The most basic logic escapes these people:
Why have the Brexiteers been allowed for so long to portray themselves as heroic defenders of our national interest? By turning their back on the EU they are running away from the issues facing our continent, problems that every nation faces but which no one country can resolve alone. This is not heroism, it’s cowardice.
Europe’s climate problems are our problems and, with the UK emitting just 1% of global greenhouse emissions, only through a collective approach can we hope to have real influence in shaping global policy. Europe’s borders are our borders, at least where the mass movement of people is concerned, which is certainly likely over decades to come. Our security interests are shared, whether to fight terrorism or counter the less than benign influences of Russia and China.
The values of democracy, pluralism and the protection of minorities that are enshrined in the EU treaties risk being undermined from within by the “illiberal democracies” of Hungary and Poland. The UK should be at the heart of their defence.
It is possible to cooperate with people without being a part of the same federal nation.
We cooperate with people about climate change through the various COPs.
We cooperate with people about civil rights through the Council of Europe – the European Court of Human Rights is not an EU one.
We cooperate with people on trade through the WTO.
It’s not necessary to be ruled by Druncker in order to cooperate with people. Why is this so difficult for these people to understand?
Our security interests may be shared (for now), but the security burden sharing is anything but equal – as the new commission president well knows.
By turning their back on the EU they are running away from the issues facing our continent
Not my continent.
with the UK emitting just 1% of global greenhouse emissions
Unintentional admission of how trivial all this climate stuff in the UK is. Report for re-education, article writer!
Europe’s borders are our borders
No, our borders are our borders. Germany, Italy etc – their borders are their borders.
Our security interests are shared, whether to fight terrorism or counter the less than benign influences of Russia and China.
NATO. Oh, and BTW many of the European ‘partners’ are very, very chummy with Russia and Iran, for example.
The values of democracy, pluralism and the protection of minorities that are enshrined in the EU treaties risk being undermined from within by the “illiberal democracies” of Hungary and Poland. The UK should be at the heart of their defence.
The UK must fight to ensure that the people don’t have their say!
Notice how often these people invoke a loss of international influence in favour Remain. Then in the next breath they accuse us of hankering after Empire.
The fact that the next line after “with the UK emitting just 1% of global greenhouse emissions” isn’t “and therefore we do not need to bother with all this clean energy guff” tells you everything you need to know about the writer…
The fact that the next line after “with the UK emitting just 1% of global greenhouse emissions” isn’t “and therefore we do not need to bother with all this clean energy guff” tells you everything you need to know about the writer…
Actually, bigot, I think you’ll find that if we reduce ourselves to miserable eco-poverty it’ll SHAME the Chinese into abandoning economic growth just like those kids in Tiananmen Square embarrassed them into adopting liberal democracy.
There’s just no way the Chinese Communist Party will go “LOL thanks for all the industries, stupid!” and carry on pouring billions of tonnes of concrete.
Of course we have to remain to solve all these problems. Didnt you hear that the EU won the second world war and it prevents a third. How can we possibly function without the EU, the first civilization and all the remnants of life before that were placed there by the great EU to test us.
All hail the EU (and for those worshipers at the back its not pronounced ‘eww’!)
If someone had tried to organize an “Isn’t the EU Glorious” event before the referendum was even mooted then they would have been struggling to get an attendance above three figures.
Most now-fervent Remainers are stunningly ignorant about what the EU actually is and does, not least because they had no interest in it pre-2016 and have been subjected to so much propaganda since. (Many are also too young to realize how much co-operation there was before we entered the Common Market.)
The EU has become merely a proxy for what they think is good and right and kind and everything in “Imagine” – however inaccurate a proxy that is.
It is also an anti-proxy, i.e. “I am not like the horrible people who are against the EU”. Because the EU has become a mythical proxy for all things good then those who are against it must be all things bad – again, however false that designation is.
there was a very interesting article in capx https://capx.co/the-us-and-uk-have-been-subsidising-europes-security-for-years/ about how europe has been leeching off the Us and us for years. I also note that the EU refuses to join us and the states in protecting shipping from Iranian interference. Parasites.
“Chris Davies is a Liberal Democrat politician and MEP”
Politician and MEP?
Is he an MEP simply to fund his “proper” work, like Alec Guinness in Star Wars?
“Europe’s borders are our borders, at least where the mass movement of people is concerned, which is certainly likely over decades to come.”
