[Beren]

Oh really?

https://theconversation.com/chinas-grand-geopolitical-project-threatens-a-new-east-west-divide-in-europe-79477


Seems that plenty of Eastern European countries find Chinese money a better alternative to German or French money. Less political strings attached, you see.

All the British need to do is engage in strategic ambiguity through the 'in-again, out-again' policy in order to position themselves to take advantage of new opportunities as the EU gets pulled apart. In a less unified Europe, London will be a valuable financial centre for Asian investment in Europe.

The EU trade block is only a problem as long as it continues to exist.

Seems that some people have a wild fantasy and tend to exaggerate both the significance of Eastern European countries and China's role within the EU. The Chinese do business here and there of course, which may annoy the Germans and the French sometimes, but China is not even close to replacing Germany and France in East-Central Europe or anywhere else in the EU, and it's a trading partner of the EU, not its enemy. The EU is also far from falling apart because its members are mutually interested in keeping it together as they do most of their trade with each other within the frameworks of the EU, which is the very reason for the EU's existence. Leaving the EU is not even an issue in Hungary for example, even if the Hungarian government is in continuous conflict with Brussels and wants to be friends with China very much. I wonder whether the Chinese would be interested in Hungary at all if we were outside the EU. Even the British would be interested in remaining rather than leaving trade-wise, that's why it's so hard for them to leave. However, I understand some people hate the EU and would like to see it fall apart sooner rather than later. But it definitely won't happen because of China, which is still a ridiculous idea and wishful thinking, mostly because the Chinese are not even interested in it. So if it's up to China, the EU trade block keeps being a problem for a long time I guess.

Trump gave a boost to EU-China relations it seems: A New Era for EU-China Relations?

[Politiks]

@Politiks I agree. Britain can survive prefectly well outside the EU. In fact there is a whole world of countries outside the EU who are thriving. It is a curious myth that nations in Europe have to be part of the EU if they want a healthy economy.

Yet we see countries like Greece which clearly prove being part of the EU doesn't guarantee prosperity. The EU is using an exclusive trade block policy to entice adjacent nations to join and then using punitive measures to keep them in the empire (yes, it is an imperial power model) and subjugated to the central authority. Forcing member nations to accept illegal immigrants being a good example of how Brussels destroys state sovereignty.

Yes, you're right. I would like to hear your opinion on the successive economic crisis affecting (almost) simultaneously Southern Europe, which by all meanings is the real Western Civilization? I think is curious that Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal entered consecutive crisis at the same time.

[Politiks]

An Englishman would not think that way. Rather a true Englishman would be conspiring with the Chinese to use Chinese capital and British influence to exploit political differences between Brussels and Eastern European countries in order to break the trade block apart. That way you'd have access to your major markets and on your own terms.

A even smarter Englishmen would find a way to befriend the BRICS. Britain needs to replace Arabic money to get rid of immigration. To be a valuable player, Britain has to find other tits to suck and suck from other tits.

[Decky]

Perhaps if you're going to waste your vote on right wing jokers, why don't you give it to the 'real left' SLP instead? Do you think Farage understands workers or has done a real job in his life?

I vote for the thing that is most likley to free us from being a protectorate of Berlin. Whatever your politics are it is pointless to argue about what happens in Westminster while all the real decisions are made in the Reichstag anyway.

Where did you get the idea I liked Farage anyway? Voting UKIP is a way of pulling the real parties towards leaving the EU by making it clear that it is a vote winner. Do you seriously think the UKIP voters are all thick enough to want a UKIP government? Even the British public are not that insane.

[Cookie Monster]

Sounds like a compromise.. the EU getting what it believes the UK owes to the EU and the UK finding a nice excuse to pay off such a large sum while also benefitting somewhat from it by what is allegedly an easier transition.

But it all depends on the Germans, who are eager to deter other potential exiteers from following a similar path.

[foxdemon]

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/how-britain-lost-its-cool/

How Britain lost its cool
6 Oct 2017|Mark Leonard

The recent meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May in the Estonian capital of Tallinn was a portrait in contrasts. Merkel has pursued openness and internationalism, and leads a country with a world-beating industrial base and strong trade ties. May talks more about the past than the future, and has disparaged ‘citizens of the world’ while claiming to defend her country’s confused national identity.

Among other things, the Merkel–May dynamic shows how cyclical history can be. Twenty years ago, Germany was the ‘sick man of Europe’, struggling to dispel its demons so that it could look out and to the future. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, had become ‘Cool Britannia’. In 1997, much of the world was tuning in to Brit-pop; and top British artists, fashion designers and architects were the hottest names in their fields. Even British chefs were seen as global arbiters of taste, to the chagrin of their French counterparts.

