The future of the European Union

What cuts do you forsee in EU spending now the Brits have left?
How will the EU's diminished international standing affect it's future trade deals?

Will there now be an EU army?
Are Turkey and Ukraine off the list of places to expand into now?

What is the future of the EU?
Lesser than it used to be a year ago for sure. Is this a blip, a change of direction or has it peaked?
Will Ireland leave now that's it's free trade with the UK is impossible?
Belgium the same?
Will they follow Tanzania and drop out of EU agreements too?

How I will laugh if Belgium leaves. The EU's language is foreign to all it's people, will it's palace be in a foreign country too?
Or will it move to Strasbourg? Strasbourg I suppose.

But English is the language of money. I think they will stick with it. Hope not, but think so.

Will the French and the Dutch leave? Like Ireland they have all voted to as well.

Personally, I feel it's in decline now. Ambitions have been blocked.
No Ukraine. No Turkey. No army. Less money. Smaller market place. Less reason to join and less reason to stay.
Less reason to adhere to it's rules or seek a trade agreement with them.

I think they change it's very nature right now... or it just becomes a forgotten bureaucracy. The one people don't use. Just a retirement home for failed politicians. Ignored like the UN.
In fact broadly speaking I think it has been a replacement for the UN in the minds of globalists. A new world govt... that lasted about as long as their previous dreams of new world govt, the UN post fall of the USSR.

People want it so they try it, but it never works. Never delivers and so they rapidly move on to the next great hope for globalism. From UN to EU to... some new body of people to hitch this pipe dream of world domination on to. Who will it be? It won't be TTIP for another 4-8 years min. How that would wrangle those for whom the EU is a method to get primacy over the US anyway. To end up their bitches.

Or will it go the other way. Embrace fascism.
There is always "more Europe". Never underestimate the popularity of socialism on the continent.
So I think either.. a period of rapid decline followed by stability, a period or rapid decline followed by gradual decline... or... mad fascism followed by it's destruction in war.

 

This is a common anglosphere misconception about the EU. It's not really a socialist union at all. And socialists on the continent are generally against it. So are the far right too, it's one of the things they have in common.

It's an awful union, but it's not the reincarnation of the USSR, although they do have some similarities when it comes to their attitudes towards the public.

 

The hard core socialists reject it. The hard core right wing also reject it.
It's either not left enough or not right enough for the extremists.

But socialism isn't extremism in Europe. It's the norm.

 

Nah. Pretty soft core socialists also reject it.

We might have a different view on what makes a socialist though. I'm primarily focused on the fiscal aspects, when it comes to what is and what isn't socialism, since that's what socialism originally was about.

But really, the political system is more complicated than left/right.

As an example, the Sweden Democrats in Sweden is primarily regarded as one of those "Far right" parties. They're opposed to the EU, and immigration, especially from muslim countries. This puts them in the "Far right" booth, by the anglosphere. While their fiscal policies, is more social democratic, but that's largely ignored, since they get all their attention on the immigration issue.

Then our "Socialist Left"-party. It's rightly considered a left wing party. But their fiscal policies are actually pretty similar to Sweden's SD. And they're anti-EU too. The difference lies in that our socialist left party, is extremely pro immigration, and pro radical feminism, while SD is not.

In essence, it looks like the public's concept of "left vs right" is primarily focused on immigration/nationalism, rather than conservative/socialist economics.

 

Here, leaving the EU wasn't a left/right issue.

All political parties supported the EU. Left and right alike.
It was more an anti politics vs poltics divide, than it was left vs right.

Likewise right wing here gets dismissed as "immigration/nationalism" by it's detractors.
But they aren't core left wing/right wing issues.
It's a mud slinging exercise in which rivals for power both try and associate each other with the Nazis'.

Immigration is typically a working class vs middle class divide in this country. Working class hate it, richer people love it.
Nationalism is a left/right divide here in my opinion. Traditional conservative values vs the desire for a new world order. Globe united in peace under one rule. Small state vs largest possible state.

I tend to view the world like this. America is more right wing than us. Europe is more left wing than us. America hates and despises socialism. Europe is the home of socialism.
I am British. We are the home of liberalism. Which in many ways is the antithesis of socialism.

 

The EU are also liberalists. They're just taking it to the extreme, and neglecting national identity and differences. Our liberalist party is pretty pro immigration, and very pro EU.

