Nic Robinson
Moderator
United States of Europe? Unthinkable. I mean, they tried it across the pond once and it was a total disaster.
Perhaps we could be the European Cuba?
Perhaps we could be the European Cuba?
United States of Europe??
- Thread starter FrancisClement
- Start date
eternumviti
Insufficient privileges to reply.
I don't think I tried to 'blame' the lib left and continuity remain at all, I just suggested that the channel crossings are seen as acceptable, even virtuous, because they serve as a moral stick with which to beat the hated, Brexiteering, tory government. Illegal (or whatever you want to call it) immigration has been an issue for many, many years, and across successive governments.
The EU countries, and the EU itself, have been entirely flaky on this issue, and no less immoral, swinging from open gates to razor wire, bribing non-EU governments/dictators with millions of Euros, and setting up detention camps in North Africa.
It's off topic and deserves a thread of its own, but how would you solve it?
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
“Continuity Remain” sounds glib, straight from a Charles Moore manicured tantrum in print. The rest can be found in various blogs from Guido Fwuckes, Spectator hangers-on or perfumed pigs like Ben Habib and of course ‘Lord’ Hannan, a politician no one elected and we can’t get rid of.
PsB
Citizen of Nowhere™
Maybe you can prime the pump with your thoughts?
PsB
Citizen of Nowhere™
The ECB is actually one of the few bits of federal infrastructure in the EU. Yannis Stournaras is the governor of the Bank of Greece and sits on the ECB's Governing Council, just like Weidmann of the German Bundesbank.
PsB
Citizen of Nowhere™
Equally likely to end up as the EU's Porto Rico or Virgin Islands.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
I think with our ‘just not in time’ supply chains, we’ll struggle to even manage Puerto Rico status. The days when Liam Fox styled Brexit Britain ‘leader in global free trade’ and the British government had the brass neck to nominate him for the role of WTO Director General, seem very far away now.
Tony L
Administrator
Conceptually it is the logical way forward and it is such a shame the UK is now so isolated and in such obvious decline marooned outside. Everything that can be done to dilute and remove nationalism and the arbitrary borders it erects is a good thing IMO. I’d like to see a world that wasn’t blighted by nationalism, religion, monarchy, tyranny etc, though that’s Star Trek-era stuff. We’ve got a whole load of shit to grow out of first.
Nick_G
pfm Member
Yebbut there are many Brexiters who don't care about that. Boris got Brexit dun and that's all that matters. That's why they voted for him.
SteveS1
I heard that, pardon?
My first step over a range of issues would be to get on much better terms with France. Nothing is going to get much better without that and the geography dictates that it is even more in our interest.
We can't stop Macron playing to his nutters but we do not have to follow suit. Johnson's letter need not have said much more than "we are in urgent discussions with France and other countries to try and help improve this tragic situation."
The bulk of the problem appears to have been caused by successfully securing previous safer but just as unofficial methods. My first step would be to invest and seek to situate a proper processing centre in France, call it part of the embassy and remove the immediate obstacle to people falling into the arms of criminals as a first resort.
Once you have a position on an individuals case, as well as preventing large amounts of the suffering, you also know who the illegal applicants are if they go on to make it to the UK, because you have already identified them. Re-patriation is as much of this process as accepting our share of those with compelling cases.
But the UK strategy is to treat everyone as a criminal and keep telling the UK people that they are successfully keeping them out. This is of course bollocks, the route in for criminals is to donate to the Tory party or buy some property in London.
eternumviti
Insufficient privileges to reply.
Leaving aside your last para, which is emotional, I agree with all of that. Far better relationships with France, leading to their agreement to the UK setting up a processing centre on French soil. We might be hoping for the impossible.
One thing that is certain is that, under current legislation, giving all asylum seekers a free ferry ticket, as some here would advocate, would create very, very many more problems than it would even begin to solve.
SteveS1
I heard that, pardon?
If we agree to properly resource and process in France where there is plenty of scope land wise, France has an incentive with the EU to properly resource some of the accompanying infrastructure. It also removes the accusation that we are not playing a full part. The criminals are then left with trying to sell services to people who know for sure they are on UK records as unsuccessful applicants, a whole different proposition.