I had a walk-on part in that moment of British national revival. In the report BritainTM: Renewing our identity, I proposed a strategy of national rebranding that was picked up by the new Labour government under Prime Minister Tony Blair. The idea was to rethink the idea of Britishness, and then reintroduce Britain to the world.

Rebranding was clearly necessary. By the mid-1990s, a fog of malaise had settled over British politics. Prime Minister John Major had lost control of the Conservative Party, and declining public trust in British institutions was fueling anxiety among voters. Britain, once known as the ‘workshop of the world’, had become a service economy. The British retail chain Dixons decided to name one of its consumer-electronics brands Matsui, because it sounded Japanese. The soap operas coming out of Buckingham Palace had turned adulation of the royal family into voyeurism. And according to opinion polls, around half of the country’s population wanted to emigrate, and a similar percentage (particularly Scots, Welsh, ethnic minorities, Londoners and the young) no longer felt British.

Rather than mourning the ethnic-based, exclusionary Englishness that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had done so much to promote in the 1980s, I argued that Britons should embrace a new civic identity, based on deeper stories about their country. Britain, after all, was a global hub, but also an island with a long history of creativity, quirkiness and innovation. It was a hybrid country that gloried in its diversity. It had pioneered social and technological change not with revolutionary fanfare, but through sound governance. And it was a country that valued ‘fair play’, a value embodied in the National Health Service.

Of course, I should not overstate the influence of my pamphlet. BritainTM was just one part of a larger phenomenon. The British national story was moving towards openness, and that change would have a profound impact on both Labour and a Conservative Party that needed to detoxify its own brand. Conservative leaders such as Prime Minister David Cameron and even Boris Johnson, when he was the mayor of London, came to represent a modern, multiracial and multiethnic Britain. This is the Britain that the director Danny Boyle depicted in the opening ceremony to the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

How, then, did the country move from cosmopolitanism back to nationalism and nativism? The short answer is that Britain’s rebranding became a victim of its own success. By accommodating previously excluded citizens, the new national story made those at the center of the older, narrower version feel like a threatened minority. And when the Brexit referendum rolled around, they fought back.

May’s main goal since succeeding Cameron has been to appeal to the emotions of the old tribes at the heart of Thatcher’s version of Britishness—all who felt disenfranchised in Cool Britannia. Still, demography dictates that the new, open Britain will inevitably replace the old one. Most polls show that the country is becoming more liberal and tolerant every year. But one lesson from the Brexit vote is that identity politics—manifested in the fears of older, white, less-educated voters—can wreak havoc in the interregnum.

What remains to be seen is how far the nativist turn will go, and whether its leaders will overreach. Will the populist wave recede once a critical mass of voters starts to feel the economic effects of Brexit on the British economy? And could it have been prevented with a slower, more gradual change in the national story?

Similar questions have surely been on Merkel’s mind since Germany’s federal election last month. The fact that the far-right Alternative for Germany made unprecedented gains while Merkel’s own party lost support owes something to her bold open-door policy during the refugee crisis. She may now be wondering if the Willkommenskultur (welcoming culture) that she has promoted will share the same fate as Blair’s Cool Britannia.

Ensuring that it does not will be Merkel’s big challenge in her fourth term. Unfortunately, May, having ridden the wave of nativism, rather than trying to redirect it, will have little to teach her German counterpart.

If anything, May could fall victim to her own opportunism. If history does indeed move in cycles, it stands to reason that Britain will turn back towards openness sooner or later. And when that happens, May’s brand of backward-looking politics, like Thatcher’s, will be swept aside.

I find it curious that unacceptable nationist aspirations are often blamed on older, white, less educated people. Trump was supposed brought to power by olde white males. Are 50% of Americans older white males? I’d say Leonard is making a similar assertion here. If it were just older white Britons, would they have succeeded in winning the Brexit vote?

An alternative explanation is that the so called open policies are blantently discriminative toward native Britons and they have responded appropriately.

We also see the inevitability of demographic replacement argument. However that is due to policy. It isn’t inevitable, it is a choice someone made.

The same tired old narratives are trotted out again. But no suggestion that the UK’s current problems might have had anything to do with the policies of the open society. Oh no, it is all the fault of those uncouth Britons that Leonard boasts of replacing.

And what will happen to Germany after Merkel? If it declines, then it is the fault of all those obstinate native Germans. If it prospers, it demonstrates the legitimacy of the open society. European nation it’s really can’t win under this logic.

[ingliz]

it all depends on the Germans

France and Germany are upholding the EU’s strong line that the UK must sign up for a share of the EU’s unpaid bills and officials’ pensions, tripling the sum May has promised.

[Reichstraten]

Is Theresa May a closet communist?

