Brexit

[EchoFiveMike]

Meh, face shooting wailing durka-durkas(Meester....meeester...please noooooo) is far easier than fighting limeys, so all that changes is the timeframe. If the UK'ian's get overrun by durka, we'll just given them a few decades to breed(rape) out the Brit genetic stock, then walk in and begin the face shooting and the bayoneting. Of course by then it may be the 3rd Insane Vato Lords Lowrider Division leading the US invasion, so maybe just stabby stabby. S/F....Ken M

[Stuart Galbraith]

The whole of the UK is a frigging carrier, depot, bulwark, R&R and whatnot for the USA, as it once was and will always be, be it against Eurabia, the Zombie Horde or the Awaken Dragons. It will always be important by sheer geography, so please, don´t let the Muslims steal it from under your feet.

America isnt interested. Look at the amount of real estate they have divested themselves of over the past year.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-30725366

They cant come back either. Mildenhall is already on sale to developers.

 

 

Meh, face shooting wailing durka-durkas(Meester....meeester...please noooooo) is far easier than fighting limeys, so all that changes is the timeframe. If the UK'ian's get overrun by durka, we'll just given them a few decades to breed(rape) out the Brit genetic stock, then walk in and begin the face shooting and the bayoneting. Of course by then it may be the 3rd Insane Vato Lords Lowrider Division leading the US invasion, so maybe just stabby stabby. S/F....Ken M

You cant breed an Englishman out. Look at Idris Elba for a case in point. So all you Eugenicists can jog on, being English or British isnt a genetic code. Its a state of mind.

[BillB]

 

Well while UK is working on force projection capability, France already has it... So even there the UK loses

 

All in all, brexit pays for the "it will all be peachy" approach. They should have gone the proper "Blood, sweat, tears and toil" way, with "It won't be easy, but we'll make it" instead of "Everyone will just grovel and give us what we want". Then again, the fgritty approach might not work nowadays

Its synonymous with much of the rights unrealistic expectations of what Britain can achieve on the world stage sans Europe. What they all forget (and frankly someone should remind them of) is that Britain (Mostly Tory Goverments at that) fought for over decade to enter the EEC to counter Britain's decline on the world stage by giving us easier access to European Markets. Quite why its going to be magically different 40 years later than it was in the late 1960s, has not been explained.

 

Im a gingoist with the best of them. I enjoy the annoyance of those whom would slight my country by pointing out its many, many, many achievements. Mass communications, world trade, defeat of imperialists, fascists and communist states among them. I just dont kid myself its the same country that made those achievements. Its now over 70 years since the second world war. Isnt it about time we looked at ourselves in a more realistic, less rose tinted mirror?

 

Really its a country of two realities. The one we all would wish it was, ie powerful, influential on the world stage, able to conduct an independent foreign policy. The kind popularised by the James Bond films if you will. And the other one, increasingly militarily enfeebled, unable to conceive or act on its own foreign policy, and increasingly (we pretend its not so, but compare any industrial town in England to those in Poland or Germany) industrially enfeebled. Ok, we have a powerful financial sector. But how influential is that? Judging by all the trade barriers China and America put up, not remotely. We cant even influence Russia, and their oligarchs all bank here.

 

People would say this is cynical. I just point to wherever I seem to visit are former industrial towns and no longer are. Are we really saying this is all going to magically reappear when our best export market, Europe, is more difficult to access? Id like to believe the Brexit campaign. I dont, because its a misconceived fantasy, just like the return to the gold standard was.

 

Ref the bolded bit mate, I find it sad you think regaining the national sovereignty and self-determination pretty much stolen from us in 1973 by the political establishment is a "misconceived fantasy"...

 

BillB

[toysoldier]

No patch of land has ever been more invaded, and then redefined and improved by said invasions than the British Isles...

Edited April 23, 2016 by toysoldier

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

Well while UK is working on force projection capability, France already has it... So even there the UK loses

 

All in all, brexit pays for the "it will all be peachy" approach. They should have gone the proper "Blood, sweat, tears and toil" way, with "It won't be easy, but we'll make it" instead of "Everyone will just grovel and give us what we want". Then again, the fgritty approach might not work nowadays

Its synonymous with much of the rights unrealistic expectations of what Britain can achieve on the world stage sans Europe. What they all forget (and frankly someone should remind them of) is that Britain (Mostly Tory Goverments at that) fought for over decade to enter the EEC to counter Britain's decline on the world stage by giving us easier access to European Markets. Quite why its going to be magically different 40 years later than it was in the late 1960s, has not been explained.