I'm leaning rather social democratic, because that's what works the best in Norway. But I wouldn't want a social democratic EU pushing social democracy on all other countries. What works for some, doesn't work for all, culture matters.

Switzerland is also a great country, and they're leaning further to the right than we do. They're true liberals, but they also recognize the importance of democracy and national sovereignty.

My main objection to the EU, isn't that they're too far to the left, or too far to the right or whatever, both classical liberalism, and socialism have their benefits and flaws. It's the lack of democracy, and the centralization of power that's the big problem with the EU. And I think this is something both the opponents from the right, and the left can agree on.

 

Our "Liberal democrat" party is both pro EU and pro immigration. But they aren't very liberal on much except freedom of information and anti terrorism laws. Prior to Labour, a now extinct party, The Liberals, were the second party of UK government. Conservative vs Liberal. (Tory vs Whigs) It was that way for hundreds of years.

Liberalism to me means, the primacy of the individual over the state. The willingness not to make rules for other people.
You can do or be anything you wish as long as you do not harm me.

Germany for example is a most illiberal country. So is Japan.

The EU like Norway perhaps is to my mind social democrat too. It is the home of socialism and the home of democracy both.
As you say, culture matters. But that culture... is not mine.

My main problem with the EU was the way in which we were forced against our wills to join it. It ended democracy in this country.
Culturally we are not social democrats and so we don't gel with the big program others in the EU have.
I see too the problems you speak of, and recognise their validity but mainly for me this rested on having the piss taken out of me, and my cultural dislike of a united Europe and socialism.

 

Hogwash.

You are simply insisting upon the notion because it pleases you to do so.

The EU is a cosmopolitan political spectrum from the Far Left to the Center-Right parties depending mostly upon longitude. The most Leftist nations are all ex-Roman Empire (two centuries ago). All EU-countries are ex-monarchies, with only titular heads "reigning".

The EU is a Social Democracy where capitalism is employed as a mechanism (without which we would be relegated to barter as a medium of exchange). Unlike the US, however, there is no prevailing sentiment that "capitalism" is a human right of ultra-light taxation of high-incomes for the sole purpose of accumulating Immense Wealth by a minority. (As seen here.)

The EU and the US thus have fundamentally different concepts of governance as regards taxation and the deployment of national discretionary spending ...

 

Horse manure.

You hate the US and like to look down your nose at them.
Nothing superior about your system of government at all. You modelled it on theirs.

 

Is that not back to front?

 

No.
The American revolution (1775-1783) was the model for the French one (1789-1799). The French republic is directly modelled on the American republic, it's inspiration and closest ally.

 

No. Norway is a social democracy. So are Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland.

Some other European states have some similarities with social democracies, but are still not social democracies. They're liberal democracies.

 

Which ones do you consider to be liberal?
The Dutch? The Danes?

I'm not familiar with every country in Europe's politics or culture.

Culturally if you aren't in the anglosphere, you won't be liberal. It's a British political philosophy named after one of its leading parties that got exported with it's colonists during the days of the empire.

 

I would consider the Swiss liberal. They're far more focused on deregulating trade than us Nordics. I would actually call them more liberal than the Brits, but a bit less than the Americans.

The Danes and Swedes are more liberal than the Norwegians, and the Norwegians are more liberal than the Icelandic. While we are more national conservative than the Swedes and Danes, but less so than the Icelandic. The Finns are more liberal than Norwegians, but also more national conservative.

A lot of British culture has dripped off on the rest of us, and no doubt the British parliamentary democracy was one of the major influences on Norwegian parliamentary democracy too. The Brits are social liberal in my eyes, a pretty well balanced system, but not as focused on protectionism of natural resources as social democracies are. It has its advantages, there's a reason the financial hub of Europe is in London. But it has disadvantages too, with the depletion of fishing stocks, and the increased wealth disparage between the working class, and the administrative class, and the selling out of manufacturing businesses to countries that can do it cheaper. (I am by no means saying you should be more like us, and go for social democracies btw, not sure how it would work out over there.)

But that's the wonder of national states and independence. Each nation can choose the economical model that suits themselves the best. And they're all taking certain aspects of capitalism, and socialism, and making it work in the best way. The EU threatens all of this.

 

Yes, the EU threatens cultural diversity.

I'm not in any way worried about wealth disparity.
I'm not the jealous type.

