Europe

[Furunculus]

Hannan on the double standard that exists between europhiles and skeptics when it comes to tolerence of activities of their more eccentric members:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/da...-them-extreme/

Supporters of the EU can be as xenophobic as they like, and no one will call them extreme

Is it “far Right” to posit a link between immigration and crime? Can a mainstream political party demand that legal immigrants have their nationality stripped away if they commit certain offences? Can it argue that juvenile offenders should be denied nationality when they reach adulthood? Can it couple such a campaign with proposals to dismantle gipsy camps and expel Roma?

Nicolas Sarkozy borrows Le Pen's language, but backs Brussels

The answer, it seems, depends on whether the party in question supports political integration in Europe.

You can imagine what The Guardian would be saying if one of the Conservatives’ allies in the European Parliament started making such noises. (Actually, you don’t have to imagine: read this for a flavour of how deranged that newspaper has become on the issue). But when it’s Nicolas Sarkozy, that’s different. His party, the UMP, is in the EPP, and so cannot possibly be extreme, for all that it sits alongside a number of parties with anti-American, anti-gypsy, protectionist and homophobic tendencies (see here for a selection).

This really shouldn’t need saying but, in most parties, you will find good and bad people. A few minutes with Google will reveal some hair-raising statements from minor figures attached to virtually every political movement in Europe. I’m getting slightly sick of the double standard whereby support for the EU serves as a magical vaccination against accusations of extremism, whereas Euro-scepticism reverses the burden of proof.

Plenty of fascists, from the 1930s onwards, have wanted a federal Europe: Oswald Mosley, for example, was an obsessive Euro-zealot, whose final act in politics was to campaign for a “Yes” vote in 1975. This obviously doesn’t mean that all Europhiles are secret Nazis; but it would be nice if they acknowledged, just occasionally, the liberal, internationalist and democratic case against the EU.

he has a point, the number of people singling out the ECR for containing fruitcakes, even here, when the other big euro parties are exactly the same if not worse.

a wonderful godwin from the guardian:

Although the fringe event was carefully stage-managed – terse political lines trotted out and limited time for questions – there was one unfortunate mistake. The basement room in which delegates gathered to hear the controversial Tory allies was in Manchester’s Midland Hotel, a building Hitler is said to have liked so much that he would have made it his northern residence if he had invaded.

[Beskar]

It depends.

There is not only the goal, but the means to get there. There is also the similarity in goals, which lead to completely different situations.

Let's say two people are working towards world peace:
One person wants lets say America, to conquer the world, with the end result of everyone being lorded over by the United Global Federation.
Another person wants the UN to become stronger, with more countries falling into line, spreading human rights, civil rights, and other things across borders, and eventually ending up with the United Global Federation.

These two things are completely different, but they share a similar goal.

There is also another case too. Two people share the same goal on one thing, but another goal on another.

Person A is convinced to follow things via Person B, so they campaign together to bring world peace through the United Global Federation. However, Person A is still more militarist than Person B, so while a rogue naughty state needs a speanking, Person A might advise invading them, while Person B uses other measures. Should Person B be tainted because of Person A's view on that matter?

These are the questions.

[Furunculus]

so people who believe that the nation state, cooperating with its neighbours, is the best vehicle to meet the needs of its people are automatically vilified, whereas those who feel otherwise are not...........?

[Beskar]

Wrong thread.

[Beskar]

so people who believe that the nation state, cooperating with its neighbours, is the best vehicle to meet the needs of its people are automatically vilified, whereas those who feel otherwise are not...........?

I apologise, I don't get your comment in the context of what I was saying.

[Furunculus]

lol, i'm interpreting your post as a response to my hannan article, never mind. :)

[Beskar]

Oh, it had links to that.

I was saying, we should really identify people with who they are in bed with, when it comes to a certain issue. Tthis isn't a comment of Double standards, I have never attacked the Tories for being in the same group as 'Law and Justice' and other groups.

While some people have, my post was more of a comment of "Even though some might share a goal, it doesn't mean they believe the same thing or the same means". It was attacking pretty much everyone who is attacking people solely on who they are affiliated with on this issue.

I think the mix-up happened because of possibly the example I used. If anything, I was supporting your argument in the article, by saying just because some one says the same thing, doesn't mean they agree in other areas.

For a more example, it is like the BNP praising the merits of eating 5 a day. You might agree this is a good point, but it doesn't mean because you and the BNP agree that 5 fruit/veg is good for you, you want to bring about an all white Britain.