[foxdemon]

Seems that some people have a wild fantasy and tend to exaggerate both the significance of Eastern European countries and China's role within the EU. The Chinese do business here and there of course, which may annoy the Germans and the French sometimes, but China is not even close to replacing Germany and France in East-Central Europe or anywhere else in the EU, and it's a trading partner of the EU, not its enemy. The EU is also far from falling apart because its members are mutually interested in keeping it together as they do most of their trade with each other within the frameworks of the EU, which is the very reason for the EU's existence. Leaving the EU is not even an issue in Hungary for example, even if the Hungarian government is in continuous conflict with Brussels and wants to be friends with China very much. I wonder whether the Chinese would be interested in Hungary at all if we were outside the EU. Even the British would be interested in remaining rather than leaving trade-wise, that's why it's so hard for them to leave. However, I understand some people hate the EU and would like to see it fall apart sooner rather than later. But it definitely won't happen because of China, which is still a ridiculous idea and wishful thinking, mostly because the Chinese are not even interested in it. So if it's up to China, the EU trade block keeps being a problem for a long time I guess.

Trump gave a boost to EU-China relations it seems: A New Era for EU-China Relations?

So, @Beren , just wanted to share an article I am reading.

http://www.politico.eu/article/china-and-the-troika-portugal-foreign-investment-screening-takeovers-europe/

So Europeans don’t need to worry just about technology lose to China, they also need to worry a out political takeover. And the dynamics of China using small nations to overcome core nation interests is evident just as it is evident in ASEAN.

Ready to concede the point?

[Kaiserschmarrn]

I find it curious that unacceptable nationist aspirations are often blamed on older, white, less educated people.

I also find this curious, especially the apparent negative bias against older people. Old age used to be associated with wisdom and experience, but today the idea is that younger people know better because "it's their future". My main problem with this is that younger people are much more likely to change their minds in the future, firstly because they simply have more time left in their lives and secondly because more life experience often leads to a change in attitudes. It's somewhat ironic that this is precisely what happened in the Brexit referendum: many people, back then obviously young, who voted for joining the EU have changed their minds now they are older and voted for Brexit. Those people would quite likely not say that they knew best 40 years ago.

[demima]

He can't afford his promises. He has already reversed his tuition fee stance and he'll have to do likewise with privatisation of the railways.

Utter bollocks, but you knew that. Furthermore, coming from a Lib Dem, I'd keep quiet about tuition fees.

Sitting on the floor of an empty carriageway won't provide the money needed when the poor working class voters want their credits increased tenfold.

Hmm, this has already been debunked, but dont let facts get in the way of a bit of propagandising.

I'm sure his socialist buddies won't take kindly to a lack of jobs, investment or borrowing that the future of Brexit has to offer (along with a socialist government) and be hanging him as a traitor next to MacDonald due to his promises of ' for the many' turning into dust.

Your post has to be satire.

[B0ycey]

Utter bollocks, but you knew that.

How? The Tories are currently executing an austerity plan and still have yet to balance the books. Labour plan on borrowing more money. Like every loan, the debt needs repaying. So what does Corbyn plan on doing? Turn the UK into Greece and fuck off when the UK have sold off all their assets. The UK cannot afford Labours promises. Keep your head in the sand if you like. But what Labour pay for now, only stengthens austerity in the future (which will be even worse than it is suffering today).

Hmm, this has already been debunked, but dont let facts get in the way of a bit of propagandising.

Debunked? I have seen the video with him walking past empty seats.

[demima]

How? The Tories are currently executing an austerity plan and still have yet to balance the books. Labour plan on borrowing more money. Like every loan, the debt needs repaying. So what does Corbyn plan on doing? Turn the UK into Greece and fuck off when the UK have sold off all their assets. The UK cannot afford Labours promises. Keep your head in the sand if you like. But what Labour pay for now, only stengthens austerity in the future (which will be even worse than it is suffering today).

So, you made the silly claim that he reversed his tuition fee pledge, cant back it up with facts and resort to more nonsense. I might as well read the Daily Mail. I suppose you believe a nations finances should work similar to a household finances?

Debunked? I have seen the video with him walking past empty seats.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/traingate-cctv-virgin-trains-jeremy-corbyn_uk_59a00509e4b0821444c29596

Here you go. No need to thank me. It only took 5 seconds to find.

[B0ycey]

So, you made the silly claim that he reversed his tuition fee pledge, cant back it up with facts and resort to more nonsense. I might as well read the Daily Mail. I suppose you believe a nations finances should work similar to a household finances?

I don't need to make such claim. Corbyn has done that for me.

How much does it cost to reprivatise everthing I wonder? Who would invest in UK infrastructure ever again if such an act occured? Do you think the 2tn Blackhole will cover such investment? How about borrowing costs? And who would lend?

