Brexit, aka, the UK Becomes a Clown Car of the Highest Order

As an American it has always seemed to me like the wealthier countries in the EU want pure trade and the… less wealthy ones want tighter integration.

I must admit that i’d be strongly against a similar union between USA, Canada and Mexico.

France and Germany are historically the bigger pushers towards integration. Probably some of the wealthiest members (Spain and Italy, weirdly enough, have also pretty big economies i the union, even if personal wealth is somewhat more limited there, and they also are historical supporters of integration).

I don’t think there’s remotely enough shared cultural heritage between Mexico and the US (for now) for a union like that to be feasible. Maybe when Hispanics go over 50% (a century from now at least :P)

Also we have, in still living collective memory, those wars, so people know the downside of not seeking and looking towards our combined similarities. I don’t think anyone (bar the fascists) asked today (in a serious way) would wish for a return to WW1 or WW2 scenario’s in europe, neither the elites nor the common man.

I think you are completely over-estimating the British leave contingent, and the public.

RAPEFUGEES! TAKING OUR JOBS! COSTING US £50M A MINUTE! IT’S BUREAUCRACY GONE MAD! BLOODY KRAUTS! DAMN FRENCHIES! RAPEFUGEES!

That’s the Leave Campaign summarised.

The hardcore anti-EU guys pretty much shout DANEGELD! at you over and over and aren’t worth the effort.

As a person who predicted this wouldn’t work back when I was in high school and they started throwing this idea around, I’ll be over here eating popcorn and reading a copy of the Articles of Confederation and chuckling to myself.

The methodology is the problem. In the eurobarometer even a cursory glance reveals that several of the survey questions are so vague they can be interpreted in several ways. I mean this question: In your opinion, in terms of shared values, are EU member states close or distant can be answered either way for many reasons that have nothing to do with the respondent feeling European. Maybe they’re just terrified of that scary Islam and there’s none of that in the EU. Maybe they’re stills cared of the nuke. Maybe they’re ignorant yahoos who are scared of everything foreign.

But none of that even matters, what does is the percentage of people who feel European first. And that sits at a mere 8% after three decades of pro-EU propaganda in high schools (I had to go through a week long EU appreciation festival at mine). If that’s the best they can do, it’s not going to get much higher. No matter how much you claim that the ‘youth’ is going to make a difference in the future. They won’t.

There never will be a unified European culture save perhaps a very distant future. I mean, hell, look at the numbers for if someone feels themselves an EU citizen. I would answer that with yes. I live in the EU and its laws affect me. Logically there is no reason to answer this with no, yet nearly a third still do, even though that makes no sense at all. The Brexit is just another sign of how dead in the water the entire project is.

But none of that even matters, what does is the percentage of people who feel European first.

Why does that matter (exclusively)? I don’t even feel “European first” and I’m about as firm a European superstater as they come.

Yeah, I do feel my national identity is equally divided between being European and Spanish (that is, both are as meaningful to me), but it’s not even necessary for it to be so. You can support Europe while keeping a strong national identity. It’s not exclusionary.

The question is whether people feel European or not (an anti-European might not feel so) and whether it matters to them or it’s just a statement of the reality (which granted, it’s not really asked). But what it’s clear is the temporal evolution towards a more European feeling and the generational divide, with a big minority of the youth being anti-European.

Again, not saying this will stay so (certainly these are challenging times), but right now you can see a difference between age groups and an evolution towards a (more) shared identity.

We’ve been living in a non-border Europe for 20 years now. The new generation of adults has never needed a passport nor have to stop at a border within the EU. We just need to hold it together a little longer.

Yeah i don’t think the EU project has exactly the same ‘needs’ as the united states did in terms of propoganda to create ‘americaness’. The Germans and French and Spanish and Italians KNOW their history, what their grandparents DID etc. Now, except for the fascists in all countries, they all pretty much understand it was not good, and the % of germans if asked (old or young) that answer yes is very high when asked about if they regret their countries recent past.

