I am left wondering if there is some other reason to cut our noses off to spite our faces. Mr Rees-Mogg has doubtless warned the Cabinet of the dangerous spread of Jacobinism, and ministers will be alert to prevent our youngsters travelling to the Continent and becoming infected with Eurocentric ideas, when they should be thinking globally.
I am sure this is why. The Erasmus programme, like EU projects, are in part designed to facilitate cross-cultural mingling and create an elite with a European identity. I think this is a great idea, but I admit I was a little shocked when I realised it was a deliberate one.
I repeate my long-held notion that the UK has never signed up to the "European Project", indeed has no sensible way of saying it in English, and is culturally a long way from gaining any grasp of it. In that sense I can understand Brexit.
It really is a 52/48 thing, and the 52 are the part that are diminishing. The UK was changing until the referrendum campaign. Since then, Little England has gone into overdrive. Sucks that the 52 will be a rump in 10 years, even in England.
It really is a 52/48 thing, and the 52 are the part that are diminishing. The UK was changing until the referrendum campaign. Since then, Little England has gone into overdrive. Sucks that the 52 will be a rump in 10 years, even in England.
Do you mean that pro EU will be a minority? I thought polls show not. I guess it depends how many people buy into British exceptionalism, sorry, English exceptionalism..
It really is a 52/48 thing, and the 52 are the part that are diminishing. The UK was changing until the referrendum campaign. Since then, Little England has gone into overdrive. Sucks that the 52 will be a rump in 10 years, even in England.
Do you mean that pro EU will be a minority? I thought polls show not. I guess it depends how many people buy into British exceptionalism, sorry, English exceptionalism..
No, the other way round. The referrendum was lost when, even now, it would probably be won, and the pro-European position is probably now in the ascendant. The Anglosphere fantasist media is the other factor it is hard to predict, though that would tend dto bolster the exceptionalism. It seems to be an anglophone thing.
Plus rentier capitalism, which thrives in a public school educated and entitled set of twats, i.e., Tory govt. I guess there will be revulsion against it eventually. Or will deference continue?
It's worse than deference, it seems to be a kind of masochistic tendency to offer the skull to be walked on.
Yes, it's psychologically interesting. First you have the entitled public school educated, producing a rentier class, which correspond to the masochistic lower middle class and working class, as you say. Add on imperial nostalgia and longings for Dunkirk style victimhood, and you have a heady brew. Fascism?
Another point, the stab in the back myth found in Germany before Hitler, (Dolchstosslegende), is being reproduced in the US in the Great Replacement ideas, (white genocide). Brexit doesn't directly plug into this, but the xenophobia and racism will probably increase, along with demonization of the EU. So hopefully the 48 will fight back. Happy days.
Happy days, not. To the barricades, O brave and gallant 48!
Please gods, it won't come to that...though who knoweth? Who shall say he knoweth? (E R Eddison).
Well, Trump failed, because plenty of Americans don't want to wreck the US. For some reason, Hitler's plan of destruction appealed to enough people. England is not like that, surely.
Happy days, not. To the barricades, O brave and gallant 48!
Please gods, it won't come to that...though who knoweth? Who shall say he knoweth? (E R Eddison).
Well, Trump failed, because plenty of Americans don't want to wreck the US. For some reason, Hitler's plan of destruction appealed to enough people. England is not like that, surely.
(Interesting tangential fact - about 30 German civilians died for every UK civilian death in WW2. Destruction really is the right word).
Happy days, not. To the barricades, O brave and gallant 48!
Please gods, it won't come to that...though who knoweth? Who shall say he knoweth? (E R Eddison).
Well, Trump failed, because plenty of Americans don't want to wreck the US. For some reason, Hitler's plan of destruction appealed to enough people. England is not like that, surely.
(Interesting tangential fact - about 30 German civilians died for every UK civilian death in WW2. Destruction really is the right word).
Yes, he promised world domination, but anybody with a sense of history could see the car crash on the way. I didn't know those stats. How many Russians?
Quite. It has, of course, escaped the notice of the Brexshiteers that one of the main reasons for the existence of the EU is to help avoid such conflicts.
IOW, as one commentator has said, the EU is about PEACE more than just trade...
I am left wondering if there is some other reason to cut our noses off to spite our faces. Mr Rees-Mogg has doubtless warned the Cabinet of the dangerous spread of Jacobinism, and ministers will be alert to prevent our youngsters travelling to the Continent and becoming infected with Eurocentric ideas, when they should be thinking globally.
I am sure this is why. The Erasmus programme, like EU projects, are in part designed to facilitate cross-cultural mingling and create an elite with a European identity. I think this is a great idea, but I admit I was a little shocked when I realised it was a deliberate one.
