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Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
The sooner the EU falls apart, the better.
that's ridiculous. Look at the benefits the EU has brought.
Maybe as a Norwegian you're on the outside looking in a little. Which I find unfortunate - I feel a deep connection with my Norse cousins. The Vikings sailed up the little strip of land near where I grew up. You see where winterfell is set? That's around there they settled & it's still retains the name they gave it - strangford.
We're all connected. It's beautiful man.
But yea, look how integrated Norway already is to the EU. Your relationship is weird. It's like the family member you won't acknowledge in public but are all buddied up with in private.
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
I am scared of what life will be like in 15 years.
Not sure if scared is the right word but we are definitely entering a new era and I'm not just talking about this Trump election, the EU at stake, rise of Russia, China pretending it wears big boy pants, terrorism, etc. The Transhuman era is fast approaching and I actually consider it already here but merely in its opening stage.
Not an expert on the UK or EU but I have this to say...
any UK citizens who complain about how they do everything the US does and support us 100% no matter what we do, do not vote for "independence".
The moment you veer away from the EU is when you are going to be a US vassal state even though you kinda already are. 
I get polluxlm's sentiments on wanting an EU collapse but with the Russian bear coming out of hibernation, it cant just be a total collapse. Many years ago I suggested the US pull out of NATO(which kills it), form a new alliance with several Euro countries, make Poland a huge priority in this alliance and give them 100% security guarantees, under the US nuclear umbrella, station thousands of US forces there, a base for drones, the whole nine yards, and this prevents Russia from going through POland to get to the west.
In a potential cold war that is brewing, Poland is key. It is the tripwire for WWIII. If this was a game of RISK, I stack all my pieces on Poland. China is 90% contained. Let them play war on those islands made of pelican shit. Russia partially contained but on the rise and on the move. The EU collapsing now could have a massive impact on the global stage.
Great posts in this thread. The UK sounds like such an interesting place. Would love to go there and Germany before I die.
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
The sooner the EU falls apart, the better.
Just curious, are you opposed to the concept of the EU (or more generically something like a United States of Europe), or is your biggest problem the way it is organized?
I personally believe there's no way in hell that even the biggest European economies (Germany, France, UK, ...) can maintain their current levels if the EU were to seize to exist. There's just no way to compete effectively with the US, China, India, etc... (even Japan) when you don't have the scale the EU currently has.
Furthermore, the formation of the EU over the past few decades has been one of the most important drivers in turning a war-torn Europe from a warfare to a welfare continent. I think the EU definitely deserved the Nobel peace prize it got in 2012.
Now, does the current EU 'democracy' work? Hell no, the entire setup is asinine. We need a single pan-European parliament and senate that is directly elected by the European people. We need a pan-European income and corporate tax system, a pan-European intelligence agency, a pan-European military, pan-European border and customs, etc... Member states should be either fully in, or fully out. None of this UK/Norway bullshit of special cases and special rules.
Of course, the individual states need state rights as well. Things like culture, education, VAT and sales tax, local roads and infrastructure, ... are obviously better managed at the state level.
Unfortunately, I think we might need the EU to collapse before something like that is feasible. Or perhaps the UK leaving, Scotland seceding and joining the EU would provide an less revolutionary path towards a stronger Europe.
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
polluxlm wrote:The sooner the EU falls apart, the better.
Yeah, if you're Poland.
Maybe as a Norwegian you're on the outside looking in a little. Which I find unfortunate - I feel a deep connection with my Norse cousins. The Vikings sailed up the little strip of land near where I grew up. You see where winterfell is set? That's around there they settled & it's still retains the name they gave it - strangford.
We're all connected. It's beautiful man.But yea, look how integrated Norway already is to the EU. Your relationship is weird. It's like the family member you won't acknowledge in public but are all buddied up with in private.
If the EU was only the North Western countries it'd be fantastic. Similar economies, similar people, similar culture. Cross the borders freely, settle down, get a job. Would be great for the economy.
The problem is letting in those who are way worse off, and now with mass immigration even the NW countries are filled with people looking to work on the cheap, or not work at all. That's why the system is doomed to fail. The rich countries are getting fleeced, while the poor end up in a dependent relationship.
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
polluxlm wrote:The sooner the EU falls apart, the better.
Just curious, are you opposed to the concept of the EU (or more generically something like a United States of Europe), or is your biggest problem the way it is organized?
I personally believe there's no way in hell that even the biggest European economies (Germany, France, UK, ...) can maintain their current levels if the EU were to seize to exist. There's just no way to compete effectively with the US, China, India, etc... (even Japan) when you don't have the scale the EU currently has.
