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Friday, June 24, 2016

Brexit Stage Right

You know, Britain was always a half-assed member of the EU and a force bolstering its austerians: So, when it comes crawling back in a few years let it be on a more demanding, more equitable EU's terms.

2 comments:

Lorraine said...

Not sure how to parse your paragraph. Whose terms should be more demanding, the Brits' or the Eurocrats'?

Dale Carrico said...

Britain was stupid to Leave and should be made to pay when they come crawling back, come what may. Neoliberal and awful though the EU is, it is less so than Britain to my eyes -- consider the greater, not adequate but greater, progressivity of taxation and the more ample social supports in so many of its member states, for example. Brexit is also, of course, one more wake up call in a decade of wake-up calls to Europe that austerity threatens its stability and exacerbates dangerous right-wing political formations -- and one would hope they really do wake up this time and finally change course in consequence: especially since austerity hasn't delivered on its promises otherwise anyway. Many prominent austerians are inflicted with "the anglo disease" -- and a temporary loss of Britain could be an occasion facilitating such a course correction (a fellow can dream). Were the EU to make some adjustments away from neoliberalism then the demands it would be in a position to make upon a marginalized radically under-performing Britain would be all the more welcome. The nonsense of the whole notion of a monetary union without a fiscal union might be closer to a solution, for one thing. Reversing current crazy conspicuous wealth concentration even a little bit, coupled with an effective PR campaign shifting from gross xenophobic politics onto climate threat politics, say, would be worthy work for all the bright brittle eurocrats to earn their salaries with, if you ask me. Europeans should be more demanding of Europe, and Europe should be more demanding when Britain tries to crawl out of the hole they've dug. Till then, one hopes the left takes up this opportunity to push for their agenda as the right most certainly will do -- I fear the usual professionals looking to cash in while the passionate and righteous squander the moment in purity cabaret will either break our hearts or muddle through according to an historical coin toss. (I'm a dumb American, of course, so what do I know. In this moment the US looks much better off -- we went for inadequate but real stimulus not austerity in 2008 despite the GOP and have stuck to weak tea variations of the same, the Obama coalition outnumbers our dim dupe racists providing better chances for comparatively sane national outcomes, if HRC wins -- blah blah monster though she is blah blah -- the Supreme Court may be reliably liberal till 2050, a correction to jerrymandering may lead to Congressional representation in line with actual voting results, more public investment, more progressive taxes, sustainability and harm-reduction policy-making gets prioritized, the country arrives at majority-minority diversity, and this ridiculously lucky stupid criminal pack of infants get yet another shot at blowing our chance to do some good in the world.)