Eurosceptic autism
Tory Eurosceptics consistently fail to define a workable Brexit strategy because they’re afflicted with a kind of political autism, a profound inability to see events from others’ perspective. Tory ministers have failed in negotiation & they’ll continue to fail until they begin to understand what they’re dealing with.
Conservatives cling to a false view that EU’s treaty framework and fundamental principles are negotiating positions to be bartered away in a late night haggling session. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The EU is a partnership of sovereign nation states, voluntarily co-operating within a framework of shared principles and ideas.
These fundamental principles and the treaties in which they are expressed are the glue that holds the EU states together, allowing them to share resources when necessary and to go their separate ways at other times.
The shared principles holding the EU together, such as the four freedoms, are of fundamental importance and they cannot be deconstructed without taking the EU apart. Many British conservatives would like to see the EU broken but the 27 states are united in seeing the value in a shared future, working together for the common good.
Britain’s exit from the EU is partly about changing its relationship with the rest of Europe but, more significantly for some conservatives, it’s an attack on the foundations of the EU, in the hope of destroying it. Tory zealots share this hope with Putin, Trump and others who would like to replace the rule of law with brute force, unfettered markets and armed aggression as the dominant forces in Europe.
Europeans know the destructive cost of conflict and have no intention of allowing hostile English nationalists to destroy their hard-won peace and prosperity. English nationalists take a different view, revelling in the rhetoric of war, glorifying conflict. Tories of a certain age see it as disappointing that the war in Europe ended in 1945. They’d like to see conflict resumed in a never-ending wartime experience.
The EU27 states stand united, even more since they came under attack from English nationalists. The more Brexiters threaten the more united the EU27 will be. It really is true, united we stand, divided we fall. That’s why Tory Brexit will never succeed in breaking the EU, but it may cause the break-up of the UK.
Conservatives cling to a false view that EU’s treaty framework and fundamental principles are negotiating positions to be bartered away in a late night haggling session. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The EU is a partnership of sovereign nation states, voluntarily co-operating within a framework of shared principles and ideas.
These fundamental principles and the treaties in which they are expressed are the glue that holds the EU states together, allowing them to share resources when necessary and to go their separate ways at other times.
The shared principles holding the EU together, such as the four freedoms, are of fundamental importance and they cannot be deconstructed without taking the EU apart. Many British conservatives would like to see the EU broken but the 27 states are united in seeing the value in a shared future, working together for the common good.
Britain’s exit from the EU is partly about changing its relationship with the rest of Europe but, more significantly for some conservatives, it’s an attack on the foundations of the EU, in the hope of destroying it. Tory zealots share this hope with Putin, Trump and others who would like to replace the rule of law with brute force, unfettered markets and armed aggression as the dominant forces in Europe.
Europeans know the destructive cost of conflict and have no intention of allowing hostile English nationalists to destroy their hard-won peace and prosperity. English nationalists take a different view, revelling in the rhetoric of war, glorifying conflict. Tories of a certain age see it as disappointing that the war in Europe ended in 1945. They’d like to see conflict resumed in a never-ending wartime experience.
The EU27 states stand united, even more since they came under attack from English nationalists. The more Brexiters threaten the more united the EU27 will be. It really is true, united we stand, divided we fall. That’s why Tory Brexit will never succeed in breaking the EU, but it may cause the break-up of the UK.
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