Furthermore, the formation of the EU over the past few decades has been one of the most important drivers in turning a war-torn Europe from a warfare to a welfare continent. I think the EU definitely deserved the Nobel peace prize it got in 2012.
Now, does the current EU 'democracy' work? Hell no, the entire setup is asinine. We need a single pan-European parliament and senate that is directly elected by the European people. We need a pan-European income and corporate tax system, a pan-European intelligence agency, a pan-European military, pan-European border and customs, etc... Member states should be either fully in, or fully out. None of this UK/Norway bullshit of special cases and special rules.
Of course, the individual states need state rights as well. Things like culture, education, VAT and sales tax, local roads and infrastructure, ... are obviously better managed at the state level.
Unfortunately, I think we might need the EU to collapse before something like that is feasible. Or perhaps the UK leaving, Scotland seceding and joining the EU would provide an less revolutionary path towards a stronger Europe.
I don't have a problem with European cooperation and unity, but I don't think something like a centralized government would ever work. An economy can only properly function on a level playing ground. If you bring in low cost countries or countries with corruption all you do is give them an unfair advantage.
In my opinion it is ludicrous to even try and compete with certain European countries, not to mention third world countries where they employ literal slave labor. You just can't compete with that in manpower heavy industries. And it's not like we are doing the less well to do countries any favors either. We are doing what we call a "bear service" by allowing them to profit from exploitative business practices, enabling them to remain in an economic status quo. Right now you have loads of European countries offloading their unemployment on richer countries, masking their real social problems. At the same time the rich countries are getting booms from all the cheap labor available, creating the appearance of a healthy economy. This is why the EU has never really functioned and why it will ultimately fail.
The only union I could accept right now would be one concentrated on the NW. When and if other countries reach the required levels to join they can do so. And leave the bankers and aristocrats out of it.
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
Not sure how much coverage this is getting in the US, but...
London mayor under fire for remark about 'part-Kenyan' Barack Obama
Boris Johnson is accused of bad judgment after hitting back at US president’s intervention in EU referendum debate
The shadow chancellor has accused Boris Johnson of dog-whistle racism for writing an article in which the London mayor quoted claims that Barack Obama’s “part-Kenyan” heritage had driven him towards anti-British sentiment.
John McDonnell joined fellow Labour MPs Yvette Cooper and Chuka Umunna in questioning Johnson’s judgment in referring to the president’s ancestry in an article for the Sun newspaper.
“Mask slips again. Boris part-Kenyan Obama comment is yet another example of dog-whistle racism from senior Tories. He should withdraw it,” McDonnell tweeted.
Johnson, a high-profile figure in the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, wrote about the decision of the Obama administration to remove a bust of Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.
“Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender,” said Johnson in an article designed to hit back at Obama after the US president waded into the EU referendum debate on Friday.
The mayor and Tory MP said Obama’s country would “not dream of embroiling itself” in anything similar to the EU, which he said was inching towards a federal superstate.
Cooper told the Guardian: “As ever, it’s more bad judgment from Boris Johnson. Is this really how a man who wants to be prime minister should be talking about the president of the United States?”
Umunna tweeted: “These Tory mayoral types are beyond the pale.” He said the Conservative mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith had played on his opponent Sadiq Khan’s Muslim heritage, repeatedly attacking Khan for having shared a platform with a man who has been accused of extremist views.
Churchill’s grandson Nicholas Soames, a Conservative MP backing the remain campaign, called Johnson’s article “appalling” and said it was “inconceivable” that the wartime leader would not have welcomed Obama’s views.
He said Johnson was “unreliable and idle about the facts”, claiming there was still a Churchill bust inside the White House.
The prime minister’s spokeswoman said the decision to remove the Churchill bust was taken before Obama took office.
Bust story debunked
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Ted Cruz, the Republican senator who is locked in a battle with Donald Trump to become their party’s nominee for the presidential election, made a similar claim last year, saying Obama was responsible for removing the bust. The claim was debunked by the Washington Post, which concluded after a detailed investigation that the bust had been returned to the British embassy in Washington before Obama took office.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage told the US president to “butt” out of intervening in the UK’s referendum on EU membership.
Attacking the president’s intervention in support of the ‘Remain’ side at the outset of a visit to the UK, Farage said said that he took Obama’s description of himself as a friend of the UK “with a pretty large pinch of salt.”
“Look, I know his family’s background. Kenya. Colonialism. There is clearly something going on there,” he added. “It’s just that you know people emerge from colonialism with different views of the Britsh. Some thought that they were really rather benign and rather good, and others saw them as foreign invaders. Obama’s family come from that second school of thought and it hasn’t quite left him yet.”