It would be interesting at some point to explore exactly why you were shocked (I would not have thought you'd have been shocked btw).
All these civic programs have some kind of end goal, if only to justify themselves to their funders. That Erasmus would be funded on this basis makes sense to a continent of nations which often thought along the same lines. It doesn't seem to me particularly bad or sinister, anymore so than the town twinning movement after World War 2, ISTM that 'organic' identity is the mythic exception rather than the rule, and that all governments have worked at 'constructing' identity in this way.
Happy days, not. To the barricades, O brave and gallant 48!
Please gods, it won't come to that...though who knoweth? Who shall say he knoweth? (E R Eddison).
Well, Trump failed, because plenty of Americans don't want to wreck the US. For some reason, Hitler's plan of destruction appealed to enough people. England is not like that, surely.
(Interesting tangential fact - about 30 German civilians died for every UK civilian death in WW2. Destruction really is the right word).
Yes, he promised world domination, but anybody with a sense of history could see the car crash on the way. I didn't know those stats. How many Russians?
About 27 million Russians all told. 2million-ish German Civilians, and 5 million German servicemen. About 70,000 UK civilians, which might be compared with up to 500,000 Germans dead in similar circumstances (air raids). Destruction. I think the Chinese lost even more than the Russians, but we were talking about Hitler.
(Belarus fared worst I think - about 1 in 4 people were killed.)
IOW, as one commentator has said, the EU is about PEACE more than just trade...
The EU, and EEC as it was before then, has always been about peace and cooperation, about European nations growing closer together. That has always been the case, it was what the population of the UK (and other member nations) voted for when they joined.
Trade is simply the tool that's used to work towards that end.
It would be interesting at some point to explore exactly why you were shocked
It reminded me of the feeling I had when I discovered top-level university CUs were in fact recruiting grounds for evangelical CofE clergy (cf Bash camps etc.). Call me naive.
I think few Brits of my generation really understand the European Project in terms of its non-economic aspects and fewer still understand it with their gut and not just intellectually. It's taken me most of my adult life living in France to get a feel for it (or maybe I'm just especially obtuse).
A defining moment for me (which I may have related here before) was when, leafing through an anniversary book on D-Day, I saw a photo of a Wehrmacht soldier in front of Nouvelles Galeries, basically our local equivalent of Debenhams, which at the time of reading was essentially unchanged from the war years. It's hard to describe the sudden acquisition of the perspective of the country one calls home having been an occupied country.
That perspective is one nobody born and living in the UK has ever felt, and the absence of such a perspective, rather than economic arguments, explains a lot of the Brexiteer vote in my view. Modern Britain doesn't know in its bones what it's like to be on the sharp end of a war.
I repeate my long-held notion that the UK has never signed up to the "European Project", indeed has no sensible way of saying it in English, and is culturally a long way from gaining any grasp of it. In that sense I can understand Brexit.
I think this is true. There are plenty of people who are in favour of being in the EU, but I'd say that comparatively few British people would think or talk about themselves being "European" in the way that I hear many Dutch and Belgians, for example, talk.
I think the UK understands the "European Project" - and isn't very keen.
I think the UK understands the "European Project" - and isn't very keen.
That it isn't very keen is understandable in many ways. The UK has long been caught between two stools; its historic Empire/Commonwealth ties and its immediate neighbours. Its culture is quite different from that of continental Europe.
The question is whether the political and cultural alternative is more appealing, or indeed whether there is any overaching, constructive political project in Brexit at all. (But bemoaning the lack of such a thing probably marks me out as more French than British anyway).
I've always been unequivocally keen on it. In retrospect, it's hard to understand why I don't live in continental Europe because I have always felt culturally and intellectually European.
If you exclude the history plays how many plays did Shakespeare set in England? Off the top of my head I count three: The Merry Wives of Windsor, King Lear, and Cymbeline.
Well, continental Europe as an exotic backdrop for fiction and the occasional holiday (the only problem being of course that it's filled with foreigners) rather than an actual place where people live and work meshes well with the Brexit outlook, methinks.
Well, continental Europe as an exotic backdrop for fiction and the occasional holiday (the only problem being of course that it's filled with foreigners) rather than an actual place where people live and work meshes well with the Brexit outlook, methinks.
That's pure English exceptionalism. England is the only place where anyone ever does anything real; everywhere is is just a backdrop for holidays, and is at risk of being ruined by people who think they live their actual lives there.
Deluded fools.
