BREXIT - Is This Really Still Rumbling On? 😴
Comments
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If US style capitalism is the objective than why get prissy over the state aid rules?morstar said:
I’m using the term loosely to encompass lots.rick_chasey said:
Lol belief in free trade are you kidding me.morstar said:
I think the Brexiteer boat imagery is all just that, imagery.rick_chasey said:
I'm not saying you think it's more important than FS, to be clear.morstar said:
See above. I can’t believe you still think of in terms of absolute size.rick_chasey said:
It’s almost worthless - why hang on to it?TheBigBean said:
I think the UK keeps telling the EU that.rick_chasey said:
Christ just give it all up for a proper concession who cares.TheBigBean said:The fish still getting in the way.
Mortstar was here talking up fishing as leverage but it’s not leverage if you treat it like the Crown Jewels.
FFS, the only reason the Eu haven’t flexed is because the French think they’re going to carry on fishing anyway.
And don’t try and misrepresent me as claiming fishing is more important than FS. I am not and never have despite attempts to interpret it that way.
What I have consistently tried to explain is why it is so important to the negotiation.
Clearly I’ve failed on here but those around the negotiating table understand it so it’s not my problem.
But I think the behaviour of the UK and how it is playing out in the press is not indicative of it being leverage, which is what I am disagreeing with you about.
I remember the "boat wars" during the referendum. You think too highly of this particular government if you think they don't attach the same the sentimental value of fishing over some larger industries I think you've misunderstood what the brexiters are all about.
The way I see Brexit is a couple of fundamental principles that have been held dear by a significant minority. Free trade and sovereignty.
To get the mass buy in, any available lever was used to extol the perceived benefits to the masses of a world outside the Eu.
One of those was patriotism and projection of power. Fleets of small boats are apparently a good emotional lever to do that. Lots of good visuals and can be related to wars and conflicts which ticks more nostalgia boxes.
I don’t in any way believe fishing rights are an end game. I suspect Farage did benefit financially from flying that flag though.
Trade outside of Eu regulations is probably better.
Bonfire of standards the objective.
To paraphrase, US style capitalism was/is the Tory Beexiteer objective.0 -
one of the inherent contradictions that not enough people pull them up onrick_chasey said:
If US style capitalism is the objective than why get prissy over the state aid rules?morstar said:
I’m using the term loosely to encompass lots.rick_chasey said:
Lol belief in free trade are you kidding me.morstar said:
I think the Brexiteer boat imagery is all just that, imagery.rick_chasey said:
I'm not saying you think it's more important than FS, to be clear.morstar said:
See above. I can’t believe you still think of in terms of absolute size.rick_chasey said:
It’s almost worthless - why hang on to it?TheBigBean said:
I think the UK keeps telling the EU that.rick_chasey said:
Christ just give it all up for a proper concession who cares.TheBigBean said:The fish still getting in the way.
Mortstar was here talking up fishing as leverage but it’s not leverage if you treat it like the Crown Jewels.
FFS, the only reason the Eu haven’t flexed is because the French think they’re going to carry on fishing anyway.
And don’t try and misrepresent me as claiming fishing is more important than FS. I am not and never have despite attempts to interpret it that way.
What I have consistently tried to explain is why it is so important to the negotiation.
Clearly I’ve failed on here but those around the negotiating table understand it so it’s not my problem.
But I think the behaviour of the UK and how it is playing out in the press is not indicative of it being leverage, which is what I am disagreeing with you about.
I remember the "boat wars" during the referendum. You think too highly of this particular government if you think they don't attach the same the sentimental value of fishing over some larger industries I think you've misunderstood what the brexiters are all about.
The way I see Brexit is a couple of fundamental principles that have been held dear by a significant minority. Free trade and sovereignty.
To get the mass buy in, any available lever was used to extol the perceived benefits to the masses of a world outside the Eu.
One of those was patriotism and projection of power. Fleets of small boats are apparently a good emotional lever to do that. Lots of good visuals and can be related to wars and conflicts which ticks more nostalgia boxes.
I don’t in any way believe fishing rights are an end game. I suspect Farage did benefit financially from flying that flag though.
Trade outside of Eu regulations is probably better.
Bonfire of standards the objective.
To paraphrase, US style capitalism was/is the Tory Beexiteer objective.0 -
I suspect now the main constraint is Johnson's inability to make decisions. Having built up all the rhetoric with the flag-frotters he'll be aware that whichever way he moves is either going to enrage them or permanently associate him with his "f*** business" comment. And now he hasn't got Cummings to hold a gun to his head/make the decision for him.surrey_commuter said:
We are well past fishing being imagery, this is a bunch of zealots making bad decisions through their dislike of foreigners.morstar said:
I think the Brexiteer boat imagery is all just that, imagery.rick_chasey said:
I'm not saying you think it's more important than FS, to be clear.morstar said:
See above. I can’t believe you still think of in terms of absolute size.rick_chasey said:
It’s almost worthless - why hang on to it?TheBigBean said:
I think the UK keeps telling the EU that.rick_chasey said:
Christ just give it all up for a proper concession who cares.TheBigBean said:The fish still getting in the way.
Mortstar was here talking up fishing as leverage but it’s not leverage if you treat it like the Crown Jewels.
FFS, the only reason the Eu haven’t flexed is because the French think they’re going to carry on fishing anyway.
And don’t try and misrepresent me as claiming fishing is more important than FS. I am not and never have despite attempts to interpret it that way.
What I have consistently tried to explain is why it is so important to the negotiation.
Clearly I’ve failed on here but those around the negotiating table understand it so it’s not my problem.
But I think the behaviour of the UK and how it is playing out in the press is not indicative of it being leverage, which is what I am disagreeing with you about.
