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

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PsB said:
Did you give your personal consent to the enlargement of NATO to various countries in Eastern Europe in the last twenty years? Thought not.
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I shall resist the temptation to invoke the almighty, but not that well-roasted old chestnut again. I think we last tripped around that venerable mulberry bush about a fortnight ago, when I pointed out that UK has been a signatory of many defence treaties, some of which have cost it very dear. NATO is a very interesting subject, particularly at the moment, but in regard of conversations about the EU, it is a deflection.

PsB said:
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.
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Ah, I misunderstand how modern democracies work now, do I?

Maastricht represented a fundamental advancement of the European project, massive transfer of sovereign power to the Brussels institutions, and a fundamental change to the constitutional arrangements of the UK. No viable UK party resisted that transfer of constitutional power in its election manifesto. It caused upheaval in Parliament, and nearly broke John Major's conservative government. It should without any doubt have been put to the demos in a referendum. Lisbon was Maastricht part 2 (the EU didn't dare try to do it in one hit), and that too should have been put to the electorate in a direct vote.

PsB said:
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.
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.
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I do take your point about influence vs imperialism, and I would contend that its a fine line, and arguably comprises measures of each. Room for debate.

I'm afraid I haven't grasped how you brought the FRG into the conversation. The neo-colonialism I deplore in Africa has nothing to do with the formers empires. I was actually referring, for example, to the Common Fisheries Policy rather than, say, France's antics in Mali.

On Zielonka's books, as I've already said, I don't see anything contradictory at all. The EU is restrained by the fact that its project of centralised power is incomplete, so its imperial ambitions tend to be frustrated by the fact that it hasn't yet entirely defenestrated the national veto, though its made some impressive headway.
 
My favourite was when some Tory Minister pushed their bottom lip out and claimed that leftist criticism of Rwandan detention camps was ‘racist’. Rwanda was a great destination for the unwitting asylum seeker, the people there were friendly, they have a terrific human rights record and that all regulations would be met. Any criticism of it as a destination could only be interpreted as - the “r” word.
It sounded so good I could feel myself wanting to pay a visit myself.
 
eternumviti said:
I shall resist the temptation to invoke the almighty, but not that well-roasted old chestnut again. I think we last tripped around that venerable mulberry bush about a fortnight ago, when I pointed out that UK has been a signatory of many defence treaties, some of which have cost it very dear. NATO is a very interesting subject, particularly at the moment, but in regard of conversations about the EU, it is a deflection.
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And with that, erm, deflection, EV skips away. (I'm starting to understand that funny baseline of yours a bit better.)
Truth is, you didn't get a referendum vote on either NATO's extension or Maastricht, despite the considerable importance of each of those very different subjects, because that is not the way the UK is set up.
eternumviti said:
Maastricht represented a fundamental advancement of the European project, massive transfer of sovereign power to the Brussels institutions, and a fundamental change to the constitutional arrangements of the UK. No viable UK party resisted that transfer of constitutional power in its election manifesto. It caused upheaval in Parliament, and nearly broke John Major's conservative government. It should without any doubt have been put to the demos in a referendum. Lisbon was Maastricht part 2 (the EU didn't dare try to do it in one hit), and that too should have been put to the electorate in a direct vote.
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But HMG didn't put Maastricht to the demos, and this was entirely in keeping with the way the UK traditionally takes these important decisions. Parliamentary democracy, and all that.
eternumviti said:
I'm afraid I haven't grasped how you brought the FRG into the conversation. (...)
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The FRG exerted a lot of influence over other countries through various means, including standard setting (DIN) backed by the heft of its generally excellent manufacturing businesses, its trade connections everywhere, the enormous and not always benign influence of the Bundesbank on interest rates in other European countries pre-euro, etc. Did that make the old FRG an empire (or a quasi-empire, to take your term)? Only an eccentric would agree. IMV the FRG was far from an empire: just a large economy throwing its weight around a bit, where it could. Yet you seem to be making a similar case for the EU.
eternumviti said:
On Zielonka's books, as I've already said, I don't see anything contradictory at all. The EU is restrained by the fact that its project of centralised power is incomplete, so its imperial ambitions tend to be frustrated by the fact that it hasn't yet entirely defenestrated the national veto, though its made some impressive headway.
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I beg to differ: the contrast between the two titles is stark to the point of being funny, IMV. But without reading the two books (life is getting too short), I'll stop there.
 
