Categories
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The EU can’t have its Turkey and eat it
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The EU can’t have its Turkey and eat it
“Bridge Together”: Istanbul’s slogan for its unsuccessful 2020 Olympic bid captured well the country’s unifying potential, linking as it does not only Europe and Asia but also the secular west with the Islamic Middle East. A bridge, however, needs firm foundations and Turkey, rather than pulling two sides together, is more swayed by the forces pulling it in opposite directions.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
A good article DH. Any Turkey that did join would have to be radically different in terms of democracy and human rights as well as economic progress. It is not going to happen quickly, but if Turkey did transform that way then it would be another feather in the EU's cap.
Incoming, Captain Herdson, incoming!
The more politicians bang on about how there is not going to be EU membership for Turkey within the next few decades, and the more they see the EU deals and the threatening from Erdogan, the more they suspect the Turks will be able to achieve most of the useful bits of EU membership without actually becoming members.
Only ARSE deniers think it's level-pegging and such squalid individuals should be consigned to ConHome for life along with advocates of STV and genocidal turnip eradicators.
Latest ARSE projection REMAIN +12.
We should be honourable and stay, thus giving deprived Turkey a better chance of access. Right, that's my Guardian hat taken off now.
The spectre of so many potential Islamists entering is a convenient threat for Leave. Whether likely or not is immaterial. It's the social equivalent of being £4,300 worse off in 2030. Both extremely unlikely but well worth a flourish.
Despite the Leave leaderships sloppy leading, (blimey!).
Unfortunately the leadership is seen to be in Gove's and Boris' hands, which is proving inept and divisive. Farage is doing better on his own, but is being kept out of the media spotlight by, well, the media.
It's only the fact that people are getting fed up by being dictated by Brussels, and see direct democracy in many ways, are slipping from their hands, that Leave is doing as well as it is.
I recon on a 51.8% win for Remain at this moment in time.
Here are Donald Trump's teleprompter positions over the past month, from April 27 through May 27:
—April 27: Pro. Uses a teleprompter while delivering a foreign policy speech.
—May 2: Con. "I don't have any teleprompters...I'm up here all by myself."
—May 20: Pro. "I've started to use [teleprompters] a little bit. They're not bad. You never get yourself in trouble when you use a teleprompter."
—May 22: Con. Attacks Clinton because she "reads off a teleprompter, you notice. She's reading off a teleprompter, she always does."
—May 24: Con. "We should have a law that when you run for president, you shouldn't be allowed to use a teleprompter."
—May 26: Pro. Uses a teleprompter while delivering an energy policy speech in North Dakota.
—May 27: Con. "Isn't it great when you don't use teleprompters? ...we oughta have a law that if you're running for president, you can't use teleprompters."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/paloma/the-daily-trail/2016/05/27/the-daily-trail-trump-to-sanders-sorry-i-don-t-debate-people-who-don-t-win/57489943981b92a22db38c78/
I agree that Turkish treatment of minorities, including the Kurds, is an insurmountable barrier to Turkish membership.
Visa free travel, dangeld to hold back a tsunami of immigrants from all over the place, Merkel bending over when Turkey wants a journalist prosecuted for being rude et al.
Should we believe our lying eyes, or politicians using lawyer language? It's like the veto argument. A veto is only a veto when you're willing to use it. The EU has a load of form here too of pretending something isn't happening - then suddenly it's all too late.
The level of trust is important - and there's very little of it about when it comes to Cameron and immigration. That Leave is leveraging this - using his own words from just two years ago - is perfectly fair game. Remain are on the ropes re immigration. How we're supposed to have had a bad week over it isn't what I saw.
We're already seeing mass baptisms of Muslims in Germany - it's much easier to claim religious persecution status than pretending to be gay.
"There has been some suspicion as to the true motive behind those seeking asylum's conversions to Christianity.
Germany immigration authorities give priority to Christian refugees, as they would face prosecution and even death if they returned to their native countries. In both Iran and Afghanistan, apostates face the death penalty." http://www.christiantoday.com/article/germany.mass.baptism.of.80.muslim.refugees.converting.to.christianity/85737.htm
Leave got immigration onto the agenda in an non-racist way via Turkish accession. A comment below has been the first I've heard anyone mention the financial implications for the UK of Turkish accession. It also helps to have a part Turkish spokesman and also dovetails neatly with the refugee crisis.