ETA: the referent floats around rather, but that is mostly for rhetorical effect)
If you exclude the history plays how many plays did Shakespeare set in England? Off the top of my head I count three: The Merry Wives of Windsor, King Lear, and Cymbeline.
Taking the opportunity to improve my knowledge (and very much not from the top of my head)
TLDR I think you're right, in this context you could possibly argue for Macbeth and Hamlet to be borderline on the basis of being written just after the union of crowns and featuring an English visit respectively.
I don't know how much of that is Shakespeare being cosmopolitan and how much is Shakespeare not bothering to 'West-Side' his stories (although that still shows an interest in importing foreign stories for them to be around anyway)
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Anyhow ignoring the Mikado effect, and trying to partially separate contemporary places from historic places (I.E Roman Italy and City-State Italy)
11 History all England (featuring nearby countries, as places places for English armies to attack)
Troilus&Cresida (Hellenic), Corialanus (Rome), Titus A (Rome), Romeo&Juliet (Italy), Timon of Athens (Hellenic), Julius Caesar (Rome), Macbeth (Scotland (notable English elements)), Hamleth (Denmark, misses out most of the British bits), King Lear (Britain), Othello (Venice/Cyprus), Anthony&Cleo (Rome&Egypt), Cymbeline (Britain)
Tempest (Italy/Island), 2 Gentlemen (Italy), Merry Wives (England), MeasureForMeasure (Austria), ComedyOfErrors (Hellenic), Much Ado(Siciliy), LovesLabours (Spain), Midsummer Nights (Hellenic), The Merchant (Venice), As You Like It (unknown(England?/France?)), Taming Of shrew (Italy), Alls Well (Italy), 12th Night (Sicily & Swiss Coast!), Pericles (Hellenic-Asia), 2 Nobles (Hellenic).
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We hope not - and I expect some of the 52 will soon be having second thoughts, and will be joining the 48...
Just over 12 months ago the people could have voted for parties who could have stopped Brexit. They failed to do so.
In Scotland they did.
But, in England there's still a myth of it being a two-party system; that a vote for LibDem or Green is somehow 'wasted'. Added to which, many who would normally align themselves to LibDem policies felt betrayed in 2010 and haven't forgiven them. There are multiple factors when people vote for parties, not all of them rational and not all of them based on a single policy ... that's why a proper referendum is the only real way to judge how much popular support there is for a defined policy. It's not really that much of a surprise that the English vote was split between Labour and Conservative, and that the parties that stood on a "stop Brexit" platform were squeezed out, and it doesn't actually tell us much about the views of the people on Brexit.
We hope not - and I expect some of the 52 will soon be having second thoughts, and will be joining the 48...
Just over 12 months ago the people could have voted for parties who could have stopped Brexit. They failed to do so.
In Scotland they did.
But, in England there's still a myth of it being a two-party system; that a vote for LibDem or Green is somehow 'wasted'. Added to which, many who would normally align themselves to LibDem policies felt betrayed in 2010 and haven't forgiven them. There are multiple factors when people vote for parties, not all of them rational and not all of them based on a single policy ... that's why a proper referendum is the only real way to judge how much popular support there is for a defined policy. It's not really that much of a surprise that the English vote was split between Labour and Conservative, and that the parties that stood on a "stop Brexit" platform were squeezed out, and it doesn't actually tell us much about the views of the people on Brexit.
I thought Labour's policy was to negotiate a deal, then to have another referendum during which they would campaign to remain, despite having secured this better deal.
So they were supposed to be remain as well-just in a completely incoherent way.
We hope not - and I expect some of the 52 will soon be having second thoughts, and will be joining the 48...
Just over 12 months ago the people could have voted for parties who could have stopped Brexit. They failed to do so.
Actually pro-referendum and remain parties won a majority of votes, but those votes were split, whereas the tories were able to sweep up most of the leave vote and achieve a parliamentary majority. Just another sign of how fucked up our electoral system is.
Quite. It has, of course, escaped the notice of the Brexshiteers that one of the main reasons for the existence of the EU is to help avoid such conflicts.
IOW, as one commentator has said, the EU is about PEACE more than just trade...
That the EU seeks to prevent Germany and France from warring for control of the continent by simply giving them said control on a plate is hardly a compelling reason for Britain - which has been the country responsible for preventing both of them gaining said control in the past - to sign up.
It's hard to describe the sudden acquisition of the perspective of the country one calls home having been an occupied country.
That perspective is one nobody born and living in the UK has ever felt, and the absence of such a perspective, rather than economic arguments, explains a lot of the Brexiteer vote in my view. Modern Britain doesn't know in its bones what it's like to be on the sharp end of a war.