Obama made an emotional plea to the British public to “stick together” with the rest of the European Union as he arrived in the UK to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday. In an article for the Daily Telegraph, Obama argued that Britain’s influence in the world was magnified by its membership of the EU.
“As citizens of the United Kingdom take stock of their relationship with the EU, you should be proud that the EU has helped spread British values and practices – democracy, the rule of law, open markets – across the continent and to its periphery,” he wrote.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 … referendum
Johnson never would have made that comment about any US president had Obama not been in his final year/term.
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
Boris Johnson criticised for 'desperate' link between EU and Hitler
Johnson likens EU’s superstate efforts to Nazi dictator, as Nigel Farage says he could imagine working with ex-mayor
Boris Johnson has lost his “moral compass” by making “offensive and desperate” comments that compared European Union efforts to build a superstate to Hitler’s attempt to dominate the continent, Hilary Benn has said.
The former mayor of London drew criticism on Saturday after making the link between the EU and the Nazi dictator in a newspaper interview. While he acknowledged the EU was using “different methods” to the Nazis, his incendiary comparison quickly enraged Remain campaigners.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Johnson, seen as the de facto leader of the Leave campaign, said the past 2,000 years of European history had been dominated by doomed attempts to unify the continent under a single government to recreate the “golden age” of the Romans.
“Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods,” he said.
“But fundamentally, what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void.”
Responding to the comments, the shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, said: “Leave campaigners have lost the economic argument and now they are losing their moral compass.
“After the horror of the second world war, the EU helped to bring an end to centuries of conflict in Europe, and for Boris Johnson to make this comparison is both offensive and desperate.”
The former cabinet minister Yvette Cooper, a member of the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign, accused Johnson of playing a “nasty, nasty game”.
“The more he flails around with this kind of hysterical claim, the more he exposes his shameful lack of judgement, his willingness to play the most divisive cynical politics, and the emptiness of his arguments,” she said.
“One week it is dog-whistle attacks on President [Barack] Obama. Now he is trying to liken the institution that has kept peace on our continent for decades with Hitler, who pursued the genocide of millions of innocent people.
“All because he is desperately seeking headlines for a desperate campaign. He should not try to play political games with the darkest and most sinister chapter of Europe’s history. The EU has played a critical role keeping peace in Europe ever since.”
The intervention came as Nigel Farage backed Johnson to succeed David Cameron if there is a vote to leave the EU in the referendum on 23 June. The Ukip leader described himself as a “Boris fan” and compared him to the former US president Ronald Reagan.
Cameron has always insisted that he will carry on regardless of the result but many MPs believe he will have no choice but to resign if the country rejects his call to remain.
In comments clearly designed to stoke tensions within the Conservative party over the referendum, Farage said he could even envisage a situation in which he would work for Johnson in government.
In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Farage rejected suggestions that Johnson would not be serious enough to be prime minister if Cameron were forced to stand down. “Boris goes on surprising people. They say he can’t do this, he’s a joker – it’s like Ronnie Reagan. Could he do it? Yes. If you’d asked me six months ago, I’d have said no, but I’ve changed my mind,” he said.
Asked if he would like to work for Johnson if there were a vote to leave the EU, Farage said: “I love Boris, respect him, admire him; I’m a Boris fan. Could I work for him? Yes. Could I see a scenario if he was PM and he asked me to do something? I wouldn’t rule it out.”
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 … superstate
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blo … navigation
His interview says it all.
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
It's for the entire UK voting to stay or leave.
In theory it means Northern Ireland needs to put up borders with the Republic. Very few people are actually discussing it at the minute though and Northern Ireland is the smallest part of the UK.Northern Ireland isn't going to be voting to leave the UK anytime soon. There's no desire for independence here and doesn't seem like it would be sustainable. Northern Ireland voting to join the Republic either for a united Ireland is unlikely to happen anytime soon either. Though that's a seperate argument and one best avoided
.
That would be .... unfortunate. The Republican VS Unionist problem would kick into overdrive.
I live in the South. This isn't being discussed here either for a few reasons. One is that my generation, 28 yr olds, don't care. The Ireland/Britain and Northern Ireland troubles stuff never touched our lives or effected us in any way.
The other reason is that no one really thinks Brexit is going to happen.
After the major vote a while back where Scotland voted to stay with the UK, Cameron the prime minster immediately made a speech about ENGLISH votes for ENGLISH laws. That might seem reasonable, but basically it was just a "fuck you" we're running the show now and your going to less of a say.
HA HA!! Good jesus... did not know he did that...
That's hilarious for all the wrong reasons.
Here's a question will Cameron's back benchers push him out if Brexit fails?
