The Brexit Thread

[thplinth]

What is the alternative to globalism? Eh... Nation states. Amazed so many nationalists on here struggle with this. 

No one ever heard of diversification as a strategy to spread investment risk. Well same principles apply to political risk. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. 

How would you ever overthrow a Stalin if they got control of the global government? Should that nightmare scenario ever occur.

Why do you think every scummy cunt out there is pushing the globalist agenda.

[ParisInAKilt]

28 minutes ago, kumnio said:

apart from bitter sniping. 

 

30 minutes ago, kumnio said:

I hope the Aussie mental system is treating you well 

 

[thplinth]

This is why the SNP are so fucked up right now. A shambles as the Rev puts it.

The EU is currently the embodiment of globalism and the dissolution of nations states in all but name. Yet the SNP campaign as an independence party with the word National in the party name and are hell bent on the EU as their political saviour. Not a whiff of criticism for the EU... nothing. Yet England going for their own brand of 'independence' are characterized as foaming at the mouth racists for wanting it. It is like what we call independence is not independence at all. We just have affixed the word to something that has nothing to do with it. Truth is real nationalism is a dirty word in Scotland. We are just trying to get a better share of the globalist pie. It is not independence by any description.

The SNP now are pretty much to the independence movement what New Labour were to the Labour party when Blair rose to power. They are slowly selling it all out (everything it really means to be a nation or a nationalist party (or in labours case Socialist)) for electoral success in the 'short' term.

The price will be paid down the road just like Labour are paying for it now. Sooner or later all the contradictions and hypocrisy will come home to roost. 

[exile]

If you give it an -ism it tends to polarise things. So globalism versus nationalism. But reality is a mixture of both and the devil is in the combination.

People fear the EU eroding national identity. And freedom of movement leading to labour having to follow markets across old national boundaries and no one being able to do anything about it. In that sense it has benefits and drawbacks of globalism. So yes, breaking up the EU is a reasonable answer as a starting point to an alternative to globalism. Or going back to the world in 1973 or whatever. Retaining nations allows people to be large enough to stand up for themselves against being completely over-run and exploited by the likes of global (but US based) corporations Google, Apple, etc. So there is the democratic accountability - you can kick out governments and vote in governments that are protectionist, if that is your democratic choice. 

The EU is (was) - for the 48% - just on the right side of allowing some freedoms of movement while retaining decision making powers for nation states - it speaks a lot that Johnson went to see Merkel and Macron, that nation states still call the shots. It also has some protections of local identities - note it recognised Cornwall, in the way the UK never did. 

A problem of a Johnson style Brexit is if his version of free trade just turns UK into a low wages / offshore exploitative economy of the kind people (especially, Labour leavers) thought they were voting against. And/or opening up the market to the US, and just exposing us to their ways, wholly dependent on what deal BoJo manages to extract - from a position of weakness bordering on desperation - from that nice guy Trump (the right to sell pork pies?) without any democratic accountability at all (ie we do actually elect MEPs, and EU nation states could change the rules, the workings of the EU, but we have no say whatsoever in the workings of the US). Johnson is as usual wanting his cake and eating it but he could end up with neither to offer and the question becoems if he gets exposed sooner, or later. 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2019 by exile

[exile]

I think the difference between Labour selling out on Socialism and the SNP supposedly selling out on Nationalism is that Labour sold out on socialism to get into power, and once in power,  even when re-elected, repeatedly never had the courage to propose far less deliver any form of Socialism.

As someone almost once said, the independence movement just needs to get lucky once. 

 

[PapofGlencoe]

25 minutes ago, thplinth said:

This is why the SNP are so fucked up right now. A shambles as the Rev puts it.

The EU is currently the embodiment of globalism and the dissolution of nations states in all but name. Yet the SNP campaign as an independence party with the word National in the party name and are hell bent on the EU as their political saviour. Not a whiff of criticism for the EU... nothing. Yet England going for their own brand of 'independence' are characterized as foaming at the mouth racists for wanting it. It is like what we call independence is not independence at all. We just have affixed the word to something that has nothing to do with it. Truth is real nationalism is a dirty word in Scotland. We are just trying to get a better share of the globalist pie. It is not independence by any description.