 

Im a gingoist with the best of them. I enjoy the annoyance of those whom would slight my country by pointing out its many, many, many achievements. Mass communications, world trade, defeat of imperialists, fascists and communist states among them. I just dont kid myself its the same country that made those achievements. Its now over 70 years since the second world war. Isnt it about time we looked at ourselves in a more realistic, less rose tinted mirror?

 

Really its a country of two realities. The one we all would wish it was, ie powerful, influential on the world stage, able to conduct an independent foreign policy. The kind popularised by the James Bond films if you will. And the other one, increasingly militarily enfeebled, unable to conceive or act on its own foreign policy, and increasingly (we pretend its not so, but compare any industrial town in England to those in Poland or Germany) industrially enfeebled. Ok, we have a powerful financial sector. But how influential is that? Judging by all the trade barriers China and America put up, not remotely. We cant even influence Russia, and their oligarchs all bank here.

 

People would say this is cynical. I just point to wherever I seem to visit are former industrial towns and no longer are. Are we really saying this is all going to magically reappear when our best export market, Europe, is more difficult to access? Id like to believe the Brexit campaign. I dont, because its a misconceived fantasy, just like the return to the gold standard was.

 

Ref the bolded bit mate, I find it sad you think regaining the national sovereignty and self-determination pretty much stolen from us in 1973 by the political establishment is a "misconceived fantasy"...

 

BillB

 

Bill, I dont think it was lost in 1973. I think It was lost in 1956, and perhaps more arguably,1945. The postwar world wasnt settled by us, it was settled by America and the USSR. It was the loss of world power status that drove us to Europe. We didnt give anything away we hadnt already lost long before. For example, the European court of human rights, that traditional bugbear of Teresa May, do you know when we signed up for the founding convention? 1950. Id have to check, but Ive a feeling it passed through Parliament whilst Churchill was PM in 1951. Long, Long before we ever joined, or even thought of joining, the EEC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/948143.stm

 

Im not condemning the US for how thing are. Its just recognizing the self evident, America took over our global leadership and we arent getting it back. I mean no offense to any of the other Commonwealth nations, but have they ever really developed an independent foreign policy of the United States either? The nearest anyone got was India, and clearly that has its limits, in part defined by US support for Pakistan. Economic policy, everyone else is in thall to America, unwittingly or not. Its the interconnected fiscal world in which we live. Fortunate then that in most important respects, the Americans as far as foreign policy think as well largely do. So, mostly, do our senior European partners.

 

One might say that the EEC/EU issue is a separate thing, nothing to do with the US. I would argue its got everything to do with it. The French didnt want us in the EU because they knew we would be America's stalking horse (and no bad thing at that). America wanted us in for the same reason. The only one who seems uncomfortable with this position is us, and frankly we have been the ones whom have done the best out of it. All those japanese car firms that came here, did they come here because they liked us? Perhaps. Probably more likely they came here because it gave them a foot in the door of the European market. Where we have arguably failed is that we havent been difficult in the EU enough. A few PMs who slapped their hands on the table and said 'non' and I think our entire atittude to the EU would be different. That its not happened nearly enough says something of the quality of PMs we have had since 1973.

 

Would I like a Britain truly independent on the world stage to wave the rules? Of course. It strikes me though that we are still in the same problem that the Tudors had, in that they were a former continental superpower, no longer were, and had a grave problem transitioning to the new humble status they found themselves in. In fact maybe that was the driving influence towards Empire. We have no similar options today. We are stuck in Europe and one may as well come to terms with the facts as they are now, rather than pretend there are unrealistic alternatives.

 

Ultimately it poses the real question, what is national sovereignty and self determination, when we are already part of military alliances whose more significant players are above our pay grade, and we live in a world when money is a mouse click and a continent away? The world has changed. We can aspire to Putineque ideas of a multipolar world, but even if it were really achievable (which without the collapse of the US I rather doubt), what we are really doing is aspiring to an unobtainable fiction.

 

I should add, I feel comfortable with the independent nation state, I grew up with it. But I have to question whether it still has a place in a world when everyone is forced to compete with the economic powerhouse that is China, and everyone is part of economic and military alliances that resolve around America. I dont object to that, its been increasingly true as long as ive been alive. I just have to say, what is the alternative? We arent a miltiary power like Russia thats worth a damn, and we arent an economic one like China. If there is an alternative to where we are, Im not seeing it.

 

Fantasy is perhaps too strong a word. Illusion would be better. A comfortable, charming illusion, perhaps if im honest, even an attractive one even to me.But a cynic like me keep remembering the assurances of how wonderful the country would be returning to the gold standard, and the economy has never been as strong since. Which justs goes to show, smart people are just as prone to emotional choices as anyone else.