The absolute shellacking Cameron got over immigration has permanently destroyed his credibility. He has been shown up to be a barefaced liar. Not Leave's doing, but they were lucky for once.
Jezza does the decent thing and steps down. McDonnell takes over, is elected, and pushes in Europe for a more diverse membership to rub the Fascist's nose in it. Fear of right wing populism and nationalism make Cyprus and Greece (who can go either way) pariahs. Veto removed in favour of QMV.
When Venezuela's application is turned down, Turkey is the alternative and join in 2021.
It also makes me think of how Mecca might look if the grandest mosques were made into cathedrals.
Edited extra bit: or if Rome's cathedrals were made mosques.
As an aside, is there a cathedral equivalent term for especially large mosques?
But David's right that the perception in ruling circles is that Turkey needs to be kept in the Western orbit at almost all costs. If Turkey had a special deal allowing them to join with very slow shift to free movement (over 20 years, say) could possibly be sold to European electorates. Otherwise, it's probably a serious flashpoint down the line with either an explicitly Islamist shift or a Russian-Turkish confrontation.
In the past, Farage has been roundly rubbished for being an air-war guy, well not this time. IDS is taking on the media mantle and so far, I've been really impressed. He's taking absolutely so nonsense from the interviewers.
As for who "won" the week, we'll only find that out when the next batch of polls are released?
With visa free travel, the many genuinely persecuted Kurds, political dissidents and Syrian refugees could come here and get asylum.
They can't all stay in Yvette Cooper's house.
Vapid bilge indeed...
Visa-free travel is not a right of residency nor a right to work. The issue mentioned down-thread about the potential for Kurds to move en mass to Germany is a valid one and one that will apply domestic pressure within Germany's largest country on Merkel or her successor.
I stand by what I said - which to some extent your comment backs up. Leave should have monstered last week on immigration but because they played the wrong aspect of it at the wrong time, they failed to capitalise on the immigration figures (which they must have known were being published when they were) because they were arguing a bad case about Turkey. Consequently, they not only missed out on making much capital from that but also reduced the impact of playing the same card again later.
Breaking news....
Tottenham to play at Wembley in Champions League next season
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36404799
Handwaving about Jewish courts is immaterial - it's Sharia that has the PR problem.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/26/may-hails-benefits-of-sharia-as-inquiry-set-up-into-misuse-of-is/
"No ifs. No buts. That's a promise we made to the British people."
As he was a Europhile through and through, and within the EU that promise was clearly impossible, he not only lied but assumed the electorate were stupid/gullible. He's gambling on the same with the referendum, but his former supporters won't naturally assume he's right this time. Jezza has the same level of unthinking support within his own fans.
You can lie openly to your political friends, but your enemies will see the lie.
That doesn't matter if your political friends are in the majority. Cameron has cashed in his chips now but he's leaving anyway. Retiring to spend more time with his money.
I rate him highly as a politician but I don't have to like him.
In historic terms, I agree that there's a wistful echo of past glory.
(As an aside, I'd argue that it was actually the fall of Trebizond in 1461 that extinguished the last light of Rome, though that was putting out the embers as against the shock of the fall of Constantinople eight years earlier).
Along with the violent fuel protests in France, bulldozing Greek refugee camps and pix of overloaded boats crossing the Med - the EU looks like a complete out of control mess.
Photo-ops of smooth suits at the G7 contrasts so strongly - it looks like fiddling with canapes whilst Rome burns.
Cyprus is being presented as an obstacle to entry, but it could easily be turned into an accession bargaining chip by Erdogan or whoever, just as asylum seekers have been.
It also should not be forgotten that Albania, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia - 13m or so people - are in the queue to join while existing EU members continue to arrive at a rate of nearly 200,000 a year.
I don't think for a second that the public care much for the nuance of the debate.
They know large numbers of people are coming. They are fed a daily diet of stories about services under pressure, houses being unaffordable and incomes stagnating.
Why heap more people on top of that?
