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» Ship of Fools   » Ship's Locker   » Limbo   » Purgatory: In, out, in, out; EU Referendum thread. (Page 8)

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Source: (consider it) Thread: Purgatory: In, out, in, out; EU Referendum thread.
Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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The figures I've seen for the gross UK government payments to the EU is £6-7 billion per year (works out at about £15-20 million per day, 30p per person per day). Of course, the net amount will be smaller than that as quite a bit of that comes back to the UK.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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According to Wikipedia in 2014 the UK contribution was €11 billion, close enough to the £6-7 billion I'd seen elsewhere (but can't immediately find the source of).

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Membership apparently costs 10 euros per person per annum in the UK - one of the cheapest clubs around.

That's as maybe. The question is whether it's a club we want to be members of in the first place.

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Hail Gallaxhar

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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58

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30p a day works out at about £110 per person per year, which is a bit more than 10 euros a year/about £7.80.
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Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
There is, of course, a spectrum of positions. At one end there is the 100% sovereign nation state, at the other multi-national, global (if we're going to the very extreme) super-state.

I don't think anyone would argue that the first extreme is a good idea, especially in the modern world. About the closest example of such a state at the moment would be North Korea.

Not at all. 100% sovereign doesn't mean the state can't enter into treaty agreements with other states, it just means the state freely chooses to enter such treaties and can freely choose to leave them if it would be in its interests to do so.

quote:
The other extreme is certainly impractical at the moment. Though it is a utopian vision many hold. To minimise internal tensions it would need to be a state of equals, if one part of the whole dominates over others then eventually the state will collapse - which is part of where the EU struggles at the moment with the Eurozone dominated by Germany (and to a lesser extent Benelux and France) with Greece and Portugal very much the inferior partners.
The Eurozone is not a partnership of equals, it is a German Empire by another name. That alone is reason enough to steer well clear.

quote:
I have no particular attachment to the UK as a political entity.
I guess that's why you support those who are trying to destroy it.

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Hail Gallaxhar

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
100% sovereign doesn't mean the state can't enter into treaty agreements with other states, it just means the state freely chooses to enter such treaties and can freely choose to leave them if it would be in its interests to do so.

But, once you enter treaty negotiations with another state you automatically lose some sovereignty. It's called negotiation, giving up something to gain something. Unless you happen to be strong enough to dictate "take it or leave it" terms to the other party both sides will give something. And, once the treaty is signed you can't just walk away without any consequences, those consequences will again impact your sovereignty (eg: your ability to enter treaty negotiations with someone else).

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Would a multi-ethnic nation covering the whole of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran which contained virtually the whole of the original ethnic groups (not putting an artificial line in the sand between them) have been more stable?

I don't know. Would it have prevented the Sunnis and Shiites from fighting each other for dominance? Would it have prevented the Kurds from wanting their own nation rather than being a minority voice in another one?

Or would it be better to have separate nations for the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to rule as they see fit?

quote:
when faced with a choice between loyalty to fellow Kurds (say) or an artificial nation called "Iraq" there will be difficulties, if all the Kurds (and other groups) live within the same nation that potential conflict in loyalty is removed.
I fail to see how the potential conflict is removed where people have loyalty to their own group rather than the larger nation they happen to be part of. I mean, in the UK itself we've seen a certain amount of unrest because so many people have loyalty to Scotland rather than the United Kingdom. In Spain there are ongoing issues because some people are loyal to Catalonia rather than Spain. Many other countries have similar issues. It's simply not true to say that if a group who want independence and the right to govern themselves all happen to be under the control of the same larger state then the potential for conflict will be removed.

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Hail Gallaxhar

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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We will never remove the potential for conflict. The best we can do is reduce the potential for conflict, and provide means for disagreements to be resolved without recourse to shooting at each other.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The EU seems to have a French/German axis.

Whereas, it should have multiple axes - with the UK as one of the main balancing nations/groups, along with blocks for Scandanavia, Iberia, the Balkans, etc. All providing checks and balances against one or two nations dominating.
Should have, but doesn't. And it won't ever have. Germany (and to a lesser extent France) are never going to surrender the dominance they've carefully built up over the last few decades. Those two countries have always wanted a united Europe, but only if they're the ones calling the shots - if, say, Spain and Portugal ever became dominant they'd lose their enthusiasm for the project in a flash.

