The trouble with the EU and Britain

[Tribble]

Oh, so it's impossible for there to be British people who actually believe that leaving the EU is in their best interests eh? Or that maybe a proportion of the population was against the EU from the start, and that the proportion has simply grown over time?

So correct me if I'm wrong here, but is most of the board's impression that a UK referendum is nothing more than a smoke screen so that they can grab more power? Or do you think that if the majority of UK citizens voted to leave, they actually mean it? If the UK voted to leave should that be honoured, or does the majority of the board here think that any referendum results should be ignored?

[Tribble]

Now I know I'm an outsider to European politics, but I do live in Canada, which has had two votes on Quebec Sovereignty over the past 50 years. And I can assure that it wasn't a ploy or a smokescreen to get more goodies - the sovereigntists who voted to leave sure as hell meant it, economics and politics be damned! IMO many if not most of those who would vote to leave the EU legitimately want to do so rather than it being some nefarious scheme to seize more power for themselves. Whether its the right move or not is up to debate, but I think it's incorrect to simply dismiss the whole movement as a mere beating of the drums.

[mr friendly guy]

Oh, so it's impossible for there to be British people who actually believe that leaving the EU is in their best interests eh? Or that maybe a proportion of the population was against the EU from the start, and that the proportion has simply grown over time?

No one said that. However when you have this line " Last week, Cameron declared to fellow leaders that if Juncker, a federalist, is appointed Commission president, the chances would increase that the British people would vote to leave in a planned 2017 referendum on EU membership," it gives the impression that Britain (according to Cameron) wants to leave the EU because the vote didn't go their way rather than because they wanted to leave the EU anyway. If they wanted to leave, just be upfront about it, none of this we will leave if the vote doesn't go our way.

Just for the record, I watch with interest what goes on in the big economies, but I have no stake in whether Britain leaves or not. Although I will admit it will amuse me if the UK does leave and with it the chances of the EU being a decent counterweight to the US.

[PKRudeBoy]

Oh, so it's impossible for there to be British people who actually believe that leaving the EU is in their best interests eh? Or that maybe a proportion of the population was against the EU from the start, and that the proportion has simply grown over time?

No one said that. However when you have this line " Last week, Cameron declared to fellow leaders that if Juncker, a federalist, is appointed Commission president, the chances would increase that the British people would vote to leave in a planned 2017 referendum on EU membership," it gives the impression that Britain (according to Cameron) wants to leave the EU because the vote didn't go their way rather than because they wanted to leave the EU anyway. If they wanted to leave, just be upfront about it, none of this we will leave if the vote doesn't go our way.

Just for the record, I watch with interest what goes on in the big economies, but I have no stake in whether Britain leaves or not. Although I will admit it will amuse me if the UK does leave and with it the chances of the EU being a decent counterweight to the US.

It could also be that there are people that favor free trade and close economic ties, but have no interest in federalization. As the EU marches on towards federalization, they may decide that the loss of sovereignty isn't worth the economic benefits.

[Minischoles]

You can't even begin to understand the British attitude towards the EU, because you haven't been exposed to 20 years of red top newspaper propaganda - blatent misrepresentation, misreading and even outright lies regarding the EU are common place in the most popular tabloid rags

And the Tories jumped on this wholesale, facing challenges from their own lunatic fringe (UKIP) they're turning the EU into the whipping boy to distract from their own policies and problems.
-Benefits bill out of control? it's because of those eastern europeans coming here because of the EU, sponging off the system
-NHS in trouble? look at all those dirty foreigners allowed free movement because of the EU, coming here to use the NHS for free

And that's just immigration - which the Tories were found to be lying about and suppressing data on it. We've had nonsense like the 'metric martyrs', bendy bananas etc, not to mention the continuing unbelievable opposition to the EU Human Rights.

I hope to god the UK never has a referendum, because there's a genuine chance this ill-educated, brainwashed majority will vote to leave the EU - and then the UK is fucked. Plain and simple, even Cameron knows it'd be retarded to leave, but he's so desperate to stay in power he's willing to bow to UKIP and his backbenchers.

[madd0ct0r]

Tribble, no one in this thread has said 'if the uk people vote to leave, the EU should stop them'.

Quite a few people have said 'if the UK people are going to vote to leave, even Cameron is going to want to stop them'. As a Brit, I'm really hoping he won't be stupid enough to do that.

BUT the OP of this thread is about Cameron using the threat of Britian leaving to try and force the elected president out. That's got nothing to do with the UK people. I follow this sort of shit, and this thread is the first I've heard of it. Almost nobody in the UK knows or cares what politicking Cameron is doing on the continent - this is pure him trying to get stuff that he shouldn't, tosspot that he is.

Honestly, at this point I wouldn't be surprised if the EU gave us a pat on the back on the way out. They must be pretty fucking fed up.

