All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[Charles RB]

There's also the fact that UKIP nicked all of the BNP's vote.

I saw a Griffin quote in the Metro: whining that people told him they were voting UKIP instead of BNP because there was more of a chance that UKIP would get and, quoth him, send them all back home. But they won't be doing that, he shrieked, it's a fib!

He's right too, UKIP haven't got a policy of mass deportations and "encouraging" people to go back to their "homelands". If people are voting - and joining - because they do think that, the party are cruising for a PR bruising.

Which is what Tony Blair says and he's right.

There's a lot he's saying there that's right. Let's look at one point specifically: "For a country like Britain, if you want to exercise weight, influence and power in the world you have got to do it through alliances, and the obvious alliance for us is the one on the doorstep, the biggest political union and commercial market in the world, and that is the European Union." That's true. And do we realise it's true? I don't think we do or rather, we don't want to realise it. We know we're the US's junior partner (when it wants us) now and we can just about square that because they're so clearly bigger than us, but otherwise we're the UK. We're more important than other countries. We've done all this stuff (and still do). The idea we're not as big as we used to, we're never going to be that big anymore, we're going to get less powerful (as is Europe in general as wealth and power gets spread about), that scares us. Part of our EU wank seems to boil down to the fact we don't want to need the rest of Europe.

It's not a corporation, it wants to be a state

"It" is a union of independent states. To become a state, you'd have to convince 25+ governments to go "yeah, we don't want to be a government anymore" and every man working for the European Commission to go "what I'd really like is for my country to be part of another country". Good luck with that one.

The first time there would be stakes every country would do its own thing.

Any stakes from invasion of Europe would be stakes for multiple states. Historically, they gang up on the interlopers.

[Arundel Armor Hunter]

Any stakes from invasion of Europe would be stakes for multiple states. Historically, they gang up on the interlopers.

Or stab the country that is in trouble in the back. No way the whole EU would be in the same gang.

"It" is a union of independent states. To become a state, you'd have to convince 25+ governments to go "yeah, we don't want to be a government anymore" and every man working for the European Commission to go "what I'd really like is for my country to be part of another country". Good luck with that one.

It has a lot of state like functions.

[Paradox]

And yet, it is not. You seem to work from what you perceive "it wants to be" rather than what it is.

[Distorted Humor]

The EU as it exists will not work. The common currency prevents some countries to inflate out of bad spending, and the countries that are fiscally sane like Finland, Netherlands, and Germany will not stand up forever to pay for Europeans who refuse to pay enough taxes to be at least close to what the public sector spending is. Some of the more right parties capitalized on this, since the traditional right of center parties didnt want to risk being totally anti-EU. As soon as the mainstream party states that they want to disengage from the EU and actually walk the line, a lot of the far right parties will loose the support. Secondly it is a natural reaction when you have heavy immigration and the outright refusal to assimilate that you are going to have issues, and that is not racist to say so. The House of cards that the EU is built on is falling apart with each year another tumble of cards. The only thing that keeping it together is the irrational fear that if the EU mistake falls apart, that Europe will have another big war.

[Pinsir]

The EU as it exists will not work. The common currency prevents some countries to inflate out of bad spending, and the countries that are fiscally sane like Finland, Netherlands, and Germany will not stand up forever to pay for Europeans who refuse to pay enough taxes to be at least close to what the public sector spending is. Some of the more right parties capitalized on this, since the traditional right of center parties didnt want to risk being totally anti-EU. As soon as the mainstream party states that they want to disengage from the EU and actually walk the line, a lot of the far right parties will loose the support. Secondly it is a natural reaction when you have heavy immigration and the outright refusal to assimilate that you are going to have issues, and that is not racist to say so. The House of cards that the EU is built on is falling apart with each year another tumble of cards. The only thing that keeping it together is the irrational fear that if the EU mistake falls apart, that Europe will have another big war.

This isn't 1939, France and Germany are buds, most of Europe's autocracies are gone, and a couple EU nations have nukes. If the EU dissolves there won't be a war.

Except in the UK, that place needs to break apart into 5 different states; Scotland, Wales, Ulster, England and the Isle of Man. Long live the Isle of Man!

[Arundel Armor Hunter]

And yet, it is not. You seem to work from what you perceive "it wants to be" rather than what it is.

Unless it's moving forward with the common Euro identity thingie it will only move backwards. You cannot justify giving an entity more and more power while less and less people give a damn about it's very exsistence.

[Paradox]

It's not about a common Euro identity. It's an ECONOMIC union and always has been. It's about commerce, not patriotism.

Or have I gotten it totally wrong? I have before but I don't think I have this time.

[Ship]

Or stab the country that is in trouble in the back. No way the whole EU would be in the same gang.

Actually they pretty much are already in the same gang. Twenty-two of the twenty-eight EU members are also in NATO. And most of the ones that aren't work very closely with NATO (Sweden and Finland especially).

[Pinsir]

Yeah, its not like the EU is the only organization keeping these countries locked together.

