I’ve changed it and hope that @Iftikhar doesn’t mind. He started it with the intention of exploring euroscepticism but it makes sense for the conversation to be more holistic. Hope that’s okay @Iftikhar?
2 Likes
My intentions was to explore both the EU and the considerable resentment against them. I’m not bothered with the title, we can still discuss both.
2 Likes
There’s considerable resentment against the UK/US etc etc governments too. I happen to be a strong supporter of the EU despite its flaws. It’s had an overwhelmingly positive effect on my life and the lives of the majority of my friends and family, not to mention the wider benefits. I just didn’t see why it had to be immediately associated with negativity. Criticise away, but never forget what came before.
Thank you for changing it.
7 Likes
No worries. The problem is that I do remember what came before. I’d be more supportive if it had remained the EEC, as it was when the UK joined in 1973 and how it was on the only previous occasion pre 2016 (1975) that the UK electorate was consulted on it. Almost with the sole exception of the (undemocratically) hugely expanded principle of FoM of workers, it provided a union of collaboration and cooperation I could get behind.
Alas, it was allowed to morph into something else entirely, something with an organic growth entirely of its own, unhindered by such piffling concerns as democratic accountability and popular consent, with all the ensuing problems that brings.
Sorry, I meant the thousands of years of war and misery leading up to the holocaust. 70 years of peace is an incredible achievement, whatever its shortcomings.
2 Likes
Yes, thank you NATO.
Pfftt! Didn’t you know that NATO have been breaking up fights and stopping wars breaking out between EU members for 70 years.
The relative peace has nothing to do with any unions or cooperation.
2 Likes
Saying that NATO is responsible for peace in Europe is a fallacy. Why? Because if European countries hadn’t supported NATO over these 70 years, it wouldn’t have lasted.
So, what led them to have common views on foreign policy, and to accept NATO as the common military organ top defend them against the communist block, and later as a common military union? The idea of a united Europe. Don’t underestimate the strength of this kind of ideas. It came under the threat of the Warsaw pact, and under the rule of the US until recently, but still, there was a real intent among all founding nations to stop the perpetual warmongering on the continent.
It’s still the fundamental idea, right at the basis of the European Union.
2 Likes
It’s a fallacy that NATO helped bring peace to Europe and then you proceed to explain how NATO did exactly that?
NATO wasn’t founded on the principle of a united Europe, it was founded on the principle that a Europe protected by the major world superpower and the concept of collective harm would act as a counterweight against aggression. And it worked.
The EEC was focused on economic interdependence and development. A biproduct of which is that when economies become intertwined it disincentivises armed aggression between them as such an action becomes mutually harmful.
But the more important fundamental factors for peace in Europe are democracy and NATO. Without those you don’t have the environment for economic cooperation that came with the EEC.
1 Like
In my view, the threat of USSR+ was an overwhelming factor behind the unity of non-Eastern Europe.
@Kopstar, you’ve missed my point. The founding fathers who brought forth the idea of a united Europe (it goes back to people like Mazzini or Victor Hugo - well back in the 19th century) wanted to break the circle of eternal hate, resentment and war on the continent.
It’s that idea of a Europe working towards common goals which brought peace to the continent in the end. Of course NATO played an important role, as well as the political pacts, but they are symptoms rather than the causes of today’s stability on the continent.
Democracy has played a key role in all this, here I agree completely. Hopefully it can stay at the heart of everything in Europe.
Of course. A direct threat is always a formidable accelerator of pre-existing ideas.
2 Likes
I think peace was also somewhat the natural consequence of changing power.
In the 1600/1700s power was concentrated in Europe. Alongside UK, France and Germany (Prussia) the super nations included Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. Wealth, education, military power.
This circle declined as some countries stagnated. The big countries were really UK, France, Germany, and Russia. One of the things that fascinates me was the technology gaps of countries entering WW1 and WW2. Some countries had militaries that more resembled napoleon era Calvary/weapons. Its crazy to think that its only 100 years ago and some were going to war with a sword.
The two world wars took a huge toll on Europe. The US/Russia was on the rise and by the end of the wars there was no European superpower (including the UK). Churchill himself recognised this. Which was really what brought Europe together.
The UKs influence declined with the decline of empire. As did the decline in European nations which held power in Asia, Africa and South America. The US, grew and grew. While Russia and more recently China overtook many European nations.
1 Like
It would be life Jim, but not as we know it.
3 Likes
Barnier’s road to Damascus moment…?
I never expected the EU Nations to take such bitter and provocative action against GB though.
Nul Point!
Nul f*****g Points?
The Bastards.
2 Likes
