Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

fly_agaric

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117706721#Comment_117706721

Yes, I should stress I was speaking only of the UKs political leaders and their beliefs and desires.

I think that can help explain why Euroscepticism was such a strong ideology among Conservative politicians and in the media etc. (but not so much among general public I think) years before the Brexit referendum was ever fought and won/lost.

I've not lived in the UK but I'd be dubious about invoking these big ideas when discussing the result of the referendum specifically & why UK voted to "leave". I don't believe many voters think about such things too much when they cast a ballot. The more prosaic explanations fit better and seem to be perfectly sufficient to explain the result itself.

20silkcut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707377#Comment_117707377

In fairness they had the largest navy in the world at the time as well that had the potential to cause carnage in the channel to the invading Germans as well.

The other issue is that the EU is a forward looking organisation, created in response to the aftermath of WWII. It doesn’t spend its time reliving it. It literally is the structural embodiment of the horrendous lessons learned in a period that nearly destroyed Europe and cost tens of millions of lives.

Its predecessor organisations came into being to rebuild Europe and to do so in a peaceful way that is based around ideals of democracy, rule of law, human rights rights and dignity and structures that were fully intended to build a deeply interconnected place where that era could be genuinely put behind us. In the 1970s and 1980s it provided a stable space for 3 former dictatorships to as they transitioned to stable democracy, and they’ve done so very successfully and in the 1990s it welcomed countries from behind the iron curtain.

I don’t think anyone claims it is perfect and it has plenty to rough edges, systems that don’t work smoothly, but it’s not an empire nor is it a petty nation, fixated on who did what in which war 80 years ago.

Hatchets, guns and bombs were buried and a new relationship was formed and people looked towards rebuilding something different from the ashes of a mess that went before it, that included other failed empires.

I don’t think that was ever really communicated in the U.K. and I don’t think it’s been particularly well communicated by the current generation of European politicians, who often get lost in the mire of economics and minutiae.

I also think there’s an element of English politics that projects what the U.K. is; an odd assembly of 4 nations (2 nations, a principality and a part of a historical province) that are dominated by its largest member, in a way that doesn’t remotely resemble a federal state, but more a Union by consequent. We still see Westminster is basically the English Parliament, with other nations MPs sitting in it. There’s no federal Parliament. There’s no Bank of the United Kingdom, there’s the Bank of England. Even the national anthem is the English one just extended to the U.K. (and parts of the former empire.)

They look at Europe and they see the same. Where’s the big country that tells the 26 subservient countries what to do? There must be one? So they point at Germany or France. During the negotiations they tried to deal with Merkel and were pointed back towards the European Commission again and again.

They also project the concept of empire onto the EU, as does Russia. It’s based on their world view, nor how the EU actually functions or what it is all about.

I don’t see this changing, but hopefully in 20 years time there may be a new & renormalised relationship with the U.K. as a neighbour rather than this deteriorating into a long running jingoistic mess.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707805#Comment_117707805

A lot of the original Eurosceptics were very right wing (you almost never hear of Eurosceptics who are centrists or liberal). They simply didn't like the EU and didn't want "to be ruled by foreigners".

For a lot of the Leave voters on the street as opposed to politicians, I think it may simply have come down to being anti-immigrant and anti-"foreigner". Farage and Cummings realised this and tapped into it.

BlitzKrieg

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707865#Comment_117707865

large but rapidly outdated. By 1941 what made the British Navy strong (her battleships) had flipped into a liability that had their last great moment in 1940 sinking the bismarck, a moment undercut by the numerous points air power crippled the ship And the point was firmly driven home when the Japanese proved how ineffective they were against air power at Singapore.