At the last General Election on a 67.3% turnout, from Wikipedia (link):
Conservatives 43.6%
Labour 32.1%
Lib Dems 11.6%
SNP 3.9%
Green Party 2.7%
Brexit Party 2.0%
Other parties, including Sinn Fein and SDLP - 3.3% (none got more than 1%)
UKIP - 0.1%
Pro Brexit in form agreed by Teresa May (Tory) & No Deal (Brexit)
Con & Brexit & UKIP = 45.7%
Renegotiation of deal followed by second referendum - Labour - 32.1%
Anti-Brexit and offering a second referendum - Greens, Lib Dems, SNP - 18.2%
The other parties making up the 3.3% are the Irish parties and Plaid Cymru, which either wanted to remain in the EU or renegotiate:
Total offering a second referendum = 53.6%
So, no, at the last election, the majority were not for the Brexit we are getting, 45.7% were and 53.6% were against and that's a 8% difference, somewhat larger than is being used as a mandate for this mess from the illegally carried out referendum1, which could have been thrown out if it had been a formal election not an advisory exercise.2
It's hard to describe the sudden acquisition of the perspective of the country one calls home having been an occupied country.
That perspective is one nobody born and living in the UK has ever felt, and the absence of such a perspective, rather than economic arguments, explains a lot of the Brexiteer vote in my view. Modern Britain doesn't know in its bones what it's like to be on the sharp end of a war.
That’s because we actually win wars.
In your lifetime? Is this going to be about the Falklands? Oh yes, well done you.
Sorry, better link from the Electoral Commission dated November 2019 - link which links through to statements showing illegal spending on the Vote Leave campaign.
We hope not - and I expect some of the 52 will soon be having second thoughts, and will be joining the 48...
Just over 12 months ago the people could have voted for parties who could have stopped Brexit. They failed to do so.
In Scotland they did.
But, in England there's still a myth of it being a two-party system; that a vote for LibDem or Green is somehow 'wasted'. Added to which, many who would normally align themselves to LibDem policies felt betrayed in 2010 and haven't forgiven them. There are multiple factors when people vote for parties, not all of them rational and not all of them based on a single policy ... that's why a proper referendum is the only real way to judge how much popular support there is for a defined policy. It's not really that much of a surprise that the English vote was split between Labour and Conservative, and that the parties that stood on a "stop Brexit" platform were squeezed out, and it doesn't actually tell us much about the views of the people on Brexit.
I don't disagree but immediately after the election, there were many claims that Labour lost it on Brexit.
We hope not - and I expect some of the 52 will soon be having second thoughts, and will be joining the 48...
Just over 12 months ago the people could have voted for parties who could have stopped Brexit. They failed to do so.
In Scotland they did.
But, in England there's still a myth of it being a two-party system; that a vote for LibDem or Green is somehow 'wasted'. Added to which, many who would normally align themselves to LibDem policies felt betrayed in 2010 and haven't forgiven them. There are multiple factors when people vote for parties, not all of them rational and not all of them based on a single policy ... that's why a proper referendum is the only real way to judge how much popular support there is for a defined policy. It's not really that much of a surprise that the English vote was split between Labour and Conservative, and that the parties that stood on a "stop Brexit" platform were squeezed out, and it doesn't actually tell us much about the views of the people on Brexit.
I thought Labour's policy was to negotiate a deal, then to have another referendum during which they would campaign to remain, despite having secured this better deal.
So they were supposed to be remain as well-just in a completely incoherent way.
I was under the impression that Labour were going to be neutral in a referendum.
At the last General Election on a 67.3% turnout, from Wikipedia (link):
Conservatives 43.6%
Labour 32.1%
Lib Dems 11.6%
SNP 3.9%
Green Party 2.7%
Brexit Party 2.0%
Other parties, including Sinn Fein and SDLP - 3.3% (none got more than 1%)
UKIP - 0.1%
Pro Brexit in form agreed by Teresa May (Tory) & No Deal (Brexit)
Con & Brexit & UKIP = 45.7%
Renegotiation of deal followed by second referendum - Labour - 32.1%
Anti-Brexit and offering a second referendum - Greens, Lib Dems, SNP - 18.2%
The other parties making up the 3.3% are the Irish parties and Plaid Cymru, which either wanted to remain in the EU or renegotiate:
Total offering a second referendum = 53.6%
So, no, at the last election, the majority were not for the Brexit we are getting, 45.7% were and 53.6% were against and that's a 8% difference, somewhat larger than is being used as a mandate for this mess from the illegally carried out referendum1, which could have been thrown out if it had been a formal election not an advisory exercise.2
Quite. It has, of course, escaped the notice of the Brexshiteers that one of the main reasons for the existence of the EU is to help avoid such conflicts.