The SNP now are pretty much to the independence movement what New Labour were to the Labour party when Blair rose to power. They are slowly selling it all out (everything it really means to be a nation or a nationalist party (or in labours case Socialist)) for electoral success in the 'short' term.

The price will be paid down the road just like Labour are paying for it now. Sooner or later all the contradictions and hypocrisy will come home to roost. 

I don't mind and think we're better off in the reality of the EU but..as a nation state.  I'd be happy with eu membership in its current form as a way to be part of a good deal and be a nation of the world.

It's the way the world is now.  We can't turn back the clock. And I like change.  We should be open to it.

But ultimately I believe in Scotland as a nation with our story.  And I really can't be fucked with our country being reduced to a sort of airy-fairy look-at-me how-politically-correct we are place.  Youd think the only thing the Scottish parliament had achieved was equal marriage and multiculturalism if you watch it's 20 year celebration the other month (both things I'm in favour of by the way!).  No- we are an ancient country with people that have toiled for centuries.  I'm not apologetic of it anymore.  I'm a nationalist and proud to be a Scot . And there's more to being one than being awfy pc

[thplinth]

England did not change since it joined the EU. If anything England has significantly mellowed since it joined...

What changed was the 'EU'. Because that is not we signed up to and joined originally. Originally it was the 'Common Market', something we all agreed was a good idea. It then went to the European Community and then the European Union. Whenever the people of Europe said no in some way they just backed off for a while and then very deliberately and very sneakily came back and went around them... The EU is a liar. From day one and over and over again. Forked tongue cunts about their true intents and goals.

That is why we have BREXIT. Not because England changed.  The EU did and showed its true colours in the process. If these referndum were allowed in other EU countries others would vote leave, i have little doubt.

 

Edited September 2, 2019 by thplinth

[kumnio]

1 hour ago, thplinth said:

What is the alternative to globalism? Eh... Nation states. Amazed so many nationalists on here struggle with this. 

No one ever heard of diversification as a strategy to spread investment risk. Well same principles apply to political risk. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. 

How would you ever overthrow a Stalin if they got control of the global government? Should that nightmare scenario ever occur.

Why do you think every scummy cunt out there is pushing the globalist agenda.

So France and Germany aren't nation states, do they don't have freedom to decide their paths?

We are no where near being a complete globalist society as some think. This isn't a black and white world, we will always need co-operation with other countries, either through blocks or individually, but this doesn't mean the end of nations. We can be paranoid of some dystopian idea that simply doesn't exist, or we could live in the real world.

Trump, Putin, and Jinping are examples of nationalist leaders, whose ideals are based on controlling neighbours and spreading their influence by any means, Id say these leaders are the definition of scummy cunts, pushing their nationalist ideals.

[thplinth]

8 minutes ago, kumnio said:

So France and Germany aren't nation states, do they don't have freedom to decide their paths?

We are no where near being a complete globalist society as some think. This isn't a black and white world, we will always need co-operation with other countries, either through blocks or individually, but this doesn't mean the end of nations. We can be paranoid of some dystopian idea that simply doesn't exist, or we could live in the real world.

Trump, Putin, and Jinping are examples of nationalist leaders, whose ideals are based on controlling neighbours and spreading their influence by any means, Id say these leaders are the definition of scummy cunts, pushing their nationalist ideals.

Why pick Macron and Merkel and not say...Greece?

Did Greece decide its own path as in independent country in the 'EU'?

Or was it utterly bullied and kowtowed into submission?

One of the biggest tools for making Greece kneel to the troika was its membership of the Euro. It made it nearly impossible for them to say fuck you.

[Rich NATA]

3 minutes ago, thplinth said:

Why pick Macron and Merkel and not say...Greece?

Did Greece decide its own path as in independent country in the 'EU'?

Or was it utterly bullied and kowtowed into submission?

One of the biggest tools for making Greece kneel to the troika was its membership of the Euro. It made it nearly impossible for them to say fuck you.

Didn't the Greeks bring a lot of their problems upon themselves? Manipulating figures to get in? And something about a lack of tax collecting over the years? 

