Well, that's your analysis, not mine. The EU is not some monolith. The leaders of the member countries get together and decide stuff. Tusk is the secretary who has to coral them together. If the UK wanted to get involved (it doesn't) then it could influence a lot more. Maybe previous prime ministers could have shown more interest in bratwurst or moules frîtes - or at least pretended to. The BBC documentary is fascinating about how it all works or in some cases doesn't. BTW, you can't just blame France's or Italy's woes on the Euro or the EU. If politics doesn't work in Italy, it's hardly the EU's fault. If the Frogs have taken to the streets (something of a speciality), not the EU's fault either. All these countries have "control" over their own affairs.
There have been some fascinating reports about China over the last few days. It appears that the country has literally hundred of millions of CCTV cameras equipped with face-recognition software that keep tabs on all Chinese citizens. Added to that, algorithms analyse your internet usage and award you "points" based on whether you are being a good model communist Chinese citizen. These points tallies decide if you can get a passport, travel about, set up a business etc. etc. In fact, it's just like an Orwellian state and getting more so. If they don't like you, it's the Gulag (check out all the camps they are building in the west of the country for their Muslims). When we start negotiating trade with China, we'll suck up their Orwellian human rights record, of course. We'll have to.
If that is your take on the EU, I suggest that we move on to other things. Finally (hopefully) ... The EU is a ratcheting project, it moves forward when it can, holds onto the power it has gained and moves forward at the next opportunity. It's progress is always forward, never reversing, only pausing when it must. Be assured, the end game of the EU is to remove any meaningful national control over member regions. A region will only be able to enact legislation of middling import to the well-being of the nation. Bank Holidays, and such. Countries exist because they have three things - borders, armies and currency. Lose control of any single one of these things means your country's lifespan is on a timer. Remove control of all three of these things ... the timer speeds up considerably. You may say, "What's so great about countries anyway?", which removes a major objection to the EU Project but not everyone would share you disdain for the idea of the Nation State nor your faith in the oligarchs of a superstate that has no love for your national identity, culture or mores.
Wasn’t that why we had the referendum, because the EU wasn’t interested in our influence ? I can’t recall what it was about, but thought Cameron was asking for some changes in the EU but got no where so he called the referendum ?
This has been around for a while now, in China. Social scoring. Utterly chilling. The USA is stealthily introducing a similar system. Undesirable people - conservatives almost exclusively, never liberals - are being banned from social media, - Twitter, FaceBook - they are being demonetarised by subscriber sites like YouTube, Facebook and Patreon. They are even being denied financial services by PayPal, Mastercard and Chase Bank. Imagine saying that "Hilary Clinton is a crook", "I believe in the right-to-life of babies", "there are only two genders " ... and finding that your salary hasn't been paid because your bank account has been closed ... and you cannot even tell anyone because your social media accounts have been locked down/deleted. China is a totalitarian hellhole but what if there were nowhere else that was any different?
The way these things normally work is that you have to build rapport and relationships before people will do things for you. Which is how Bush manipulated Blair. Just jetting in and wanting people to do things for you rarely works. Cameron didn’t have much in the way of influence. You’ll notice all that BBC footage of Merkel being chummy with Sarkozy. There isn’t any similar footage of her being chummy with Cameron. If leaders of Germany, France and the UK really liked each other, they’d steer the EU exactly where they wanted it.
imagine the uk gov via the bbc closing down sites that have bbc news clips on them. but only the sites that support S,Indi. you dont have to immagine it btw. its happened already
I’m not trying to be awkward I promise, but I’d have thought after 40 odd years of membership the UK would have built up a rapport and relationship enough to have some influence.
It's the British that has been the reasonable influence in the past and held the reins back. When we are out and have no influence just watch how fast the EU move towards more integration.
In some cases, personal relationships between leaders can build bridges and achieve a degree of understanding, cooperation and compromise. This is marginal work though, most of the time. It might open up trade, it might shave percentage points from tariffs, it might foster better relations than what would otherwise exist, open up or thaw official diplomatic relations, etc. What such relationships will not do, is alter the course that a government is committed to. For instance, you may have chummied up to Obama and gotten a sweet trade deal on exported Range Rovers but no amount of chummying would dissuade Obama from his regime change aspirations in the Middle East. As I say, margins only. Similarly, Cameron went to the EU with some not unreasonable requests but got nothing - in part because those requests ran counter to the goals of the EU Project and worse, they would have encouraged other EU members to seek their own concessions. No amount of back-slapping and hugging can alter the course of that particular supertanker.
He went demanding changes, some sort of ego trip where he thought he could emulate the last strong Tory leader (Thatcher, didnt say I liked her..). Also he could see UKIP taking half a dozen votes off the Tories. Perhaps had he and recent other UK politicians engaged with and taken an interest in the union, he might have had some influence. He then called the referendum because he is a toffy nosed dimwit trying to hold the Conservative party together and he could not contemplate two things. 1 a vote out (see previous ten thousand posts for and against for reasons..) 2 lots of people would vote against what he wanted just to kick him firmly in the bollards. The Tory party is a bunch of tw@ts that is split down the middle just like Labour, he was so arrogant he thought it would be a breeze.
I agree. You would have thought that but there haven’t been that many real europhile Prime Ministers. Blair famously spent some time on holiday with Berlusconi - er, sorry - not the best guy to build rapport with! Thatcher put everyone’s backs up. Major didn’t have many mates there, nor Cameron. You’d have to mark British managing of the EU over the years as C- at best. It’s always been vaguely conflictual.
Having a look about at why he called the ref and seems there are mixed opinions but most link to him being worried about UKIP taking votes from Tories. It’s interesting, I think, that both main parties seem split and let’s be honest - crap. Next GE will certainly be fun.
lol Maybe. But we should leave when we have people capable of organising a 'party at a brewery' and on sensible terms. Not make it up as we go, on an emergency basis.
How would you rate the EU's managing of its relations with the UK? After that, we can move on to Greece, Hungary, Poland, ...
But I’m not sure that being Billy No Mates is ever a winning strategy. It hasn’t done Albania and North Korea much good - unless you find mass-starvation to be a good thing.