[Furunculus]

Guardian columnist is bemoaning the anglospheres dominance of the interwebs, for it prevents the political class from fixing the publics gaze on european issues:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/da...e-anglosphere/

The Internet is dragging Britain away from Europe and towards the Anglosphere

By Daniel Hannan Politics Last updated: August 20th, 2010

The EU is being made redundant by technological change. In the 1950s, a regional trade association arguably made sense. But in a world where capital surges around the globe at the touch of a button, physical proximity becomes irrelevant. When deciding whether to invest in a country, corporations will consider many factors – tax rates, regulation, language, corruptibility of public officials – before they worry about geography.

The Internet makes it as easy for my constituents to do business with a company in New Zealand as with a company in Belgium. Easier, indeed, because the Kiwi company shares our common law, accountancy practices, commercial traditions and language.

This point last was more or less conceded by Martin Kettle in this morning’s Guardian. Kettle regrets the phenomenon, and complains that the Internet has left us “trapped in the Anglosphere”:

The online information age, which should, in theory, have been expected to facilitate greater mental and cultural pluralism and thus, among other things, greater familiarity with European languages and cultures, has, in practice, had the reverse effect. The power of the English language, at once our global gift and our great curse, discourages us from engaging with those outside the all-conquering online Anglosphere.

He goes on to note, disconsolately, that we are more familiar with political developments in Australia than in Europe. Well, duh! Australians are, as Kipling might have put it, folk of our own blood and speech. We share a head of state; we watch the same TV; we visit each other regularly, often to see relatives. Both the candidates in the Australian election were born in Britain, for Heaven’s sake. How could we not be interested?

The Internet, as Douglas Carswell argues, is ironing out a kink in our cultural and political alignment, whereby a small elite artificially reoriented our foreign policy, our trade and even our news cycle away from our old alliances and towards Europe. That’s the great thing about the web (or, from a Europhile perspective, the disagreeable thing): it democratises.

Let me reassure Martin Kettle that I am one of those Britons who follows European news daily, online, and in languages other than English. One of the things this has taught me is that we are not alone in being pulled, by our history and geography, towards other continents: Spanish newspapers, for example, are as interested in Cuba and Argentina as British ones are in the US and Australia.

The community of English-speaking nations is, potentially, the greatest force for freedom in the world. But, for the past 40 years it has been ignored by its constituent governments. Not any more. Truly the Internet is a wonderful phenomenon.

will it prove harder to make british people feel european in the 21st century than it was in the 20th?

[Furunculus]

rather disappointing that Teresa May let the european arrest warrant slide through, looks like it is already approaching a farce:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...on-courts.html

[Vladimir]

Is this the right thread for this? Forty-Four pages is a lot to sift through.

Stocks fall on European debt fears

[Furunculus]

Conservative Party Conference -

The Foreign Secretary also promises to legislate a "sovereignty clause on EU law" to "place on the statute book this eternal truth: that what a sovereign parliament can do, a sovereign parliament can undo."

Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are copying Germany at last. :D

[edit]

link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...-eminence.html

[/edit]

[Furunculus]

there is apparently a ruckus going on inside the ECR; kaminski who the guardian spent so long trying to tar as an extremist is now accusing his fellow countrymen in Law and Justice of being too extreme:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...n-turmoil.html

awesomely funny business. :D

[Furunculus]

It looks like the european peoples party, the previous home of the british conservatives, are becoming distinctly uncomfortable at having to defend Hungary's Fiduz party of recent fame:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...740400,00.html

remember the narrative that the ECR would be a home for fruitcakes, and the Tories were daft to leave the EPP given that it was the home for sanitised and family-friendly right-wing politics................?

it was a daft then, and only exposed even more so as a daft idea today.

p.s. the ECR has not collapsed in anarchy for over 18 months now, whodathunkit!

[Vladimir]

Family friendly fruitcakes? Sorry, I don't get that.

[Furunculus]

family-friendly - i.e. not swivel-eyed little fascists
fruitcakes - dangerous lunatics in the political sense

[Subotan]

mary mother of god this thread is still alive

Idk enough about Hungarian politics to comment on how much the alleged authoritarianism is true, but it's pretty worrying. That said, the EPP don't really have much choice, since the Hungarian currency is pegged to the Euro, and kicking Fiduz out of the EPP could only worsen the current Euro-zone crisis.

[Idaho]

family-friendly - i.e. not swivel-eyed little fascists
fruitcakes - dangerous lunatics in the political sense

You're talking to a Russian. What we consider dangerous lunatics, they see as national saviours.

[gaelic cowboy]

This has all happened before remember that fella I think his name was Jorge Haider or summit in Austira didnt the EU members almost threaten to shun Austria if his party served in government.

