Before looking further at the case of France in greater detail, it is worth considering just a few, almost random, points about how the EU is lined up at present.

The Visegrad nations: yep, up to now they like the EU, especially in the case of their un-reconstituted politicians. They recognise the same system of direction given to them as they were all too familiar with when part of the USSR; centralised 5 year plans that never quite seem to work out but, hey, there is always the next 5 year plan to keep us busy and the people don't seem to mind.
Meanwhile the populations have been kept content and relatively quiet with major handouts of largesse from you-know-where.
But, they also know how to rise up and revolt.
Hungary: 1956, short, sharp and brutal.

Checho-lands: 1968, ditto.

Poland: Solidarity for years.



France: keep buying/paying off the farmers via the CAP and all is well with the world.
Wales: ditto.


Germany: is it really possible that Frau Merkel is a reformed communist from the late-lamented DDR? (The DDR never did revolt in the manner of the Visegrad nations).
(one of the Ds in DDR relates to "democracy")

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Dave

And quite right so... albeit the concept of "democracy" in that context is not the same as used by the rest of the people. The D for "Democracy" in the DDR along with several other similar cases in other communist countries refers to the Leninist-Stalinist concepts of democracy which has nothing to do with the concept of democracy in civilized world. One word, two whole different meanings. To the current systems in most European Countries they refer as "Burgeois Democracy", something to abolish under communist doctrine for they don't consider it to be a democracy at all.

The Leninist-Stalinist concept of democracy is still used by some extreme left parties nowadays such as Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece (although these had to cave to proper democracy or risk bankruptcy) or Bloco de Esquerda in Portugal. Unfortunatelly the vast majority of people don't know enough about the history of communism to understand that the democracy to which these parties refer is not the same currently in existence in these countries and, of course, the parties themselves are quite happy to keep the fiction. Otherwise the people would understand that these parties' concept of democracy equates dictatorship in layman terms or "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" as defined by Marx and Engels.

One man - one vote where Angela Merkel was the one man casting the one vote would at least be more efficient than having a Parliament, commission and courts wandering about the place overruling each other.

The countries that make up the EU are not equal. They can (as one example) either chose to make the German finance ministry responsible for sorting the Greek economy (as they did the East German one) with all the pain that would involve, or they can let them go to the wall under their own free will and let things sort themselves out later. Constantly telling lies and papering over the cracks is not going to end well though, it only builds up pressure that will make the resulting explosion worse.

Andy

The two obvious, and only, options are,
A. Full integration of a federal state of Europe = the usual single state apparatus of common fiscal, monetary, law policies as a minimum.
B. Break up of the Euro zone and the constituent nations, which is politically unacceptable no matter what the pain caused to citizens of the relevant countries.

Either way, brexit or no brexit, that is the train wreck that is lying on the tracks of the EU railroading.
The brexit choice comes down to pulling the emergency cord and jumping off the run away train before it rounds the last bend and sees what is on the tracks ahead.

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Dave

Whereas, on the other side of the totalitarian fence, during roughly the same period, Hitlers' rise to power was funded by German industrialists aided by funding from the USA of the day - after the USA entered WW2 (more than 2 years after it kicked off in Europe) that nation considered who had been assisting the Nazi party to come to power; one such was the father of George W.
Bankers win-win, no matter who does the dying bit.

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Dave

"France knew that any EU in which they predominated must have an economic infrastructure that mirrored France's exceptional (to the rest of Europe and still so) format. Their quality, niche-brand and special products base had to be protected. Thus a protectionist (both labour and product), closed-shop, rather incestuous, vastly over-regulated trading network and an attempt at shared currency under the aura of social democrat market meddling. Wisely, they saw the need for this economic frailty to be politically supported. Thence a centralised, statist approach - where else is the public and private sector border so blurred, executive preponderance (pretty Napoleonic), legislatively accommodative (Napoleon again ) and not independently accountable - no Sir Humphreys (UK civil service) for whomsoever the Commissionaire, but the Commissionaire's own politically aligned 'chef de cabinet'. and an internal audit vehicle.


The French rushed, especially under the Anglo-Saxon phobic CdG, to get this done before UK, Ireland and Denmark entry (Norway was in that original group but gave up largely because of centralism) with more economically competitive and politically liberal views inhibited French ambition. Thus the two vetos and the slapping down on the basis of (here we go again, bad history) any granule of German assertiveness.
CdG also made sure of Belgian and Luxembourgois support in his political Legoland.
A problem was that even on entry UK made no effort to understand the structure, administrative method of the EU. UK never had other than a junior, non-permanent cabinet post to look after the EU and never briefed her only Chief of Commission (Woy Jenkins) to useful effect.
Germany did not assert until her reunification was assured (with the quid pro quo to France of taking the €).
So, in some ways, France has the most to lose by UK-driven reforms, slight as they might be, and this accounts for the eventually self-ruining obduracy of France, personified by the vacuous Hollande"

- another abstract from elsewhere.

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Dave

It's true but let's be fair. Hitler garnered much support from the US but also from Britain because he was seen (and rightly so) as a wall against the spread of Bolshevism to Central and Western Europe. In a way I can understand this position and let's not fool ourselves: Hitler indeed extirpated and exterminated communism and communists from Germany. Although, I must point, this view of the wall against communism, although correct in itself, does not excuse several errors by omission, specially after the militarization of the Ruhr in February 1936. By then and given Germany's declared intentions and actions already taken some sort of action by Britain and France was warranted. If it had been done, Hitler would be some obscure part of history nowadays and little much than a point of discussion if he was only rethoric or if he was a real danger.

