Sfdebris.net

There's something sad about watching a once great nation give the impression that it's falling apart at the seams.

Just 100 years ago, Great Britain was the premier power in the world. "The sun never sets on the British Empire" was not just a pithy saying, it was an actual fact. The official title of George V was "By the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India," and while you always have to take royal titles with a grain of salt, his was, if anything, understated. He ruled over 412 million people, a staggering 24% of the world's population at the time, and held dominion over 13,700,000 square miles, almost a quarter of all the land on the planet. Everyone else, including those upstarts over in the US, was a distant second fiddle next to the glory of Britain.

But of course, they were an Empire, with all the problems that entails. Empires are temporary things, after all, and the British are perhaps to be commended for the relative grace with which they surrendered theirs once it became clear it was untenable. Two insanely costly world wars and the rise of her bastard child left Britain a shell of its former self, but even after those, she was still considered one of the world's major powers. And various British leaders, most especially Thatcher, felt obliged to occasionally remind the world why Britain held this position. I'm not THAT old yet, but I remember when Britain sent troops and ships to a tiny set of islands halfway across the world in order to kick the shit out of Argentina.

Fast forward to 2018, and Theresa May's...well, I guess we'll call it a plan. And as far as I can tell, May seems to be conceding that Britain is now incapable of doing even the most basic tasks expected of a nation state. Control it's own borders? Nope. Too hard. Gonna have to concede to the EU's "mobility framework." Determine it's own trade policy? Gah. Can't. We'll just have to submit to the ECJ. Determine her own laws? Well of course! Unless they contradict EU regulations, of course. Then we'll have no choice but to concede, lest we face penalties.

Isn't this the nation that promised to fight them on the beaches, in the fields, in the streets and towns and shops? The Empire That Never Sleeps is now the nation that can't so much as run a border checkpoint?

It's not like I think Brexit is a good idea or anything. It's almost certainly a stupid idea. But I had no idea that Britain had fallen so far that it was no longer able to function as an independent nation, which is my takeaway from the last week or so. Heck, it seems like its getting harder for Britain to even hold itself together. I constantly read threats that Scotland will leave if Brexit goes badly, that Northern Ireland must break away from Great Britain...heck, you can even find the fevered (if probably delusional) dreams of an independent London City-State if you go looking.

Now granted, I'm American, and the influence that Great Britain has played in our country has been unique and long-lasting. It's very likely that I hold many misinformed notions about our neighbor across the pond. But as I flip from watching Gary Oldman channel Churchill in Darkest Hour to watching May stumble around a country estate trying to peddle a plan that Chamberlain would have looked at in horror, I find myself at a loss.

What the hell happened to you, Britain? You used to be cool. Or at least, you know, stable.

LittleRaven wrote: ↑Wed Jul 11, 2018 7:52 pm Fast forward to 2018, and Theresa May's...well, I guess we'll call it a plan. And as far as I can tell, May seems to be conceding that Britain is now incapable of doing even the most basic tasks expected of a nation state. Control it's own borders? Nope. Too hard. Gonna have to concede to the EU's "mobility framework." Determine it's own trade policy? Gah. Can't. We'll just have to submit to the ECJ. Determine her own laws? Well of course! Unless they contradict EU regulations, of course. Then we'll have no choice but to concede, lest we face penalties.

Why are they working with the "mobility framework"? Well, you see, there are lots of EU Citizens residing in Britain, and lots of British Citizens residing in nations in the EU. If Britain were to not work with the mobility framework, it becomes utter chaos. Europe is a very large trading partner with Britain. This gives the EU tremendous leverage, so they can essentially enforce the common market provisions on Britain. Britain would only hurt itself more if it refuses, so they're screwed.

Why the referendum happened was simple. Cameron (or whoever was before May), figured he could silence the Euroskeptics by holding a referendum asking whether or not to leave the EU. He figured the Euroskeptics would lose, and thus he could continue in strength. He was wrong. The negotiations would always end up like this, and he decided to quit knowing that the exit negotiations would please no one.

TGLS wrote: ↑Wed Jul 11, 2018 8:11 pmWhy are they working with the "mobility framework"? Well, you see, there are lots of EU Citizens residing in Britain, and lots of British Citizens residing in nations in the EU. If Britain were to not work with the mobility framework, it becomes utter chaos. Europe is a very large trading partner with Britain. This gives the EU tremendous leverage, so they can essentially enforce the common market provisions on Britain. Britain would only hurt itself more if it refuses, so they're screwed.

Sure, I get that. There is no way to actually implement any kind of Brexit plan that doesn't involve a certain amount of pain. But Britain has been dealing with and dishing out pain for its entire existence. 25,000 men died in a snowstorm to determine whether a York or a Lancaster would sit on the throne. 1300 British troops gave their lives battling Zulus in an effort to destabilize Cetshwayo's nation.The town of Coventry was all but annihilated in order to preserve the secret of the Enigma machine's vulnerability. Britain is a veteran on the world stage. She must know how to take a punch by now.