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Hail Gallaxhar

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LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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I guess what Alan is saying is that Germany has been able to build up this dominance at least in part because the UK has always been in the EU with only one toe.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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Yes, that and that therefore the UK has created the situation that the Eurosceptics now want to pull us out of. It's an exercise of "what if", but if we'd been move involved in developing the EU we'd have a greater influence, and the EU would work more in our favour.

Although ideally we shouldn't even be talking about the EU working "for the UK" or "for Germany", but it working for all the people of Europe.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Matt Black

Shipmate
# 2210

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
For a large part of this century the world has been dealing with the abominable mess created by boundary lines that marked out Iraq and Syria with little regard to natural groupings and common interests.

I believe they are originally administrative units of the Ottoman Empire established precisely so as to cut across natural groupings and common interests.
The material I can find on Ottoman subdivisions suggests not, in that there's no clear relationship between these territories and the carve-up of territory that occurred around 1920.
Sykes-Picot agreement IIRC

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Matt Black

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# 2210

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It gets tricky, I think, when your political union has so many separate languages and historically different cultures.


Oh, I don't know: the Swiss have managed to successfully bring French, German and Italian speakers together over the last 700+ years. And the Indians have performed pretty well with their own Tower of Babel since 1947.

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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)

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TonyK

Host Emeritus
# 35

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The figures I've seen for the gross UK government payments to the EU is £6-7 billion per year (works out at about £15-20 million per day, 30p per person per day). Of course, the net amount will be smaller than that as quite a bit of that comes back to the UK.

Alan - I think your source is wrong on this.
According to the BBC website:

..the UK is one of 10 member states who pay more into the EU budget than they get out, only France and Germany contribute more. In 2014/15, Poland was the largest beneficiary, followed by Hungary and Greece.

The UK also gets an annual rebate that was negotiated by Margaret Thatcher and money back, in the form of regional development grants and payments to farmers, which added up to £4.6bn in 2014/15. According to the latest Treasury figures, the UK's net contribution for 2014/15 was £8.8bn - nearly double what it was in 2009/10.
The National Audit Office, using a different formula which takes into account EU money paid directly to private sector companies and universities to fund research, and measured over the EU's financial year, shows the UK's net contribution for 2014 was £5.7bn.


(Emphasis mine)

The quoted figures for 2015, according to

the House of Commons Library are:

£ billions
Gross Contribution 17.8
Thatcher's Rebate 4.9
Total Contribution 12.9

Total Public Sector receipts 4.4
Net contribution 8.5

The figures are close to those quoted by the BBC.

Edited because I hit enter too quickly!

[ 24. February 2016, 13:59: Message edited by: TonyK ]

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Yours aye ... TonyK

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Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, once you enter treaty negotiations with another state you automatically lose some sovereignty. It's called negotiation, giving up something to gain something. Unless you happen to be strong enough to dictate "take it or leave it" terms to the other party both sides will give something.

Yes, that's what I said. But in treaty negotiations a free and independent nation is always able to walk away. With greater EU integration we do not have that freedom, regardless of whether the treaty is in our interests or not.

quote:
And, once the treaty is signed you can't just walk away without any consequences, those consequences will again impact your sovereignty (eg: your ability to enter treaty negotiations with someone else).
Sure. And if I choose to leave a shared rental agreement with someone because it's in my interests to do so then anyone else is entitled to take that into consideration when deciding whether to become my flatmate or not. But that doesn't mean I'm not still free to decide where and with whom I will live in the future.

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Hail Gallaxhar

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Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We will never remove the potential for conflict. The best we can do is reduce the potential for conflict, and provide means for disagreements to be resolved without recourse to shooting at each other.

Like NATO and the UN?

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Hail Gallaxhar

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Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Yes, that and that therefore the UK has created the situation that the Eurosceptics now want to pull us out of. It's an exercise of "what if", but if we'd been move involved in developing the EU we'd have a greater influence, and the EU would work more in our favour.

I for one plan to cast my vote in the referendum based on the actual situation, rather than on speculative "what ifs".

quote:
Although ideally we shouldn't even be talking about the EU working "for the UK" or "for Germany", but it working for all the people of Europe.
As long as the voting population of Europe is primarily human, that will never happen. Even in the smallest democratic nations the people of one area seek to get as much for themselves as they can. On the continental scale that would be even more true.

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Hail Gallaxhar

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
I have no particular attachment to the UK as a political entity.
I guess that's why you support those who are trying to destroy it.
Not really destroy, reform within the context of the rest of Europe.

But, I really don't have any sense of the UK being somehow special, or important. I just don't get it.