The British Navy was primarily winning the war of the Atlantic on the back of destroyers bought from America and deployed from Canada, until later in the war where they were finally able to field more modern Hunt and Tribal destroyers in larger numbers (this is an edit I had wrong info here initially). In terms of destroyers you can tell how unprepared the British were to primarily rely on them and how lacking their existing destroyer fleet was by the sheer size of the war emergency programme they instigated to keep their destroyer numbers up during the first half of the war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Emergency_Programme_destroyers#Ship_classes_(World_War_II)

By the end of the war it was those same destroyers now under both US and British flags and long range land based air power that sealed the deal despite both american and british carriers in the atlantic they did not provide the same killing power as they did in the pacific or Mediterranean, instead it was primarily american made british crewed liberators used in an anti submarine role. Ironically even though Germany never went into naval air power like Japan they actually had a surprisingly high success rate sinking British Carriers (they'd sunk 4 of them, 3 by 1941) but they simply couldnt do anything about the liberators and sheer number of destroyers which were the two key aspects of the atlantic war that won it for the allies.

The Royal Navy was as much a force that relied on the empire and volunteers and supplies around the world as the RAF did.

RobMc59

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707406#Comment_117707406

I have spoken to many who fought in WW2,including my own family members (and one or two Irish soldiers)and have never heard any of them disrespect any other nation(including Germany) or person who took part in it.

One or two of the events cited by O'Toole as examples of 'heroic British failure' Dunkirk,which Churchill described as a military disaster and the charge of the light brigade at the battle of Balaclava were battles in wars that the UK,along with its allies ultimately won.

On the subject of O'Toole,what credentials does a journalist who divides opinion even amongst his own countrymen possess which would persuade someone to agree with his opinion over the accounts of family and other participants in ww2?

Peregrinus

Have you read O'Toole's book? He's not commenting on what participants in the war say about it; he is talking about what is said about it by people who didn't participate in it, and in particular the way they invoke it with respect to contemporary political questions.

Specifically, there is no doubt that there is a "Britain stood alone" theme that is repeatedly spouted and and that, historically speaking, is largely bogus. And I myself have had one of the dimmer Brexiters tell me that, if it wasn't for the English, my country would be speaking German today. I had to correct him by pointing out that, in actual historical fact, if it wasn't for the English, my country would be speaking Irish today.

ambro25

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117708324#Comment_117708324

It is not a matter of ‘journalistic credentials’, it is a matter of professional record and authority, translated into peer recognition (e.g. amongst “Britain’s top 300 intellectuals” according to The Observer).

At the anecdotal level (since you involved your war fighting relatives), it is also a matter -for me- of comparing his journalistic research and take on Britain’s heroic failure in his book, against a lengthy life experience (over 20 years) in non-metropolitan UK (South Yorks mostly) and validating it amply through same.

A personal comparison and validation that long pre-dated his book, let it be said, since my war fighting and suffering relatives did not have the good fortune of being born in the UK (or Ireland), but in that bit of northeast France over which France and Germany had fought thrice in 70 years (1870, 1914-18, 1940), and from which I formed a very longstanding opinion, that Brits could never understand what the EU is about, because they were never occupied, unlike the vast majority of Continental Europe.

Rest assured that French, German, Belgian or Luxembourgish irrespective, in that particular neck of the Continental woods, generations understand all too well, and to this day still, what the EU (and the EEC and the ECSC before it) ever did for them.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117708324#Comment_117708324

What is the point you're trying to make here. I'm talking about politicians, not soldiers or are you trying to elide the two to shut down attempts at criticism.

RobMc59

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117708443#Comment_117708443

People like O'Toole are attempting to create urban myths about the UK and it's people which are eagerly seized upon by some and regularly trotted out as fact.

I've no doubt there is an unpleasant cohort of extreme right wing politicians and members of the UK public but the vast majority of the general population aren't like that.

I only questioned his credentials to judge the UK and it's people as there are obviously a fair number of posters here who believe the myths he is trying to create.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117708582#Comment_117708582

What myths is he trying to create? Be specific please.

Leroy42

O'Tooles narrative is of course just a theory but one that is backed up by many examples.

The continued evoking of the spirit of Dunkirk, we survived the blitz, the English footy fans 2WWs and 1 WC singing, constant talk of empire.

Even the very notion that UK standards should simply be accepted by the EU on no other basis that the UK is great is telling.

Their insistence that international rules and treaties are not for them.

And of course the view that immigrants are terrible but all other countries depend on UK expats.