[Siege]

If the EU refuses to recognize the referendum and tries to force Britain to stay, their attempt will be unsuccessful, not to mention being completely disastrous from a public relations standpoint.

What mechanism do you think the EU has to 'force' Britain to stay? In fact, what makes you think anyone in Brussels is even interested in making countries stay against their will?

The UK referendum is a carrot the Conservatives dangle in front of the British electorate but have no desire of ever actually having. Because Cameron knows that if he withdraws from the EU there won't be any more picking and choosing from the buffet of multi-speed Europe. If Britain's out, it's all the way out from all three pillars including the single market. And that will lead to lots of screaming from the kind of business people who historically have been buddies with the Conservatives.

I don't doubt that when Cameron inevitably reneges on his promise to have a referendum he'll blame that on Brussels too, but the reality here is that neither Labour nor the Tories have any desire whatsoever to leave the EU. If they did, the government would be making serious preparations to actually go through with it by now. So if Britons wants to leave they ought to elect politicians who actually have the guts to go through with it. In the meantime it's all just empty threats, typical Tory posturing nonsense as a result of which Cameron is rapidly running out of political capital in Europe.

[Irbis]

So correct me if I'm wrong here, but is most of the board's impression that a UK referendum is nothing more than a smoke screen so that they can grab more power? Or do you think that if the majority of UK citizens voted to leave, they actually mean it? If the UK voted to leave should that be honoured, or does the majority of the board here think that any referendum results should be ignored?

Um, you are aware that EU recently passed law that significantly sped up and simplified process of leaving it? If EU wanted to hold Britain at all costs, it would make no sense to do that.

If UK wants to leave, that would be sad, but it would be allowed to go no questions asked. It would just be shooting itself in the foot, but alas, how much of British electorate considers that after 25 years of rag lies? Even despite all the special perks no one else has UK was given?

I'm not saying Cameron should win, I'm saying he's doing his job, as defined by the constituency to which he is responsible. Given the state of the EU's constitution he should fail to accomplish what he's trying to do, but that doesn't mean his actions are 'undemocratic' or anything like that.

So, what you're saying is, if New Jersey voted differently in US Presidential election than the rest of the states, democratic thing to do would be for Chris Christie to throw a hissy fit due to supposed 'will of the electorate' in his state despite no election or referendum being held on the matter in meantime and to threaten winning party to change the winner to someone acceptable to New Jersey, or his state will leave the USA? And that would be just doing his job? What?

[Thanas]

@ Thanas

Perhaps we are at cross-purposes here. My point is that if a referendum is held and the majority of the British vote to leave the EU, then I feel they have the right to do so. If the EU refuses to recognize the referendum and tries to force Britain to stay, their attempt will be unsuccessful, not to mention being completely disastrous from a public relations standpoint. And the British government would be under so much pressure to leave that I think they would even if the EU tries to pretend that leaving is "verboten" (I don't think the EU would actually say that, but I'm not entirely ruling it out). If British citizens voted to leave, it would be much better and more expedient for everyone involved to have some kind of negotiated exit rather than trying to force them to stay against their wishes.

The EU is not an evil empire and has no military means to force the brits to stay.

They can and will however promptly slap them with the tariffs that every EU member has to pay and will probably make a conscious effort to ruin London as a financial centre. Because the only reason it is tolerated is because Britain has blocked EU attempts to regulate it so far. If Britain gets out, I'd be at least making sure I got insurance if I were working in London.

Just for the record, I watch with interest what goes on in the big economies, but I have no stake in whether Britain leaves or not. Although I will admit it will amuse me if the UK does leave and with it the chances of the EU being a decent counterweight to the US.

It might actually vastly improve the chances of the EU to become its own agent, because without the US saboteur Britain in it we'd already have a much closer union.

[Simon_Jester]

No one said that. However when you have this line " Last week, Cameron declared to fellow leaders that if Juncker, a federalist, is appointed Commission president, the chances would increase that the British people would vote to leave in a planned 2017 referendum on EU membership," it gives the impression that Britain (according to Cameron) wants to leave the EU because the vote didn't go their way rather than because they wanted to leave the EU anyway.

Both can be true at the same time.

Perhaps some Britons want to leave the EU altogether, but more Britons will want to leave if the EU is being governed by people they oppose and dislike.

It's very rare for someone to secede from a larger government when they approve of that government and feel it's pursuing their interests.

I'm not saying Cameron should win, I'm saying he's doing his job, as defined by the constituency to which he is responsible. Given the state of the EU's constitution he should fail to accomplish what he's trying to do, but that doesn't mean his actions are 'undemocratic' or anything like that.