I remember the "boat wars" during the referendum. You think too highly of this particular government if you think they don't attach the same the sentimental value of fishing over some larger industries I think you've misunderstood what the brexiters are all about.
The way I see Brexit is a couple of fundamental principles that have been held dear by a significant minority. Free trade and sovereignty.
To get the mass buy in, any available lever was used to extol the perceived benefits to the masses of a world outside the Eu.
One of those was patriotism and projection of power. Fleets of small boats are apparently a good emotional lever to do that. Lots of good visuals and can be related to wars and conflicts which ticks more nostalgia boxes.
I don’t in any way believe fishing rights are an end game. I suspect Farage did benefit financially from flying that flag though.
People may not like FS but it would be very easy to explain to them that it pays the bills and most of the jobs aren’t in London. Nobody has tried because they want to be populist and nothing matters until the MMT falls ill.1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I read a description where they said something like he procrastinates on decisions until it is so late that one option emerges - the problem is that is usually much worse than some of the options that were available pre procrastination.rjsterry said:
I suspect now the main constraint is Johnson's inability to make decisions. Having built up all the rhetoric with the flag-frotters he'll be aware that whichever way he moves is either going to enrage them or permanently associate him with his "f*** business" comment. And now he hasn't got Cummings to hold a gun to his head/make the decision for him.surrey_commuter said:
We are well past fishing being imagery, this is a bunch of zealots making bad decisions through their dislike of foreigners.morstar said:
I think the Brexiteer boat imagery is all just that, imagery.rick_chasey said:
I'm not saying you think it's more important than FS, to be clear.morstar said:
See above. I can’t believe you still think of in terms of absolute size.rick_chasey said:
It’s almost worthless - why hang on to it?TheBigBean said:
I think the UK keeps telling the EU that.rick_chasey said:
Christ just give it all up for a proper concession who cares.TheBigBean said:The fish still getting in the way.
Mortstar was here talking up fishing as leverage but it’s not leverage if you treat it like the Crown Jewels.
FFS, the only reason the Eu haven’t flexed is because the French think they’re going to carry on fishing anyway.
And don’t try and misrepresent me as claiming fishing is more important than FS. I am not and never have despite attempts to interpret it that way.
What I have consistently tried to explain is why it is so important to the negotiation.
Clearly I’ve failed on here but those around the negotiating table understand it so it’s not my problem.
But I think the behaviour of the UK and how it is playing out in the press is not indicative of it being leverage, which is what I am disagreeing with you about.
I remember the "boat wars" during the referendum. You think too highly of this particular government if you think they don't attach the same the sentimental value of fishing over some larger industries I think you've misunderstood what the brexiters are all about.
The way I see Brexit is a couple of fundamental principles that have been held dear by a significant minority. Free trade and sovereignty.
To get the mass buy in, any available lever was used to extol the perceived benefits to the masses of a world outside the Eu.
One of those was patriotism and projection of power. Fleets of small boats are apparently a good emotional lever to do that. Lots of good visuals and can be related to wars and conflicts which ticks more nostalgia boxes.
I don’t in any way believe fishing rights are an end game. I suspect Farage did benefit financially from flying that flag though.
People may not like FS but it would be very easy to explain to them that it pays the bills and most of the jobs aren’t in London. Nobody has tried because they want to be populist and nothing matters until the MMT falls ill.0 -
Dianne Dodds,DUP, former MEP, Brexiteer, now Economy Minister explains how her department will have a shortfall in funding
EU funding of 100 million replaced by 11 million from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55339227“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!1 -
That's what we voted for, right?tailwindhome said:Dianne Dodds,DUP, former MEP, Brexiteer, now Economy Minister explains how her department will have a shortfall in funding
EU funding of 100 million replaced by 11 million from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-553392270 -
Yes it could well be that this is the last stand as the UK has been had over a barrel over everything else.TheBigBean said:
It's not a deal on offer. The EU has been clear about that.rick_chasey said:
Eugh if Brits knew what was good for them they’d trade fish for FS.TheBigBean said:
I think the UK keeps telling the EU that.rick_chasey said:
Christ just give it all up for a proper concession who cares.TheBigBean said:The fish still getting in the way.
It's the same with the state aid argument. €750bn is not state aid when done by the EU.
Sometimes a request is just unreasonable.0 -
I don't think that is true.rick_chasey said:
Yes it could well be that this is the last stand as the UK has been had over a barrel over everything else.TheBigBean said:
It's not a deal on offer. The EU has been clear about that.rick_chasey said:
Eugh if Brits knew what was good for them they’d trade fish for FS.TheBigBean said:
I think the UK keeps telling the EU that.rick_chasey said:
Christ just give it all up for a proper concession who cares.TheBigBean said:The fish still getting in the way.
It's the same with the state aid argument. €750bn is not state aid when done by the EU.
Sometimes a request is just unreasonable.0 -
What he said.surrey_commuter said:
one of the inherent contradictions that not enough people pull them up onrick_chasey said:
If US style capitalism is the objective than why get prissy over the state aid rules?morstar said:
I’m using the term loosely to encompass lots.rick_chasey said:
Lol belief in free trade are you kidding me.morstar said:
I think the Brexiteer boat imagery is all just that, imagery.rick_chasey said:
I'm not saying you think it's more important than FS, to be clear.morstar said:
See above. I can’t believe you still think of in terms of absolute size.rick_chasey said:
It’s almost worthless - why hang on to it?TheBigBean said:
I think the UK keeps telling the EU that.rick_chasey said:
Christ just give it all up for a proper concession who cares.TheBigBean said:The fish still getting in the way.
Mortstar was here talking up fishing as leverage but it’s not leverage if you treat it like the Crown Jewels.
FFS, the only reason the Eu haven’t flexed is because the French think they’re going to carry on fishing anyway.