 

[kumnio]

5 minutes ago, thplinth said:

Why pick Macron and Merkel and not say...Greece?

Did Greece decide its own path as in independent country in the 'EU'?

Or was it utterly bullied and kowtowed into submission?

One of the biggest tools for making Greece kneel to the troika was its membership of the Euro. It made it nearly impossible for them to say fuck you.

Why? Because they were my examples, I will pick the best two examples to make my point, just as you have picked the best example to make your point.

Greece should never have been in the Euro, their government fabricated their figures to gain entry, as they deemed it attractive. If their government didn't so absolutely fuck up, they would have kept more control. The EU couldn't let them fuck everything up and risk the single currency, so they lost control

Poland, Sweden, Denmark and other countries such as us retained their currency, and significantly more power.

But yeah, it was all the EUs fault.

[Rich NATA]

After all this time, I still don't understand what a Brexiteer's beef is with the EU.

Not once have I heard an opinion, which has made me think, 'That's actually a good point. I had never thought of that'.

It's always nonsensical shyte, which has been peddled (bendy banana's!) or it's "I don't want them telling us what to do"

Yeah, like raising food standards; environmental standards; employee rights... 

I'm happy to listen and learn, but these Brexiteer's don't seem to have a valid argument at all.

 

 

[Caledonian Craig]

All I know is that Scotland has lost so much of its key industries all because of Tory Westminster governments. They closed down coal mines, steelworks and shipyards. That had Jack to do with the EU. 

When we had a chance to leave this union in 2014 who spun a web of bullshit? Better Together and Westminster not the EU.

So that is the damage Tory governments and Westminster governments have done to Scotland now can someone point out the direct damage the EU has done to Scotland?

[Farcity]

4 hours ago, thplinth said:

Why pick Macron and Merkel and not say...Greece?

Did Greece decide its own path as in independent country in the 'EU'?

Or was it utterly bullied and kowtowed into submission?

One of the biggest tools for making Greece kneel to the troika was its membership of the Euro. It made it nearly impossible for them to say fuck you.

Why on earth wouldn't you pick Germany? 

[Ally Bongo]

Political Independence is not Nationalism FFS

And Nationalism is not the solution to Globalism - it's been tried

[ParisInAKilt]

Greece is an interesting one, correct me if I’m wrong but I think Goldman Sachs helped their government at the time cook the books to get into the EU? Even if the EU is blameless, what’s happening to the Greek people is sad to see. I’m sure a lot of people are doing alright out of their misery, in and out of Greece. 

I think right wing nationalism is an inevitable response to what’s happening all over the western world. Forced multiculturalism, coerced migration, the planned destruction of Libya, Syria and Somalia. Remember Syria? Barely on the news these days. 

The sad thing is we are all being played to pick a side when in reality 99.9% of people just want to be happy, safe and have a job to support a family. 

Whether it was planned or not but the UK is deeply divided and it’s hard to see it resolving anytime soon. 

 

[vanderark14]

10 hours ago, Rich NATA said:

After all this time, I still don't understand what a Brexiteer's beef is with the EU.

Not once have I heard an opinion, which has made me think, 'That's actually a good point. I had never thought of that'.

It's always nonsensical shyte, which has been peddled (bendy banana's!) or it's "I don't want them telling us what to do"

Yeah, like raising food standards; environmental standards; employee rights... 

I'm happy to listen and learn, but these Brexiteer's don't seem to have a valid argument at all.

 

 

It really is embarrassing. I've got no idea why theres a desperation to separate us from the EU. Being part of the EU hasn't hindered the UK yet so many in power want to leave and they convinced more than half the country to do it.

Its madness.

 

[Caledonian Craig]

I would say the chief beef Brexiteers have with the EU is their false belief that it has seen too many foreigners come to their country. A belief that they have taken jobs away from Brits and are to blame for rise in NHS waiting times etc and to blame for housing issues. By my experience they are way off the mark. Too many Brits nowadays see themselves above many menial jobs or cannot hack them and so leave. Too many live with their head in the clouds with dillusions of appearing on reality TV or being something that they aren't instead of living in the real world and doing jobs they so wrongly see as being below them. As for the NHS theybdo not stop to think that a lot of our specialist doctors and nurses are foreign nationals that are keeping the NHS running. As for the housing problem well the solution is simple - the government is to blame for not building more houses and accomodation for local councils.

