Brexit: give me a positive effect (2022 remastered edition)

[Kirk]

Through the Brexit looking glass:

"Conor Burns, the Northern Ireland minister assigned to make the UK’s case in Washington, shrugged off a threat earlier this month by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to block a US-UK free trade deal if the UK took unilateral action to override the protocol.

On a visit to Washington last week, Burns said there was a “disconnect” between such threats and the gravity of the issues at stake with the Northern Ireland protocol.

Burns said:

This is too important for us – sorting out the situation in Northern Ireland, doing the right thing for the UK and for the people in Northern Ireland – to be interwoven with any foreign policy or trade ambition.

Burns has visited administration officials and members of Congress with a thick wad of documentation that he says UK businesses have to fill out in order to transport goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. The time and cost of such bureaucracy has stopped producers of foods such as shortbread and cheese from selling into Northern Ireland."

 

[Kirk]

Is that really the best you can do?

Irony is alive and well.

 

[tuga]

Railways?

Railways are useful now but at the time they only served to move around cheap/forced labour and the natural resources that were stolen from those territories, and which made imperial nations rich.

 

[eternumviti]

Oh, God, the usual list of entirely non-equivalent institutions. ASEAN & Mercosur might more correctly be compared to the EEC, albeit with a security element in the case of the former, and an absence, written into its constitution, of the EU's political ambition. NATO is a defence alliance, and the WTO's primary role objective is to facilitate trade agreements. The EU's ambitions extend much further - to full political union with centralised government, tax-raising and spending, and foreign policy. You know this. I'm perfectly happy to accept that you find that a good thing, but please don't insult my intelligence by trying to pretend that it's something else..

I've often quoted Tony Benn, because on the EEC/EU I happen to agree with the very clear arguments that he made, and his foresight was spot on. To agree with someone with different politics to your own is not symbolic of losing an argument, it is a sign on an open mind. And I don't consider myself 'right of centre'. On a number of issues I'm probably rather left of centre.

Good to see somebody with right-of-centre views quoting Tony Benn as a reference: always the sign of a winning argument.

I had to look up the other bloke (Jan Zielonka), who seems to be a political "scientist" of some mental flexibility, at least judging by the titles of his works: he's gone from "Explaining Euro-paralysis. Why Europe is Unable to Act in International Politics" (Macmillan, 1998) to "Europe as Empire. The Nature of the Enlarged European Union", (Oxford University Press, 2006), all in less than 10 years. By his broad definition of imperial, the old FRG was imperial (DIN imperialism). I'm not sure which neighbouring countries have been coerced into adopting the EU's political structures, but don't think I'll buy the book to find out. As for the anonymous genius (Zielenka himself?) who wrote in the Wiki article that the EU "exercises its limited hegemony in the Mediterranean, eastern parts of Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia", I'd be curious to hear how an organization that can't even get its own member states to toe the line (see most recent examples with Orban) manages to find a way to exercise hegemony in Asia. It must be very limited.

My definition of empire may be "narrow", but it involves some form of coercion. Britain, Spain, Russia and France had empires (the Russians are still trying to hold on to theirs). India did not join the British Empire voluntarily, Algeria did not apply to join France in 1830, etc. The US has imperial tendencies, but doesn't really meet the classic definition these days. The EU is a group of nations that decide voluntarily to pool certain elements of their sovereignty, in areas where scale matters. Members have to apply and be accepted. It's not even a federation, even though it might become one. The EU has never invaded anyone, barely registers on the scale of military or even diplomatic clout. Completely different animal, in my view. If the EU is an empire, what do you call ASEAN, Mercosur? NATO, or the WTO? I know I'm not going to convince you, but I reserve the right to point out occasionally: the EU is not an empire, or the EUSSR, or the 4th Reich (and for the avoidance of doubt, I'm not saying you've claimed all these things all the time).

 

[eternumviti]

In what ways was the English Empire good to the conquered and occupied territories?

Who was making an argument for the British Empire?

 

[eternumviti]

Irony is alive and well.

That's even weaker, Kirk. You can do better.

 

[Joe Hutch]

Who was making an argument for the British Empire?

Charles Moore, contrasting ‘good empires’ (British, Roman) with ‘bad empires’ (USSR, EU), cited upthread.

But of course such simplistic arguments ignore the impact of empires on the subject races, and the good/bad empires, such as the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires, which to some extent prevented the worst examples of inter-ethnic violence which followed their collapse.