Geographically, the UK occupies the majority of a section of the European continental shelf forming a group of islands seperated from the majority of the land mass of Europe by a narrow strip of water.

Ethnically we have a small number of descendants of ancient britons, especially around the "celtic fringe". But, mostly we're descended from various Germanic tribes and Scandanavians (including the Normans - who were descended from Norsemen). That is, we're Europeans. And, our language shares those same European roots (except for the Gàidhlig and Cymraeg).

Perhaps we should look at our monarchy. Who are German, and before that Dutch.

We could look at our history, but there's little to be proud of there. An empire that subjugated other nations to provide us with resources and markets. A better than many record on ending our colonialism and leading those colonies to independence, but better to have not conquered them in the first place. We invented concentration camps in Southern Africa. Participation in a European arms race and cold war that lead directly to two world wars. Follow that up with aiding in proxy wars in the second half of the 20th century as the world again followed the cold war and arms race path (fortunately without falling into the destruction of out right war). And, we're left with this bizarre belief that we need to be some form of military global power, and we need to maintain an obscene (ie more than zero) number of nuclear warheads.

So, what do we have that really makes us special? What is it that says these small islands need to be sepearate from the rest of Europe? What makes the European peoples living on one side of a narrow stretch of water different from the European peoples living on the other side? Is that we play cricket (not very well) enough?

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We invented concentration camps

without wishing to Fisk your entire post (largely because life is too short), this is just wrong. The fact that people repeatedly state it doesn't make it any truer.

Quite apart from the conflation of concentration camp and death camp (the UK's camps in the Boer war est 1900 were not the latter) there is the small point that Spain established Reconcentrado camps in Cuba 1896-7, and the USA opened concentration camps for the Cherokee in 1838. Amongst others.

I'm not for a minute suggesting it was a sensible policy, but it wasn't a British contribution to the world.

[ 24. February 2016, 15:20: Message edited by: betjemaniac ]

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And is it true? For if it is....

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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Nor was it something that we should look back on with any sense of pride. It's one more part of colonial history, to which can be added encouraging drug dealing and a whole host of other evil, the whole of which should be a cause for repentance. Instead we get people looking back to those days "when Britain was great", the Royal Navy ruled the waves, and somehow deciding that this should be who we are. Bollocks to that.

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Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, I really don't have any sense of the UK being somehow special, or important. I just don't get it.

This much is obvious.

quote:
Ethnically we have a small number of descendants of ancient britons, especially around the "celtic fringe". But, mostly we're descended from various Germanic tribes and Scandanavians (including the Normans - who were descended from Norsemen). That is, we're Europeans. And, our language shares those same European roots (except for the Gàidhlig and Cymraeg).
Sure. And if you go far enough back we're all Ethiopians. The question is how far back you go.

quote:
Perhaps we should look at our monarchy. Who are German, and before that Dutch.
Anyone whose family has been here for longer than the USA has existed doesn't really count as German/Dutch any more.

quote:
We could look at our history, but there's little to be proud of there.
Are you kidding me?

Alfred the Great handing the Vikings their asses. The Norman Conquest (notable in that it remains the most recent time this island was successfully invaded, and even then it was only because Harold's army had been busy handing another lot of Vikings their asses less than a month earlier). Chaucer. Agincourt. The CofE. The Spanish Armada sent packing. Shakespeare. Britannia rules the waves. Burns. Byron. One of the longest-standing Parliamentary Democracies in the world. An Empire upon which the sun never set. A true world superpower. The birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Stephenson, Telford and Watt. Railways. The Brontes. When Napoleon sought to subjugate the entire continent, we were the ones who stopped him. Waterloo. Florence Nightingale. Darwin. Rorke's Drift. Cadbury's chocolate. WW1 was a massive clusterfuck, but even then we still won it. Brunel. Dickens. Doyle. When Hitler sought to subjugate the entire continent, we were the ones who stopped him. Tolkien. The NHS. Crick and Watson. The Internet.

Nope, nothing there at all.

quote:
What is it that says these small islands need to be sepearate from the rest of Europe?
In the end, and despite everything I've just said above, there's only one answer that matters: because we want to be. It's called self-determination, and it's a principle that should not be casually abandoned.

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Hail Gallaxhar

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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Nor was it something that we should look back on with any sense of pride.

I wasn't aware that anyone was suggesting that it was. Just to be absolutely clear on this, I certainly wasn't, so I'm a little unsure as to why you should choose to start a post with a sentence like that. Unless of course you've come across repeated assertions that the internment camps of the Boer War were a Good Thing, in which case I can't say I envy your explorations of the internet.