That has to be the most ludicrous statement I’ve read over the past few days. Beats farming roofs.
The one thing one notices when when driving off the ferry in either Dover of Calais/Dunkerque is you’re now somewhere completely different. It’s not just you’ve changed which side of the road you’re driving on. All the assumptions change. When you drive around Europe, you soon realise that European borders are purely political lines on maps. The people either side of them rarely differ much. I spent a while living on the French/Belgian frontier & the only difference between French Flanders & Belgian Flanders is the colour of the number plates on the cars & the style of the street signs. Which particular country you’re in at any particular time you hardly notice. The Pyreneese do present a geographical separation between France & Spain but Perpignan has much more of the feel of Girona about it than it does Lille and Girona shares little in common with Granada.
I can only presume the people who write this crap see a different Europe to me. Maybe because they see the continent via the arrival halls of airports. Which are identically interchangeable. And only ever meet liberal intellectuals like themselves. A common blight all the European countries are infested with.
The EU’s land frontiers will always be porous because they’re arbitrary. The Channel’s definitive. Separating the UK from the EU & the EU’s immigration problems are simply a matter of political will.
If someone had tried to organize an “Isn’t the EU Glorious” event before the referendum was even mooted then they would have been struggling to get an attendance above three figures.
Even with all the hype they couldn’t muster more than 100 in a city the size of York. But the hall was “packed”.
If the Gladrag is upset then I’m very happy.
There’s a fun game you can play with all Remainer statements to highlight how ridiculous their propositions are. You just add “so therefore we should be governed from Brussels” to the end of whatever they say. For example:
The values of democracy, pluralism and the protection of minorities that are enshrined in the EU treaties risk being undermined from within by the “illiberal democracies” of Hungary and Poland. so therefore we should be governed from Brussels
A couple of things I’ve noticed from these protests in HK:
1) HK has more autonomy from China than the UK does from the EU. HK can set its own tariffs and the Chinese court doesn’t have supremacy. There’s no extradition treaty between HK and the mainland.
2) The protesters are waving the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes in the name of liberty. Not an EU (or EU27) flag in sight.
@Ned
Notice how often these people invoke a loss of international influence in favour Remain. Then in the next breath they accuse us of hankering after Empire.
There’s little doubt that the EU has more realpolitik clout than the UK, what with 10x our population and 7x our GDP. That’s quite an attractive argument if you’re (say) Denmark or the Netherlands, with zero chance of being listened to on your own. But the UK is and will remain a serious player* in global geopolitics and economics. A 1 in 10 chance of influencing the EU to adopt the same line isn’t worth sacrificing everything else for, in my opinion.
* Sadly, being an international player often seems to require the best of our young people being sacrificed overseas.
@BiS
+1
Catalunya is an entity because it’s where the Pyrenees meet the sea, so they can be more easily bypassed. See also under Euskadi.
But I continue to be astonished at how ignorant many Remainers are of the territory they idolise. (Which probably accounts for the idolatry.)
Chris Miller,
But you also only get your percentage of the clout internally.
If the rest of Europe agrees with you, great, lots of clout. If they don’t, you get zero clout.
@ Chris Miller
Cataluna is part of the old kingdom of Navarre, which one stretched as far north as Toulouse. Catalan is virtually the same language as occitan, which was the language of SW France until the weight of Paris descended on it. I have friends down there still speak a bit of it in the home.
Be nice to recreate Navarre. It’s possibly a more viable nation than either France or Spain.
the EU refuses to join us and the states in protecting shipping from Iranian interference
And that’s while we’re still a fully paid-up member.
EU nations collaborate when it suits them and not otherwise. Germany has cheerfully chucked Eastern Europe under the bus in order to get Russian gas.
Somebody pointed out the other day that when the U.K. leaves more power (because relatively more people) will be in the hands of smaller nations, which will be able to gang up on Germany and vote for more goodies for themselves.
“EU solidarity” is going to be a right giggle when we’re not a part of it.
Catalunya has only existed as an entity since 1980 or so. Previously there was the County of Barcelona that encompassed land up to Perpignan but was distinct from Aragon. There was the kingdom of Aragon, which was bigger than Catalunya. There was the short – lived Kingdom of Majorca, which took in Valencia and the Balearic Islands, as well as the Eastern half of current Catalunya plus Perpignan – le palais des Rois de Majourque is at the centre of Perpignan – but was still distinct from Aragon. Navarre had territories in France and not much of it falls into current Catalunya. And the Count of Foix-Béarn once had territories in Spain while owing feudal hommage to either England or France depending on which way the wind blew. Some of his lands are now in Catalunya
Sadly, being an international player often seems to require the best of our young people being sacrificed overseas.