And don’t try and misrepresent me as claiming fishing is more important than FS. I am not and never have despite attempts to interpret it that way.
What I have consistently tried to explain is why it is so important to the negotiation.
Clearly I’ve failed on here but those around the negotiating table understand it so it’s not my problem.
But I think the behaviour of the UK and how it is playing out in the press is not indicative of it being leverage, which is what I am disagreeing with you about.
I remember the "boat wars" during the referendum. You think too highly of this particular government if you think they don't attach the same the sentimental value of fishing over some larger industries I think you've misunderstood what the brexiters are all about.
The way I see Brexit is a couple of fundamental principles that have been held dear by a significant minority. Free trade and sovereignty.
To get the mass buy in, any available lever was used to extol the perceived benefits to the masses of a world outside the Eu.
One of those was patriotism and projection of power. Fleets of small boats are apparently a good emotional lever to do that. Lots of good visuals and can be related to wars and conflicts which ticks more nostalgia boxes.
I don’t in any way believe fishing rights are an end game. I suspect Farage did benefit financially from flying that flag though.
Trade outside of Eu regulations is probably better.
Bonfire of standards the objective.
To paraphrase, US style capitalism was/is the Tory Beexiteer objective.
Although it gets to a bigger discussion about how government money is spent.
Seems capitalists the world over are quite comfortable with state spending that benefits themselves, just as much as socialists are happy to tax others.0 -
I don't think NI did so they have my sympathyrick_chasey said:
That's what we voted for, right?tailwindhome said:Dianne Dodds,DUP, former MEP, Brexiteer, now Economy Minister explains how her department will have a shortfall in funding
EU funding of 100 million replaced by 11 million from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-553392270 -
I suppose that depends upon whether you believed in cake and eat it. The pro-Brexit lot on here certainly believed that they needed us more than them and that the German carmakers would force a deal. From that standpoint we really did put ourselves over the barrelTheBigBean said:
I don't think that is true.rick_chasey said:
Yes it could well be that this is the last stand as the UK has been had over a barrel over everything else.TheBigBean said:
It's not a deal on offer. The EU has been clear about that.rick_chasey said:
Eugh if Brits knew what was good for them they’d trade fish for FS.TheBigBean said:
I think the UK keeps telling the EU that.rick_chasey said:
Christ just give it all up for a proper concession who cares.TheBigBean said:The fish still getting in the way.
It's the same with the state aid argument. €750bn is not state aid when done by the EU.
Sometimes a request is just unreasonable.0 -
It is certainly true that the UK has not been able to bully the EU. I think it is also true that the EU thinks it should be able to bully the UK. Whether that happens is still up for discussion, but I think that no deal will play better for Boris in the polls than capitulation to an unreasonable demand.surrey_commuter said:
I suppose that depends upon whether you believed in cake and eat it. The pro-Brexit lot on here certainly believed that they needed us more than them and that the German carmakers would force a deal. From that standpoint we really did put ourselves over the barrelTheBigBean said:
I don't think that is true.rick_chasey said:
Yes it could well be that this is the last stand as the UK has been had over a barrel over everything else.TheBigBean said:
It's not a deal on offer. The EU has been clear about that.rick_chasey said:
Eugh if Brits knew what was good for them they’d trade fish for FS.TheBigBean said:
I think the UK keeps telling the EU that.rick_chasey said:
Christ just give it all up for a proper concession who cares.TheBigBean said:The fish still getting in the way.
It's the same with the state aid argument. €750bn is not state aid when done by the EU.
Sometimes a request is just unreasonable.
2 -
Neither do I.TheBigBean said:
I don't think that is true.rick_chasey said:
Yes it could well be that this is the last stand as the UK has been had over a barrel over everything else.TheBigBean said:
It's not a deal on offer. The EU has been clear about that.rick_chasey said:
Eugh if Brits knew what was good for them they’d trade fish for FS.TheBigBean said:
I think the UK keeps telling the EU that.rick_chasey said:
Christ just give it all up for a proper concession who cares.TheBigBean said:The fish still getting in the way.
It's the same with the state aid argument. €750bn is not state aid when done by the EU.
Sometimes a request is just unreasonable."I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Another one of those trade deals signed, this time with Vietnam.
https://pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/uk-and-vietnam-sign-free-trade-agreement
Not as difficult as some previously thought."I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]1 -
Also from a more philiosophical standpoint, this might help a few people understand the current situation:
https://telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/16/great-britain-never-never-will-european-country/
"“Britain is a European nation,” Remainers still often say when calling for the closest possible relationship with the EU after Brexit. I’m never sure what they think this means. And do our Continental neighbours agree? It is hard, perhaps impossible, really to feel the subconscious characteristics that stem from geography, history and culture. Certainly, we lucky islanders have rarely had existential worries about our “identity” or our borders. But France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary – to mention only the biggest – have experienced border disputes or territorial changes even within living memory. You can fight over these things, or you can try to transcend them. So thought Europeanism’s founding fathers, who included men from borderlands wanting to end a nightmare.
Rightly or wrongly, this can never be an instinctive British preoccupation. We could never have been at the heart of this “Europe”, with its quasi-religious mission to replace old nationalisms with an ersatz Europeanism seen as benign. “We have made Europe, now we have to make Europeans”, wrote one leading EU politician a few years back. We might theoretically understand the mistrust of popular sovereignty that has created the EU as a secretive elite power structure. But most of us can never feel this to be the inevitable price for peace. The 20th century taught us a different lesson: that the democratic nation is the bulwark of European civilisation, not its enemy. We instinctively feel that suppressing democratic choice is the truly dangerous course.