Could you write a list of comparable length of contributions of Britain to the world that you *are* proud of, to put alongside the ones that you aren't? Just in the interest of balance. If you are proud of nothing, then why are you ashamed of anything?

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And is it true? For if it is....

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Would a multi-ethnic nation covering the whole of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran which contained virtually the whole of the original ethnic groups (not putting an artificial line in the sand between them) have been more stable?

I don't know. Would it have prevented the Sunnis and Shiites from fighting each other for dominance? Would it have prevented the Kurds from wanting their own nation rather than being a minority voice in another one?

Or would it be better to have separate nations for the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to rule as they see fit?

Probably not. That's the approach that was taken in Cyprus and Ireland and Palestine.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Nor was it something that we should look back on with any sense of pride.

I wasn't aware that anyone was suggesting that it was. Just to be absolutely clear on this, I certainly wasn't, so I'm a little unsure as to why you should choose to start a post with a sentence like that.
No, I've not suggested that anyone has claimed that concentration camps were a good thing (whoever had the idea first).

I am suggesting that there is a harkening back to the days of the empire, and taking pride in the fact that we had an empire on which the sun never set, when the Royal Navy ruled the waves. It's that pride in empire that I take objection to, and you don't have to look very far to find examples of it. It was an empire that was founded on the exploitation of others; plantations in the Caribbean worked by slaves, the Raj living it up while the native population sweated and toiled to profit the East India Company, that navy that ruled the waves sailing gunboats up Chinese rivers to force the Chinese to allow British merchants to sell them opium. And, yes, rounding up Boers into concentration camps as well. The empire was a disgraceful period in British history, and I want nothing to do with the nationalist flag waving that suggests that not only was that when Britain was great, but that we still are great because of it.

quote:
Could you write a list of comparable length of contributions of Britain to the world that you *are* proud of, to put alongside the ones that you aren't? Just in the interest of balance. If you are proud of nothing, then why are you ashamed of anything?
There are individual British people who I admire, but I'm not sure that's the same as being proud of Britain. Writers, artists, musicians, engineers, scientists, explorers ... but their individual achievements stand regardless of the status of our nation. Shakespeare will still be Shakespeare whether we tear up all our treaties and sit in isolation from the world or whether we're a founding member of a new European state (or, anywhere inbetween).

I'm proud of the NHS, it's a wonderful health service that stands up there with the best health services in the world. Likewise the welfare state. In both cases I am deeply saddened that our government seems intent on systematically dismantling them. But, there are equally good health and welfare systems within Europe. And, in a future European State I would be equally proud of a European Health Service, European Welfare, if they are built on the same principles of health care for all, a safety net and support for all, regardless of ability.

I also take some pride in the achievements of the European Union and associated structures. The EU has achieved wonderful things, regional development and restructuring funds have encouraged the poorer nations in Europe to prosper and helped communities affected by radical changes in the global economy to adjust (eg: assist areas dependent on particular industries diversify). The ECHR is a wonderful institution, and the introduction of human rights and equality legislation across Europe is something to be rightly proud of. Things like working time directives have reduced the injustice of people being forced to work excessive hours. The EU has contributed to one of the longest periods of peace in Europe ever (in Western Europe at least), did it contribute to the fall of the Soviet empire in the east? Possibly, and that's something to be proud of as well.

Could the EU do more? Of course, it's not perfect. I would like the EU to be more welcoming of those fleeing war and poverty. To do more to help lift non-European countries out of poverty. To do even more to help the poor within Europe. The same with the UK, and I believe that we're most effective doing that together rather than apart.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643

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I think the fallacy in your last sentence is that an integrated EU would use its great powers to do precisely that. There is no guarantee that it will.

There is in fact no guarantee that it would (or in fact does) do what the majority of its inhabitants want, given that its lawmaking bodies are not only unelected but extremely remote from the people who the laws it makes affect. I am all for assisting the poorer parts of Europe - although I am even more in favour of assisting the poorer parts of the world, which are all outside the rich man's club of the EU - but I remain unconvinced that a large secretariat in Brussels is the best way to do it. I would have thought a better way of doing that was by way of treaties that facilitate trade - something which few in the UK would object to, and which was in fact all the EU amounted to until the 1990s. It is surprising to hear people argue that closer political union is necessary to save Europe from itself. The history since 1945 suggests that a comprehensive trade deal did the job perfectly well

Alan, I recollect that you were in favour of Scottish independence. To my mind, by far the best argument in favour of independence was that it would have taken governance closer to the Scottish people. The manner in which the EU is developing is quite the opposite. If further lawmaking powers are to be removed to Brussels - or even the European Parliament, I don't see how we can expect lawmakers to keep in reasonable touch with their constituents or how they would exercise their votes on the basis of what their constituents want, as opposed to what the prevailing political culture of the Parliament wanted. In short, I do not see how democracy could function in any meaningful way.