BTW it's an emotional issue watching unnecessary suffering that some of your population are actually encouraging.
tones
Tones deaf
Hmm, I think that this should be allowed to mature for another half-millennium at least before anyone does anything. I'm basing this on the example of Switzerland, which, having started with a confederation of the original three cantons in 1291, finally became a federal state with a sort-of central government in 1874. "Sort-of", because the cantons still retain considerable powers - Bern does foreign policy and precious little else of any consequence. Between the two dates, there were all sorts of connuptions, including a sort-of civil war (the 1840's' Sonderbundkrieg, when the Catholic cantons tried to secede and form their own union).
European nations all have long histories and proud individualities. Getting them all to agree to a common federal basis would make herding cats child's play. I foresee much wishful thinking and little actual movement.
eternumviti
Insufficient privileges to reply.
Reading that, and starting with the word 'conceptually', I thought 'he sounds just like Dr Spock', and blow me, got to the end, and there it was.
So, we have utopianism based on a low-fi 1970s American television series, as 'conceptualised' by a self-confessed computer geek hermit with little idea of history ©TL.
Perhaps we shouldn't rush into it
Tony L
Administrator
Perhaps we shouldn't rush into it
Nationalism, and government by right-wing elites, criminals and oligarchs is working so well isn’t it?
PS How’s the wine trade doing after you shat on your main supply chain? You could always start bottling antifreeze in Essex or wherever! Brexit’s gonna Brexit…
eternumviti
Insufficient privileges to reply.
As indeed with left wing ones.
PS Wine trade is buoyant at the moment, albeit with seriously shit-coated supply chains. One of the major problems is the weight of demand set against severe undercapacity in the bonded warehouse system. This, I regret to report, is almost entirely a consequence of covid - the drinks trade boomed during and after the first lock down, but the bonds had to instigate social distancing measures which, combined with loss of staff at both warehouse floor and office processing to either illness or home-working, caused an enormous and increasing backlog of pallets to both physically 'file' in the right bit of warehouse, and to process through the bond and HMRC systems.
After an initial blip, the channel ports are on the whole working OK, so the pallets continue to pile up. There have been huge difficulties with wine shipments from the US, with consignments sitting on the dockside for weeks or months. Oddly enough, this has nothing to do with Brexit, just a lack of ships and containers.
Thought of the antifreeze solution, but apparently it is subject to... supply chains.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
France is a target of opportunity for the failing Johnson government. The EU is too big to bite, going after individual member states is easier and stoking historic anti-French sentiment in England appears to come to hand easily. Of course he needs to avoid an all out trade war or ratcheting up customs enforcement because British exporters are already severely injured. The Tories will have learned from the days when Dominic Raab, then Brexit Minister announcing to the public that he “ hadn’t quite understood the importance of the Dover-Calais crossing” to the British economy. I think they do now.
When France swats them away, they’ll have to find another target. Back to Ireland again as a way of getting at Brussels?
When France swats them away, they’ll have to find another target. Back to Ireland again as a way of getting at Brussels?
PsB
Citizen of Nowhere™
A processing centre for immigration matters on French soil: doesn't Britain have a couple of those in France? They're called consulates and they process visas and such. There's one in Paris and one in Marseille. Maybe the FO should add one in Calais. I doubt they will, somehow.
The issue, of course, is that very few migrants are likely to walk into one of those. Most of them seem to get trucked in to France and delivered straight to the Channel coast.
eternumviti
Insufficient privileges to reply.
Apart from the fact that I doubt the consulate would have the capacity to process an additional 25,000 applications a year, why do you think this is?
I would add that it doesn't address the question of what would happen to the applicants whilst their applications are being processed. I've been in the Paris consulate, and, though its not tiny, it definitely doesn't have 25,000 bedrooms.
I would add that it doesn't address the question of what would happen to the applicants whilst their applications are being processed. I've been in the Paris consulate, and, though its not tiny, it definitely doesn't have 25,000 bedrooms.