Like it or not, we are on the edge, as our eventual relationship with the EU ought to reflect. “Europe” is there, not here. Even the keenest British federalists talk about it as a different place which they wistfully dream of being part of. Semi-detachment runs through our history. We have had shifting relationships with different parts of the continent, so that it is hard even to say with which we have most affinity. Christianity came from Rome. Later we became a southern colony of pagan Scandinavia. Our language is Germanic. We went through a transformative four-century relationship with France. We had a long economic and security relationship with the Netherlands, for a time having the same ruler. For more than a century, after the Hanoverian succession, we were a power in Germany.
Britain has been both the ally and the enemy of every great Continental state, Catholic and Protestant, monarchy, democracy and dictatorship. Its monarch even has a plausible claim to be a sherif of Islam, a descendent of the Prophet Mohammed. It has never been tempted or forced to ally with the hegemonic Continental power to share in the spoils of dominating Europe. If national identity was important, 20 miles of sea were certainly no less; and trans-oceanic connections provided global resources to oppose Continental threats and work to create a “balance of power”. So Britain was the only major European state that never became an ally or a willing satellite of either Napoleon or Hitler, but decided to resist them even when the struggle seemed hopeless. Finally, it never made a serious attempt to join a triumvirate with France and Germany to control the EU. Independence has been our watchword.
The lure of opportunity overseas pulled us away from Continental ambitions. Though the Glorious Revolution of 1688 began the “second hundred years war” with France, ending only at Waterloo, the struggle became increasingly global, fought not only on the plains of Flanders, but in India and America. After Waterloo, Britain refused to be part of the Holy Alliance, a Great Power scheme to run the Continent, becoming instead the patron and protector of independent states, including France, Belgium, Greece, Spain and Portugal.
Britain made little effort to shape the unification of Italy during the 1850s, and watched with limited concern and negligible influence as the separate German states were turned by Otto von Bismarck into a new and powerful Empire by aggressive wars against Denmark, Austria and France. Even had Britain wished to interfere it could scarcely have done so. It was never a superpower, but always a medium-sized state, sometimes having to punch above its weight but not getting into the ring at all if it could avoid it. Bismarck joked that if the British landed their army in Germany, he would have it arrested, and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli declared that Britain “was really more an Asiatic power than a European”.
Was this a great geopolitical mistake? Many who later supported European integration thought so. But Brexit proves that it was too late to alter it. The millions who emigrated over the last two centuries in search of a better life did not cross the Channel or the North Sea to become Europeans, but went to English-speaking countries across the oceans. Today, two and a half times as many British citizens live in the “Anglosphere” as in the EU, and Britain’s main ethnic minorities are from Commonwealth countries. Even when we were striving to be “at the heart of Europe”, we were less economically integrated than any other EU member, and for 20 years our trade has been increasingly moving away from the Continent.
Opinion polling shows that our views of the EU are not very different from those of our Continental neighbours – that is, unenthusiastic or worse. The difference is that they feel that they have no choice but to remain members. Economic calculation weighs. But so do the instinctive feelings that stem from geography and history. The detached or semi-detached countries – Norway, Switzerland, ourselves and the non-Eurozone member-states – are all in different ways outsiders.
Our peculiarity – or so General de Gaulle thought when he vetoed our entry into the European Economic Community – was that we were too global: “an island, sea-going, bound up, by its trade, its markets, its food supplies, with the most varied and often the most distant countries”. It has taken us half a century to realise he was right, and finally to go with the grain.""I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
The EU Vietnam deal that replaces was signed 3 years after the Brexit vote.
0 -
Nope. They've done well using the transition period to roll these over.Stevo_666 said:Another one of those trade deals signed, this time with Vietnam.
https://pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/uk-and-vietnam-sign-free-trade-agreement
Not as difficult as some previously thought.
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0 -
The predictions of what could realistically be done were I assume based on a 2 year timescale, not 4 1/2?0
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not a Telegraph reader so I may be missing the humour. Do they gently mock their own readers?Stevo_666 said:Also from a more philiosophical standpoint, this might help a few people understand the current situation:
https://telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/16/great-britain-never-never-will-european-country/
"“Britain is a European nation,” Remainers still often say when calling for the closest possible relationship with the EU after Brexit. I’m never sure what they think this means. And do our Continental neighbours agree? It is hard, perhaps impossible, really to feel the subconscious characteristics that stem from geography, history and culture. Certainly, we lucky islanders have rarely had existential worries about our “identity” or our borders. But France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary – to mention only the biggest – have experienced border disputes or territorial changes even within living memory. You can fight over these things, or you can try to transcend them. So thought Europeanism’s founding fathers, who included men from borderlands wanting to end a nightmare.
Rightly or wrongly, this can never be an instinctive British preoccupation. We could never have been at the heart of this “Europe”, with its quasi-religious mission to replace old nationalisms with an ersatz Europeanism seen as benign. “We have made Europe, now we have to make Europeans”, wrote one leading EU politician a few years back. We might theoretically understand the mistrust of popular sovereignty that has created the EU as a secretive elite power structure. But most of us can never feel this to be the inevitable price for peace. The 20th century taught us a different lesson: that the democratic nation is the bulwark of European civilisation, not its enemy. We instinctively feel that suppressing democratic choice is the truly dangerous course.
Like it or not, we are on the edge, as our eventual relationship with the EU ought to reflect. “Europe” is there, not here. Even the keenest British federalists talk about it as a different place which they wistfully dream of being part of. Semi-detachment runs through our history. We have had shifting relationships with different parts of the continent, so that it is hard even to say with which we have most affinity. Christianity came from Rome. Later we became a southern colony of pagan Scandinavia. Our language is Germanic. We went through a transformative four-century relationship with France. We had a long economic and security relationship with the Netherlands, for a time having the same ruler. For more than a century, after the Hanoverian succession, we were a power in Germany.