By contrast, the UK is a very stable and long-standing political entity with mature civic institutions. That doesn't make it special - plenty of other countries can say the same - but it is a very good reason not to give it up - and as the EU is not going to stop developing, this is the real choice in this referendum.

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Matt Black

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That's where logic for me falls down: the case of Scotland. It seems bizarre that the very people who don't want Scotland to be independent of the UK do want the UK to be independent of the EU and vice versa: either one believes in the autonomy of small nation states or the existence of a supra-national state, or one doesn't, surely?

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LeRoc

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quote:
Matt Black: That's where logic for me falls down: the case of Scotland. It seems bizarre that the very people who don't want Scotland to be independent of the UK do want the UK to be independent of the EU and vice versa: either one believes in the autonomy of small nation states or the existence of a supra-national state, or one doesn't, surely?
It's because they can recognise a false dichotomy.

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Matt Black

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As a principle, it's not false, surely?

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quetzalcoatl
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It is quixotic that Leave would probably lead to the break-up of the UK, if, as foretold, the Scottish people would demand a referendum, in order to be independent and join the EU.

I don't mean that Leave intends to break up the UK, but it is ironic that in the attempt to be independent, this result might happen, when presumably many Leave supporters are proud of the integrity of the UK.

[ 24. February 2016, 17:03: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
That's where logic for me falls down: the case of Scotland. It seems bizarre that the very people who don't want Scotland to be independent of the UK do want the UK to be independent of the EU and vice versa: either one believes in the autonomy of small nation states or the existence of a supra-national state, or one doesn't, surely?

It may be that Scots regard the EUs promises over limits to integration as more trustworthy than the rUKs promises on further devolution. Or that they don't mind losing control over the competencies the EU is likely to take over as long as they can gain sovereignty over other issues through independence. You may disagree with their premises, but it isn't necessarily an illogical position for them to take.
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Alan Cresswell

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Sovereignty and independence are not single binary options. There are degrees of both independence and sovereignty, and both apply across a wide range of areas. So, there's no reason why a nation can't be independent in issues of, say, spending on education and welfare while being in political union (another non-binary option) with other nations over environmental protection and foreign policy.

There is no logical reason why the people of Scotland can't want to take more control over areas of policy controlled by Westminster while at the same time wanting to cede other powers to Brussels.

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Marvin the Martian

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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
That's where logic for me falls down: the case of Scotland. It seems bizarre that the very people who don't want Scotland to be independent of the UK do want the UK to be independent of the EU and vice versa: either one believes in the autonomy of small nation states or the existence of a supra-national state, or one doesn't, surely?

I supported Scottish independence, for the same principal reason I support British independence - self-determination.

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Alan Cresswell

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The main question is the definition of "self". That can range from individuals to the entire European population. And, on some levels there quite clearly isn't any realistic "self determination" - how many local authorities in the UK are there which consistently return non-Tory councils, yet their "self-determination" to not be Tory is denied at the national level when the rest of the UK votes in a Tory government? In a democracy we can't even manage to get the government chosen by the majority of the electorate, is that not also a limit on "self determination"?

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Anglican't
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Yes, but one of the cardinal raisons d'etre of the EU was and is to prevent wars between its members which - remarkably, given the history of wars between its said members, especially it's six founders - it has succeeded in doing.

But, generally speaking, democracies don't go to war with other democracies (and I can't think of a modern example of that happening). Presumably the main reason why the six founder EEC members didn't all start invading each other (other than the whole NATO / Soviet threat thing) is that they were democratic countries?

I struggle to believe that the Federal Republic of Germany, for example, has only continued to be a democracy because of the existence of the EEC.

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Anglican't
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
That's where logic for me falls down: the case of Scotland. It seems bizarre that the very people who don't want Scotland to be independent of the UK do want the UK to be independent of the EU and vice versa: either one believes in the autonomy of small nation states or the existence of a supra-national state, or one doesn't, surely?