I'm straying away from your post so let me get back to its fulcrum because your reply goes right to the point. When I mentioned communism you immediately replied with nazism. The point is exactly that. Nazism is known by all. Everybody knows about nazi concentration camps, the Gestapo and all that. But nobody knows much about communism, its concentration camps, its political repression which left the Gestapo to look like altar boys, the violence, the state-sponsored terror, the writings of Lenin, his actions, etc, etc. If knowledge about communism had became as widespread as its nazi counterpart, popular repulse to communism would be at least as strong as the repulse of nazism if not worst.

Two faces of the same totalitarian mind set.

The UK has always been somewhat ambivalent to Communism
- especially within Oxford and Cambridge Unis post-WW2.

I did mention, earlier, the Chinese version of communist revolution but, sure, the gulags are more or less ignored nowadays.

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Dave

Nicola Sturgeon has thrown a spanner in the works. A vote to leave on 23 June would likely result in a second Scottish referendum and the recommendation that an independent Scotland would remain in the EU.

Trying to get my head round that one.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

Varoufakis, a Man for All Seasons, to Advise Britain’s Labour Party

During the in-fighting and civil war of our current governing party you might expect the official opposition to come up with a view, even though their official view is no different from that of the UK government.

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Dave

It's not a big spanner, nor the first time she has come out with this statement but she had to say it in London this time around.



The Scottish Standard - The Postal Ballot at the Scottish Independence Referendum - Fraud?



"Since the IndyRef Scottish Ballot papers now have 2″ block capital numbers on the back.
So, if Sturgeon knew about the fixing of the IndyRef why did she not call another one? Somebody needs to paste that article to Galloway for a start. If I was UKIP I would be shouting from the rooftops about the rigged ref and the SNP did nothing. And I would also be seeking “assurances” that MI5 under Cameron’s instruction would not be tampering with the Brexit ref.
There will never ever ever be another IndyRef in Scotland.
Sturgeon has just stated that it could trigger a 2nd ref……no way.
Here’s Sturgeons current logical position
United Kingdom Bad
4th Reich Good
Really??? as they say you just can not make it up.
With a supposed budget of £65billion (actually about £5-10Billion higher) in an Independent Scotland the deficit on the current account would be approx £15 Billion or over 20%. And that is before we get to the repayment of their share of the National Debt.
Scotland is getting £15Billion subsidy but only adding £7billion to it’s national debt. In other words it is getting an £8billion freebie. The UK govt proposed cutting the Scottish grant by £7billion over the next 10 years taking it to some sort of parity with the rest ok the UK. – Sturgeon and Swinney refused point blank. The Tories then said that they would meet them half way and propsed a £3billion cut to the Scottish govt…so far the SNP govt is refusing point blank citing the “no detriment” clause in the Smith agreement.. It is a pile of shcweppes. We are worse off than Greece.
If one was a bit devious one could suggest that the upcoming Brexit ref also doubles up, so that if Scotland votes to stay in then it will automatically be deemed to have become an independent country.
Anyway if there is no deal on the current “Fiscal Framework” negotiations then the above piece is pretty true.
(Note; such a deal is now struck since this was written but damned if I know what that deal is).
staying in Euroland means the heralding in of TTIP (also TISA) and the complete privatisation of the NHS.
At the Scottish Ref that was the one issue that really changed minds. So much so that the SNP vote went from 28% around May to 45% at the referendum in September…..Think on that. If you see Nigel tell him it’s a game changer for UKIP"
- another abstract from elsewhere.
UKIP is referenced above because those who voted for them at the last general election equate to about the whole of the Scottish electorate numbers.

Despite the convolutions illustrated above -

Logically, fully committed SNP supporters will vote in favour of Brexit in order to lead to the ultimate, more important, aim of Scottish "independance".
Will they do that however?

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Dave

Deserves a multi-level response.

With a name like Scottish National Party what else do you expect?

On the other hand what happened to Alex Salmond's "once in a generation" referendum, surely a generation is longer than a couple of years.

The SNP was banking on being able to persuade the rest of the UK that the North Sea oil belonged just to Scotland (WTF) and I'll link in again Alex Salmond's preposterous suggestion that North Sea oil would be worth £300,000 to every Scot (i.e. steal the money from the Welsh, Northern Irish and English). But the fall in the oil price has shot all their budgets to hell and it would be financial suicide to go for independence right now.

But the politicians who are leading the charge aren't really interested in the health of the Scottish nation, just their own status.

So yes, please go for independence. But when Orkney says it doesn't want to be part of Scotland and would like to be governed by Norway again, will Scotland listen?

If there's a part of the UK that really could make a success of independence it would be SE England. If Greater London went it alone with its population of 10+ million (more than twice that of Scotland) and a wealth generating capacity of at least five times that of Scotland, this would be a true success story.

But maybe the Londoners have a greater sense of loyalty?

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

We could ditch the CAP and the common fisheries policy tomorrow by leaving the EU and remaining in the EEA – discuss???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area




Probably not - This doesn't get publicity because the UK government don't like it.
Broadly, it is nick named as "flexit eureferendum" for favourite search engines.

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Dave