![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Well, we now have a President, the unfortunately named Mr Rumpy Pumpy (or something similar). After due and diligent analysis of the voters preferences, thanks to the clear, crisp & concise democratic process, the voters decided to appoint one of their own to be the new President ‘because he wasn’t threatening’.
It doesn’t bode well for, well, anyone, really – be you a pro-Integrationist - in which case you should be demanding the creation of a high profile role that carries weight and allows the President to bang heads together), or an anti-Integrationist - in which case you want no President at all, or, at the very least, the ability to get rid of the President through a democratic process, rather than ‘because the governments of France and Italy (for example) say so’.
Mind you, despite the fact that it was a blow to the anti- camp, I think it was a significant missed opportunity, though I have mixed feelings about the whole European Project. On one hand, I think that the EU has brought genuine benefits in terms of prosperity & quality of life to many people and has created necessary structures and institutions that allow a concerted voice in terms of trade, climate change, environmental protection, space exploration etc. Without these institutions (or comparable structures), European nations would be forced to ‘go it alone’ and/ or take subordinate roles when dealing with the other big powers – ie US, Russia, China (and, perhaps Brazil & India in 30 years time).
On the other hand, there is no real appetite for ‘closer union’ in many nations (yes, Britan, I *am* looking at you) despite the economic benefits and the increased economic/political weight it gives constituent nations. Sadly, the EU has responded by taking not a highly principled moral stance (‘we do this not because it is easy or popular, but because it is right’) but more in line with a spirit of benign conspiracy, with the emerging Union in danger of evolving into a permanently undemocratic & compromised political beast of committee and compromise, where senior posts are bestowed to one of their own. After a suitably good dinner, of course. (One hell of a drinking game, eh?)
Still, the fact that we have a European President now gives me a measure of hope, and, with any luck, there will be a creeping democratisation of European Institutions as a result of this – hopefully along with comparable crack-downs on corruption and (one hopes) direct elections for European Posts, taking the power out of the hands of the grubby national politicians, who are all-too liable to scream ‘loss of sovereignty’ at the yellow press whenever they deal with the EU – the very institutions that they, as our representatives, created and sold to us as ‘a good deal’.
As you can probably tell, I hold no truck with the idea that Britain is ‘supernaturally special’ somehow and is deserving of a special relationship with other nations, or preferential treatment diplomatically because of historical reasons. Yes, we were a power once, but now we are not. We are second rate in terms of economic, military and political weight, albeit with nostalgic dreams & trappings of Empire. Either the UK either gets in, or we face utter irrelevance. Dreams of a ‘Revitalised Commonwealth’ are dead-end madness and will be laughed at from Wellington to Cairo to Delhi to Toronto - despite the Tory and UKIP ambitions.
So, let us hope that, eventually, perhaps, a European President, with a genuine democratic mandate, can come about – one who could champion standards in public life and hold national leaders to account.
Oh, I can dream. God knows, I don’t have any faith in the current crop of fools.
Stanthorpe
It doesn’t bode well for, well, anyone, really – be you a pro-Integrationist - in which case you should be demanding the creation of a high profile role that carries weight and allows the President to bang heads together), or an anti-Integrationist - in which case you want no President at all, or, at the very least, the ability to get rid of the President through a democratic process, rather than ‘because the governments of France and Italy (for example) say so’.
Mind you, despite the fact that it was a blow to the anti- camp, I think it was a significant missed opportunity, though I have mixed feelings about the whole European Project. On one hand, I think that the EU has brought genuine benefits in terms of prosperity & quality of life to many people and has created necessary structures and institutions that allow a concerted voice in terms of trade, climate change, environmental protection, space exploration etc. Without these institutions (or comparable structures), European nations would be forced to ‘go it alone’ and/ or take subordinate roles when dealing with the other big powers – ie US, Russia, China (and, perhaps Brazil & India in 30 years time).
On the other hand, there is no real appetite for ‘closer union’ in many nations (yes, Britan, I *am* looking at you) despite the economic benefits and the increased economic/political weight it gives constituent nations. Sadly, the EU has responded by taking not a highly principled moral stance (‘we do this not because it is easy or popular, but because it is right’) but more in line with a spirit of benign conspiracy, with the emerging Union in danger of evolving into a permanently undemocratic & compromised political beast of committee and compromise, where senior posts are bestowed to one of their own. After a suitably good dinner, of course. (One hell of a drinking game, eh?)
Still, the fact that we have a European President now gives me a measure of hope, and, with any luck, there will be a creeping democratisation of European Institutions as a result of this – hopefully along with comparable crack-downs on corruption and (one hopes) direct elections for European Posts, taking the power out of the hands of the grubby national politicians, who are all-too liable to scream ‘loss of sovereignty’ at the yellow press whenever they deal with the EU – the very institutions that they, as our representatives, created and sold to us as ‘a good deal’.
As you can probably tell, I hold no truck with the idea that Britain is ‘supernaturally special’ somehow and is deserving of a special relationship with other nations, or preferential treatment diplomatically because of historical reasons. Yes, we were a power once, but now we are not. We are second rate in terms of economic, military and political weight, albeit with nostalgic dreams & trappings of Empire. Either the UK either gets in, or we face utter irrelevance. Dreams of a ‘Revitalised Commonwealth’ are dead-end madness and will be laughed at from Wellington to Cairo to Delhi to Toronto - despite the Tory and UKIP ambitions.
So, let us hope that, eventually, perhaps, a European President, with a genuine democratic mandate, can come about – one who could champion standards in public life and hold national leaders to account.
Oh, I can dream. God knows, I don’t have any faith in the current crop of fools.
Stanthorpe