Britain has been both the ally and the enemy of every great Continental state, Catholic and Protestant, monarchy, democracy and dictatorship. Its monarch even has a plausible claim to be a sherif of Islam, a descendent of the Prophet Mohammed. It has never been tempted or forced to ally with the hegemonic Continental power to share in the spoils of dominating Europe. If national identity was important, 20 miles of sea were certainly no less; and trans-oceanic connections provided global resources to oppose Continental threats and work to create a “balance of power”. So Britain was the only major European state that never became an ally or a willing satellite of either Napoleon or Hitler, but decided to resist them even when the struggle seemed hopeless. Finally, it never made a serious attempt to join a triumvirate with France and Germany to control the EU. Independence has been our watchword.
The lure of opportunity overseas pulled us away from Continental ambitions. Though the Glorious Revolution of 1688 began the “second hundred years war” with France, ending only at Waterloo, the struggle became increasingly global, fought not only on the plains of Flanders, but in India and America. After Waterloo, Britain refused to be part of the Holy Alliance, a Great Power scheme to run the Continent, becoming instead the patron and protector of independent states, including France, Belgium, Greece, Spain and Portugal.
Britain made little effort to shape the unification of Italy during the 1850s, and watched with limited concern and negligible influence as the separate German states were turned by Otto von Bismarck into a new and powerful Empire by aggressive wars against Denmark, Austria and France. Even had Britain wished to interfere it could scarcely have done so. It was never a superpower, but always a medium-sized state, sometimes having to punch above its weight but not getting into the ring at all if it could avoid it. Bismarck joked that if the British landed their army in Germany, he would have it arrested, and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli declared that Britain “was really more an Asiatic power than a European”.
Was this a great geopolitical mistake? Many who later supported European integration thought so. But Brexit proves that it was too late to alter it. The millions who emigrated over the last two centuries in search of a better life did not cross the Channel or the North Sea to become Europeans, but went to English-speaking countries across the oceans. Today, two and a half times as many British citizens live in the “Anglosphere” as in the EU, and Britain’s main ethnic minorities are from Commonwealth countries. Even when we were striving to be “at the heart of Europe”, we were less economically integrated than any other EU member, and for 20 years our trade has been increasingly moving away from the Continent.
Opinion polling shows that our views of the EU are not very different from those of our Continental neighbours – that is, unenthusiastic or worse. The difference is that they feel that they have no choice but to remain members. Economic calculation weighs. But so do the instinctive feelings that stem from geography and history. The detached or semi-detached countries – Norway, Switzerland, ourselves and the non-Eurozone member-states – are all in different ways outsiders.
Our peculiarity – or so General de Gaulle thought when he vetoed our entry into the European Economic Community – was that we were too global: “an island, sea-going, bound up, by its trade, its markets, its food supplies, with the most varied and often the most distant countries”. It has taken us half a century to realise he was right, and finally to go with the grain."
I have got Waterloo (x2), France, Germany, Hitler, Napoleon, Rome, pagan, borders, de Gaulle and Independence.
Am I blind or have they really not mentioned Brussels or Trafalgar?0 -
Feels like psudo high brow rightiebollocks to me1
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in the midst of all my negativity, I will say that the TSS system is really rather well designed and easy for a bunch of people with wildly different experiences to learn.
How it handles 11 Million cases, starting on Monday, remains to be seen...
I've also learnt I've been promoted already 🥸
Before I've started work, and along with everyone elseWe're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
- @ddraver1 -
That would be the second good IT system they've rolled out. Quite impressive.ddraver said:in the midst of all my negativity, I will say that the TSS system is really rather well designed and easy for a bunch of people with wildly different experiences to learn.
How it handles 11 Million cases, starting on Monday, remains to be seen...
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
To you I'm sure it does. I thought it might appeal to some of the higher brow forumites.Jezyboy said:Feels like psudo high brow rightiebollocks to me
Although if the writer didn't have a point, we probably wouldn't be where we are now viz a viz Brexit."I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Not sure. Although as mentioned, if he didn't have a point, this thread would have died in 2016.surrey_commuter said:
not a Telegraph reader so I may be missing the humour. Do they gently mock their own readers?Stevo_666 said:Also from a more philiosophical standpoint, this might help a few people understand the current situation:
https://telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/16/great-britain-never-never-will-european-country/
"“Britain is a European nation,” Remainers still often say when calling for the closest possible relationship with the EU after Brexit. I’m never sure what they think this means. And do our Continental neighbours agree? It is hard, perhaps impossible, really to feel the subconscious characteristics that stem from geography, history and culture. Certainly, we lucky islanders have rarely had existential worries about our “identity” or our borders. But France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary – to mention only the biggest – have experienced border disputes or territorial changes even within living memory. You can fight over these things, or you can try to transcend them. So thought Europeanism’s founding fathers, who included men from borderlands wanting to end a nightmare.
Rightly or wrongly, this can never be an instinctive British preoccupation. We could never have been at the heart of this “Europe”, with its quasi-religious mission to replace old nationalisms with an ersatz Europeanism seen as benign. “We have made Europe, now we have to make Europeans”, wrote one leading EU politician a few years back. We might theoretically understand the mistrust of popular sovereignty that has created the EU as a secretive elite power structure. But most of us can never feel this to be the inevitable price for peace. The 20th century taught us a different lesson: that the democratic nation is the bulwark of European civilisation, not its enemy. We instinctively feel that suppressing democratic choice is the truly dangerous course.
Like it or not, we are on the edge, as our eventual relationship with the EU ought to reflect. “Europe” is there, not here. Even the keenest British federalists talk about it as a different place which they wistfully dream of being part of. Semi-detachment runs through our history. We have had shifting relationships with different parts of the continent, so that it is hard even to say with which we have most affinity. Christianity came from Rome. Later we became a southern colony of pagan Scandinavia. Our language is Germanic. We went through a transformative four-century relationship with France. We had a long economic and security relationship with the Netherlands, for a time having the same ruler. For more than a century, after the Hanoverian succession, we were a power in Germany.
