Britain was “dead right” to leave the European Union and Germany should hold its own “Dexit” vote, the leader of the hard-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has said.
Alice Weidel, of the poll-topping AfD, said she would push for a referendum on EU membership if her party came to power.
Ms Weidel said the vote would be held if an AfD government could not secure reforms to curb overreach by the “unelected” European Commission.
“If a reform isn’t possible, if we fail to rebuild the sovereignty of the EU member states, we should let the people decide, just as Britain did,” she told the Financial Times.
“And we could have a referendum on ‘Dexit’ – a German exit from the EU.”
Not that I think an exit vote would be won. But the squealing that you can;t even think of having such a vote would be fun to hear. Because that would be that evidence that the project isn’t in fact democratic at all. Because even to give the people a say would be the wrong thing to do.
Yeah referenda are difficult for the Jerries. They still have an aversion because of the way that Austrian chap with the moustache used them.
If anyone can do it, Servalan can.
«But the squealing that you can’t even think of having such a vote would be fun to hear»
There’s a considerable amount of squealing currently and it’s getting louder though in the papers and telly all is, of course, still.
Again with the ‘hard right’ descriptor – anyone else automatically translate that as ‘soft Left’ when they read it?
The eu commissars need reminding every now and then of that time when Baron Pigfucker of Greensill was begging for any little reform he could pretend was significant, and they refused to give him anything at all. If they had just given him an insignificant crumb, we’d likely still be trapped in the eu.
I hope they haven’t learned their lesson.
Well, yes I did Julia.
Must admit I find the idea of Dexit hilarious though.
BiW – The eu commissars need reminding every now and then of that time when Baron Pigfucker of Greensill was begging for any little reform he could pretend was significant, and they refused to give him anything at all.
I’ve been trying to think of what the EU reminds me of.
The EU is like being in a toxic, one sided relationship with a rotten, twisted old cow of a woman, isn’t it? The masculine thing would’ve been to either work out a deal with Pigfucker, or take him head on.
What the EU decided to do instead was to be a cunt. And then get increasingly cuntish about us not wanting to continue our abusive relationship with said cunt.
Unfortunately they’re neither warm, nor receptive. But they are getting fucked royally by their own decision to cut off Russian gas, or at least the European public is. Any Alternative for Deutschland will look good compared to the status quo.
That status quo is unsustainable – there’s a frightful gurgling noise coming from across the Channel. That’s the sound of manufacturing jobs being sucked out of Germany by the Yanks and the Chinese. Who’s going to be able to pay the bills in Europe when Germany has mass unemployment?
Saw in Bloomberg recently: German Jobless Rate Unexpectedly Rises to Highest Since 2021. But it’s not unexpected! Trade unions and industry reps in Germany have been sounding the alarm over energy costs for nearly 2 years now. The situation is only getting worse as the German government desperately tries to fiddle the cost of energy by robbing Per.
They’re not even scratching the surface of the underlying problem, because they’re ideologically committed to economic suicide. If we (we as in people living in the EU and UK) are unable to give ourselves the gift of competitive energy costs, our future role in the global economy is going to be that of beggars.
Point of order, it’s not Dexit. It’s Krout.
Rhoda wins. (Applause)
I think it should be called “bunkerexit” because it’s got about as much real world chance!
I think it should be called “bunkerexit” because it’s got about as much real world chance!
Yeah . I can imagine back in ’32 they were saying “That Hitler chappie will never amount to anything”.
BiS – at least he killed Hitler.
Rhoda wins the internet.
The main reason such a referendum would fail at the moment is that most of our current problems are internally self-inflicted. Those coming down the pipe from Brussels aren’t on the radar of most people right now. It remains to be seen what our MSM would do to educate people about that, in the event of AfD participating in some kind of coalition with the about-to-split right wing of the CDU.
There may be much ruin in a nation but it is also possible to ruin very quickly, frighteningly quickly, given people in charge who really want to burn everything down, on the backdrop of 16 years malign neglect.
Even I am leaning towards “either massive reform our out”, rather than “in better than the alternative”. It’s taken one of Angie’s girls to do that.
What is the alternative?
December 2023: EU countries may soon be able to halt their last remaining Russian gas imports under plans to ban Russian energy companies from their pipelines and terminals.
The European Council and parliament have agreed new rules that could empower the EU’s member states to crack down on companies from Russia and Belarus that have continued to import Russian gas into Europe since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine by buying import capacity at key EU import terminals and pipelines.
The provisional agreement is expected to be endorsed and adopted by both institutions, which will mark the last stage in the legislative process before the plans are put to a vote by MEPs sometime next year.
So, what’s the alternative to Russian gas?
If formally approved, the proposed legislation would make it possible for the owners of EU gas import infrastructure to sever their ties with the companies still importing Russian gas without facing steep financial penalties for breaking their contracts.
The new rules would also help pave the way for the EU to reduce its last remaining gas imports from Russia, which had been Europe’s biggest supplier of gas for decades before the war in Ukraine began in February last year.
The alternative is ripping up contracts (auf weidersehen, rule of law) and very expensive American LNG. So expensive, it’s not worth trying to run a business under the new pricing regime, so businesses are failing.
NB – Europe is still importing Russian gas (!) and Ukraine (whose government claims Russia is actively genociding Ukranians) is still pumping Russian gas to Europe (!). That agreement ends later in 2024, and there’s still no commercially viable alternative.
Amazing.
If the hun actually manages to run, what happens to the euro?
If fritz does retire from the lebensraum, does this mean he will definitely leave the euro?
Could they leave toytown Austria-Hungary and somehow stay in the euro? (Oh, how entertaining that would be?)
Whatever you think of it, it is a major reserve currency.and if the central bank of Narnia wanted to swap its billion euros for greenbacks, who would be obliged to?
Of the many, huge problems with the way the euro was cobbled together, one of the main ones is that there’s no way for a country to leave, at least, not without crashing its own economy (or, if it were Germany, probably that of the eurozone as well). Whether this was by design or oversight remains unclear.
Eurosceptism in Germany isn’t anywhere near where it was in UK when Alen Sked formed the Anti-Federalist League, the precursor to UKIP, in 1991.
This is in part about the AfD trying to change the news cycle from the secret meeting they had in Potsdam that’s led to big ant AfD demonstrations in the major cities and and dominated the news cycle over the past week or so.
@Chris Miller,
By design, absolutely!!