So sure europe does have an actual history (unlike America on the same scale), people know about it, so don’t need to feel exclusively ‘european first’ in the way an american needs to feel american over say their parents/grandparents nationality (mexican/irish/german etc). Having said that as a whole, i agree with Juan, when you talk to young europeans they like the openness of the EU, the ability to move around to look for work, get new life experiences etc. It is a freedom their grandparents could not imagine, and it is very unlikely it will go back to the old days. Many of the younger generation of ‘europeans’ also speak more than one language it seems (maybe not fluently, but it shames my english-only skills), which is pretty awesome.

I don’t think the uk will exit the EU ultimately, but it needs this airing to get it out of it’s system, and to let the EU know there are limits to how much Brussels decides the details. Currently it is leaning towards top-heavy in terms of decision making and in particular in conjunction with political corruption (lobbies etc) the EU needs a more democratic protection of it’s decision making powers, and maybe, just maybe this Brexit stuff will help in that?

The deal doesn’t really do that, though, so it’s hard to see how it will help. There’s this weird thing about national parliaments getting a say (as if they didn’t already through their governments’ representation in the Council), but in practice it doesn’t look very democratic, and it does nothing to reinforce the actual democratic bit of the EU, the European Parliament. Because the Tories don’t like the European Parliament and got wiped out at the last elections.

Yeah, I don’t think the deal does much.

Just creates 2-tiers, which actually might marginally help in that Britain and other less enthusiastic countries might choose to opt out of future arrangements instead of outright blocking them?

You touch in something interesting and that is that (at least in some places, definitely in Spain, I have no idea how this flies in the UK or other countries) this rejection of the recent past at a national level is part of what drives the push towards Europeism and breakaway Nationalism (which is Europeist in many cases like Scotland and Catalunya). Up until very, very recently, just showing a National flag here was considered a pretty right wing thing to do (and about 60% of the population tends to vote towards the left of the non-Spanish nationalisms).While that has thankfully changed, it’s obvious that a rejection/dislike of your own national identity can drive segments of the population to accept an alternative one.

As a small example of this, I walked past the Goldman Sachs building just now. It’s flying the UK and EU flags, which it doesn’t normally do. The irony is pretty strong since it used to be the Daily Express building.

It’s a fantastic Art Deco building that one. I’d be hard pressed to think of an design I like more in terms of offices.

Personally, I agree with Juan that giving too many concessions is damaging to the EU, and that it might be better if the UK left. In fact, I think giving in to this sort of blackmail only serves to encourage other countries to emulate it, and I think that if the UK votes to stay, they’ll spend the next 10 or so years doing everything they can to block further integration, before announcing a new referendum to gain further concessions.

That said, I don’t think the UK will vote to leave. Big business (including The City of London) is coming out strongly on the Stay side, and so are the universities. The next 4 months will likely spawn an untold number of possible doomsday scenarios, should the UK leave. That’s what usually happens here in Denmark, when we vote on the EU, although we still haven’t voted on actually leaving (I wish we would, though, just so we could get rid of our opt-outs once and for all).

Regarding current levels of euro-skepticism in the EU, I think a major contributing factor - apart from the very real problems the EU is facing right now - is the tendency of national politicians, often including the heads of government, to shit-talk the EU every chance they get, except when they actually want people to vote for something EU-related, much like Cameron has been doing.

The Leave chatterati have been linking rumours of a France referendum on exit too today. I won’t use the portmanteau, the British version is annoying enough.

Frexit?

Well France has been having a huge swing to the ultra-right over recent years (the FN are doing very well etc), and those types love the idea of bringing back the frank to solve all troubles etc. They are not the mainstream yet, but the fascist right is on the rise across europe, and that is an internal threat to the EU as a whole.

It’s a crying shame the public can’t generally see the interior of the lobby though. It’s one of very few full-on art deco friezes in the UK and the ceiling is spectacular too. They do architectural tours a couple of times a year and I highly recommend it for anyone in London at the time.