IOW, as one commentator has said, the EU is about PEACE more than just trade...
That the EU seeks to prevent Germany and France from warring for control of the continent by simply giving them said control on a plate is hardly a compelling reason for Britain - which has been the country responsible for preventing both of them gaining said control in the past - to sign up.
Actually the UK leaving gives France and Germany more control.
The policy of, we’ll negotiate a deal then offer you a vote on it where you can see what you are actually getting if we leave, is not what I would describe as incoherent.
The policy of, we’ll negotiate a deal then offer you a vote on it where you can see what you are actually getting if we leave, is not what I would describe as incoherent.
Any policy that requires more than three words is deemed incoherent, confused, or otherwise inadequate by the media. Hence drug policy consisting of "just say no"; public health policy consisting of "hands face space".
We spend over a decade in schools teaching children to read and interpret text, analyse information and weigh arguments. Then the media spend the next 5 decades broadcasting simplistic slogans and chewing everything down into words of one syllable, and people go with it because it's easier than thinking.
Going back to what Eutychus said about continental Europe being filled with 'foreigners I remember a conversation with an English lady at a bus stop on the costa del Sol.
I asked her if she was enjoying her holiday and she said yes ,but that it was somewhat spoiled by all the 'foreigners' who were around. I didn't see any point in telling her that at that moment she was the 'foreigner'.
That is why we are in this mess. The work of education in reality hasn't been done, and the chancers have taken their illegal vote and run. With my life.
I don't think the end product of Labour's Brexit policy was incoherent but the problem was the months and months that went before. You can't expect people just to accept: 'Oh, yes, all those other things we said are in the past, this time we've made up our mind now.'
For reference, the evolution of Labour Brexit policy was:
1. Theresa May should trigger Article 50 right away;
2. The UK should remain in a customs union with the EU;
3. Labour will support any Brexit deal that satisfies six tests that are by definition impossible to satisfy;
4. If Labour cannot 'get' a general election (without specifying what counts as the point where they can't 'get' one), 'all options will be on the table, including the option of a popular vote' (firstly this is equivalent to 'our policy is everything', and secondly if you can't 'get' an election you probably can't 'get' anything else either)
5. Labour will collaborate with Theresa May in finding a deal if no-deal is 'taken off the table' (whatever that means)
6. Labour will seek an extension, renegotiate a deal, and put it to a vote, remaining officially neutral in the deal it's just negotiated.
Some of these positions, including (I think) the last one, are coherent in themselves; it's the cumulative effect that gives the impression of incoherence.
It's hard to describe the sudden acquisition of the perspective of the country one calls home having been an occupied country.
That perspective is one nobody born and living in the UK has ever felt, and the absence of such a perspective, rather than economic arguments, explains a lot of the Brexiteer vote in my view. Modern Britain doesn't know in its bones what it's like to be on the sharp end of a war.
That’s because we actually win wars.
Point of Order. No one actually wins a war, it's just possible to lose less badly than other nations.
In theory, if all those who were against Brexit had voted Labour, Brexit would have been stopped.
Except, of course, it was a general election to elect representatives for Parliament, potentially for five years. Many people had good reasons to prefer a LibDem, SNP or Green candidate that didn't depend upon Brexit - wanting a stronger response to the climate emergency, another referendum on Scottish Independence, or whatever. Or, maybe preferred the much stronger anti-Brexit positions of these parties rather than the rather vague promises of Labour with an undefined "new deal" followed by a referendum to be conducted in the month that was left before Brexit happened and was going to be largely irreversible (at least, irreversible over the timescale of a single Parliament). Or maybe they'd looked at the previous couple of years of Labour Opposition and wondered why Labour MPs hadn't stood-up more strongly against Brexit and didn't trust them to do so in Government and hoped the other parties would do better.
If you want to know what the public think then there's no real alternative to a properly conducted referendum. Which we've not had on the issue of Europe since the 1970s.
We manage not to lose them until the Prussians or the US or the Russians come and win the wars for us.
I like this. We also have the advantage of geography - an island, on the periphery, unlikely to face war on two fronts and not all that easy to get to in a tank.
But that's like generals, always fighting the last war. Who knows what the next one will look like.
Going back to what Eutychus said about continental Europe being filled with 'foreigners I remember a conversation with an English lady at a bus stop on the costa del Sol.
I asked her if she was enjoying her holiday and she said yes ,but that it was somewhat spoiled by all the 'foreigners' who were around. I didn't see any point in telling her that at that moment she was the 'foreigner'.