In addition, the fact that Brexiteers argue against the very notion of the EU but see nothing ironic in their claim to love the union that is the UK. The UK being far worse than the EU in terms of all the areas they complain about (money, decision making, standards, unelected bureaucracts, common army etc). But that is fine as England are in charge of that si apparently its all good.

When you try to discuss the EU with brexiteers, one key point is that they really couldn't handle not being in charge. The line that Cameron wasn't given what he wanted and that led to the ref betrays the feeling that UK wants are more important that other countries.

There are so very few actual rational arguments for Brexit it is very clearly, at least in part driven by a sense of superiority.

storker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707559#Comment_117707559

...and a huge natural anti-tank ditch. 😊

ambro25

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117708582#Comment_117708582

That post is just one non-sequitur after another.

It’s pretty clear from your agitation about O’Toole (…rather than the premises of his book, which clearly you’ve not read or even skimmed), that you dislike any societal analysis painting the Brits unfavourably, and never more so than when it is performed by a non-British author.

Look up the meaning of jingoism, spend some years living in English provinces, patronising English pubs/fairs/events, reading English press and watching English TV, then come back and tell us about ‘urban myths’.

From where I’m looking, living in the UK throughout the 90s, 00s and 10s, Brexitards have been steadfastly playing the “exceptionalist” and “EU victim” cards since long before the 2015 referendum was even a thing, never harder than since, and still to this day. Which happens to fully vindicate the central plank of O’Toole’s analysis (his and others: he isn’t the only authority on the topic).

RobMc59

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117708669#Comment_117708669

Agree fully with the football fan ridiculous chants although evacuating over 300,000 defeated allied troops from Dunkirk rather than capture was an admirable feat as was surviving the blitz imo.

Regarding Cameron,if he had shown some backbone and told those agitating for the UK to leave the EU where to go the UK wouldn't be in the awful position it's in now.

Leroy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117708956#Comment_117708956

The UK wouldn't be in the awful position now if it didn't have their colonial throwback.

As for Cameron, the UK asked that the 450m other citizens of the EU give the 60m in the UK special treatment purely because the UK government wouldn't do the job.

For someone who claims the EU is not democratic surely you can see the hypocrisy in your line that the majority should simply bend to the whims of the UK.

Although it still continues. The UK continues to expect, nay demand, special dispensation from EU rules simply on the basis of who the UK and how important they feel.

But it is clear, Steve Baker also admitted that Brexit was a fiasco this morning, that Brexit is a disaster and it is only a matter of time before some sanity returns and the UK seek to reverse the not inconsiderable damage they have caused themselves.

The only question, for the question about the positives of Brexit has been comprehensively answered in the negative, is who and how will the UK be turned around.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117708956#Comment_117708956

Mentioning the Blitz feels appropriate in regards the mythologising of WW2 by sectors of the UK: an apparent time of national unity and togetherness, of "keeping calm and carrying on"; as opposed to a country one bad day from surrendering, utterly riven with crime, food shortages and black markets (open to correction here by those more knowledgable). IIRC the murder rate still remains historically highest during this period; yet you will also still hear many of the Mark Francois ilk wax lyrical about this time of abject privation, incomparable in moderns times, being some golden & simpler time of roughing it out. It was a horror show, and maybe it's time for "the UK" to be more self-reflective of this time as a bullet dodged - albeit as the last major democracy in Europe at the time - not some time of victory.

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117708669#Comment_117708669

Not only that, O'Toole's theory is something one can extrapolate from to predict what happens next. I note that David Henig recently referred to a paragraph written by FOT in 2017 as particularly resonant regarding subsequent events (related to a static and exclusionary English nationalism creating conceptual difficulties for a future relationship to the EU - and contrasted with a more complex Irish national identity).

ambro25

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117709212#Comment_117709212

Casting back to yesterday’s brief aside about the Royal Navy during WW2, I doubt many Brits are conversant with ‘Mers-El-Kébir’, a mere month after the Dunkirk withdrawal.

AFAIK, it isn’t part of the British curriculum. Our kid had heard much about WW2 whilst in secondary UK school until 2018, but had never heard of it. Unsurprisingly, as it’s not an episode of WW2 wherein the UK covered itself in glory, notwithstanding its success (and notwithstanding the genuine strategic case for the preemptive attack).