Well in my case (and this might be a widely-shared view, I don't know) I am British, I like Britain, I'm proud to be British, I like being British and I want to continue being British, therefore I want to see the continuance of the United Kingdom. By contrast, I suppose I am European in a geographical sense, but don't feel it, I don't believe in a politically united Europe with Britain in and therefore would like Britain to leave the EU.
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orfeo

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# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
I have no particular attachment to the UK as a political entity.
I guess that's why you support those who are trying to destroy it.
Not really destroy, reform within the context of the rest of Europe.

But, I really don't have any sense of the UK being somehow special, or important. I just don't get it.

Geographically, the UK occupies the majority of a section of the European continental shelf forming a group of islands seperated from the majority of the land mass of Europe by a narrow strip of water.

Ethnically we have a small number of descendants of ancient britons, especially around the "celtic fringe". But, mostly we're descended from various Germanic tribes and Scandanavians (including the Normans - who were descended from Norsemen). That is, we're Europeans. And, our language shares those same European roots (except for the Gàidhlig and Cymraeg).

Perhaps we should look at our monarchy. Who are German, and before that Dutch.

We could look at our history, but there's little to be proud of there. An empire that subjugated other nations to provide us with resources and markets. A better than many record on ending our colonialism and leading those colonies to independence, but better to have not conquered them in the first place. We invented concentration camps in Southern Africa. Participation in a European arms race and cold war that lead directly to two world wars. Follow that up with aiding in proxy wars in the second half of the 20th century as the world again followed the cold war and arms race path (fortunately without falling into the destruction of out right war). And, we're left with this bizarre belief that we need to be some form of military global power, and we need to maintain an obscene (ie more than zero) number of nuclear warheads.

So, what do we have that really makes us special? What is it that says these small islands need to be sepearate from the rest of Europe? What makes the European peoples living on one side of a narrow stretch of water different from the European peoples living on the other side? Is that we play cricket (not very well) enough?

Alan, with all due respect to your attempted rhetoric, the fact is that being on an island has significantly affected the history and culture of the people on that island. For all you can dismiss it as a narrow stretch of water which can now be traversed very easily, it's not the case that the people of Kent a thousand years ago could just toddle across to the Franks for a spot of weekend shopping.

Nor is a population of over 60 million a "small island".

The existence of countries is not some random accident which can be erased with the stroke of a pen, except in those parts of the world where Europeans created countries at the stroke of a pen to suit their own needs. Countries in Europe reflect the effect of history, and geography (eg Portugal diverging from Spain), of religions and languages (eg Belgium, Croatia vs Serbia).

You may very well have no attachment to any of this, but the fact is the great majority of people, even ones in favour of the EU, do have some attachment to it. "Europe" is simply too large a concept to readily relate to. People don't speak "European", and they don't go to "European" restaurants, and they don't learn one unified history of Europe in schools.

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orfeo

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By the way, if you're looking for impressive bits of English history, specifically, in the last week or so I've learned that: the Anglo-Saxons were the first Germanics to start writing things like laws in their own language, and created a strong literary tradition long before others, and by a few centuries later they had the best system of coinage in Europe.

Of course it was the Irish who basically preserved large chunks of Western European civilisation after the Roman Empire fell, but you can't have everything.

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Alan Cresswell

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# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The existence of countries is not some random accident which can be erased with the stroke of a pen, except in those parts of the world where Europeans created countries at the stroke of a pen to suit their own needs. Countries in Europe reflect the effect of history, and geography (eg Portugal diverging from Spain), of religions and languages (eg Belgium, Croatia vs Serbia).

Yet, history hasn't stopped. History is replete with examples of the borders of nations changing, of nations splitting into smaller nations and small nations uniting into larger ones. There's no reason why we should assume that the borders of our nations have suddenly become permanently set along their current lines.

Just on our 'small island' (I'm borrowing the phrase from Bill Bryson, of course) the current UK borders aren't even a century old. Less than a thousand years ago the English monarchy ruled large sections of France, but none of Scotland, Wales or Ireland.

It may, probably will, take much more than a stroke of a pen. But, sooner or later the borders of all our nations will change in some way or another.

quote:
You may very well have no attachment to any of this, but the fact is the great majority of people, even ones in favour of the EU, do have some attachment to it. "Europe" is simply too large a concept to readily relate to. People don't speak "European", and they don't go to "European" restaurants, and they don't learn one unified history of Europe in schools.
Well, I'm British and do have some attachment to this cold and damp island. It's attachment to our landscape, our food and drink, the people who live here. None of which is going to change if our relationship with Europe changes (except, some nutters seem to be wanting to force some of the people who live here out of their home to some other country - and it would certainly be a sad day for Britain if such people ever get any sort of political power).