[LoneNecromancer]

There's a lot he's saying there that's right. Let's look at one point specifically: "For a country like Britain, if you want to exercise weight, influence and power in the world you have got to do it through alliances, and the obvious alliance for us is the one on the doorstep, the biggest political union and commercial market in the world, and that is the European Union." That's true. And do we realise it's true? I don't think we do or rather, we don't want to realise it. We know we're the US's junior partner (when it wants us) now and we can just about square that because they're so clearly bigger than us, but otherwise we're the UK. We're more important than other countries. We've done all this stuff (and still do). The idea we're not as big as we used to, we're never going to be that big anymore, we're going to get less powerful (as is Europe in general as wealth and power gets spread about), that scares us. Part of our EU wank seems to boil down to the fact we don't want to need the rest of Europe.

I agree with this almost entirely.

[Puppetmaker Grae]

Except in the UK, that place needs to break apart into 5 different states; Scotland, Wales, Ulster, England and the Isle of Man. Long live the Isle of Man!

Pedants corner: The Isle of Man isn't part of the UK, it's a crown dependancy.

[Charles RB]

The Irish might take a dim view of Ulster being an independent state. That'd involve three counties being taken from them. (The Northern Irish would take a dim view of being told "you're now an independent state" after decades of struggle over which country they'd be part of)

Or stab the country that is in trouble in the back. No way the whole EU would be in the same gang.

The only force capable of invading part of the EU would be Russia, which would effect the whole of the continent - so yes, most of them would be in the same gang if that ever happened. (Every so often someone will bring up China but they'd have go through Russia to get here)

And yet, it is not. You seem to work from what you perceive "it wants to be" rather than what it is.

Right: the UN also has functions you could claim are state-like, but that's not a state outside of Gerry Anderson stories. The basic point of the EU is "let's buddy up in order to make MONEY!!!!", with side effects of "let's loosen up our borders" and "let's synchronise regulation". Only recently has the EU put someone in for foreign relations on behalf of the EU, and she can't really do much unless the EU member-states are in alignment. Guess how often that's happened.

The EU as it exists will not work.

You say that, but it currently has worked. The economic crash exposed a lot of issues and forced some change, but the EU's still here and for all the talk Greece didn't fall out to see if an uncontrolled crash would be a magic reset. It's not the first time there'd been economic issues in Europe either (hello Black Wednesday), or the first political spat.

Secondly it is a natural reaction when you have heavy immigration and the outright refusal to assimilate that you are going to have issues, and that is not racist to say so.

We don't have outright refusal to assimilate from the bulk of Europe's immigrants though - they work, learn the language, pay their taxes. (In the case of British emigrants who go to places like Spain or Portugal to live out their golden years, you do get people not learning the language and sticking to other emigrants, but Portugal voted their socialist opposition into the European Parliament) It's entirely racist for political parties to claim European immigrants aren't assimilating.

Yeah, its not like the EU is the only organization keeping these countries locked together.

Of those agencies, the EEA and Customs Union are "we'd like to be in the EU but not all of it" and if the EU doesn't last I don't see that sticking around; the Shengen Agreement was created by the EEC, who are now the bulk of the EU (and most of the complaints about the EU go back to the EEC too) and are part of EU law, part of the condition of joining; and the Council of Europe's human rights statements end up as law under the EU, and can be and are ignored by other states. The EFTA was founded after decades of the EEC, Common Market et al and includes three EU members

[Charles RB]

Kiev claims it's retaken Donetsk airport - the nearest morgue counted 37 bodies, 2 civilian and 35 soldiers (the separatists claim they lost 100 men; I assume they're counting wounded), and barricades are going up and bunkers being built in basements in case the fighting goes into the city proper.

The OSCE has had people abducted again.

[king mob]

Amazing that Blair of all people has to be the one to come in at this point and start talking sense.

It is. He's a wanker but he's right. He took Howard's Tories on in 2005 by fighting against his anti-immigration rhetoric and won. The fact that as you say, Tony Blair has to be the man who points this out to Labour is simply extraordinary.

[king mob]

The founder of UKIP swears that his party has become a Frankenstein monster and it was explicitly meant to be not racist and xenophobic, but the xenophobic right took it over. (He claims Farage told him "there's no need to worry about the n***** vote. The n*****s will never vote for us") Crucially too:



He's trying to run a new party so he's got more than one objective going on here, but enough seems true to be illuminating about UKIP - and how it got popular. And how recently, at that.

And, y'know, how it got so easily and quickly taken over by right-wing xenophobes. Hmmm.

There's a key point in that piece that really, really has been missed by those in the media trying to avoid calling UKIP racist and have no links to far right groups.

Sked argues that far-rightwingers who have worked for the National Front in the past now work for Ukip. "If he [Farage] runs in South Thanet, his agent will be a man called Heale who was a National Front organiser in west London." Sked means Martyn Heale, Ukip's branch chairman in Thanet and former National Front branch organiser in Hammersmith. It was after Sked left that he was allowed to join Ukip, rising to become Farage's election agent in the 2005 general election.

It's been well known in anti racist circles for a while that UKIP have been tapping into the far right for support, and that Farage has had, or has reached out to the far right under the counter for support. The fact a national paper has finally reported on this is encouraging but it's a week too late.