Now it has a political parliament, we are subservient to its laws, QMV, a soon to be European Army, a soon to be central tax system and three presidents none of which are democratically elected.
It's like the paperless office we were always promised.
- Le Pen could well win the first round next year and *leads* in the second round against Hollande (not that she'll face Hollande but it shows how many people are willing to vote FN in the right circumstances)
- Wilders may well be the next PM of Hollande and his party is polling at levels no party has achieved in a Dutch election in over 100 years.
- Austria came within a hair's breadth of electing a fascist president.
- In Germany, a party in the mould of Wilders' has risen to third place and is within striking distance of second.
Further movement towards Turkish membership will simply reinforce those trends, even if scheduled over a long time.
But - as you rightly say - were Turkey to become overtly Islamic, it would be a disaster for Europe (it won't go over to Russia, no matter what). How to reconcile the geopolitical necessity with electoral pressures? I'm not sure. It really relies on secular forces in Turkey itself stepping up to the plate.
I've yet to see a single comment elsewhere suggesting anything other than a stupid, dangerous and sinister idea.
Merkel says, "let them all come" and chaos ensues. Schengen falls into disarray and the EU ends up paying protection money to Turkey.
The UK paid £500m, I believe.
I see the Greeks have been given another bailout. Are we on the hook there as well? £1.7bn last time, wasn't it?
As would Corbyn be.
The public are not.
I was in Istanbul last autumn. There were a lot of tourists at the Blue Mosque, but even at prayer times very few worshipers, only a dozen or two when I was there. Turkey is a fascinating place, but could do without Erdogan.
I think that many mosques (like many churches and cathedrals in Europe and UK) were built on a grand scale as vanity projects of rulers and job creation schemes, and rarely if ever had congregations to fill them.
I terms of mosques being converted to churches, there are good examples in Andulacia. Indeed the classic domed style of mosque was something that the early muslims copied from the Byzantine style, very early mosques have an open courtyard for worship. There is a very interesting example in Cairo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque_of_Amr_ibn_al-As?wprov=sfla1
Neither stupid, dangerous or sinister.
Foreign policy is one area requiring unanimity too.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-will-win-the-us-presidency-by-a-landslide-dont-underestimate-him-yet-again-a7051686.html
If only Dave had thought of that...
When making detailed policy statements - where precise wording matters - teleprompters are fine.
Trump has begun to use them a little - for policy speeches - and is fine with them, but doesn't think they should be allowed because the election of a President is about fundamental principles and judgement, not about detailed policy. He therefore criticises Hillary for using them all the time as it allows her to hide behind a wall of verbage rather than giving the America people a true understanding of what she believes and stands for.
Seems
I can barely bare to watch any of them on the TV back-slapping each other. And I always mute Obama.
Interesting that the liberal luvvie set are rushing to his defence while traditional tories are disowning him.
Damned shame Byzantium fell.
Turkey may not be at present a great threat but it's marching up the threat ladder. If the EU takes in that country it will be a final swansong to any remaining democracy in Europe.
Turkish restaurants are fine though, and there are some distinguished ones in my area of London.
I'd argue it's unlikely that Italians and Greeks and Germans will be claiming asylum in the UK post Brexit. But it's quite possible that Kurds and Turks will claim asylum in Germany.
It's quite different.
I'm very partial to Turkish carpets myself, but that isn't an argument either.
Also, halo head protection has been agreed for next year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/36404898
Work will continue on the aeroscreen with a view to introduction in 2018.
In the same way that when a militant and agressive group have built a large structure without planning permission local councillors have a "veto" in that they can retrospectively refuse planning permission and order it demolished, but in practice they face being monstered and ostracised or worse if they dare to exercise that veto so they cave in to what is in effect a fait accompli.
By voting out we prevent that happening. The reaction of coercion and horror to the referendum shows the pressure that would be brought on a UK government that stayed in and wanted to veto something that the great and good favour. And that pressure is on a handful of people with much to lose personally.
At least with the referendum the pressure is on 60 million people mostly with far less to lose personally not a handful of people facing ruination of their careers if they say no.
OK he's welcomed a few hundred thousand here but what other THINGS?
You may recall that I did not support his view.