But, it's not easy to be attached to an abstract idea such as a nation - I can form attachments to a few people, friends and family, but what sort of attachment do I have with 60 million people? I can be proud of what my children achieve, how can I be proud of the achievements of someone I don't know, achievements I have had no part in? If I'm expected to relate to 60 million people, why not 500 million? There's probably a threshold of the number of people you can relate to, and when those people become some form of concept - I'm not sure but it's probably a few hundred, maybe as many as a couple of thousand. Certainly orders of magnitude less than 60 million of 500 million.

School history curriculum can be adjusted to include more European history (my recollection of history lessons 30 years ago was that we did cover some European history upto O level - a broad overview of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, some where it intersected British history such as Spain leading up the Armada and the French Revolution leading the the Napoleonic Wars, and of course a lot of late 19th and 20th century history of Europe). Most schools will teach European languages - although Chinese and other non-European languages are also taught. I know you won't be fluent just from school lessons, but leaving school with a decent foundation in two European languages is a good start.

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orfeo

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# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The existence of countries is not some random accident which can be erased with the stroke of a pen, except in those parts of the world where Europeans created countries at the stroke of a pen to suit their own needs. Countries in Europe reflect the effect of history, and geography (eg Portugal diverging from Spain), of religions and languages (eg Belgium, Croatia vs Serbia).

Yet, history hasn't stopped. History is replete with examples of the borders of nations changing, of nations splitting into smaller nations and small nations uniting into larger ones. There's no reason why we should assume that the borders of our nations have suddenly become permanently set along their current lines.

Just on our 'small island' (I'm borrowing the phrase from Bill Bryson, of course) the current UK borders aren't even a century old. Less than a thousand years ago the English monarchy ruled large sections of France, but none of Scotland, Wales or Ireland.

It may, probably will, take much more than a stroke of a pen. But, sooner or later the borders of all our nations will change in some way or another.

I know they change. I'm talking about WHY they change. One of the issues about the EU is that it's trying to create change via a mechanism that is fairly new and novel: bureaucracy.
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Alan Cresswell

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Although currently there have been no changes in borders as a result of EU membership, and at present there are no proposals to do nor anything in the foreseeable future when such proposals will be made.

There have been changes in the nature of some of the internal borders within the EU, enabling free movement of goods and people across those borders. Those changes were the result of international negotiations followed by treaties.

If there are any future changes to borders within the EU I'm not expecting those changes to be made by anything other than international negotiation followed by treaties.

The EU has a substantial bureaucracy (but, probably less than the sum total of the bureaucracy of the individual nations if everything the EU does had to be achieved by constant, ongoing negotiations and writing of treaties). But, that has nothing to do with national borders.

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orfeo

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This entire conversation was based on propositions about the end goal of the EU being political union. I don't personally have a particularly strong view on whether that's the intended end goal or not, but my contributions have been entirely on that basis, because that is what Marvin was raising in a couple of posts.

And there certainly are at least some signs that political union IS the end goal. I'm not entirely convinced that the EU is simply a treaty-making exercise like other treaty-making exercises, because when I go to Wikipedia I find maps with comments like "obliged to join the Eurozone" and "legally obliged to join Schengen area". There's a very real sense that doing particular deals on particular topics is not an option, and in fact has been deliberately excluded as an option.

Not even the major trade deals that we have been involved in go that far. They are deals with respect to things like tariffs and quotas, they don't oblige us to then go on to other topics like our general financial policy.

[ 25. February 2016, 08:17: Message edited by: orfeo ]

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Marvin the Martian

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# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The main question is the definition of "self". That can range from individuals to the entire European population.

Out of interest, if we'd just given everyone in the Empire a vote instead of breaking it up into separate countries, would you be OK with the situation?

quote:
And, on some levels there quite clearly isn't any realistic "self determination" - how many local authorities in the UK are there which consistently return non-Tory councils, yet their "self-determination" to not be Tory is denied at the national level when the rest of the UK votes in a Tory government?
The Scottish problem in a nutshell. But given the absence of any serious independence movement in places like Liverpool I presume the people there are content with their current level of self-determination. Were such movements to exist I would support them, but it's not for me to say they should (except in the area where I live, of course!).

quote:
In a democracy we can't even manage to get the government chosen by the majority of the electorate, is that not also a limit on "self determination"?
The issue there is that none of the potential governments on offer was chosen by a majority of the electorate. If one of them had been, it would now be in power.