The short answer is Corbyn has a very good chance of winning the next election. I know roughly the dangers he could pose. The same as the bankers who lent without thinking in 2008. He even claims he has a plan if there was a run on Sterling? What could he do? Borrow even more! But you live by the consequences and so will his supporters. I suspect I'll head north of the border and return to become an EU citizen when the predictable occurs. He will destroy the UK if he can't attract both businesses or investers. So yes, he will be the next MacDonald when the money runs out and his benefits for the poor no longer come out of the hole in the wall.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/traingate-cctv-virgin-trains-jeremy-corbyn_uk_59a00509e4b0821444c29596

Here you go. No need to thank me. It only took 5 seconds to find.

It was a video from his supporters. Corbyn could have sat down, but he wanted seats together. I suspect he wasn't the only one. But I guess some people don't know the entire story and believe what they wish was true.

No need to thank me for opening your eyes.

[Atlantis]

How much does it cost to reprivatise everthing I wonder?

The UK economy has prospered for the last 30 years (since Thatcher) because of neo-liberal policies. Even without calculating the costs of Corbyn's policies, it is obvious that the economy would take a nose dive if radical socialist policies were to be introduced. With the double deficit, the UK depends on a continuous flow of inward bound investment. Investors would leave even before Corbyn could implement any policies smelling remotely of socialism. In fact, the only way the UK could survive dropping out off the single market is by turning the country into some sort of ultra-neo-liberal totally deregulated tax haven or casino economy. The double whammy of Brexit and Corbyn would completely floor the economy.

[JohnRawls]

The UK economy has prospered for the last 30 years (since Thatcher) because of neo-liberal policies. Even without calculating the costs of Corbyn's policies, it is obvious that the economy would take a nose dive if radical socialist policies were to be introduced. With the double deficit, the UK depends on a continuous flow of inward bound investment. Investors would leave even before Corbyn could implement any policies smelling remotely of socialism. In fact, the only way the UK could survive dropping out off the single market is by turning the country into some sort of ultra-neo-liberal totally deregulated tax haven or casino economy. The double whammy of Brexit and Corbyn would completely floor the economy.

But wasn't this the point of Brexit? At least a particial point of it, to provide more liberty to the country and to remove EU regulations? I am not a Brexit supporter but this was mentioned before the vote. (The ultra-neo-liberal totally deregulated part)

[ingliz]

Labour plan on borrowing more money...

By 2020 the Tory government will have borrowed more money than all Labour governments put together, whether you adjust for inflation or not.

How much does it cost to reprivatise [??] everthing I wonder?

East Coast was taken back under public ownership in 2009 after two previous private train operators were forced to walk away from the franchise due to financial difficulties. Publicly owned Directly Operated Railways (DOR) on the East Coast was successful. DOR provided consistently higher returns to the taxpayer in premium payments, far ahead of the comparable long-distance private operator Virgin Trains on the West Coast Main.

Official figures show that all but one of the private train operators in the UK receive more in subsidies than they return in the form of franchise payments to the government. In 2013–14, the government contributed £3.8bn to the UK rail industry.

[B0ycey]

@ingliz

For someone from Malta who wants to keep his UK pension, I do find it bizarre you laugh. Back the donkey if you like. But investment and business confidence would plummet with a Corbyn victory - even Labour understand that the shortening of Sterling is a threat with them in power. Every nation needs to have a balanced economy, the UK is no exception. Currently the UK does not have that and a promise of greater spending with a larger debt will only effect future generations more than is being suffered today in terms of austerity. Corbyn with his protectionist policies are likely to hit your pocket more than Brexit BTW. That after all is Socialism right? What does the UK owe you to a socialist? Also the UK probably benefits more in terms of foriegn investment than any other European country. Any threat to this is a threat to its economy. Should Labour look for money they are likely to remove any non binding expat/Commonwealth reciprocal pension policy or foriegn aid policy first. Then sell its assets and then go bust if everything continues to go wrong. As 2008 shows, bubbles will burst.

[ingliz]

I do find it bizarre you laugh.

Why? Your economy is fucked, whoever is in charge, and Brexshit is very funny. All of Europe is laughing. Germany is laughing all the way to the bank.

[B0ycey]

Why? Your economy is fucked, whoever is in charge, and Brexshit is very funny. All of Europe is laughing. Germany is laughing all the way to the bank.

Everyone is fucked with Brexit. Haven't you figured this out yet? Germany are no exceptions. But I will concede with their strong manufacturing global economy they will fair better than Malta.

But this has little to do Corbyn anyway. If Labour want to remove subsides for train companies and make them surrender their business to the government due to debt that is one thing. To force a company to sell up to the government is another. Corbyn will fail and his sheep will abandon him when their pockets empty.