So, what you're saying is, if New Jersey voted differently in US Presidential election than the rest of the states, democratic thing to do would be for Chris Christie to throw a hissy fit due to supposed 'will of the electorate' in his state despite no election or referendum being held on the matter in meantime and to threaten winning party to change the winner to someone acceptable to New Jersey, or his state will leave the USA? And that would be just doing his job? What?

The answer is yes if and only if both the following statements are true:

1) Leaving the larger body is a legal thing to do, and the member territories have a right to leave whenever they want.
2) The leader of the member territory sincerely believes they are representing the wishes of the electorate that put them into office.

(1) is not satisfied in the case of New Jersey: secession is illegal under both the small-c and large-C constitutions of the United States. But (1) is satisfied in the case of Britain: seceding from the EU is legal).

I suppose we might reasonable accuse Cameron of violating (2). We might say that he doesn't actually think most Britons would want to leave the EU if that EU were run by Juncker. In which case he is not representing his nation properly. That accusation might be true for all I know.


Now, the question of whether the leader of the smaller territory should succeed is an entirely different question. If a US governor decides to protest a federal election without evidence of outright fraud, he should fail. If Cameron wishes to protest the lawful election of Juncker, he should fail.

But he is still within his rights to simply say: "We would prefer that Juncker not enter office, if he does my country will probably want to leave." Because it's in his job description to represent his own country to foreigners, not to follow some idealized template of what an international body thinks should happen.

[Dartzap]

One of the problems I have with the EU officialdom is that there's no real human presence to it, Barroso atleast made the effort to have interviews over here, but the rest of the Council?, not to the best of my knowledge. Have any of the contenders for the role even had any interviews over here?

You may think thats a spectacularly dense thing to be saying, fair enough.

Maybe we need to send Boris to Brussels, he usually causes some hilarity.

[Zaune]

Maybe we need to send Boris to Brussels, he usually causes some hilarity.

That would probably be considered an act of war.

[Starglider]

It is transparently obvious that Thanas is obsessed with discreet yet total German domination of the EU, and hence Europe. The UK is aggravating as a roadblock to this ambition, either spearheading a coalition against oppressive federalism inside the EU, or as an inconveniently close competitor outside it. I'd note that from the Greece and Ukraine threads it is clear that the UK is only the highest priority target; all opponents of his project to recreate the GDR across all of Europe must be subdued or destroyed.

From a selfish perspective I would definitely say we should leave the UK, but perhaps it would be more hourable to stay in as long as possible and sabotage as much as possible, for the sake of the smaller countries already trapped and struggling inside the eurodeuschmark debt regieme.

[Thanas]

It is transparently obvious that Thanas is obsessed with discreet yet total German domination of the EU, and hence Europe. The UK is aggravating as a roadblock to this ambition, either spearheading a coalition against oppressive federalism inside the EU, or as an inconveniently close competitor outside it. I'd note that from the Greece and Ukraine threads it is clear that the UK is only the highest priority target; all opponents of his project to recreate the GDR across all of Europe must be subdued or destroyed.

You are a fucking liar. I have been speaking out against German domination of the continent and Britain leaving several times.

Find quotes of me supporting German dominance over Europe. Do it now.

[Thanas]

One of the problems I have with the EU officialdom is that there's no real human presence to it, Barroso atleast made the effort to have interviews over here, but the rest of the Council?, not to the best of my knowledge. Have any of the contenders for the role even had any interviews over here?

German MEPs were campaigning in Britain, just nobody ever came to hear them talk. The reason why there was no British candidate speaking in Britain was because the Tories refused to nominate one of their own, Labour didn't even mention that Schulz was the candidate of the European left. Both British parties refused to host either Juncker or Schulz for talks or campaign rallies. In fact, Labour directly asked the candidates to not even campaign in the UK.

So really, who is to blame here? The candidates who campaigned in every other EU country or the British parties who asked them not to come to Britain?

[mr friendly guy]

Both can be true at the same time.

Perhaps some Britons want to leave the EU altogether, but more Britons will want to leave if the EU is being governed by people they oppose and dislike.

It's very rare for someone to secede from a larger government when they approve of that government and feel it's pursuing their interests.

Its true both can occur at the same time. However my understanding is the threat of the UK leaving the EU has been floated around for some time, thus the latest round of voting results seem very unlikely to be the cause. It seems to be just another thing which the UK want to negotiate on, using the threat of the UK leaving the EU as a bargaining chip.

[Dartzap]

One of the problems I have with the EU officialdom is that there's no real human presence to it, Barroso atleast made the effort to have interviews over here, but the rest of the Council?, not to the best of my knowledge. Have any of the contenders for the role even had any interviews over here?

German MEPs were campaigning in Britain, just nobody ever came to hear them talk. The reason why there was no British candidate speaking in Britain was because the Tories refused to nominate one of their own, Labour didn't even mention that Schulz was the candidate of the European left. Both British parties refused to host either Juncker or Schulz for talks or campaign rallies. In fact, Labour directly asked the candidates to not even campaign in the UK.

