Oh yeah, it’s bizarre what is considered widely ok. It’s not even a case of white/not-white racism. Look at the front of the Sunday Times news review from yesterday for an example of bizarre racist stereotypes about the Scots as a 10 years after independence mock retrospective - “Not British - it must be all the battered mars bars, tartan and Sean Connery” apparently?
The same carries across to jocular “hurr hurr foreigners” humour - the Irish don’t much like Paddy jokes or being heckled about potatoes (the connotations of doing that are really quite bad if you’re from the UK*) - least of all in a business presentation (this happened to a friend unfortunately), the French don’t enjoy “French jokes” - and neither nationality really has anything equivalent.
Ah well, but what harm a little harmless racism
*the Potato became a staple Irish food because the penal laws (specifically the Popery act) made the Catholic population dependent on increasingly tiny plots of land - which only potatoes could grow efficiently enough on to feed people year round.
Worse, the Irish famine in 1845 wasn’t technically a famine - it was a potato blight. Ireland produced multiple times the food necessary to feed its entire population but it was exported to the UK as the British government didn’t want to close the ports to export (like had been done in prior blights/famine conditions). It’s kind of an unfortunate “ha ha - millions of Irish died because we enforced crippling laws on them and didn’t want to save them” implication - which most Brits who parrot it aren’t aware of.
Unfortunately, for a UK parting company with the EU (and a Scotland sundering from the UK) the party walking away doesn’t get to dictate the terms by which future relationships are conducted - the UKIP cherry-picking this or that aspect of EU membership that look tasty (Tariff controls or free movement between members) is as ethereal as Scottish Independence campaign stating they will “Keep the £ and the Bank of England as lender of last resort” – You don’t get that luxury – Your jilted partners are just as likely to work in their best interests and stitch you up a kipper.
Scotland, if we get a Yes vote, will begin negotiating EU membership in parallel with exit from the UK, which is planned to take some 18 months and proceed as non-disruptively as possible. In the meantime, we will still be EU citizens, and Scots law will still be in harmony with EU law.
It would be an extraordinary claim to suggest that any EU member states would want to make this difficult. That would mean, for one thing, trawlers from EU countries such as Spain having to stay out of Scottish fisheries. Not gonna happen.
Lots of nay-sayers claim to be concerned that one thing or another could be a problem, but are never able to give a good reason why anyone would want it to be.
If worse comes to worst, we can maybe get the UK’s old membership, if they decide in 2015 they don’t want it any more.
Spain does have reasons to make it difficult for Scotland to automatically stay in the EU, especially given the possibility of Catalonia’s independence from Spain.
I hope the UK will leave sooner rather than later. The UK was one of the driving forces ruining the thing for everyone (and infecting others with their obstructionist mindset e.g. Poland under Kaczyński).
The UK (once known as “sick man of Europe”) profited immensely from the EU and the behavior of their government and people make them look like ungrateful slobs always crying for a special treatment like a spoiled child.
Says a lot that the standard of your fiction is higher than the standard of your other output; ironic that a guest to our country is smearing the only political party which represents the views of the MAJORITY of British people.
So when UKIP capitalise on their ever increasing support and popularity, you’ll be leaving the UK, right? Off to some other country which is more inline with your own little agenda I hope.
My point wasn’t that Scotland would have trouble with the EU. Though they might for the reasons above, my point was that in leaving a partnership the leaver doesn’t get to dictate the on-going relationship - a UK out of the EU can’t assume any “special agreements” an independent Scotland can’t assume they’ll use the pound, have content agreements with the BBC, stay in NATO (with an anti-nuclear stance).
If all our parties weren’t so similar no-one would need to scrabble around for the “little Englander” UKIP loony vote.
UKIP are a joke. They provide a nifty little income for Farage, and a chance to stroke his ego, as well as something for closet racists to fulminate about. It’s the EDL in a fucking cravat.
I am really not suprised, the trend of Britain taking an exceptionist role within the EU has not done them any good.
I remember as a kid, the EU was basically ruled by Chirac, Blair and Schröder. The three powers balanced each other out. Now it is just Merkel. By turning a back to Europe, the UK has gained a bit of independence, but has also lost a lot of power.
Any link to the poll results? I couldn’t find one and the results are a bit pointless. If many eu countries were asked whether Germany was a force for good in the eu I suspect it might come out lackinig…
That “infection” was actually contracted by trying hard to become “Airstrip Two” for our American friends. Various other countries fell for it, at some time or another.
I do agree that the UK benefited from Europe more than they’ll ever admit, but the obstructionist mindset is a by-product of the Special Relationship as much as anything else.
And damn proud of it, until 2003 at least. Slightly less proud now but what the hell, they buy our Alan Rickmans and David Beckhams, so screw the Middle East I say!
“We, on these islands feel, due to our history as a globally trading nation, much more at home with our cousins in the Anglosphere than we do with our friends on the continent.”
The ECHR is nothing to do with the EU. It’s a pan-European agreement on fundament rights upheld by the European Court of Human Right, based in Strasbourg which was founded by the British. Our continued antipathy to the court and the ECHR is deeply depressing - we should be delighted and proud that our ancestors didn’t use their victory in WW2 to humiliate the defeated parties, but to inculcate human rights in their constitutions.
What is bizarre about the UK debate on the EU is the ‘I didn’t sign up to the EU, we only wanted a Common Market’ argument. The formation of ‘an ever-closer union’ is right there, paragraph one of the Treaty of Rome which founded the Union. And you can’t have a functioning union without increased coordination - you can’t have a free market (so beloved of the right and of UKIP) if there is no one laying down rules on labour to ensure sweatshops don’t gain an unfair advantage, if no one agrees weights, measures and quality controls, if no one is checking that their is competition within countries and so on. You can’t have a working union based on markets and free trade without a social aspect - just look at NAFTA as an example of how it doesn’t work without care being taken of citizens.
None of the laws in the EU (confusingly called EC laws) just come about. Even the Commission which runs the EU machinery has to consult with heads of government and the European Parliament and with the European Court of Justice (the supreme court in the Union). So talk of top-down decisions is wrong, these are laws our governments want to enable.
So, sorry Europe - my country is broken and I’m afraid the warranty has run out. You might be better off without us and just think of the UK as a Dickensian theme park shorn of its empire. Hope you have a great 21st Century, we’ll be tugging forelocks and shovelling coal.