 

[PsB]

Oh, God, the usual list of entirely non-equivalent institutions. ASEAN & Mercosur might more correctly be compared to the EEC, albeit with a security element in the case of the former, and an absence, written into its constitution, of the EU's political ambition. NATO is a defence alliance, and the WTO's primary role objective is to facilitate trade agreements. The EU's ambitions extend much further - to full political union with centralised government, tax-raising and spending, and foreign policy. You know this. I'm perfectly happy to accept that you find that a good thing, but please don't insult my intelligence by trying to pretend that it's something else..

I've often quoted Tony Benn, because on the EEC/EU I happen to agree with the very clear arguments that he made, and his foresight was spot on. To agree with someone with different politics to your own is not symbolic of losing an argument, it is a sign on an open mind. And I don't consider myself 'right of centre'. On a number of issues I'm probably rather left of centre.

You have this knack of seizing on a peripheral part of an argument to avoid having to respond to the main body of it. So it seems fair game in this case to use one of your other deflection tactics: "where did I say that" NATO is a direct equivalent of the EU? I didn't, and I didn't have to invoke divinity either. I mentioned these other organizations purely to show that there are all sorts of different associations and pacts around the world, and having common political goals does not make them empires, which is the cross on which you wish to hang the EU. Oops, I just invoked divinity. Talking of non-equivalent institutions... the British Empire, the Spanish Empire and any other empire you care to mention are non-equivalent with the EU.

Okay, you're left of centre, and Tony Benn was sound on the subject of the EU. Noted. I'm a marxist, BTW, and Jacques Delors is Napoleon IV.

 

[Seeker_UK]

In what ways was the English Empire good to the conquered and occupied territories?

Railways?

Cricket.

 

[eternumviti]

You have this knack of seizing on a peripheral part of an argument to avoid having to respond to the main body of it. So it seems fair game in this case to use one of your other deflection tactics: "where did I say that" NATO is a direct equivalent of the EU? I didn't, and I didn't have to invoke divinity either. I mentioned these other organizations purely to show that there are all sorts of different associations and pacts around the world, and having common political goals does not make them empires, which is the cross on which you wish to hang the EU. Oops, I just invoked divinity. Talking of non-equivalent institutions... the British Empire, the Spanish Empire and any other empire you care to mention are non-equivalent with the EU.

Okay, you're left of centre, and Tony Benn was sound on the subject of the EU. Noted. I'm a marxist, BTW, and Jacques Delors is Napoleon IV.

Its funny, I find that you do exactly the same thing.

The central core of the argument I've already addressed, repeatedly, and in detail. The EU is an empire/a quasi-empire/has imperial pretensions. You might tell me that that is not a fact, and I will respond that its a truth.

 

[PsB]

Its funny, I find that you do exactly the same thing.

The central core of the argument I've already addressed, repeatedly, and in detail. The EU is an empire/a quasi-empire/has imperial pretensions. You might tell me that that is not a fact, and I will respond that its a truth.

The EU is not an empire. It lacks some of the core characteristics of empires.
(A bit late for panto, surely)

 

[stevec67]

Brexit's behind you!

 

[stevec67]

Its funny, I find that you do exactly the same thing.

The central core of the argument I've already addressed, repeatedly, and in detail. The EU is an empire/a quasi-empire/has imperial pretensions. You might tell me that that is not a fact, and I will respond that its a truth.

The EU isn't an empire because member countries are free to leave. Compare and contrast with, say, the Mau Mau uprising.

 

[tonerei]

The EU is not an empire. It lacks some of the core characteristics of empires.
(A bit late for panto, surely)

EV only has panto to fall back on. Surely it's more palatable than the life sapping word salads?

 

[Seeker_UK]

Brexit's behind you!

OH NO IT ISN'T!

 

[eternumviti]

The EU is not an empire. It lacks some of the core characteristics of empires.

I disagree. As I've already set out, it has expanded its power beyond the bounds of democratic consent by use of coercion, subterfuge, obfuscation and often downright lies. Consent is the key word. In fact I never gave my consent to the EU itself, and neither (assuming that you were a UK voter at the time) did you.

You have this knack of seizing on a peripheral part of an argument to avoid having to respond to the main body of it...

Reading back on your posts, I think you might be saying that I didn't respond to your piece on the author within the my wiki quote, which I think might be creating a peripheral argument and trying to make it the definition of the core one.