People wrongly think closing borders will stop foreigners getting in. Jeez look at the priority Trump has made of this and still he hasn't cut the flow.

Another false belief of the Brexiteers is that the EU is the reason for the UK's demise. They seem to forget that it was Tory governments who decimated the coal, steel and shipbuilding industries and the car industry was in swift decline before the UK even joined the EEC. In short people should look closer to home for the UK's problems.

[thplinth]

8 hours ago, Farcity said:

Why on earth wouldn't you pick Germany? 

Because Germany has done well out of the Euro relatively speaking. You have to go the peripheral economies where the cracks are slowly emerging and widening.

This is an interesting article...

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/11/germany-stalls-and-europe-craters/

Quote

But there is more: Speaking in the German parliament, Alice Weidel, the AfD leader, tore into Chancellor Merkel for her, and Brussel’s, botched handling of Brexit (for which “she, Merkel bears some responsibility”). Weidel pointed out that “the UK is the second biggest economy in Europe – as big as the 19 smallest EU members combined”. “From an economic perspective, the EU is shrinking from 27 member-states to 9. In the face of such an enormous event, the EU reaction verges on a pathological denial of reality … [they should recall] that German prosperity and jobs are at stake here. It is clearly in Germany’s interest that trade and investment continue unhindered. But, out of blind loyalty, you [Merkel], follow France, which wants to deny Britain access to the Single Market. Yes, you [Merkel] are considering not allowing Britain access to the European Economic Area, because France does not want it. [Sarcasm] that would be too much: Too much free trade; too much fresh air in the markets … France with its failed industrial policy serves as [the new] blueprint [for the EU]”. (See video here).

We have more negotiating power than most folk realize. And a no deal BREXIT is not just bad news for us. But this is how the EU work. They are psychopathic in their negotiations as Greece and many others have found out.

Quote

 

Professor Paul Krugman explains:

“How [then] did Europe manage to follow a common monetary policy … with an European Central Bank, explicitly … set up to give each country an equal voice, and yet satisfy the German demand for assured monetary rectitude? The answer was to put the new system on autopilot, pre-programming it to do what the Germans would have done if they were still in charge.

First, the new central bank – the ECB – would be made an autonomous institution, as free as possible from political influence. Second, it would be given a clear, very narrow mandate: price stability, period – no responsibility at all for squishy things like employment or growth. Third, the first head of the ECB, appointed for an eight-year term, would be someone guaranteed to be more German than the Germans: W. Duisenberg, who headed the Dutch central bank during a period when his job consisted almost entirely of shadowing whatever the Bundesbank did”.

 

Quote

 

And wide political discontent to the Macron formula is already baked in for the future, as Frank Lee notes:

“Those Eastern European states which emerged from the break-up of the Soviet Union had been led to believe that a bright new world of West European living standards, enhanced pay levels, high rates of social mobility and consumption were on offer.

Unfortunately, they were sold an illusion: the result of the transition so far seems to have been the creation of a low-wage hinterland, a border economy on the fringes of the highly developed European core; a Euro version of NAFTA and the maquiladora, i.e., low tech, low wage, low skills production units on the Mexican side of the US’s southern borders”.

 

Quote

 

But here is the rub: All such initiatives are prohibited in the locked-down treaty system. Everyone might think to revise those treaties. But that is not going to happen. The treaties are untouchable, precisely because Germany believes that to loosen its hold over the monetary system will be to open Pandora’s Box to the ghosts of inflation and social instability rising, to haunt us anew. Weidel was very clear on this danger.

The reality is that the European ‘lock-down’ derives from a system that has willfully removed power from parliaments and governments, and enshrined the automaticity of that system into treaties that can only be revised by extraordinary procedures. No one in Brussels sees any prospect of ‘that’ happening – hence the Brussels ‘record’ is stuck: repeating the mantra of ‘There Is No Alternative’ (TINA) to more, and closer, Euro-integration. And that is precisely what the European ‘sovereigntists’ are determined to oppose, by all means possible.

