Britain, after more than 30 years of membership, never understood the EU as a political union. That has never changed. They do not want that. All they want, still, is: what benefits can we get?
Never ever: what is our contribution? What can we give? And, most important : Do we really share EU values?
Sorry, I am not convinced.
I want Ucraine to become member as soon as possible. They fight for it. They deserve it. Why UK?
The current “debate” on the re-joining the EU is devoid of any content, the same as the last time.
After the Referendum, no-one knew what a Leave vote meant. Until David Cameron made an off-the-cuff remark at a press conference that it meant leaving the Single Market and Customs Union.
This time it’s the same vacuity. Ask the question “Do you want to join the Euro” and you’ll get a different result from joining the EU. The current debate is a minor profit centre for the media, nostalgic and endlessly repeatable. If there was really a prospect of joining the Euro, you would see a very different tone.
The real lesson from Brexit is that the UK’s decrepit arrangements for government need reform. An amateur PM, never had a proper job in his life, gave a Yes/No vote on millions of pages of technical legislation……just because he couldn’t do his own job properly??. A written constitution with some rules around referendums would have prevented all that.
And are the EU are going to welcome a UK led by a fraud such as Nigel Farage? The man who turned his back on Beethoven’s Ode To Joy and made cheap jibes at the EU’s officers, just to get coverage in American owned media?
The FT today reports the former EU commission president Juncker opining that ‘Wounded’ EU would resist any UK attempt to rejoin bloc“ Who can blame them. Not only did we leave the EU but our political negotiators treated the divorce with indifference, lack of preparedness and quite honestly disdain. Brexiteers refuse to acknowledge the monumental damage their vote caused. Not in my lifetime……….
Europe will never allow it. After decades of coaxing and offering special exemptions, the EU finally got Britain through the door and after that all one heard was how much Britain disliked being there. Britain comported itself wretchedly as it exited. It won't be invited back.
Let us assume that if a vote in Parliament today agreed that a formal application should be made to join the EU that the majority of voters would agree. The Right Wing Press would certainly not agree. Nor would the 30% of voters who indicate that they support Reform. It could take the 13 years it took from McMillan’s government application in 1960, when the Tory government realised that the Common Market was likely to succeed and that their alternative EFTA was not going to succeed. The Labour Party was opposed to the EU up to and including the Labour Manifesto of 1983 when Blair and Brown were elected. Eventually Ted Heath was elected in 1970 and we joined in 1973.
Northern Europe will probably very much welcome a return. But a return must be a 1000 percent commitment by the UK. Who says that after a possible renentering when circumstances change yet again there will be a call for a second Brexit ? Lastly, you can’t leave the country club because you were openly dissatisfied and then expect that the country club will welcome you with open arms . It is not a given.
I would love to see Breturn in my lifetime but I doubt it almost as much as I want it, most Brits don’t understand the UK so expecting them to understand EU is like turning the Titanic, excellent insight as ever.
Most voters have only a minuscule knowledge of what the political parties are about. That is the reason why the Tories have ruled for 75 of the past 100 years. It also explains the Reform polling figures. Farage will repeal all the legislation that protects workers rights, will impose zero hours contracts, abolish maternity leave, remove the licence of the BBC, etc. This is not Germany in 1933 where Hitler promised only to restore Germany’s glory, and provided no detail on abolishing trade unions, all the opposition political parties, etc. The 30% who say they will vote Reform will be the worst affected if Reform becomes the government in 2029.
The UK lacks understanding of itself after losing its empire and seeing Germany’s economic and political rise, also that of China and India etc. For so long, we saw ourselves “standing shoulder to shoulder with the US” which was slightly deluded. Scottish and Welsh independence and Irish reunification create even more fissures in the British sense of national identity, and we have a fragmented political landscape, no longer dominated by Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem.
If the UK rejoins a somewhat reformed EU, then thanks should go to the two men who made the reunification not only possible, but necessary: Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
From Ireland I click in faint hope on the BBC link. 'Not available in your region' Maybe tow GB round to somewhere west of Rockall and just forget about it.
Not sure many EU countries understand Europe to be fair. We are celebrating Jean Monnet on this side of the Channel but who in Europe is still able to carch the dreamer, the political philosopher behing the technical realities of CECA.
We need you, you need us, not because of the colour of safety jackets or size of potatoes, but because we are stronger together as market and as regional force.
I feel like TGA is being very diplomatic when he writes 'Britain' and 'British' in thus article: all I read is 'England' and 'English'. I am amazes how a Union of nations like Britain does not want to make any effort to find common ground with another Union of nations like the EU. Maybe it's because London is not the center of EU any longer?
The EU has to get its act together regarding immigration: both external and internal. It feels like immigration remains the number one issue plaguing the British Isles even 10 years after Brexit. You have to listen to the people, even if (or perhaps because) they are being weaponized by fascistic networks from across the pond.
I feel like England is a bit like Hungary 15 years ago. I fear that it will perhaps take another 10 years before England becomes poor enough for people to understand that this is not the way to go. Only them will the leadership change their tune, I fear.
Britain, after more than 30 years of membership, never understood the EU as a political union. That has never changed. They do not want that. All they want, still, is: what benefits can we get?
Never ever: what is our contribution? What can we give? And, most important : Do we really share EU values?
Sorry, I am not convinced.
I want Ucraine to become member as soon as possible. They fight for it. They deserve it. Why UK?
