I used to darkly speculate that when Serbia, my own country, finally became EU, the Union would reveal itself as just a larger Yugoslavia.
Article was worth it just for that line.
Britain’s civilizing mission is too much for it, especially when those who need the civilizing are buying-up Britain’s own capital city.
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Its going on, but that’s the reason for Brexit. Those in London largely voted to remain.
What is going on elsewhere in the UK is why there was Brexit.
The biggest problem is that the UK has a system of government services that are free at the point of use.
So if you arrive as a migrant you get those services. It’s got bad to the extent where people are turning up for health care, then doing a runner.
The majority of the public has worked out that the state has been selling state services below cost, and that they are paying the price.
Now there is a choice. You move to a pay before you use model, and the UK population won’t accept that for the NHS, or the NHS collapses instead. Alternatively, you leave the EU and control migration .
I know right! For some reason there is something Yugoslavia (or more properly, I guess, Yugoslavias) that demand wonderful turns of phrase.
Rich Chinese industrialists? I’d suggest that they have a civilization that’s been around for quite awhile. I’m sure they don’t need to be “civilized”.
Oh the Brexit is about the NHS again. I thought we had that sorted out as bullshit.
[citation-needed]
Oh, I think there are those who live all over Britain who could do with becoming civilized, though I don’t think we agree on just who those parties are.
Please don’t feed the trolls.
Please, I know the US doesn’t take nearly enough people, and that the process is presently very difficult, but please consider emigrating (or finding some way to pursue higher education in) the United States.
In my opinion, the US should vastly expand who and how many can emigrate.
We would be better for having you. If you’re concerned by orange trolls looming in the shadows, consider the demographic statistics of specific regions… Massachusetts has a higher rate of college education. California has a population to rival France, and several major cities. Chicago and New York are world cities, with well deserved chips on their shoulders.
In due time, we’ll bury the racists, bigots, and so on. (Our histogram by age is favorable, as compared to many western European countries.)
Our greatest gap, in terms of being modern civilized people, is in health care. We’ve made great strides recently, do well by our elderly, and someone with a full-time job and a good education can do very well, health-wise. (This is especially true in our world cities and second tier major cities… Boston is the place to hit your head, if you have to.)
Best Wishes,
NEW England, USA.
As an American who has been living in Germany for almost 30 years, I think more about the EU, and how it needs a different myth to keep itself together. The author has her personal history of Yugoslavia, I see the better role model in the founding myth of federal Germany. The way German states even today retain their identities, even if some of these states did not exist before the foundation of the Federal Republic. But the real roots lie in the 1848 revolution, where the idea of a Germany was the idea of a government of the citizens, not of the counts and dukes and kings.
Aw, geez, now I’ve lost my train of thought. Ah, there it is.
I guess what I’m getting at is the idea of “we Europeans” is still a young idea. Europe is still coming to grips with what Benjamin Franklin once said: “we must all hang together, or we will all hang separately.”
Control migration <> rescue the NHS
Migration won’t change anyway
Brexit it has not yet occurred, if it does in any sense it will not be the utopian escape of so many wrong headed dreams.
Chinese civilisation makes Britain look like a small island of ill-tempered drunks, surviving on illegitimate business like money laundering, and fighting each other over small patches of ground for growing carrots.
I think the point that you and many others are missing is that the EU is only in control of the migration of other EU citizens.
While the exact arrangements vary quite a bit, access to healthcare is nothing unusual in other EU countries. I know that the NHS is very dear to British people and one can debate the relative merits of the various systems, but to the rest of the EU it is just not all that special.
Britain has just removed from the EU one of the great populations of benefit scrounging tourists!
Here in Ireland (according to this article) fully one tenth of the 112,000 bleedin’ immigrants from Britain are benefits scroungers! I was shocked to discover that and don’t think they can invoke article 50 quick enough so we can begin the process of deporting the parasitic Britons from Ireland.*
Good riddance to bad rubbish say I!
Yours etc.
Disgusted of Wherever Tunbridge Wells Would be if it Were in Ireland, Say Montenotte or something
*if any British people in Ireland are reading this please, instead, apply for an Irish passport and dual citizenship. It’s not too dear and it might help with uncertain times ahead.
I thought it was career politicians all the way down.
In Germany we got nearly 7000 UK citizens on benefits. I personally know two families. Counting the days until the Brexit gets official and I can kick them out, back to their ungrateful compatriots.
Like a few hundred years too late, maybe? 
Since I’m not the only one who replied to them, maybe don’t single me out? I’d appreciate that… 