Well, I'd probably agree. If I was to take a holiday in Spain I'd much prefer it if I could find somewhere not flooded with British, American, French, German etc tourists ... I'd want to find places which were actually Spanish. Why bother going to Spain otherwise?
I am left wondering if there is some other reason to cut our noses off to spite our faces. Mr Rees-Mogg has doubtless warned the Cabinet of the dangerous spread of Jacobinism, and ministers will be alert to prevent our youngsters travelling to the Continent and becoming infected with Eurocentric ideas, when they should be thinking globally.
I am sure this is why. The Erasmus programme, like EU projects, are in part designed to facilitate cross-cultural mingling and create an elite with a European identity. I think this is a great idea, but I admit I was a little shocked when I realised it was a deliberate one.
I repeate my long-held notion that the UK has never signed up to the "European Project", indeed has no sensible way of saying it in English, and is culturally a long way from gaining any grasp of it. In that sense I can understand Brexit.
I have reservations about the European project, and tbh, it's probaby people like me, who support the EU on pragmatic grounds but don't really buy into it with much enthusiasm, who are as much responsible for Brexit as the Little Englanders.
1. I have a rather Protestant wariness of making the fortunes of a human institution equivalent to the fortunes of a particular moral cause - even if (or especially if) that cause is worthwhile. I think it risks a mentality of 'Yes, the people in charge of that institution are awful, but we have to stick with that institution, because it is the Ark of Salvation / guarantor of peace in Europe'.
2. I think it can just end up replacing a British or French nationalism with a European nationalism. One of the paradoxes of EU freedom of movement rules was that they are de facto extremely racist - you can come to the UK with few restrictions if you are European, and therefore likely to be white and Christian. To put it another way: if the Little Englanders say 'Unrestricted EU immigration has negative effects xyz', and the Remainers say 'No, xyz doesn't happen, and in fact it brings benefits abc', then that raises the question as to why abc doesn't apply to non-EU immigration too.
3. If an institution is trying to create a European identity, then everyone in Europe has a stake in what constitutes that identity. In practice, I have the sense that the more recent members, especially the former Eastern Bloc, are considered to have less of a stake than the old guard.
Comments
But yes - well done, RoI.
I am sure this is why. The Erasmus programme, like EU projects, are in part designed to facilitate cross-cultural mingling and create an elite with a European identity. I think this is a great idea, but I admit I was a little shocked when I realised it was a deliberate one.
I repeate my long-held notion that the UK has never signed up to the "European Project", indeed has no sensible way of saying it in English, and is culturally a long way from gaining any grasp of it. In that sense I can understand Brexit.
Do you mean that pro EU will be a minority? I thought polls show not. I guess it depends how many people buy into British exceptionalism, sorry, English exceptionalism..
No, the other way round. The referrendum was lost when, even now, it would probably be won, and the pro-European position is probably now in the ascendant. The Anglosphere fantasist media is the other factor it is hard to predict, though that would tend dto bolster the exceptionalism. It seems to be an anglophone thing.
Yes, it's psychologically interesting. First you have the entitled public school educated, producing a rentier class, which correspond to the masochistic lower middle class and working class, as you say. Add on imperial nostalgia and longings for Dunkirk style victimhood, and you have a heady brew. Fascism?
Please gods, it won't come to that...though who knoweth? Who shall say he knoweth? (E R Eddison).
Well, Trump failed, because plenty of Americans don't want to wreck the US. For some reason, Hitler's plan of destruction appealed to enough people. England is not like that, surely.
(Interesting tangential fact - about 30 German civilians died for every UK civilian death in WW2. Destruction really is the right word).
Yes, he promised world domination, but anybody with a sense of history could see the car crash on the way. I didn't know those stats. How many Russians?
IOW, as one commentator has said, the EU is about PEACE more than just trade...
It would be interesting at some point to explore exactly why you were shocked (I would not have thought you'd have been shocked btw).
All these civic programs have some kind of end goal, if only to justify themselves to their funders. That Erasmus would be funded on this basis makes sense to a continent of nations which often thought along the same lines. It doesn't seem to me particularly bad or sinister, anymore so than the town twinning movement after World War 2, ISTM that 'organic' identity is the mythic exception rather than the rule, and that all governments have worked at 'constructing' identity in this way.
About 27 million Russians all told. 2million-ish German Civilians, and 5 million German servicemen. About 70,000 UK civilians, which might be compared with up to 500,000 Germans dead in similar circumstances (air raids). Destruction. I think the Chinese lost even more than the Russians, but we were talking about Hitler.