 

Thats what Brexit is, an emotional choice. I choose the mediocre, miserable choice that is the EU, not because I like it. I dont see any alternatives that give us a place on the world stage comparable.

 

Thats a long and wordy answer, for which I apologise. You are doubtless used to it by now.

[EchoFiveMike]

 

 

 

Meh, face shooting wailing durka-durkas(Meester....meeester...please noooooo) is far easier than fighting limeys, so all that changes is the timeframe. If the UK'ian's get overrun by durka, we'll just given them a few decades to breed(rape) out the Brit genetic stock, then walk in and begin the face shooting and the bayoneting. Of course by then it may be the 3rd Insane Vato Lords Lowrider Division leading the US invasion, so maybe just stabby stabby. S/F....Ken M

You cant breed an Englishman out. Look at Idris Elba for a case in point. So all you Eugenicists can jog on, being English or British isnt a genetic code. Its a state of mind.

 

LOL, ok. S/F....Ken M

[Stuart Galbraith]

No patch of land has ever been more invaded, and then redefined and improved by said invasions than the British Isles...

Ive pointed out before that at hadrians wall there are Roman graves of soldiers who has settled here, apparently from Assyria. So yes, quite so.

 

Its a mongrel nation. It always has been. Whats been notable down the years is that the more people invade, the more they settle, the more they become like the locals. Not always to their betterment perhaps.

 

The problem now is not the race of the people coming. Its not even necessarily the religion of the people (my own relatives were part of some bizarre religious sect that fled a German state in the 1600s), its the numbers arriving. If the EU can just implement a points system, or better yet, just actually deal with multitude coming from Syria, there wont be a problem assimilating any immigrants, if the numbers are kept at a manageable level. Its what we have done all the way back to the Romans, and if recent history is any guide, the Irish imperialists even before that.

 

The nature of the problem as I see its is misreported. people aren't scared so much of foreigners, as foreign ideals. Or at least such is how I see it.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Stuart Galbraith

[Soren Ras]

 

No patch of land has ever been more invaded, and then redefined and improved by said invasions than the British Isles...

Ive pointed out before that at hadrians wall there are Roman graves of soldiers who has settled here, apparently from Assyria. So yes, quite so.

 

Its a mongrel nation. It always has been. Whats been notable down the years is that the more people invade, the more they settle, the more they become like the locals. Not always to their betterment perhaps.

 

The problem now is not the race of the people coming. Its not even necessarily the religion of the people (my own relatives were part of some bizarre religious sect that fled a German state in the 1600s), its the numbers arriving. If the EU can just implement a points system, or better yet, just actually deal with multitude coming from Syria, there wont be a problem assimilating any immigrants, if the numbers are kept at a manageable level. Its what we have done all the way back to the Romans, and if recent history is any guide, the Irish imperialists even before that.

 

The nature of the problem as I see its is misreported. people aren't scared so much of foreigners, as foreign ideals. Or at least such is how I see it.

 

Fair warning. I stopped reading after you wrote "If the EU can just implement", quite overcome by paroxysmal guffawing.

 

..

Soren

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

No patch of land has ever been more invaded, and then redefined and improved by said invasions than the British Isles...

Ive pointed out before that at hadrians wall there are Roman graves of soldiers who has settled here, apparently from Assyria. So yes, quite so.

 

Its a mongrel nation. It always has been. Whats been notable down the years is that the more people invade, the more they settle, the more they become like the locals. Not always to their betterment perhaps.

 

The problem now is not the race of the people coming. Its not even necessarily the religion of the people (my own relatives were part of some bizarre religious sect that fled a German state in the 1600s), its the numbers arriving. If the EU can just implement a points system, or better yet, just actually deal with multitude coming from Syria, there wont be a problem assimilating any immigrants, if the numbers are kept at a manageable level. Its what we have done all the way back to the Romans, and if recent history is any guide, the Irish imperialists even before that.

 

The nature of the problem as I see its is misreported. people aren't scared so much of foreigners, as foreign ideals. Or at least such is how I see it.

 

Fair warning. I stopped reading after you wrote "If the EU can just implement", quite overcome by paroxysmal guffawing.

 

..

Soren

 

Fair comment.

 

I mean I accept the brexiters idea that there are elements of it unelected, and its a nightmare of a bureaucracy. Slam dunk. But they say that with a straight face whilst sat next to the worlds most expensive old peoples home, which is similarly unelected and only exists to provide bed and board for people whom are decendents of those who provided sexual favours to ancient monarchs, or political (or conceivably sexual) favours for current politicians. We really arent setting a high bar for the rest of Europe to live up to anymore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords

Edited April 23, 2016 by Stuart Galbraith

[BillB]

No patch of land has ever been more invaded, and then redefined and improved by said invasions than the British Isles...