Britain has been both the ally and the enemy of every great Continental state, Catholic and Protestant, monarchy, democracy and dictatorship. Its monarch even has a plausible claim to be a sherif of Islam, a descendent of the Prophet Mohammed. It has never been tempted or forced to ally with the hegemonic Continental power to share in the spoils of dominating Europe. If national identity was important, 20 miles of sea were certainly no less; and trans-oceanic connections provided global resources to oppose Continental threats and work to create a “balance of power”. So Britain was the only major European state that never became an ally or a willing satellite of either Napoleon or Hitler, but decided to resist them even when the struggle seemed hopeless. Finally, it never made a serious attempt to join a triumvirate with France and Germany to control the EU. Independence has been our watchword.
The lure of opportunity overseas pulled us away from Continental ambitions. Though the Glorious Revolution of 1688 began the “second hundred years war” with France, ending only at Waterloo, the struggle became increasingly global, fought not only on the plains of Flanders, but in India and America. After Waterloo, Britain refused to be part of the Holy Alliance, a Great Power scheme to run the Continent, becoming instead the patron and protector of independent states, including France, Belgium, Greece, Spain and Portugal.
Britain made little effort to shape the unification of Italy during the 1850s, and watched with limited concern and negligible influence as the separate German states were turned by Otto von Bismarck into a new and powerful Empire by aggressive wars against Denmark, Austria and France. Even had Britain wished to interfere it could scarcely have done so. It was never a superpower, but always a medium-sized state, sometimes having to punch above its weight but not getting into the ring at all if it could avoid it. Bismarck joked that if the British landed their army in Germany, he would have it arrested, and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli declared that Britain “was really more an Asiatic power than a European”.
Was this a great geopolitical mistake? Many who later supported European integration thought so. But Brexit proves that it was too late to alter it. The millions who emigrated over the last two centuries in search of a better life did not cross the Channel or the North Sea to become Europeans, but went to English-speaking countries across the oceans. Today, two and a half times as many British citizens live in the “Anglosphere” as in the EU, and Britain’s main ethnic minorities are from Commonwealth countries. Even when we were striving to be “at the heart of Europe”, we were less economically integrated than any other EU member, and for 20 years our trade has been increasingly moving away from the Continent.
Opinion polling shows that our views of the EU are not very different from those of our Continental neighbours – that is, unenthusiastic or worse. The difference is that they feel that they have no choice but to remain members. Economic calculation weighs. But so do the instinctive feelings that stem from geography and history. The detached or semi-detached countries – Norway, Switzerland, ourselves and the non-Eurozone member-states – are all in different ways outsiders.
Our peculiarity – or so General de Gaulle thought when he vetoed our entry into the European Economic Community – was that we were too global: “an island, sea-going, bound up, by its trade, its markets, its food supplies, with the most varied and often the most distant countries”. It has taken us half a century to realise he was right, and finally to go with the grain."
I have got Waterloo (x2), France, Germany, Hitler, Napoleon, Rome, pagan, borders, de Gaulle and Independence.
Am I blind or have they really not mentioned Brussels or Trafalgar?"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Stevo_666 said:
Also from a more philiosophical standpoint, this might help a few people understand the current situation:
https://telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/16/great-britain-never-never-will-european-country/
"“Britain is a European nation,” Remainers still often say when calling for the closest possible relationship with the EU after Brexit. I’m never sure what they think this means. And do our Continental neighbours agree? It is hard, perhaps impossible, really to feel the subconscious characteristics that stem from geography, history and culture. Certainly, we lucky islanders have rarely had existential worries about our “identity” or our borders. But France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary – to mention only the biggest – have experienced border disputes or territorial changes even within living memory. You can fight over these things, or you can try to transcend them. So thought Europeanism’s founding fathers, who included men from borderlands wanting to end a nightmare.
Rightly or wrongly, this can never be an instinctive British preoccupation. We could never have been at the heart of this “Europe”, with its quasi-religious mission to replace old nationalisms with an ersatz Europeanism seen as benign. “We have made Europe, now we have to make Europeans”, wrote one leading EU politician a few years back. We might theoretically understand the mistrust of popular sovereignty that has created the EU as a secretive elite power structure. But most of us can never feel this to be the inevitable price for peace. The 20th century taught us a different lesson: that the democratic nation is the bulwark of European civilisation, not its enemy. We instinctively feel that suppressing democratic choice is the truly dangerous course.
Like it or not, we are on the edge, as our eventual relationship with the EU ought to reflect. “Europe” is there, not here. Even the keenest British federalists talk about it as a different place which they wistfully dream of being part of. Semi-detachment runs through our history. We have had shifting relationships with different parts of the continent, so that it is hard even to say with which we have most affinity. Christianity came from Rome. Later we became a southern colony of pagan Scandinavia. Our language is Germanic. We went through a transformative four-century relationship with France. We had a long economic and security relationship with the Netherlands, for a time having the same ruler. For more than a century, after the Hanoverian succession, we were a power in Germany.
Britain has been both the ally and the enemy of every great Continental state, Catholic and Protestant, monarchy, democracy and dictatorship. Its monarch even has a plausible claim to be a sherif of Islam, a descendent of the Prophet Mohammed. It has never been tempted or forced to ally with the hegemonic Continental power to share in the spoils of dominating Europe. If national identity was important, 20 miles of sea were certainly no less; and trans-oceanic connections provided global resources to oppose Continental threats and work to create a “balance of power”. So Britain was the only major European state that never became an ally or a willing satellite of either Napoleon or Hitler, but decided to resist them even when the struggle seemed hopeless. Finally, it never made a serious attempt to join a triumvirate with France and Germany to control the EU. Independence has been our watchword.