(Belarus fared worst I think - about 1 in 4 people were killed.)
Trade is simply the tool that's used to work towards that end.
It reminded me of the feeling I had when I discovered top-level university CUs were in fact recruiting grounds for evangelical CofE clergy (cf Bash camps etc.). Call me naive.
I think few Brits of my generation really understand the European Project in terms of its non-economic aspects and fewer still understand it with their gut and not just intellectually. It's taken me most of my adult life living in France to get a feel for it (or maybe I'm just especially obtuse).
A defining moment for me (which I may have related here before) was when, leafing through an anniversary book on D-Day, I saw a photo of a Wehrmacht soldier in front of Nouvelles Galeries, basically our local equivalent of Debenhams, which at the time of reading was essentially unchanged from the war years. It's hard to describe the sudden acquisition of the perspective of the country one calls home having been an occupied country.
That perspective is one nobody born and living in the UK has ever felt, and the absence of such a perspective, rather than economic arguments, explains a lot of the Brexiteer vote in my view. Modern Britain doesn't know in its bones what it's like to be on the sharp end of a war.
I think this is true. There are plenty of people who are in favour of being in the EU, but I'd say that comparatively few British people would think or talk about themselves being "European" in the way that I hear many Dutch and Belgians, for example, talk.
I think the UK understands the "European Project" - and isn't very keen.
That it isn't very keen is understandable in many ways. The UK has long been caught between two stools; its historic Empire/Commonwealth ties and its immediate neighbours. Its culture is quite different from that of continental Europe.
The question is whether the political and cultural alternative is more appealing, or indeed whether there is any overaching, constructive political project in Brexit at all. (But bemoaning the lack of such a thing probably marks me out as more French than British anyway).
That's pure English exceptionalism. England is the only place where anyone ever does anything real; everywhere is is just a backdrop for holidays, and is at risk of being ruined by people who think they live their actual lives there.
Deluded fools.
ETA: the referent floats around rather, but that is mostly for rhetorical effect)
Taking the opportunity to improve my knowledge (and very much not from the top of my head)
TLDR I think you're right, in this context you could possibly argue for Macbeth and Hamlet to be borderline on the basis of being written just after the union of crowns and featuring an English visit respectively.
I don't know how much of that is Shakespeare being cosmopolitan and how much is Shakespeare not bothering to 'West-Side' his stories (although that still shows an interest in importing foreign stories for them to be around anyway)
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Anyhow ignoring the Mikado effect, and trying to partially separate contemporary places from historic places (I.E Roman Italy and City-State Italy)
11 History all England (featuring nearby countries, as places places for English armies to attack)
Troilus&Cresida (Hellenic), Corialanus (Rome), Titus A (Rome), Romeo&Juliet (Italy), Timon of Athens (Hellenic), Julius Caesar (Rome), Macbeth (Scotland (notable English elements)), Hamleth (Denmark, misses out most of the British bits), King Lear (Britain), Othello (Venice/Cyprus), Anthony&Cleo (Rome&Egypt), Cymbeline (Britain)
Tempest (Italy/Island), 2 Gentlemen (Italy), Merry Wives (England), MeasureForMeasure (Austria), ComedyOfErrors (Hellenic), Much Ado(Siciliy), LovesLabours (Spain), Midsummer Nights (Hellenic), The Merchant (Venice), As You Like It (unknown(England?/France?)), Taming Of shrew (Italy), Alls Well (Italy), 12th Night (Sicily & Swiss Coast!), Pericles (Hellenic-Asia), 2 Nobles (Hellenic).
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But, in England there's still a myth of it being a two-party system; that a vote for LibDem or Green is somehow 'wasted'. Added to which, many who would normally align themselves to LibDem policies felt betrayed in 2010 and haven't forgiven them. There are multiple factors when people vote for parties, not all of them rational and not all of them based on a single policy ... that's why a proper referendum is the only real way to judge how much popular support there is for a defined policy. It's not really that much of a surprise that the English vote was split between Labour and Conservative, and that the parties that stood on a "stop Brexit" platform were squeezed out, and it doesn't actually tell us much about the views of the people on Brexit.
I thought Labour's policy was to negotiate a deal, then to have another referendum during which they would campaign to remain, despite having secured this better deal.
So they were supposed to be remain as well-just in a completely incoherent way.
Actually pro-referendum and remain parties won a majority of votes, but those votes were split, whereas the tories were able to sweep up most of the leave vote and achieve a parliamentary majority. Just another sign of how fucked up our electoral system is.
That the EU seeks to prevent Germany and France from warring for control of the continent by simply giving them said control on a plate is hardly a compelling reason for Britain - which has been the country responsible for preventing both of them gaining said control in the past - to sign up.