Really? My understanding is that the idea these Sceptred Isles were repeatedly overrun by waves of invaders thing has been largely debunked and consequently it was more often the the opposite way round, with invaders becoming assimilated. And I think the Brit record of being invaded isn't too bad at what four or five in 2,000 years, not least due to all that wet stuff around the edges of course.

 

BillB

[swerve]

Only four or five in 2000 years? Weelll . . . there were two in 1066 (one unsuccessful), 1070 (bought off), 1216 (the French controlled over half of England for a while, until the Battle of Lincoln), 1326, 1545, 1688 . . . , & that's only counting maritime invasions of England, not counting invasions of other parts of the British Isles. There were several Norse invasions prior to 1066, e.g. 865, 947, 1003, 1009 & 1015.

Edited April 23, 2016 by swerve

[Marek Tucan]

And then there was all that Saxon unpleasantness, and within the 2000 years even the Romans came

 

And to my understanding while genetic impac ts of some invasions could have been small (such as Normans), quite often it meant quite significant overturning of culture etc... Not really assimilation, more hostile takeover

[toysoldier]

Other nations have been Invaded more and more often... China comes to mind. Others have had more dramatic changes... The whole western hemisphere. Other invasions have been so utterly advancing, like that of Gaul by Rome. But the Isles have the best balance of frecuence, alteration, preservation, advancement and coolness factor*. Heck, even the failed invasions are awesome... Great Armada, yes?

 

*How often you get to be invaded By The great Heathen Army?

Edited April 24, 2016 by toysoldier

[Ivanhoe]

*How often you get to be invaded By The great Heathen Army?

 

Once or twice a season;

 

[toysoldier]

Oh, that... yeah, i hear that the amount of maiden plowing is commensurate with historical records.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

No patch of land has ever been more invaded, and then redefined and improved by said invasions than the British Isles...

Really? My understanding is that the idea these Sceptred Isles were repeatedly overrun by waves of invaders thing has been largely debunked and consequently it was more often the the opposite way round, with invaders becoming assimilated. And I think the Brit record of being invaded isn't too bad at what four or five in 2,000 years, not least due to all that wet stuff around the edges of course.

 

BillB

 

Bill did you see this when it was posted up a few months ago?

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/03/17/irish-history-being-upended-by-bones-found-under-a-bar.html

 

Which implies, hilariously, that the Irish Celts invaded us and Europe, rather than the other way around. Probably looking for decent pubs that stocked Guinness.

 

 

We have a good record compared to some. But equally one can look at what happened since the Romans departed as a bit of a free for all till the Normans turned up. We might have been relatively homogeneous post 1066, but the previous thousand years certainly doesn't seem to be. And I have to ask the question if it was so even then. Ive got a mix of Viking, Burgundian and Norman if my mothers ancestry account is any way accurate. I dont suppose im the only one.

[toysoldier]

Through history, the divides among brittish peoples have been more of language than racial or cultural, and that is kind of easy to overcome. Ok, the Welsh might disagree, but still...

[Stuart Galbraith]

I wouldnt overlook culture as also perhaps having a role. I mean I was watching Neil Olivers history of the vikings on BBC a few years back and he made a pertinent point about the North/South divide. He suggested, and I have to admit it made some sense, that its emergence was due to the Viking invasion. A disconnect that has to an extent endured all through the subsequent years, and in my view exacerbated by the industrial revolution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%E2%80%93South_divide_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

He might have a point there. After all, the split between Russians and Ukrainians emerged during the Mongol invasion and subsequent occupation of Russia.

[toysoldier]

Oh, you always gonna have some geographical... gradients that look steep from inside. I mean, Cuba is less than a 3rd of Great Britain and we have our local flavors that most outsiders ignore.

[Panzermann]

What has Europe ever done for us?

 

[Corinthian]

Good one!

[Simon Tan]

Errrr....all that existed before the European rubbish. Low information viewing. Good God...the Magna Carta anyone?

[BillB]

What has Europe ever done for us?

 

You (and Jean Luc) do know that the ECHR isn't actually anything to do with the EU and actually predates it, yes?

 

BillB

[BillB]

Errrr....all that existed before the European rubbish. Low information viewing. Good God...the Magna Carta anyone?

Away with you, nothing worthwhile existed in the world before the EU, that nice Mr Juncker and his mates said so, so it must be true.

 

BillB

[JasonJ]

 

 

You (and Jean Luc) do know that the ECHR isn't actually anything to do with the EU and actually predates it, yes?

 

BillB

 

 

Details, since when have people cared about details