexit attitude up perfectly.

 

[eternumviti]

Compared with May and her government? your question about Merkel’s credibility is laughable. Like your view of the human misery of refugees - an inconvenience and an opportunity to attack those doing something to help while your own government whistles and looks in the other direction. Sums the crude, nativist, me first Brexit attitude up perfectly.

Isn't that referred to now as 'whataboutism'? My opinion of Mrs May and her government is probably little different to yours.

However, a bit of whataboutism of my own - your second point stands up to absolutely no scrutiny when it comes from someone who strongly supports an organisation that has created untold human misery in southern Europe, a misery that is only accentuated by the immigration crisis that it itself did much to create then utterly failed to plan for properly, or indeed plan for at all.

I'm not entirely sure that your comments don't verge on blaming the European immigration crisis on people who voted for the UK to leave the EU.

The political mess in throughout Europe at the moment is pretty much entirely the making of the EU, whether you like it or not.

 

[HairyHaggis]

untold human misery in southern Europe

rohingya crisis
syria
central african republic
congo
yemen
aghanistan...

i see these as being at least some of the areas of 'untold human misery' in the world (none of which, as an aside, can reasonably be attributed to the eu). southern europe does have areas of economic hardship, greece (brought about mainly due to decades of political instability and living beyond its means), southern italy (endemic and embedded corruption by mafiosi plus remote from northern industrial activity). i take it your comment is really just hyperbole?