That’s because we actually win wars.
Conservatives 43.6%
Labour 32.1%
Lib Dems 11.6%
SNP 3.9%
Green Party 2.7%
Brexit Party 2.0%
Other parties, including Sinn Fein and SDLP - 3.3% (none got more than 1%)
UKIP - 0.1%
Pro Brexit in form agreed by Teresa May (Tory) & No Deal (Brexit)
Con & Brexit & UKIP = 45.7%
Renegotiation of deal followed by second referendum - Labour - 32.1%
Anti-Brexit and offering a second referendum - Greens, Lib Dems, SNP - 18.2%
The other parties making up the 3.3% are the Irish parties and Plaid Cymru, which either wanted to remain in the EU or renegotiate:
Total offering a second referendum = 53.6%
So, no, at the last election, the majority were not for the Brexit we are getting, 45.7% were and 53.6% were against and that's a 8% difference, somewhat larger than is being used as a mandate for this mess from the illegally carried out referendum1, which could have been thrown out if it had been a formal election not an advisory exercise.2
1 https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/public-statement-on-nca-investigation-into-suspected-eu-referendum-offences
2 https://fullfact.org/europe/was-eu-referendum-advisory/
In your lifetime? Is this going to be about the Falklands? Oh yes, well done you.
I was under the impression that Labour were going to be neutral in a referendum.
In theory, if all those who were against Brexit had voted Labour, Brexit would have been stopped.
Actually the UK leaving gives France and Germany more control.
Any policy that requires more than three words is deemed incoherent, confused, or otherwise inadequate by the media. Hence drug policy consisting of "just say no"; public health policy consisting of "hands face space".
We spend over a decade in schools teaching children to read and interpret text, analyse information and weigh arguments. Then the media spend the next 5 decades broadcasting simplistic slogans and chewing everything down into words of one syllable, and people go with it because it's easier than thinking.
I asked her if she was enjoying her holiday and she said yes ,but that it was somewhat spoiled by all the 'foreigners' who were around. I didn't see any point in telling her that at that moment she was the 'foreigner'.
I'd like to think you couldn't speak because you were too busy laughing.
For reference, the evolution of Labour Brexit policy was:
1. Theresa May should trigger Article 50 right away;
2. The UK should remain in a customs union with the EU;
3. Labour will support any Brexit deal that satisfies six tests that are by definition impossible to satisfy;
4. If Labour cannot 'get' a general election (without specifying what counts as the point where they can't 'get' one), 'all options will be on the table, including the option of a popular vote' (firstly this is equivalent to 'our policy is everything', and secondly if you can't 'get' an election you probably can't 'get' anything else either)
5. Labour will collaborate with Theresa May in finding a deal if no-deal is 'taken off the table' (whatever that means)
6. Labour will seek an extension, renegotiate a deal, and put it to a vote, remaining officially neutral in the deal it's just negotiated.
Some of these positions, including (I think) the last one, are coherent in themselves; it's the cumulative effect that gives the impression of incoherence.
If you want to know what the public think then there's no real alternative to a properly conducted referendum. Which we've not had on the issue of Europe since the 1970s.
I like this. We also have the advantage of geography - an island, on the periphery, unlikely to face war on two fronts and not all that easy to get to in a tank.
But that's like generals, always fighting the last war. Who knows what the next one will look like.
I have reservations about the European project, and tbh, it's probaby people like me, who support the EU on pragmatic grounds but don't really buy into it with much enthusiasm, who are as much responsible for Brexit as the Little Englanders.
1. I have a rather Protestant wariness of making the fortunes of a human institution equivalent to the fortunes of a particular moral cause - even if (or especially if) that cause is worthwhile. I think it risks a mentality of 'Yes, the people in charge of that institution are awful, but we have to stick with that institution, because it is the Ark of Salvation / guarantor of peace in Europe'.
2. I think it can just end up replacing a British or French nationalism with a European nationalism. One of the paradoxes of EU freedom of movement rules was that they are de facto extremely racist - you can come to the UK with few restrictions if you are European, and therefore likely to be white and Christian. To put it another way: if the Little Englanders say 'Unrestricted EU immigration has negative effects xyz', and the Remainers say 'No, xyz doesn't happen, and in fact it brings benefits abc', then that raises the question as to why abc doesn't apply to non-EU immigration too.
3. If an institution is trying to create a European identity, then everyone in Europe has a stake in what constitutes that identity. In practice, I have the sense that the more recent members, especially the former Eastern Bloc, are considered to have less of a stake than the old guard.