Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[aelf]

I'm betting on the UK economy shrinking to the point where it will again turn to immigration to try and help with the problem. Maybe they'll try to attract skilled migrants with something too.

 

[Takhisis]

Nigel Farage has admitted some of the pledges made by Brexit supporters in the run-up to the EU referendum were “mildly irresponsible”.

>_<

 

[Arakhor]

You dislike Leave voters

No, I dislike many of the reasons for voting Leave. I dislike people on their own merits.

Nigel Farage has admitted some of the pledges made by Brexit supporters in the run-up to the EU referendum were “mildly irresponsible”.

I'd have said wildly irresponsible, so I'm impressed that I'm only disagreeing with Farage by one letter.

 

[Arwon]

Historically, the United States had a great many immigrants that came here to be 'American'.

How would you even define let alone measure that. Why would America be different to any other European settler colony in this regard.

 

[innonimatu]

I don't buy that. While NATO and part of the ECSC were an American initiative, the idea of the Common Market and a political union in Europe was a solidly Franco-German initiative that -in theory- gave Europe an equal voice to America and the Soviet Union.

The EEC was a gradual development of the Coal and Steel Community.

My understanding of European integration is that successive US governments have treated it like that one person at a party who keeps chatting up your date and won't go away. We'd rather have Europe following our lead instead of thinking there is a 'Third Way' via European integration.

US administrations have always supported "european integration" It was the best way to lock in more countries into an alliance with the EU, and has been successful at it. The pressure to include Turkey came exclusively from the US and brought about the first european "rebellion" against that pressure for expansion.

I'm starting to come to the conclusion you are just really Francophobic.

I'm europhilic. I like Europe the continent, Europe the sum of its countries. They can mess up things internally, they can have conflicts among them, but on the national scale between two countries these are manageable, the damage won't be too bad when it happens.
But the EU... the EU is brewing conflicts on such a scale that when they blow no group of countries will be able to control them. Down the path of forcing "further integration" lies an inevitable clash between different ideas for the "united states of europe" and civil war.

Françafrique has been limping along on life support since the 90's and the joke that was Operation Turquoise and the hilariously bad job the French did in supporting Mobutu/keeping Zaire around. I'm not particularly well read on recent Libyan history but I am not aware of new programs Ghaddafi had been doing to increase his regional influence. He had been trumpeting his "internationalist" credentials for decades -including their military debacles in Uganda and Mali- with little to show for it.

France is the country after the US with the most widespread military presence abroad. It is undoubtedly one of the military "superpowers" of the world (I'd put it right after the US in the "power projection" ranking), with capacity to intervene in vast regions of the world and a history of doing so. And french politicians want to do more of that! The destruction of Libya was carried out at french insistence, not because Qaddafi was doing anything different from what he'd been doing before in Libya (or what the french-backed algerian government did), but because he was trying to turn the OUA into a kind of "deeper african union". Copying the french idea for Europe, applying it to Africa with the purpose of kicking the french out of it. That could not stand. And did not stand.

He had taken the ailing OUA and changed it to the "African Economic Community", aiming at a customs union, monetary union, court of justice, etc. It was plainly modeled in the EEC-EU history. And formally constituted at a summit in Sirte, Libya. Read up on it. That was the real reason Libya was destroyed on the first chance the french had.

 

[innonimatu]

When did Kohl (I presume you mean Helmut) threaten to start invading Germany's neighbours again?

The early months of 1990. Both Poland and the Western Allies demanded that the FRG sign a treaty with Poland recognizing the Oder-Neisse border. The GDR had long ago done so. The governments of the FRG (which claimed to be the successor state of the third reich) obstinately refused to do so. Even while the treaty of final settlement was being negotiated Kohl refused, alleging that "According to the legal situation in our country, it is a freely elected parliament - thus sovereign - of the people which has to decide this question". This was quoted in Bush's memoirs - check it. Implied in this position (and not missed by any of the participants in the negotiations, or by the poles) was the idea that such a sovereign parliament could alternatively choose not to recognize the border and take action to retake those territories.

Kohl was trying to postpone border negotiations for after german reunification, when no other powers would be able to compel Germany to sign it any more. It is a little known fact that many central and eastern european borders are not formalized in treaties between the respective states. The border between Poland and Germany is, only because the Allies forced the government of the FRG to sign a treaty prior to allowing reunification.

inno, if we're to believe in conspiracy theories, the US project for Europe was NATO, not the homegrown EEC.

It's history and people are just too lazy to look it up.