Yep. And having their loonies hate us and want to kill us in large numbers. What exactly is our nation interest in, for example, the Syrian civil war?
” …risk being undermined from within by the “illiberal democracies” of Hungary and Poland.”
Praying right now for this to happen……
I think it’s bloody brilliant that there’s a Bloke in Navarre.
Street names in Toulouse are given in Occitan and French. I can’t spot any difference from Catalan.
Poland and Hungary are democracies who believe that they have the right to self-government in their internal affairs in line with Chapter 1 of the Charter of the United Nations.
That makes them “illiberal”
@BiN (Luv-it!. Well done sir!)
Can’t say I particularly subscribe too the “heads-on-coins’ view of history, so beloved by historians. Which was rather the point I was making in the original post. Political borders do not always coincide with the peoples live within them.
Where I live now was once Carthage & then Roman. Visigothic, Spanish then Islamic, now Spanish again after a brief occupation by France. I find it unlikely the people here have changed much at all. It’s not an easy place to govern. There were still lawless bandits in the hills at the start of the C20th century. The agricultural toolkit you need to survive here is complex. Dumped here without it you’d quickly starve.
Most of Europe is like that to one extent or another. The EU is just a brief aberration in time..
We cooperate with people on defence through NATO
We cooperate with people on intelligence & security through Five Eyes with us being the oddball in EU
@Mal Reynolds August 14, 2019 at 11:35 am
+1
@moqifen @MC
Yep. Germany & NATO/Defence: buy lots of planes & tanks, park them.
Last I looked only 4 of their Typhoons are flyable.
@Lurker @JS
+1
Many remainers don’t know MEPs & EU Parliament have no power and are only a debating/talking club where each MEP is usually only allowed to speak for 1 or 2 minutes
Remoaners: Leaving EU means Nandos will close, we’ll have pay to travel to EU, EU NHS will end…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn_6sU7O43w
@Dongguan John
+1
Chris Miller ”
Street names in Toulouse are given in Occitan and French. I can’t spot any difference from Catalan”
I politely suggest you don’t go to the Val d’Aran, around Vielha, when they have their annual “Aran per su lengua” fest. The street signs come in Spanish, Catalan, Occitan and Aranese.
Currently in La Seu d’Urgell and I have heard much more Spanish than Catalan. The principal other language was German. However, they “culturally” want to align with Occitan but their political allegiance is to the recent construct of Catalunya
‘Why have the Brexiteers been allowed for so long to portray themselves as heroic defenders of our national interest?’
It’s called “free speech.” And you are against it.
‘By turning their back on the EU they are running away from the issues facing our continent’
A geographical construct.
‘problems that every nation faces but which no one country can resolve alone.’
Au contraire. Individual countries can solve easily.
‘This is not heroism, it’s cowardice.’
Whah! Whah! Whah!
‘Europe’s climate problems are our problems’
What climate problems ?!?!
‘with the UK emitting just 1% of global greenhouse emissions’
Don’t flatter yourself, jerk. It’s 0.04%.
‘only through a collective approach can we hope to have real influence in shaping global policy.’
Finally, we get to the nut: COLLECTIVISM. EU is a path to collectivism.
‘Europe’s borders are our borders, at least where the mass movement of people is concerned, which is certainly likely over decades to come.’
Bizarre. The EU demands mass movement be accepted.
‘Our security interests are shared, whether to fight terrorism or counter the less than benign influences of Russia and China.’
Ditto Rob: NATO.
‘The values of democracy, pluralism and the protection of minorities that are enshrined in the EU treaties risk being undermined from within by the “illiberal democracies” of Hungary and Poland.’
Pluralism is a value?
Protection of your own minorities. Not people from somewhere else.
‘The UK should be at the heart of their defence.’
Yes, the UK should be at the heart of Hungary and Poland’s defense – though I don’t suppose he actually meant that.
Mal: try adding ….in my pants.
Currently in La Seu d’Urgell and I have heard much more Spanish than Catalan.
Very happy memories of my stay in El Castell. 🙂