I suspect that Zielonka defines 'the EU's limited hegemony' as its wielding its economic wealth as a form of technocratic imperialism on countries outside its own borders. A member of this forum has set out on several occasions how the EU's technical standards have become normalised in Malaysia, to take one example. Ukraine is another example of a country in which the EU was busying itself prior to 2014, and which it has been very keen to bring into its technocratic zone of influence. I have already spoken of the EU's more traditional neo-colonialism in Africa and the Indian Ocean.

I find it interesting that you brush off, midst lavish applications of sarcasm, ("scientist", 'mental flexibility') Zielonka's studies. I don't see any contradiction between acknowledging the EU's imperial ambitions and its inability to act on the world stage. It is a quasi imperium constrained by the fact that it hasn't yet managed to coerce all of the levers of power into its grubby mitts. That doesn't of itself mean that it going to stop trying. Perhaps you should read the books, as should I. We might both learn something.

 

[eternumviti]

The EU isn't an empire because member countries are free to leave. Compare and contrast with, say, the Mau Mau uprising.

The fact that the EU doesn't set up concentration camps or torture and kill dissidents doesn't mean that its not an empire, and it's stretching a point (as are you) but Kenya did leave, as did all the Britain's other colonies.

Anyway, I prefer the phrase 'quasi-empire'. The EU has neo-imperial ambitions, served up with a generous dollop of pretensions.

 

[PsB]

I disagree. As I've already set out, it has expanded its power beyond the bounds of democratic consent by use of coercion, subterfuge, obfuscation and often downright lies. Consent is the key word. In fact I never gave my consent to the EU itself, and neither (assuming that you were a UK voter at the time) did you.

Did you give your personal consent to the enlargement of NATO to various countries in Eastern Europe in the last twenty years? Thought not. Your point affects to misunderstand the way modern democracies work: we elect MPs to do this job on our behalf. In the case of the treaty changes you refer to (Maastricht, Lisbon), they were all approved by the UK's democratically elected representatives. Your personal position on the subject is moot, and so is mine.
(...)

I suspect that Zielonka defines 'the EU's limited hegemony' as its wielding its economic wealth as a form of technocratic imperialism on countries outside its own borders. A member of this forum has set out on several occasions how the EU's technical standards have become normalised in Malaysia, to take one example. Ukraine is another example of a country in which the EU was busying itself prior to 2014, and which it has been very keen to bring into its technocratic zone of influence. I have already spoken of the EU's more traditional neo-colonialism in Africa and the Indian Ocean.

You are confusing influence and imperialism. If this is imperialism, the FRG was an empire: battalions of TÜV inspectors and Bundesbank storm troopers, I suppose. As for the neo-colonialism you deplore in Africa, it is probably more the remnants of Britain/Italy/France's various imperial attachments in the region than the result of concerted EU action.

I find it interesting that you brush off, midst lavish applications of sarcasm, ("scientist", 'mental flexibility') Zielonka's studies. I don't see any contradiction between acknowledging the EU's imperial ambitions and its inability to act on the world stage. It is a quasi imperium constrained by the fact that it hasn't yet managed to coerce all of the levers of power into its grubby mitts. That doesn't of itself mean that it going to stop trying. Perhaps you should read the books, as should I. We might both learn something.

Maybe, but I thought the spread of those titles ("Euro Paralysis" in 1998 and "Europe as Empire" in 2006), was plain funny. The EU must have done something dramatically decisive in the few years in between.

 

[wacko]

The EU is not an empire. It lacks some of the core characteristics of empires.
(A bit late for panto, surely)

And even if it is an empire I'll take it. Compared to 2,000 years of fighting each other.

 

[stevec67]

The fact that the EU doesn't set up concentration camps or torture and kill dissidents doesn't mean that its not an empire, and it's stretching a point (as are you) but Kenya did leave, as did all the Britain's other colonies.

Anyway, I prefer the phrase 'quasi-empire'. The EU has neo-imperial ambitions, served up with a generous dollop of pretensions.

Nonsense. The fact that they all left is neither here nor there. We all know that it took WW2 to end the Empire, and that it collapsed rather than being any sort of agreed freedom. The EU isn't an empire, quasi or otherwise, because everyone who's in it joined of their own free will and can leave of their own free will. Good old Article 50. "We're leaving". "Oh really? That's a shame. Well, do shut the door on your way out."