And yes, I realize that these are wartime examples, and not directly comparable. But I still struggle to reconcile the notion that a country that once took pride in telling its citizens to keep calm and carry on even as bombs fell on civilian populations is now cowed into submission by the thought of its financial interests being threatened. I take it the whole 'stiff upper lip' thing has gone out of fashion?

I mean, say what you will about Trump supporters, but even as his ridiculous tariffs threaten their livelihoods, they're sticking by him. Because sometimes you have to be willing to endure a little pain to get to where you want to be.

Now I realize that Britain, like the US, is becoming a very divided country, and there probably isn't a lot of agreement among Brits about where exactly they want to be. But there was a vote. Brexit did win. At some point, you have to demonstrate that you're willing to follow through on your commitments, even if those commitments are silly, otherwise nobody takes you seriously at all.

The problem is that you're viewing this as a binary. ~48% don't want Brexit, but ~52% do. But of that ~52%, they have a very different view of what Brexit means. Some looked at that big red bus and figured that was what would happen and nearly nothing else would change. Some are angry about immigration. Others feel their trade policy was hamstrung by the EU. And you get all these people into a room and ask them what to do, and you get a million different answers. Politicians being politicians, they don't want to make a strong decision, unless they know that they have strong popular support. So they make a milquetoast decision that they can move forward if necessary.

Ok, that....sounds distinctly plausible.

I mean, Trump isn't popular here, but he does have a party that is so utterly bereft of an intellectual framework that he can order things to happen and Republicans will ultimately line up behind him, however reluctantly. I'm guessing May does not enjoy the same level of support.

Part of being a strong leader is doing what is best even if it doesn't have good optics. May's proposal will almost certainly be the end state of Brexit regardless of how they get from here to there. The UK's geographic proximity to Europe means that the two will always always always be linked economically, culturally, politically. There is no way for the UK to negotiate from a position of power, an island of 65 million can't compete with a continent of 440 million (EU's population post Brexit).

Making a grand show of things with a hard Brexit might in some sense feel good in the moment, but all that would accomplish would be to wreck the economy and delay the inevitable by months and years. May is right to not put her country through that, and to take the easier option even though it looks bad.

See...the british empire was always horrible. It was about enslaving, exploiting and killing lots of other people for their own sense of superiority. That's why the still have a bloody queen with taxpayer-funded protection for her jewels and palaces.
I'm sympathetic to the british people, but if they lose power? That's only fair.

Wild_Kraken wrote: ↑Wed Jul 11, 2018 10:58 pmMay's proposal will almost certainly be the end state of Brexit regardless of how they get from here to there.

Ok. I'm obviously not an expert on British politics at all...but...really?!? Because May's proposal seems absolutely horrible. From every perspective. Who in their right minds would vote for this monstrosity?

Let's assume that TGLS is correct - people wanted Brexit for a lot of different reasons, and it's probably impossible to craft a Brexit that will satisfy all of them. Fair enough. But May's plan doesn't seem to satisfy any of them. In fact, I'm failing to see any real upsides of May's plan, period. It doesn't solve any of the frustrations British people had with the EU, and it leaves Britain in a significantly weaker position relative to the EU than it is now. Boris Johnson is hardly an objective observer here, but I'm not sure he's entirely wrong when he claims that this deal will put Britain on track to becoming a colony. I can't imagine any Brexit hardliners will vote for this. So who will? Labour? The Scots? It baffles the mind.

I would think that if Brexit truly is impossible, then a strong leader should simply find a way to shut it down entirely. Get up to the podium and be like "Ok, listen up y'all. I don't care how many of you idiots voted for the Water Now Flows Uphill referendum. Water doesn't flow uphill, it never has, and it never will, because of that little thing I like to call gravity. Now everyone shut up about that silly idea and let's get back to work doing what the world expects of us: Making new seasons of the Great British Bake Off!" (It's possible there's a reason I've never been employed as a political speech writer.) You certainly don't come up with a plan that does nothing but make everything worse just so you can have a Brexit-In-Name only.

Well, here's the other problem, which I will describe by through analogy. Let's suppose the United States had some mechanism for states to leave the union. Now, the federal government wouldn't want states for threatening to leave at the drop of a hat, no? So if any state started the process and changed their mind part way through, the federal government would still toss them out, if only to make an example of them. May no longer has the option to refuse to leave.

TGLS wrote: ↑Thu Jul 12, 2018 10:55 pmMay no longer has the option to refuse to leave.

Oh. No backsies, eh?

Well, admittedly, that throws another wrinkle into things. But I still can't see how this monstrosity of a plan is going to pass Parliament. I would think you'd have to hold guns to MPs heads in order to convince them to vote yes.