The current “debate” on the re-joining the EU is devoid of any content, the same as the last time.
After the Referendum, no-one knew what a Leave vote meant. Until David Cameron made an off-the-cuff remark at a press conference that it meant leaving the Single Market and Customs Union.
This time it’s the same vacuity. Ask the question “Do you want to join the Euro” and you’ll get a different result from joining the EU. The current debate is a minor profit centre for the media, nostalgic and endlessly repeatable. If there was really a prospect of joining the Euro, you would see a very different tone.
The real lesson from Brexit is that the UK’s decrepit arrangements for government need reform. An amateur PM, never had a proper job in his life, gave a Yes/No vote on millions of pages of technical legislation……just because he couldn’t do his own job properly??. A written constitution with some rules around referendums would have prevented all that.
And are the EU are going to welcome a UK led by a fraud such as Nigel Farage? The man who turned his back on Beethoven’s Ode To Joy and made cheap jibes at the EU’s officers, just to get coverage in American owned media?
The FT today reports the former EU commission president Juncker opining that ‘Wounded’ EU would resist any UK attempt to rejoin bloc“ Who can blame them. Not only did we leave the EU but our political negotiators treated the divorce with indifference, lack of preparedness and quite honestly disdain. Brexiteers refuse to acknowledge the monumental damage their vote caused. Not in my lifetime……….
Are you Brits really serious? There’s a chance that “mini me” Trumpet Nigel Farage might become your next PM?
Have you learned nothing from the hellish fiasco here in the US?
Even countries need to grow up and grow a pair.
Europe will never allow it. After decades of coaxing and offering special exemptions, the EU finally got Britain through the door and after that all one heard was how much Britain disliked being there. Britain comported itself wretchedly as it exited. It won't be invited back.
Let us assume that if a vote in Parliament today agreed that a formal application should be made to join the EU that the majority of voters would agree. The Right Wing Press would certainly not agree. Nor would the 30% of voters who indicate that they support Reform. It could take the 13 years it took from McMillan’s government application in 1960, when the Tory government realised that the Common Market was likely to succeed and that their alternative EFTA was not going to succeed. The Labour Party was opposed to the EU up to and including the Labour Manifesto of 1983 when Blair and Brown were elected. Eventually Ted Heath was elected in 1970 and we joined in 1973.
Northern Europe will probably very much welcome a return. But a return must be a 1000 percent commitment by the UK. Who says that after a possible renentering when circumstances change yet again there will be a call for a second Brexit ? Lastly, you can’t leave the country club because you were openly dissatisfied and then expect that the country club will welcome you with open arms . It is not a given.
I would love to see Breturn in my lifetime but I doubt it almost as much as I want it, most Brits don’t understand the UK so expecting them to understand EU is like turning the Titanic, excellent insight as ever.
Most voters have only a minuscule knowledge of what the political parties are about. That is the reason why the Tories have ruled for 75 of the past 100 years. It also explains the Reform polling figures. Farage will repeal all the legislation that protects workers rights, will impose zero hours contracts, abolish maternity leave, remove the licence of the BBC, etc. This is not Germany in 1933 where Hitler promised only to restore Germany’s glory, and provided no detail on abolishing trade unions, all the opposition political parties, etc. The 30% who say they will vote Reform will be the worst affected if Reform becomes the government in 2029.
Something Parliament has yet to learn!
Either that or:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYqB0uTKlE
The UK lacks understanding of itself after losing its empire and seeing Germany’s economic and political rise, also that of China and India etc. For so long, we saw ourselves “standing shoulder to shoulder with the US” which was slightly deluded. Scottish and Welsh independence and Irish reunification create even more fissures in the British sense of national identity, and we have a fragmented political landscape, no longer dominated by Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem.
If the UK rejoins a somewhat reformed EU, then thanks should go to the two men who made the reunification not only possible, but necessary: Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
"To speak European" — that's it, exactly. We must all learn how to do it a bit better
From Ireland I click in faint hope on the BBC link. 'Not available in your region' Maybe tow GB round to somewhere west of Rockall and just forget about it.
Not sure many EU countries understand Europe to be fair. We are celebrating Jean Monnet on this side of the Channel but who in Europe is still able to carch the dreamer, the political philosopher behing the technical realities of CECA.
We need you, you need us, not because of the colour of safety jackets or size of potatoes, but because we are stronger together as market and as regional force.
Most people in the UK do not understand the EU, it's true. They don't understand the USA either. They can't fathom how Trump became president. If they don't figure it out, they may well find themselves heiling to Farage and Reform. https://pmccandless.substack.com/p/the-us-electoral-system-a-view-from?r=3213cr
I feel like TGA is being very diplomatic when he writes 'Britain' and 'British' in thus article: all I read is 'England' and 'English'. I am amazes how a Union of nations like Britain does not want to make any effort to find common ground with another Union of nations like the EU. Maybe it's because London is not the center of EU any longer?
The EU has to get its act together regarding immigration: both external and internal. It feels like immigration remains the number one issue plaguing the British Isles even 10 years after Brexit. You have to listen to the people, even if (or perhaps because) they are being weaponized by fascistic networks from across the pond.
I feel like England is a bit like Hungary 15 years ago. I fear that it will perhaps take another 10 years before England becomes poor enough for people to understand that this is not the way to go. Only them will the leadership change their tune, I fear.