PsB said:
And with that, erm, deflection, EV skips away. (I'm starting to understand that funny baseline of yours a bit better.)
Truth is, you didn't get a referendum vote on either NATO's extension or Maastricht, despite the considerable importance of each of those very different subjects, because that is not the way the UK is set up....

.... But HMG didn't put Maastricht to the demos, and this was entirely in keeping with the way the UK traditionally takes these important decisions. Parliamentary democracy, and all that.
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You said it twice. But you're clearly wrong - the Wilson government renegotiated the UK's membership of the then EEC in 1975, and sought a confirmation of the electorate's wish to remain in the organisation. You might argue that, as with the conservatives prior to 2016, Wilson led a government and party that was deeply split on the issue of membership, and he sought to settle the issue. But it was patently the right thing to do given the constitutional connotations of membership. There have been two other referenda since - on the 2011 AV campaign, and on the UK's continued membership of the EU in 2016.

So it might not have been the way we did things in the UK, but it - albeit rarely - is now.

Had we been offered a referendum in 1993 in accession into the EU - as we should have been given the implications for popular enfranchisement, the substantial opposition within Parliament, and, by the erosion of the same Parliamentary democracy that you (apparently) hold so dear, our constitutional arrangements, as well as the precedent set in 1975 - we would have avoided the one, the result of which you so despise, in 2016.

PsB said:
The FRG exerted a lot of influence over other countries through various means, including standard setting (DIN) backed by the heft of its generally excellent manufacturing businesses, its trade connections everywhere, the enormous and not always benign influence of the Bundesbank on interest rates in other European countries pre-euro, etc. Did that make the old FRG an empire (or a quasi-empire, to take your term)? Only an eccentric would agree. IMV the FRG was far from an empire: just a large economy throwing its weight around a bit, where it could. Yet you seem to be making a similar case for the EU.
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Ah, the German hegemon. Well, it has to be said that EU membership did nothing to dilute that, and the Euro thoroughly consolidated it. It's looking a bit messy at the moment, though.

PsB said:
I beg to differ: the contrast between the two titles is stark to the point of being funny, IMV. But without reading the two books (life is getting too short), I'll stop there.
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I've said before, and for want of a better way of putting it, you seem to have a very 'technocratic', rather fixed, way of seeing things. The EU isn't something that exists on a metaphorical flat surface. It has many complexities and contradictions, many of them informed by the fact that it is a project incomplete and unfinished, and one for which consent is always a tenuous thing. The two rather contradictory titles of these books I think reflect that rather well. I'm almost tempted to seek them out. And I'm certainly not minded to dismiss them as 'funny'.
 
Full time Johnson apologist and part time N.Ireland Secretary is bemoaning the bureaucratic hurdles imposed on cheese n shortbread, essential to the identity of Ulster Unionists.
Wasn’t Brexit about getting rid of red tape?
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-good-friday-agreement?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
“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 like shortbread and cheese from selling into Northern Ireland”.

“The shortbread wars”.
 
For an Ulster Unionist to feel his cultural identity is preserved, he requires imported sausage for his Ulster fry- while exporting his own sausage. Denied that sacred right, devolved government must be shut.
 
TheDecameron said:
For an Ulster Unionist to feel his cultural identity is preserved, he requires imported sausage for his Ulster fry- while exporting his own sausage. Denied that sacred right, devolved government must be shut.
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The unionists are full to the (bowler) brim with porkies.
 
Came across my first Brexit hiccup en route back to Ireland for my mother's funeral. Because I was relying on a ferry voucher given because of two previous Covid-stymied attempts to get there, I couldn't change anything, including the fact that it had been made using a British passport. When I rolled up to the customs at Cherbourg prior to boarding, the douanier looked through it puzzledly and the following conversation ensued:
- French residency permit, please
- I don't live in France, I live in Switzerland
- When did you enter France?
- Yesterday [I always stop overnight somewhere between Amiens and St. Quentin]
- Where's the entry stamp?
- Nobody ever stamps anything at the Swiss border!
He looked puzzled again, and then, for the first time, stamped my passport. I'll use the Irish one in future!
 
TheDecameron said:
For an Ulster Unionist to feel his cultural identity is preserved, he requires imported sausage for his Ulster fry- while exporting his own sausage. Denied that sacred right, devolved government must be shut.
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I just wonder how long it will be before the dog gets fed up with the tail attempting to wag it and tells the tail to take a long walk off a short pier. It is a well-established fact that most English don't care a fig about Norn Iron and would happily see it vanish away, so the DUPes seem to be pushing their luck.
 
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