The lure of opportunity overseas pulled us away from Continental ambitions. Though the Glorious Revolution of 1688 began the “second hundred years war” with France, ending only at Waterloo, the struggle became increasingly global, fought not only on the plains of Flanders, but in India and America. After Waterloo, Britain refused to be part of the Holy Alliance, a Great Power scheme to run the Continent, becoming instead the patron and protector of independent states, including France, Belgium, Greece, Spain and Portugal.
Britain made little effort to shape the unification of Italy during the 1850s, and watched with limited concern and negligible influence as the separate German states were turned by Otto von Bismarck into a new and powerful Empire by aggressive wars against Denmark, Austria and France. Even had Britain wished to interfere it could scarcely have done so. It was never a superpower, but always a medium-sized state, sometimes having to punch above its weight but not getting into the ring at all if it could avoid it. Bismarck joked that if the British landed their army in Germany, he would have it arrested, and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli declared that Britain “was really more an Asiatic power than a European”.
Was this a great geopolitical mistake? Many who later supported European integration thought so. But Brexit proves that it was too late to alter it. The millions who emigrated over the last two centuries in search of a better life did not cross the Channel or the North Sea to become Europeans, but went to English-speaking countries across the oceans. Today, two and a half times as many British citizens live in the “Anglosphere” as in the EU, and Britain’s main ethnic minorities are from Commonwealth countries. Even when we were striving to be “at the heart of Europe”, we were less economically integrated than any other EU member, and for 20 years our trade has been increasingly moving away from the Continent.
Opinion polling shows that our views of the EU are not very different from those of our Continental neighbours – that is, unenthusiastic or worse. The difference is that they feel that they have no choice but to remain members. Economic calculation weighs. But so do the instinctive feelings that stem from geography and history. The detached or semi-detached countries – Norway, Switzerland, ourselves and the non-Eurozone member-states – are all in different ways outsiders.
Our peculiarity – or so General de Gaulle thought when he vetoed our entry into the European Economic Community – was that we were too global: “an island, sea-going, bound up, by its trade, its markets, its food supplies, with the most varied and often the most distant countries”. It has taken us half a century to realise he was right, and finally to go with the grain."
That just sounds like a long-winded excuse to do nothing to move on from the vagaries of history. Sure, we can't change what happened in the past, but we can hope to do better in the future. You don't have to love the institution of the EU - few people do - to think that it is still better than the fractured alternatives.0 -
Stevo_666 said:
Certainly, we lucky islanders have rarely had existential worries about our “identity” or our borders. But France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary – to mention only the biggest – have experienced border disputes or territorial changes even within living memory. You can fight over these things, or you can try to transcend them. So thought Europeanism’s founding fathers, who included men from borderlands wanting to end a nightmare.
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!1 -
Pipe down over there, we're talking about the proper bit of the UK over here.tailwindhome said:Stevo_666 said:Certainly, we lucky islanders have rarely had existential worries about our “identity” or our borders. But France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary – to mention only the biggest – have experienced border disputes or territorial changes even within living memory. You can fight over these things, or you can try to transcend them. So thought Europeanism’s founding fathers, who included men from borderlands wanting to end a nightmare.
MakeTheUKGreatBritainAgain- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
I did think it carefully said "Britain" rather than UK.tailwindhome said:Stevo_666 said:Certainly, we lucky islanders have rarely had existential worries about our “identity” or our borders. But France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary – to mention only the biggest – have experienced border disputes or territorial changes even within living memory. You can fight over these things, or you can try to transcend them. So thought Europeanism’s founding fathers, who included men from borderlands wanting to end a nightmare.
Also, when 1% of the UK population speak Polish, there's some changes happening that affect "Britain’s main ethnic minorities are from Commonwealth countries."
I can never get over the fact that Germany still seems pretty German, and France pretty French when I've been there. Why would the EU be able to steal our "Britishness"?0 -
I will admit that I gave up and skim read it which is why the trigger words probably jumped out at me but does mean that I missed the point. Would you mind telling me what it is.Stevo_666 said:
Not sure. Although as mentioned, if he didn't have a point, this thread would have died in 2016.surrey_commuter said:
not a Telegraph reader so I may be missing the humour. Do they gently mock their own readers?Stevo_666 said:Also from a more philiosophical standpoint, this might help a few people understand the current situation:
https://telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/16/great-britain-never-never-will-european-country/
"“Britain is a European nation,” Remainers still often say when calling for the closest possible relationship with the EU after Brexit. I’m never sure what they think this means. And do our Continental neighbours agree? It is hard, perhaps impossible, really to feel the subconscious characteristics that stem from geography, history and culture. Certainly, we lucky islanders have rarely had existential worries about our “identity” or our borders. But France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary – to mention only the biggest – have experienced border disputes or territorial changes even within living memory. You can fight over these things, or you can try to transcend them. So thought Europeanism’s founding fathers, who included men from borderlands wanting to end a nightmare.
Rightly or wrongly, this can never be an instinctive British preoccupation. We could never have been at the heart of this “Europe”, with its quasi-religious mission to replace old nationalisms with an ersatz Europeanism seen as benign. “We have made Europe, now we have to make Europeans”, wrote one leading EU politician a few years back. We might theoretically understand the mistrust of popular sovereignty that has created the EU as a secretive elite power structure. But most of us can never feel this to be the inevitable price for peace. The 20th century taught us a different lesson: that the democratic nation is the bulwark of European civilisation, not its enemy. We instinctively feel that suppressing democratic choice is the truly dangerous course.