After WW2 there was a debate on what to do about the "german problem": how to prevent germany from starting another war. The US originally proposed dismantling german industry wholesale, giving the Saar to France and part of the Rhineland to the Netherlands.
But the USSR pressed for the eastern prussian lands to be transfered to Poland, thus striping an "agricultural germany" of its most fertile lands necessary to feed its population. If some 20 million germans were not to be starved then Germany had to be allowed to keep industry and trade that output for food imports. Thus the Truman US administration (and the US was the Ally that was actually dictating the terms) came up with a second plan: allow Germany to be an industrial power, but force its strategic resources (cola and steel) to be placed under international control. This was how the current EU was born. From the start it was a way to control the "german problem".

But now Germany wants to lead it, in their own benefit. And the French want to lead it also, in their own benefit. And the EU's structure and institutions have put huge power in the hands of those politicians from these nations that can control those institutions, thus feeding their crazy schemes. It's going to end badly, very badly.

 

[Verbose]

But the USSR pressed for the eastern prussian lands to be transfered to Poland, thus striping an "agricultural germany" of its most fertile lands necessary to feed its population. If some 20 million germans were not to be starved then Germany had to be allowed to keep industry and trade that output for food imports. Thus the Truman US administration (and the US was the Ally that was actually dictating the terms) came up with a second plan: allow Germany to be an industrial power, but force its strategic resources (cola and steel) to be placed under international control. This was how the current EU was born. From the start it was a way to control the "german problem".

No, all that did was set up the conditions for why the French and the Germans then COULD launch a coai-and-steel union.

The big leap-of-faith was on the part of the French. Nothing in 1945 said anything other than that the French would be out for German blood for the next century. Regardless of US wishes. No less so if Germany was NOT rendered completely destitute and impotent. (Frankly, I have an impression you have a special horn in your side regarding France — since it's actions and intentions screws with yout narratives of how this should all have worked.)

You're just reading a US involvement into the situation, making all kinds of implicit assumptions about the timeline and intentions ahead of facts, that aren't supported.

 

[Ajidica]

The EEC was a gradual development of the Coal and Steel Community.

Yet the EEC was not the ECSC. The ECSC was a partly American lead initiative to salve French, British, and Benelux feelings about German rearmament/reindustrialization, the EEC was far more than that including among other things, the CAP and economy-wide standards.

US administrations have always supported "european integration" It was the best way to lock in more countries into an alliance with the EU, and has been successful at it. The pressure to include Turkey came exclusively from the US and brought about the first european "rebellion" against that pressure for expansion.

Any articles to support this?

France is the country after the US with the most widespread military presence abroad. It is undoubtedly one of the military "superpowers" of the world (I'd put it right after the US in the "power projection" ranking), with capacity to intervene in vast regions of the world and a history of doing so. And french politicians want to do more of that! The destruction of Libya was carried out at french insistence, not because Qaddafi was doing anything different from what he'd been doing before in Libya (or what the french-backed algerian government did), but because he was trying to turn the OUA into a kind of "deeper african union". Copying the french idea for Europe, applying it to Africa with the purpose of kicking the french out of it. That could not stand. And did not stand.

Given the OAU doesn't existing any more, I'll assume you are referring to the AU. If the French government has the same level of geopolitical awareness as a 23 year old American, they would know never to believe anything coming out of the AU until it actually happens. The AU is very good at talking -especially when it is just one guy talking- but their record on actually doing stuff is just about as bad as the United Nations. (Which itself is only saved from "most useless international organization" because the Organization for African Unity existed.)
Considering the AU can't even get peacekeepers into Burundi and all the economic blocs are forming outside of the AU, I'm deeply skeptical the French government would treat a pronouncement by one guy about the AU actually doing something as grand as political integration with anything other than derisive laughter.

He had taken the ailing OUA and changed it to the "African Economic Community", aiming at a customs union, monetary union, court of justice, etc. It was plainly modeled in the EEC-EU history. And formally constituted at a summit in Sirte, Libya. Read up on it. That was the real reason Libya was destroyed on the first chance the french had.

I did take a look at the AEC and all I'm seeing is yet another round of patchwork African alphabet soup organizations with overly lofty goals and any meaningful action occurring on a regional level.

The OAU is no more, the AU is only slightly less ineffective, and the AEC is -like most pan-African organizations- deader than disco without any need for the French to help out.

I'm plenty critical of the French lead NATO intervention in Libya but the idea that the French were trying to unseat a dead-on-arrival AU initiative veers away from "international sausage making" into "conspiracy theory".

 

[Agent327]

The early months of 1990. Both Poland and the Western Allies demanded that the FRG sign a treaty with Poland recognizing the Oder-Neisse border. The GDR had long ago done so.

As had West Germany under Willy Brandt. It was quite unpopular with German conservatives. I seriously don't know where you get your 'information'.

It's history and people are just too lazy to look it up.

After WW2 there was a debate on what to do about the "german problem": how to prevent germany from starting another war. The US originally proposed dismantling german industry wholesale, giving the Saar to France and part of the Rhineland to the Netherlands.

