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Oh Britain, what have you done (part ∞+6)?

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ff1d1l

pfm Member
Elgar's music was seen as too Wagnerian at the time, he is out. He also hated the Land of Hope and Glory words.
Holst was German, also out.
Leaving the Dim Bastards March (renamed especially in honour of its new re purposing). How very appropriate.
 
But this is an argument based on principles, EV. You agree, I think, that a degree of political union is necessary, and probably desirable. So we mainly diverge on where necessity and desirability ends.

No, I really don't. Intergovernmental accord doesn't require political union of any sort. I agree on the matter of ceding such sovereignty as is only necessary for those accords to be regulated, as in by intergovernmental bodies of one sort or another, but this need not come close to the EU project's ambitions.

Are you able to give an example of where the project has gone too far, and where the UK has been unable to negotiate an opt-out? Just one example will serve to illustrate your point, please (and preferably in just a couple of short paragraphs, I'm not looking for a dissertation, just an illustrative example).

I'm not sure that I understand the question, beyond it being the same dodgy conceit as the oft posited one ' name an EU law that affects you personally' (there are 22,000 of them, so quite a lot I suspect). The UK opt-outs are clearly relevant to the debate, but I imagine increasingly irrelevant to the future of the EU, and to our influence within it were we to stay. But yes, Lord Hill's better off just inside the fence than just outside is an argument that I respect, even if I don't necessarily agree with it.

Sorry about the parables. I've never been any good at the precis.
 
Elgar's music was seen as too Wagnerian at the time, he is out. He also hated the Land of Hope and Glory words.
Holst was German, also out.

Holst was German?! Nonsense, he was as English as me, and he lived just up the road. By coincidence I listened to a fabulous performance of Elgar's Enigma Variations in his parish church three weeks ago. Nimrod was a triumph.

https://www.thaxtedfestival.org.uk/junior-guildhall-symphony-orchestra.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Holst#/media/File:The_Manse_-_geograph.org.uk_-_845330.jpg

P.S. Land of Hope & Glory makes me flinch.
 
EV I was conscious of the ‘give me one example’ thing when I wrote the post, but hoped that you’d be able to see past it to my genuine enquiry. Clearly you think the EU goes too far, but you seem to accept that some degree of common cause is necessary, so I’m trying to see where you draw the line, and I’m none the wiser. If I could understand where and why your line is where it is, I might be able to get on board with your argument, but if it’s simply an inchoate dislike, then I am lost to you, sorry.
 
ET breeze-block soundtracks:
Dam Busters March
Nimrod from Enigma Variations
I Vow to Thee my Country
Land of Hope & Glory
My Wife Won't Let Me (whoops, wrong sentiment, right period)
I see you've missed out God Save The Queen. Probably for the best as it's the Prussian national anthem but with different words. Shouldn't we take back control and get a new one?

 
EV I was conscious of the ‘give me one example’ thing when I wrote the post, but hoped that you’d be able to see past it to my genuine enquiry. Clearly you think the EU goes too far, but you seem to accept that some degree of common cause is necessary, so I’m trying to see where you draw the line, and I’m none the wiser. If I could understand where and why your line is where it is, I might be able to get on board with your argument, but if it’s simply an inchoate dislike, then I am lost to you, sorry.

I don't know, and my brain won't engage any more, too many other things to do. Suffice it to say, a long, long way south of where the EU is ideologically placed.
 
I don't know, and my brain won't engage any more, too many other things to do. Suffice it to say, a long, long way south of where the EU is ideologically placed.

I’ve noticed that you sell Austrian (and Alsatian) wines, but no German ones. Is this an ideological choice, or is there no call for them amongst your clientele?
 
I refer you back to the second sentence of the second paragraph in the post (#1803) to which you are responding.

This is all a perfect example of the kind of cognitive dissonance that I keep calling out. Fine, woolly, utopian crypto-socialist theory which entirely fails to take into account the nature of humanity - our natural striving for individuality, our essential tribalism and competitiveness, our attachment to customs and cultural distinctions and histories that have been a thousand years in the making, our pride and sense of self and of belonging - and of the actual, harsh reality. The EU project, for all that has done to lift the formerly oppressed eastern and southern European countries out of the darkness of post-communism and dictatorship, is now, precisely by the constant and progressive imposition of economic and political union, and of its top-down attempts at cultural imperialism, a divisive, even destructive force. And you can't look me in the eye (metaphorically, obviously) and tell me that Germany hasn't played the Euro project to its own massive advantage, and to the very ugly disadvantage of the clubmed countries and even France, that the eastern countries don't compete for the car factories, that London doesn't furiously compete to hold onto its massive dominance in the financial services sector, or that on a more prosaic level French ski schools will employ anyone but French ski instructors, and so on. We are a competitive race. Suppress competition, level the playing field too insistently, and you will quickly get something that looks like communist collectivism.

I agree, and have often said, that for the EU, or more specifically the Eurozone project, to ever work properly, there has to be a deep degree of fiscal and political union. This isn't going to happen. The current cheerleader for this, Emmanuel Macron, has pretty much expended his first year's goodwill, and he has hit the buffers. Germany will not agree to the transfer union, and it will not trade in any more of its sovereignty (of which it retains, in its constitution, more than we do within the EU). The eastern countries are in open rebellion against Brussels' attempts at cultural imposition, Greece is looking at the next 60 years in cripplingly expensive hock to Germany, and Italy is teetering forever on the brink of a banking meltdown, and has installed an anti Euro/EU government. Ireland won't look pretty when the UK, its biggest market, leaves the EU without a deal, and Brussels whips away the tax advantages that it offers to corporations, and so on.

Trade involves people and businesses dealing with each other in the complex world of competitive and comparative advantage and disadvantage. It is incumbent upon government and regulatory authorities to regulate and control the markets to a degree that doesn't get too much in the way of them (capitalism, I think we can all agree, requires at least a degree of fettering if it to work to societal advantage) and governments can instigate joint regulatory bodies, by treaty and common agreement, to control technical and social standards across continents, or even globally. All of the really important regulatory and standards bodies are supra-national organisations that are devoted to precisely these ends - ISO, WTO and the various standards authorities which fall within the UN.

Nobody would dispute that treaty involves some degree of sovereign outsourcing to supranational organisations such as these, or to intergovernmental bodies, but the amount of political sovereignty that countries cede is modest compared with the ambitions of the EU. Australia and New Zealand don't make each other's laws, the EU doesn't make Chile's laws, even the ASEAN nations work on the basis of cooperation and association rather than overt political centralisation.

The EU is a utopian political project devised to address the problems of the early and mid-20th century, and it is one that no longer carries the consent of the people of the European nations. It is not adapted, and will not adapt, to the needs of the mid-21st century, and in its present form it is a busted flush. It needs to be radically transformed, or broken and replaced. Whether Brexit will serve towards those ends is anyone's guess. If the vision and the statesmanship were there, it could be a massive opportunity. Sadly, it isn't.

You'll be eating your words come next April. Though I suppose at least you won't go hungry...
 
Perhaps you need to improve your business skills.
The Wine Society does a roaring trade selling these.

This is all a perfect example of the kind of cognitive dissonance that I keep calling out.

The EU is a utopian political project ...


Man rejects utopia but buys Brexit lies.



I didn't get where I am today without knowing a Rochdale Herald headline when I see one.
 
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