Like it or not, we are on the edge, as our eventual relationship with the EU ought to reflect. “Europe” is there, not here. Even the keenest British federalists talk about it as a different place which they wistfully dream of being part of. Semi-detachment runs through our history. We have had shifting relationships with different parts of the continent, so that it is hard even to say with which we have most affinity. Christianity came from Rome. Later we became a southern colony of pagan Scandinavia. Our language is Germanic. We went through a transformative four-century relationship with France. We had a long economic and security relationship with the Netherlands, for a time having the same ruler. For more than a century, after the Hanoverian succession, we were a power in Germany.
Britain has been both the ally and the enemy of every great Continental state, Catholic and Protestant, monarchy, democracy and dictatorship. Its monarch even has a plausible claim to be a sherif of Islam, a descendent of the Prophet Mohammed. It has never been tempted or forced to ally with the hegemonic Continental power to share in the spoils of dominating Europe. If national identity was important, 20 miles of sea were certainly no less; and trans-oceanic connections provided global resources to oppose Continental threats and work to create a “balance of power”. So Britain was the only major European state that never became an ally or a willing satellite of either Napoleon or Hitler, but decided to resist them even when the struggle seemed hopeless. Finally, it never made a serious attempt to join a triumvirate with France and Germany to control the EU. Independence has been our watchword.
The lure of opportunity overseas pulled us away from Continental ambitions. Though the Glorious Revolution of 1688 began the “second hundred years war” with France, ending only at Waterloo, the struggle became increasingly global, fought not only on the plains of Flanders, but in India and America. After Waterloo, Britain refused to be part of the Holy Alliance, a Great Power scheme to run the Continent, becoming instead the patron and protector of independent states, including France, Belgium, Greece, Spain and Portugal.
Britain made little effort to shape the unification of Italy during the 1850s, and watched with limited concern and negligible influence as the separate German states were turned by Otto von Bismarck into a new and powerful Empire by aggressive wars against Denmark, Austria and France. Even had Britain wished to interfere it could scarcely have done so. It was never a superpower, but always a medium-sized state, sometimes having to punch above its weight but not getting into the ring at all if it could avoid it. Bismarck joked that if the British landed their army in Germany, he would have it arrested, and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli declared that Britain “was really more an Asiatic power than a European”.
Was this a great geopolitical mistake? Many who later supported European integration thought so. But Brexit proves that it was too late to alter it. The millions who emigrated over the last two centuries in search of a better life did not cross the Channel or the North Sea to become Europeans, but went to English-speaking countries across the oceans. Today, two and a half times as many British citizens live in the “Anglosphere” as in the EU, and Britain’s main ethnic minorities are from Commonwealth countries. Even when we were striving to be “at the heart of Europe”, we were less economically integrated than any other EU member, and for 20 years our trade has been increasingly moving away from the Continent.
Opinion polling shows that our views of the EU are not very different from those of our Continental neighbours – that is, unenthusiastic or worse. The difference is that they feel that they have no choice but to remain members. Economic calculation weighs. But so do the instinctive feelings that stem from geography and history. The detached or semi-detached countries – Norway, Switzerland, ourselves and the non-Eurozone member-states – are all in different ways outsiders.
Our peculiarity – or so General de Gaulle thought when he vetoed our entry into the European Economic Community – was that we were too global: “an island, sea-going, bound up, by its trade, its markets, its food supplies, with the most varied and often the most distant countries”. It has taken us half a century to realise he was right, and finally to go with the grain."
I have got Waterloo (x2), France, Germany, Hitler, Napoleon, Rome, pagan, borders, de Gaulle and Independence.
Am I blind or have they really not mentioned Brussels or Trafalgar?0 -
I never had you down as someone who over-estimates 'people'! Most people these days seem to have entrenched views they are convinced are right and aren't open to explanation. The politicians have actively sown disdain for experts remember.surrey_commuter said:
We are well past fishing being imagery, this is a bunch of zealots making bad decisions through their dislike of foreigners.morstar said:
I think the Brexiteer boat imagery is all just that, imagery.rick_chasey said:
I'm not saying you think it's more important than FS, to be clear.morstar said:
See above. I can’t believe you still think of in terms of absolute size.rick_chasey said:
It’s almost worthless - why hang on to it?TheBigBean said:
I think the UK keeps telling the EU that.rick_chasey said:
Christ just give it all up for a proper concession who cares.TheBigBean said:The fish still getting in the way.
Mortstar was here talking up fishing as leverage but it’s not leverage if you treat it like the Crown Jewels.
FFS, the only reason the Eu haven’t flexed is because the French think they’re going to carry on fishing anyway.
And don’t try and misrepresent me as claiming fishing is more important than FS. I am not and never have despite attempts to interpret it that way.
What I have consistently tried to explain is why it is so important to the negotiation.
Clearly I’ve failed on here but those around the negotiating table understand it so it’s not my problem.
But I think the behaviour of the UK and how it is playing out in the press is not indicative of it being leverage, which is what I am disagreeing with you about.
I remember the "boat wars" during the referendum. You think too highly of this particular government if you think they don't attach the same the sentimental value of fishing over some larger industries I think you've misunderstood what the brexiters are all about.
The way I see Brexit is a couple of fundamental principles that have been held dear by a significant minority. Free trade and sovereignty.
To get the mass buy in, any available lever was used to extol the perceived benefits to the masses of a world outside the Eu.
One of those was patriotism and projection of power. Fleets of small boats are apparently a good emotional lever to do that. Lots of good visuals and can be related to wars and conflicts which ticks more nostalgia boxes.
I don’t in any way believe fishing rights are an end game. I suspect Farage did benefit financially from flying that flag though.
People may not like FS but it would be very easy to explain to them that it pays the bills and most of the jobs aren’t in London. Nobody has tried because they want to be populist and nothing matters until the MMT falls ill.
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