Most French are as conversant with it, as with the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. Standard components of the French curriculum.

20silkcut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117709441#Comment_117709441

Im sure that incident was the major one that fed into de gaulles antipathy towards the U.K.

Professor Moriarty

In the UK, Tesco is now offering truck drivers a £1000 joining bonus. M&S are now offering £2000. John Lewis and Waitrose are now offering £1000 and have increased wages by up to £5000 pa.

ambro25

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117710467#Comment_117710467

It’s great news for UK-based HGV drivers, but I seriously doubt these figures are sufficient to entice Brexodees back to the UK, all things HGV (pay level, tax measures, working conditions, etc) considered.

So it hardly solves the supply chain issue, short- or even medium-term: it’s just musical chairs for UK-based HGV labour, wherein the least-resourced employers lose still more hauling capacity to those with thicker cheque books…

…and nil point for guessing who actually pays for those bonuses in the end.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117709212#Comment_117709212

Indeed, the 'Blitz Spirit' was largely a myth and invented for propaganda reasons. The famous 1940 photo of a milkman climbing through rubble in London to deliver milk was staged for example (it was actually the photographer's assistant) and used for propaganda purposes.

Much of the modern Brexiteers 'memories' of WW2 are false. They've invented a fantasy British experience of the War that never actually happened.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117709274#Comment_117709274

O'Toole makes the very interesting observation that English nationalism is the one that dare not speak its name. Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalists will openly speak of their nationalism and yet you'd be very hard pushed to find a single Brexiteer or Leave voter admit to being an English nationalist (despite the term applying to virtually all of them). Perhaps this denial of their own identity is yet another factor in the whole Brexit conundrum.

McGiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117707406#Comment_117707406

Bit OTT but since it was mentioned 😀

Top 10 aces of the Battle of Britain.

Out of 10 only 5 were British, the rest were from Czechoslovakia, Poland, New Zealand, Australia...

Czechoslovak, Polish, New Zealand and Canadian squadrons were the four largest foreign squadrons in in the RAF during the Battle of Britain.

The following were the foreign RAF squadron numbers during the whole of WW2:

Canada - 43

Australia - 17

Poland - 14

France - 12

New Zealand - 6

Norway - 5

Czechoslovakia - 4

Netherlands - 3

USA - 3

Greece - 2

Belgium - 2

Yugoslavia - 2

The whole Brexiter obsession with WW2 is all based on English myths and/or lies with a dose of the good old exceptionalism. So is their obsession with Germany and constant attacks on it. Which is disgusting and alarming 76 years after the end of the WW2. Sadly, based on my experience and reports I would say 30-35+% English population believe in these lies and are hostile to Germany.

ltd440

Crime went up by over 50% during the blitz, of course a lot of bravery and unselfishness but as always assholes are not too far away.

https://youtu.be/MLgnzmmEDH4

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117710774#Comment_117710774

I don't think it's about enticing anyone. I can't see anyone from the EU with the requisite licencing being bothered to go through the bureaucratic hoops to go back to a country where they were made to feel like unwelcome burdens.

HGV driving is an older man's game. It's brutal if half the complaining my new Albanian housemate engages in is to be believed and they're not replacing the older drivers as they retire, hence the bonuses. It's nice to see wages be discussed as an issue at least.

dogbert27

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117711573#Comment_117711573

Also 10 Irish:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-British_personnel_in_the_RAF_during_the_Battle_of_Britain

Many individual Irish citizens did enlist in the British military, however, and ten pilots from the country fought in the RAF during the Battle of Britain.[5] One of them, Brendan "Paddy" Finucane,[22] became an ace who would claim a total of 32 enemy aircraft before he was killed in 1942

RobMc59

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712936#Comment_117712936

I shudder to think what the figures would be without the AZ vaccine,which has been fantastic for the UK and the world.Apparently,it's the most widely used vaccine.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117713615#Comment_117713615

Most countries are using AZ, but I doubt it is first by doses adminstered, since its not used in China or the US. Haven't found a breakdown of doses by mfgr. Not that it really matters - just et the jab.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html