 

The EU will continue to push for further and further integreation as the problems manifest. That is always going to be the solution. We are not in a stable equilibrium. Join the EU and you board that conveyor belt.

I am as pissed off about it as anyone. It should have been left as a common market and no EURO. 

[ParisInAKilt]

1 hour ago, Caledonian Craig said:

I would say the chief beef Brexiteers have with the EU is their false belief that it has seen too many foreigners come to their country. A belief that they have taken jobs away from Brits and are to blame for rise in NHS waiting times etc and to blame for housing issues. By my experience they are way off the mark. Too many Brits nowadays see themselves above many menial jobs or cannot hack them and so leave. Too many live with their head in the clouds with dillusions of appearing on reality TV or being something that they aren't instead of living in the real world and doing jobs they so wrongly see as being below them. As for the NHS theybdo not stop to think that a lot of our specialist doctors and nurses are foreign nationals that are keeping the NHS running. As for the housing problem well the solution is simple - the government is to blame for not building more houses and accomodation for local councils.

People wrongly think closing borders will stop foreigners getting in. Jeez look at the priority Trump has made of this and still he hasn't cut the flow.

Another false belief of the Brexiteers is that the EU is the reason for the UK's demise. They seem to forget that it was Tory governments who decimated the coal, steel and shipbuilding industries and the car industry was in swift decline before the UK even joined the EEC. In short people should look closer to home for the UK's problems.

How many folk complain about immigrants who are nurses and doctors?

[phart]

13 hours ago, Rich NATA said:

Didn't the Greeks bring a lot of their problems upon themselves? Manipulating figures to get in? And something about a lack of tax collecting over the years? 

 

Economic victim blaming, aye their skirt was too short.

The Greek guy/Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis wrote all about this in his book ages ago, i've only been linking it in every discussion about europe on this board for the last 6 years. I think thplinth is the only one who has taken the time to read it.

[phart]

6 minutes ago, phart said:

Economic victim blaming, aye their skirt was too short.

The Greek guy/Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis wrote all about this in his book ages ago, i've only been linking it in every discussion about europe on this board for the last 6 years. I think thplinth is the only one who has taken the time to read it.

Thucydides could be describing the EU instead of the Peloponnesian War with quotes like

" For the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller cities to subjection."

Of course it was CITY-States as opposed to NATION-States and the Laconian Empire being opposed not building ourselves up to match the U.S.

I wonder how much US influence is in Brexit anyway, this fucks up the EU quite a bit and the US has a dominant policy of maintaining their hegemony as the only superpower.

[Caledonian Craig]

17 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

How many folk complain about immigrants who are nurses and doctors?

Not many granted but that just highlights the hypocrisy of Brexiteers of wanting to have their cake and eat it.

I have no problem with Brexiteers who want out of the EU for legitimate and correct reasons. I'd see those as being for wanting back control of laws and trade deals etc. It is the ones that cite reasons I listed above who I disagree enormously with.

[ParisInAKilt]

16 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Not many granted but that just highlights the hypocrisy of Brexiteers of wanting to have their cake and eat it.

I have no problem with Brexiteers who want out of the EU for legitimate and correct reasons. I'd see those as being for wanting back control of laws and trade deals etc. It is the ones that cite reasons I listed above who I disagree enormously with.

Brexiteers as in the politicians? I agree. 

I don’t think for a second any of those championing Brexit give a fuck about voters. 

But the demonising of voters on both sides from the politicians and the media is classic divide and conquer. 

[Dave78]

1 hour ago, phart said:

Thucydides could be describing the EU instead of the Peloponnesian War with quotes like

" For the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller cities to subjection."

Of course it was CITY-States as opposed to NATION-States and the Laconian Empire being opposed not building ourselves up to match the U.S.

 

Of course your analogy is reversed in the case of Ireland and the UK.

The EU has enabled this smaller city state to possess capital like never before in its history, as well as given it the political muscle to resist "the dominion of the stronger" when the elephant they've been in bed with has tried to renege on an internationally recognised peace treaty.