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It is hard – and often painful – to see ourselves as others see us. Countries don’t face annual 360° appraisals. It is perhaps a back-handed compliment that Britain has been important enough to be subject to the scrutiny of others. Famously, in 1962 Dean Acheson commented that “Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role.” Twitter was not around then but the speech, with its acute eye for Britain’s confusion about its role in world affairs, nonetheless struck a sensitive nerve.
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Confine their reactionary impulses to themselves, as is the natural order of things.
Take a look at this, and explain how Pugin is wrong.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Pugin#/media/File:Contrasted_Residences_for_the_Poor.jpg
reaction is the natural order of things?
Allez les Bleus !!!
If it were down to me, I'd have everything in 18 point type......
Wait, what?
I know J K Rowling is like catnip to Corbynistas - but still, really???
IN YOUR FACE
Perhaps they can launch it at Kings Cross station- because 90% of their supporters and new members will probably live in Camden or Islington!
What will, I suspect, definitely happen in Southern Europe is that countries will want to make it as easy as possible for UK holidaymakers and retirees to get into their countries, and to travel for tourist reasons. So I would expect legislation to pass in most of these countries (and it has already in Spain), making it is easier to be British and to travel to (and stay in) these places.
Honestly, as confusing as it can be I don't know how we learn from history as we generally do- I'm reading a book about religious radicals in the 17th century, a topic I already know a little about, and it was so convoluted a situation it's a miracle that people are able to even summarise it, let alone learn anything. And half the things people learn from are based on things that are wrong anyway.
BAirstow's castling just the latest embarrassment.
OK (dots, ydoethur) so not EVERY generation eschews the temptation to funnel their nostalgia into political (re)action. I concede that point. But they SHOULD do, if I can get away with that.
Regarding the topic here, I think Brexit creates a marvelous opportunity to go in one of two directions, both of which are incompatible with EU membership.
Radical shift Left - big state, widespread public ownership, socialistic redistribution of wealth.
Radical shift Right - small state, low taxes, light regulation, free port, bulldog tiger economy.
However if we wish to trundle along broadly as we are (which I am pretty certain that we do) then Brexit is above all else a complete waste of time.
If we are not going to do anything particularly big and frightening that we could not in any case do as an EU member it follows that leaving the bloc does not even remotely justify the trauma, the time, the trouble of it all.
What is the difference between a sound defence by an England batsman and the Loch Ness Monster?
There are people who claim to have seen the Loch Ness Monster.
It goes right back to the fundamentals - the kind of society and communities we want, the kind of decision making process best equipped to a digital age, the nature of work, the economic model we want to follow, the places we want to live in, the ways we want to relax.
Leaving the EU affords us the opportunity to re-invent ourselves from the ground up and it's a debate that ought to begin the minute we leave the EU. Confronting those who feel alienated, disengaged and discontent and challenging power in all its form is what we should be about in the 2020s.
Unfortunately, all we have is Corbyn's clapped out socialism and the Conservatives' clapped out old Thatcherism.
If they did a deal with the LDs, I think the 2 parties could win 50 seats max between them and that's pushing it.
Certainly I couldn't see Soubry or Umunna holding their current seats.
The cricket is..err... too tense.
Saw most of the first half. Somewhat surprised how well England are doing.
Even now this is a common delusion repeated on here regularly by Remainers.
And yet the EU was never, ever going to be remoulded in the way we wanted and nor should it. For this reason, amongst many others, we are much better off being out of it for both our sakes and those of the rest of the EU.
Of course, France were thrashing Wales halfway through their match, and things turned out quite differently.
I think that if Britain ends up remaining or rejoining it must do so on a proper understanding of what the EU is and what that means for the future.
But - equally - those who now think that leaving is the right thing to do need to have a clear understanding of what this means. And I fear that they don't. And, further, that they display exactly the same arrogance and refusal to face facts as the people you describe.
Centuries of conflicts, misunderstandings and misconceptions were always going to be difficult to overcome. The notion that the British could disrupt or break down the Franco-German axis and create either an Anglo-French or Anglo-German core would have required more effective leaders at that than we had.
Possibly Blair was the nearest we came to the "European" leader and along with Schroeder, he acted as a useful counterpoint to Chirac.
To take your observation a shade further, the notion we could lead the EU and make it more British is as absurd as the notion the EU could make us more European.
History.
History.
Sorry about that. I ignored history and that's what I ended up having to do.
Blonde chap had an edited little video clip about how good the EU was and how we should engage with it. End the video, and Andrew Neil asked him how, using the EU's structures/machinery, we could influence it that way. Actor-chap turned to wonky expert and immediately said "Over to you."
Witty, but it does sum up those who think we should stay in and reform the EU. I'd really like that idea, if it had an iota of credibility. EU reform has always been about ever great integration. The maximum they'll entertain is the occasional opt-out. A so-called associate status doesn't exist, and won't.
Furthermore, the vast majority of the EU, of course, is non-British. If you have an EU demos, a continent-spanning identity, that's fine, because decisions democratically taken (not that that happens, but it's the obvious counterpoint to those who argue the EU isn't democratic enough) can then be accepted by others who do not share those views. But such an identity only exists in the UK in a tiny handful of people. There is no EU demos.
This fork in the road was always coming. The difference is that if Remain had been won there'd be no talk in the political/media class of a compromise solution where we partially leave the EU. It'd all be about accepting the democratic decision and moving on.
Couple of things though -
VERY ambitious.
And are these the sort of issues that we are more likely to tackle successfully outside the EU rather than in?
There is no sign of any sensible thinking on these rather important topics. Rather, there is evidence of the sort of arrogance and delusions about facts which you make of the Europhiles.
Marco Silva or Sarri?
Thankfully I’ve not got a meeting with two French customers in the morning. Oh...
I fully agree. Let's start by joining the Eurozone.
It was genuinely interesting to the English that the continentals were setting up a Common Market. Now, after 1789, 1914 and 1939 it was self-evident that Johnny Foreigner really wasn't up to these big projects and they would need our experience in leadership.
We never joined to be equal, we joined to provide the same leadership we had already given, so benevolently to the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh. At first it went to plan and it was England that provided the first leaders of Europe, Henry Plumb, Chris Tugenhat and Roy Jenkins for instance. I think we assumed that like the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish, the French, the Germans at al would become more English than the English.
As early as 1980 Giscard d'Estang famously said he didn't like Margaret Thatcher, "ni comme homme, ni comme femme". But, he wasn't being honest, he didn't like her because she was English.
Only De Gaulle truly had our interests at heart when he said "non".
At Mers-el-Kebir, the French only lost one battleship outright, the Bretagne. And a tugboat.