So really, who is to blame here? The candidates who campaigned in every other EU country or the British parties who asked them not to come to Britain?

Whilst I don't doubt your honesty, could you provide some evidence in regards to MEP's being told to go elsewhere?

[Thanas]

Guardian

Schulz was explicitly asked not to campaign.

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has declined to support Schulz, and Labour has told him not to campaign for his Party of European Socialists (PES) in Britain. Schulz is currently crisscrossing the continent and last week visited Northern Ireland but stayed away from the rest of the UK.

Same source, regarding Juncker:

Because Cameron withdrew from the centre-right European People's Party in 2009, no British votes will go to the frontrunning EPP and its leader, Jean-Claude Juncker.

Meaning that Juncker had no base to campaign on as no party would vote for or support him because Cameron left the coalition that headed Juncker., thus no party that would host him.

[Welf]

It is transparently obvious that Thanas is obsessed with discreet yet total German domination of the EU, and hence Europe. The UK is aggravating as a roadblock to this ambition, either spearheading a coalition against oppressive federalism inside the EU, or as an inconveniently close competitor outside it. I'd note that from the Greece and Ukraine threads it is clear that the UK is only the highest priority target; all opponents of his project to recreate the GDR across all of Europe must be subdued or destroyed.

From a selfish perspective I would definitely say we should leave the UK, but perhaps it would be more hourable to stay in as long as possible and sabotage as much as possible, for the sake of the smaller countries already trapped and struggling inside the eurodeuschmark debt regieme.

So on the one side you have the example of a state that permanently spied on it's citizens and where misbehaviour might lead to torture, a country that supported it's hegemon's illegal war of aggression in Afghanistan and piled up government debt in an unsustainable pace. And on the other side you have the GDR that does the same, but where also everybody had a job. And trains were on time. And they had an internationally competitive manufacturing industry.
The choice is yours?

[Zaune]

*sigh* Starglider, have you been skipping your SRMD medication again?

[The Guid]

Does anyone have any evidence that the British people really object to Junker? I mean, the red top media and the Conservative party have an axe to grind for some mystery reason but I'd be surprised if the majority of people have even heard of him. The real issue that gets people's goat is immigration, rather than who is "in charge" of the EU.

To be more general on the whole subject I'd say the whole problem with Britain and the EU is that fundamentally British people have a certain amount of distrust of government and regulation in general. This can be targetted at Westminster "elites" or Brussels/Strasbourg "elites". Other countries seem less libertarian in general instinct for the most part, which means that the EU is less instinctively a bad thing.

[Darth Nostril]

Not a mystery reason - Junker is responsible for the tax evasion loopholes that let companies like Amazon funnel money through Luxemburg to the tax haven of the Isle of Man, avoiding paying any taxes in Britain. In spite of years of protests and lobbying he refused to bring Luxemburg in line with the rest of Europes anti-tax evasion policies.

[streetad]

I am fairly sure that the vast majority of people in Britain will have never heard of Juncker, and are only dimly aware that such a thing as EU- wide political groups exist. EU elections in the UK are overwhelmingly treated as an opinion poll on the current UK government, or this time in Scotland an opinion poll on separation. Literally the only party talking about Europe is UKIP.

I guarantee that if the general British public even becomes aware of Juncker's existence, it won't be in the context of ever having voted for or against him. He will just be another 'unaccountable faceless EU bureaucrat telling us what to do'.

[Simon_Jester]

Not a mystery reason - Junker is responsible for the tax evasion loopholes that let companies like Amazon funnel money through Luxemburg to the tax haven of the Isle of Man, avoiding paying any taxes in Britain. In spite of years of protests and lobbying he refused to bring Luxemburg in line with the rest of Europes anti-tax evasion policies.

That seems like a valid criticism, whether or not it's the key British objection to Junker; I can't imagine David Cameron has much of a problem with that.

But I'd love to hear a few more opinions on that.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

It is transparently obvious that Thanas is obsessed with discreet yet total German domination of the EU, and hence Europe. The UK is aggravating as a roadblock to this ambition, either spearheading a coalition against oppressive federalism inside the EU, or as an inconveniently close competitor outside it. I'd note that from the Greece and Ukraine threads it is clear that the UK is only the highest priority target; all opponents of his project to recreate the GDR across all of Europe must be subdued or destroyed.

From a selfish perspective I would definitely say we should leave the UK, but perhaps it would be more hourable to stay in as long as possible and sabotage as much as possible, for the sake of the smaller countries already trapped and struggling inside the eurodeuschmark debt regieme.

You are brave like this, to make a stand against German tyranny on behalf of the free peoples of Europe, you unsung hero you. *I'm a smarmy asshole*