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Marvin the Martian

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# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It may, probably will, take much more than a stroke of a pen. But, sooner or later the borders of all our nations will change in some way or another.

Yes, they will. But that doesn't mean they must change in a specific way. Any such changes should be - will be, I hope - driven by what the people living in the affected regions want, not by what a bunch of bureaucrats or ideologues think would be best for them.

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Matt Black

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
For all you can dismiss it as a narrow stretch of water which can now be traversed very easily, it's not the case that the people of Kent a thousand years ago could just toddle across to the Franks for a spot of weekend shopping.


Are you suggesting then that the people of south-east England didn't trade with the chaps across the Channel?? What about (in no particular order but how they've come into my mind): the textile trade with Flanders in the High Middle Ages; the fact that Calais was part of England from 1347 to 1558; the marriage of the Frankish princess Bertha to Aethelbert of Kent in the 590s and the subsequent 'importation' of Catholicism to England; the fact that the landowning elite had estates on both sides of the Channel from 1066 to at least 1204?

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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
# 15

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Any such changes should be ... driven by what the people living in the affected regions want, not by what a bunch of bureaucrats or ideologues think would be best for them.

That's not just an argument for leaving the EU - that's an argument for the dismantling of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland superstate*, a complete re-ordering of the constitutional settlement which would require Parliament to relinquish its sovereignty, something I suspect its members are not prepared to do. It may even be an argument for the proper devolution of power to people outside the south-east of England.

* It may just be (with apologies to the late Helmut Schmidt) Portugal With Missiles by now, but it is still a supra-national body, and still highly centralized despite the devolutionary process begun in 1999.

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Matt Black

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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Yes, but one of the cardinal raisons d'etre of the EU was and is to prevent wars between its members which - remarkably, given the history of wars between its said members, especially it's six founders - it has succeeded in doing.

But, generally speaking, democracies don't go to war with other democracies (and I can't think of a modern example of that happening). Presumably the main reason why the six founder EEC members didn't all start invading each other (other than the whole NATO / Soviet threat thing) is that they were democratic countries?

I struggle to believe that the Federal Republic of Germany, for example, has only continued to be a democracy because of the existence of the EEC.

Well, Germany was a democracy from 1919 to around 1930 and that still didn't stop it from going to war less than a decade later with the other democracies of Britain and France.

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Matt Black

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# 2210

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The existence of countries is not some random accident which can be erased with the stroke of a pen, except in those parts of the world where Europeans created countries at the stroke of a pen to suit their own needs. Countries in Europe reflect the effect of history, and geography (eg Portugal diverging from Spain), of religions and languages (eg Belgium, Croatia vs Serbia).

Yet, history hasn't stopped. History is replete with examples of the borders of nations changing, of nations splitting into smaller nations and small nations uniting into larger ones. There's no reason why we should assume that the borders of our nations have suddenly become permanently set along their current lines.

Just on our 'small island' (I'm borrowing the phrase from Bill Bryson, of course) the current UK borders aren't even a century old. Less than a thousand years ago the English monarchy ruled large sections of France, but none of Scotland, Wales or Ireland.

It may, probably will, take much more than a stroke of a pen. But, sooner or later the borders of all our nations will change in some way or another.


Indeed: when people talk about the need to preserve 'Great Britain' as if it is some kind of timeless entity, I'm curious as to which 'Great Briatin' they refer: is it the devolved country from the late 1990s; the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1921 to then; the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1801; the Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland from 1707; the Kingdom of Great Britain consisting of the personally United Kingdoms of England with the Principality of Wales and the Kingdom of Scotland plus the Kingdom of Ireland from 1603; the Kingdom of England incorporating the Principality of Wales and Kingdom of Ireland from 1541; or the Kingdom of England incorporating the Principality of Wales plus the Lordship of Ireland from 1536; etc?

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LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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I personally think that Great Britain should be Dutch again, as it was historically meant to be.

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Matt Black

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Well, our closest linguistic counterparts are the Friesians, so you may be onto something there!

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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)

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chris stiles
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# 12641

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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

But, generally speaking, democracies don't go to war with other democracies (and I can't think of a modern example of that happening).

but isn't this essentially a claim that a war with a democracy wouldn't be popular - which as Matt alludes to above has not always been the case. WWI was immensely popular in a number of countries - at least to start with.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007  |  IP: Logged



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