What is important here is that everyone is comfortable. Even a tramp here is likely to be a 5%er.
Wow someone is richer than me. Who cares?

No matter who I am here, I am richer than 95% of the human race. So wealth isn't a massive social issue. Outsourcing is an issue but not a hot political one. No one here wants to work in a call centre anyway.
The pound is low due to Brexit so home manufacturing is now in a favourable position of growth.

Essentially we haven't been outsourcing our manufacturing industries, we have been insourcing our workforces. Flooded with cheap EU labour. A lot of our of our industrial manufacturing can't be outsourced. It's military or requires masses of electricity etc.

 

That whole wealth disparity is the reason why social democracy is, and should be a Nordic thing. It's a pretty large part of our culture that there's no real classes. Of course there will even here be people getting richer than other, that's not a problem. But when the rich start hanging out with only rich people, and the less rich can't afford to take part in the same society as the richer people, part of the Nordic society is gone.

You can still be a multimillionaire in Norway, if you're talented/lucky/work hard. But a historically important aspect of our culture is that the plumber and the doctor can still send their kids to the same school.

It's one of those things that are both positive and negative of the Nordic model. You're not supposed to think you're better than someone else, even if you are.

Now, I've been praising the Nordic model a lot, but here's where I'm going to come with some criticism, which is related to all these things I've previously said is great;
The school system sucks. Yes, we're doing fairly well on standardized international tests, so the Norwegian AVERAGE is pretty good, compared to the rest of the world. But we have a tendency to only focus on the weakest links in a class, and elevating them. The kind of people that would get a scholarship, and an incentive to work even harder, in the US or Britain, are largely ignored here. So we turn the mediocre pupils into everything from good to great. The bad ones into mediocre ones. But, the great ones into mediocre ones too. This is the main flaw. There's no incentive from a young age to work hard in school, for the more intelligent kids, which is why a LOT of great potential is wasted. Way too many intelligent people get lazy, and complacent, since we haven't got the same positive reinforcement of young talent like the Brits and Americans do. A lot of potential is wasted this way.

 

Is what not "back to front"?

Quote your subject before replying ...

 

I did

 

I don't really think class is an issue in this country either.
Broadly speaking we are all middle class these days.

Most of our "working class" are imported. The Labour party in particular has struggled this since it self identifies as a working class party.

There is no great desire for students in school to work hard here.
It's not like Asian schools. I much prefer teaching there to here.

The parents don't have the ethos either. Not many of them willing to pay for private education.
Compare that to say Japan, where the kids do a full day in state school and then an hour after school, all go to private school until 10 at night. Essentially they have 2 x the school hours per day of the average UK student. Attitudes to education are culturally different.

 

And so is the rest of Europe as well ... you just can't see the difference.

Try, maybe, the Gini Index. (Try hard understanding what it means!):

 

No. We are not the same.
Russia is not he same. UK is not the same. Germany is not the same.
Ukriane. LMAO @ that even being a democracy.

We are not the same and we don't want to be the same. If we ever became the same as you, we would change.
Because we like to be different.

Liberalism is the spirit of individuality. Vive la difference, if you like.

 

Moving right along ...

 

And I maintain that any country with a statistical Gini Coefficient below 35 is a Social Democracy purely from the fact that any coefficient above that number has insufficient "Tax 'n Spend" policies benefiting a nation's people as a whole ...

 

"Try really hard understanding what it means!" Really? That's not very polite. This is not a hard concept to grasp. Also, it's wrong to base social democracy purely on the Gini coefficient, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are also not social democracies.

But again, a social democracy is more than just the income equality, although it's a really important part of it. Which is why I said a lot of Europe has parts of what makes a social democracy, without actually being one. And yes, most of Europe has parties, that are largely social democratic, but even that doesn't make their country social democratic.

It doesn't make their countries hellholes either BTW, Germany and France is still great countries to live in.

 

Maybe it's more of an American thing than a British one then. But I do get the impression there are some more incentives for the really talented in anglo countries to work harder at academics. They have these things like spelling bees, scholarship for the best students, and various scholarships for lots of different talent. We do not have anything like this, and I wish we had some of it.

I don't want the Japanese school culture though. That looks way too focused on the collective, rather than the individual, leading to an unhealthy culture overall.

Are you a teacher? If so, how would you improve the educational system to both benefit the weak, the mediocre, and the strong?