I forget what they did that time but it passed eventually

Oh and might as well mention it here general election announced for march 11 in Ireland this morning after six serving ministers resigned.

[Furunculus]

This has all happened before remember that fella I think his name was Jorge Haider or summit in Austira didnt the EU members almost threaten to shun Austria if his party served in government.

Oh and might as well mention it here general election announced for march 11 in Ireland this morning after six serving ministers resigned.

the difference is that old Jorg's party was not affiliated with the EPP, they were non-inscrits:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Inscrits

cheers for the update.

[Furunculus]

the org's favourite autarchic hyper-nationalist is off to forieg parts once again, no doubt to shout objectionable and racist things at johnny foreigner.

i mention this because it is almost the second anniversay of the ECR, and since we all expect it to collapse at any second i thought i'd go out with a hurrah!

so, while i am soaking up sun and icyy cold lager on the battlements of valletta i wish for you to consult among yourselves and come up with an excuse for why the predictions of ECR doom have not already come good..........

all the best.

[Kralizec]

Good for them, I suppose.

[Louis VI the Fat]

The ECR, that is the British Conservatives ruled by the Polish nationalists. Meanwhile the Poles have been decimated at home, as Cegorach was so kind to point out some time ago. This leaves the British Conservatives impotent, isolated, and in a fragile group in Europe.

A sad record for the Conservatives, who currently govern one of the three main European powers and who by default should be among the most influential political parties in Europe.

It is all a bit silly. Not much there to be triumphant about.

[Fragony]

The ECR, that is the British Conservatives ruled by the Polish nationalists. Meanwhile the Poles have been decimated at home, as Cegorach was so kind to point out some time ago. This leaves the British Conservatives impotent, isolated, and in a fragile group in Europe.

A sad record for the Conservatives, who currently govern one of the three main European powers and who by default should be among the most influential political parties in Europe.

It is all a bit silly. Not much there to be triumphant about.

Mwah looks like Le Pen is going to shake things up a bit, obviously no friend of the EUtopia, bet the aparatski seats are a bit sweaty, no France no unchecked Brussels

[Kralizec]

Come on Louis, the ECR has managed to continue its existence for two years. Surely that's an impressive achievement on their part.

[Furunculus]

Come on Louis, the ECR has managed to continue its existence for two years. Surely that's an impressive achievement on their part.

i very much agree.

on that note; who feels that the ECR would be supportive of the notion of eurozone fiscal federalism on the notion that it would shift public support in favour of an EEA/EU or EEA/EFTA referendum?

http://www.brugesgroup.com/EFTAorTheEU.pdf

[Beskar]

I have gone further and discovered more about definitions to explain my brand of European Federalism. The definition of Regionalism goes a long way to what I would see happen to the Nation States of Europe. They would dissolve into regions which are administrated locally but tied together in a federation at a European level which only deals with matter concerning the top-level, such as Foreign policy.

This would multiply the many states of Europe into local regions which various populace would like to manage themselves opposed to being completely managed by a bunch of random guys in Brussels so while we all embrace a European identity, we have our own local flavours and diversity which is part in making Europe so great.

[gaelic cowboy]

I have gone further and discovered more about definitions to explain my brand of European Federalism. The definition of Regionalism goes a long way to what I would see happen to the Nation States of Europe. They would dissolve into regions which are administrated locally but tied together in a federation at a European level which only deals with matter concerning the top-level, such as Foreign policy.

Naw we had that already here and it didnt work out too well

[Beskar]

Naw we had that already here and it didnt work out too well

Could I possibly beg you for more details?

[gaelic cowboy]

Could I possibly beg you for more details?

1916
war of independence
civil war
the troubles
etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc


and the big one which even today has an effect on our society

an Gorta Mór


ok so it's hyerbole but the point stands regionalism didnt work out well for Ireland

[Furunculus]

I have gone further and discovered more about definitions to explain my brand of European Federalism. The definition of Regionalism goes a long way to what I would see happen to the Nation States of Europe. They would dissolve into regions which are administrated locally but tied together in a federation at a European level which only deals with matter concerning the top-level, such as Foreign policy.

This would multiply the many states of Europe into local regions which various populace would like to manage themselves opposed to being completely managed by a bunch of random guys in Brussels so while we all embrace a European identity, we have our own local flavours and diversity which is part in making Europe so great.

regionalism is generally meant to apply to nation-states, with greater subsidiarity from within that unit, not to con/federations where there is no identity at all, and the attempt becomes one of manufacturing a new 'loose' euro identity.