Actually, the Morgenthau plan was abandoned before war's end. Ergo, there never was any proposal to this end. Which is, indeed, quite easy to google.

 

[EnglishEdward]

After WW2 there was a debate on what to do about the "german problem": how to prevent germany from starting another war. The US originally proposed dismantling german industry wholesale, giving the Saar to France and part of the Rhineland to the Netherlands.

Good post, but I believe it was "during WW2" rather than "after WW2".

 

[EnglishEdward]

Urh I guess MORE IMMIGRATION
Well the UK will be in charge of its own immigration policies, If it want more educated immigrants from India and China at least that would be more workable then the chaotic EU situation. But well its kinda ironic that the UK is leaving the EU to have allow more immigrants.

Well yes, those who thought we voted Leave to end immigration may be confused.

To me, James Dyson's most interesting quote is:

&#8220;We just don&#8217;t have the scale. China produces something like 2 million engineers a year,
we produce 20,000. We are just not going to compete globally unless we seriously
ramp up the number of people.&#8221;

The UK urgently needs to redirect its education. Of course that would take five
or six years to provide benefits, and James Dyson wants more engineers today.

The UK also needs to redirect its companies ethos and governance. The money men
control companies and give the money to other money men, despising engineers.

This has over, fifty years, hollowed out UK manufacturing.

 

[JohannaK]

Everybody knows engineers are needed to man the production lines.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Good post, but I believe it was "during WW2" rather than "after WW2".

Stalin broke the Yalta accord and back stab Churchill on the Polish question and no free elections in Eastern Europe. Churchill on the other hand had drawn up contingency plans to rearm the German Wehrmacht in case of Russian attack. Operation unthinkable, I wonder had it not been for the Atomic bomb and the redressing of power how far Stalin would have pushed.

And the rest they say is history.

 

[Arakhor]

Well yes, those who thought we voted Leave to end immigration may be confused.

The people who did vote that way probably will be confused, yes.

In other news, Herman Van Rompuy does not think that there will be any substantive Brexit talks for at least 12 months, due to the German general election due next September.

 

[Silurian]

The bye election to repace cameran will be held on 20 October.

A bye election to replace the labour remain MP Jo Cox, who was murdered, will be held on the same date. Labour will hold the seat because it is not being contested except by extrem Brexit parties.

 

[EnglishEdward]

The people who did vote that way probably will be confused, yes.

Many people who voted Remain, or are from other parts of the world and
think the UK ought to have voted Remain, also seem confused on this point.

In other news, Herman Van Rompuy does not think that there will be any substantive Brexit talks for at least 12 months, due to the German general election due next September.

I do not believe that either the UK government or the rest of the EU are competent to
determine their negotiating ambitions, priorities or strategy; negotatiate and ratify the
sort of do everything comprehemsive agreement that many people press talk about.

The best thing is for the United Kingdom to just send a very simple formal letter
to the European Union inciting Article 50 and in it clearly specifying the exit date.

 

[Arakhor]

Many people who voted Remain, or are from other parts of the world and think the UK ought to have voted Remain, also seem confused on this point.

So what we can confidently say is that lots of people, regardless of their location or politics, are confused by the process (or lack thereof).

 

[really]

The best thing is for the United Kingdom to just send a very simple formal letter
to the European Union inciting Article 50 and in it clearly specifying the exit date.

That is simplistic but has merit.

The urgent items would be addressed, the less urgent things would be left.

The two years is to negotiate an exit (what happens to British workers in the commission and their pensions for eg) as I understand it. Afterwards the new relationship is negotiated.

What happens between the two would be interesting.

 

[Gigaz]

If it comes to a triggering of Article 50, every negotiation partner of the UK will know that UK faces time shortage and has much more to loose. So they will just delay the negotiations and not compromise.
At some point, the commons or the lords or the people will probably start a mutiny about the state of the Brexit. The UK government could then probably broker a deal with Merkel where the Brexit is scrapped and she bullies the rest of the EU to accept a return to the old status quo.

 

[EnglishEdward]

If it comes to a triggering of Article 50, every negotiation partner of the UK will know that UK faces time shortage and has much more to loose. So they will just delay the negotiations and not compromise.

Which is why there is little point in having negotiations.

At some point, the commons or the lords or the people will probably start a mutiny about the state of the Brexit.

Yes, the Houses of Parliament will probably try to renege on carrying through
Brexit and then there may be some sort of revolution from the people.

The UK government could then probably broker a deal with Merkel where the Brexit is scrapped and she bullies the rest of the EU to accept a return to the old status quo.

Angela Merkel may not even get re-elected/appointed as Chancellor and the status
quo does not satify either Leavers or Federalists. In particular the EU can not solve
its other problems without moving forwards one way or another. Yes, we may be
stuck in the process for a while, but not indefinitely.