Fifteen-minute read.
The world cannot wait and will not wait for the fog of geopolitical and geo-economic uncertainty of England’s departure from the EU to lift.
If countries concentrate on immediate geostrategic advantage and fail to reimagine or adapt mechanisms for coordination during this unsettled period, opportunities for action on key priorities that we all face may slip away.
Powerful economic, demographic and technological forces are shaping a new
balance of power.
The result is an unsettled geopolitical landscape—one in which states are increasingly viewing opportunities and challenges through unilateral lenses.
Geopolitical and geo-economic uncertainty—do not abide by sovereignty.
Geopolitical and geo-economic uncertainty—technology governance framework and
cyber insecurity all pose significant risk.
Two-thirds of the global population owns a mobile device.
While digital technology is bringing tremendous economic and societal benefits to much of the global population, issues such as unequal access to the internet, the lack of a global technology governance framework and cyber insecurity all pose significant risk.
Coordinated, multistakeholder action is needed.
So I often wonder when one hears the rhetoric coming out of England is it just me that understands that it was England that voted to leave the EU and not the other way around the EU to leave England.
It makes no sense once you have the chance to look at the society from a distance.
Yes the UK is now not a member of the EU club, and no-one now understands what the UK is.
However, there is no such thing as a free lunch, multilateralism is turning into unilateralism, equality into hegemony, sovereignty into dependency and recognition into xenophobic immigration to foreigners, the “other” into disrespect for the dignity of other nations.
Having travelled extensively anyone who loathes an entire country or people is not worth listening to.
“Make America Great Again” “Take back control.”
With leading politicians spouting such nonsense both of these slogans are a realistic reflection of two culture in disarray.
The English have too many hang-ups, empire fantasies, a mixture of both inferiority and superiority complexes.
There is this reality disconnect that it can do better out of the EU because we’re bold and British. When in fact it is a screwed up country, with problems on so many levels, including wealth unbalances, that now seems willing to tank its economy and reduce England even more to a tiny island nation with barely any industry and nothing to offer the world except delusions of grandeur, visa points, for as long as it stays United.
How much pull on the world stage do you think this little island is going to have once Scotland goes its own way and then – inevitably – Ireland becomes one?
The Kingdom of England & Wales, oh boy.
Right now, England is in the wilderness and could be looking at a perpetual state of economic insecurity for some years to come.
It isn’t the EU’s doing.
Oh, sure, far-right leaders like Farage will work their supporters into a real lather over the “undemocratic” EU, but it’s all just cover.
The trivialisation of matters of national and international importance lend a kind of surreal quality to what are real questions requiring real solutions.
All the old certainties about Britain, its general pragmatism and tolerance, its inclusiveness and diversity, its compromise and common sense, are gone.
The problem now is that the common good could be lost in the pointless trading of abuse and insult before any new trade talks or deal takes place.
What’s at stake is a whole way of life, and internationalism rejected, not to mention the inward investment of around 5 billion a year by the EU into the UK or for that matter the whopping 927 billion euro- worth of the Euro-denominated contracts a day, representing 3/4 of the global market.
Which raises the question, should the UK still have such an important role when it will be no longer be covered by EU rules?
Sad.
Perhaps the EU is better off shot of the spoilt, belligerent British (English) and now has at least some chance of succeeding.
Apart from immigration one of the main arguments to leave was that the EU is undemocratic.
As the saying goes “One should not throw stones in a glasshouse”
How democratic is a Royal Monarchy?
How democratic is the ‘first past the post system’, where politicians can win with a minority vote?
The effect is that the UK in the main elects a series of parliamentary dictatorships in which a group supported by less than half the electorate gets to impose its policies and choices for the period of the government more-or-less unimpeded.
How democratic is it to buy the votes of the DUP for 1 billion pounds?
How democratic is it that the DUP, with only 300.000 votes gained 10 seats, while for example, the LibDems gained 12 seats with 2.3 million votes?
How democratic is the second house of parliament in the UK the so-called house of lords? Many in this house sit there not by merit but because of the great or great, great, great, grandparents were land or slave owners during the days of colonial plunder.
Brexit has now afforded the Tories a spurious ‘will of the people’ rationale for a number of profoundly undemocratic measures whose sole purpose is to consolidate power in their hands before damaging effects are too palpable to be denied and the public mood swings against.
Brexit is, in other words, a coup.
On the other hand the EU, by creating a level of governance, a voice of authority and a court of justice above the nation-state, has in fact supported and encouraged minority groups to express their identity against the nation-state.
A great vision never fully realised.
Imperfect, but like democracy, so much better than all of the alternatives.
Until UK politicians understand that the EU model is based on seeking negotiated agreement between groups with different priorities and ideological inclinations rather than magnifying a small percentage advantage of the largest minority into the unchallengeable ‘will of the people’, they will always be at odds.
Pretty much every country in Europe has internal tensions and secessionists of one sort or another.
Just how ironic is the latest Tories slogan “Connectivity.”
On an Island called by no less than six different names, England, Britain, Great Britain, the British Isles, the United Kingdom and, in very exalted moments, Albion.
Even the differences between north and south England loom large.
There is a bit of a problem here, that sings a slavery song at International Rugby matches, its called an identity crisis. Everything that has happened since the recent general election, culturally, politically and economically points to the country needing a major reboot.
We all, b EU citizens, have a great opportunity now to construct a more positive vision of the relationships between independent sovereign nations and the citizens in those nations.
One size has never fit all people. Power has always created inequality and redistribution has always been the goal of philosophers for developed nations.
The one great result of globalisation is that increasing numbers of citizens around the globe are coming out of poverty. However, we seek to change social, political and environmental and economic outcomes we should not seek to change this outcome or the appreciation of diversity in London and Europe.
Do we simply want strong economies with strong social safety nets and redistribution for citizens and regions? NO
The Europe we now have will not be able to survive in the risk-laden storms of the globalized world under threat from the Climate to technology.
The EU has to be more than a grim marriage sustained by the fear of the chaos that would be caused by its breakdown.
It has to be constructed on something more positive: a vision of rebuilding Europe bottom-up, creating a Europe of the citizen. No one likes change and it is resisted until the need for change is internalised.
The evolution of the human organisation from wandering groups of 150 hunter-gatherers to the vast nation-states of today is simply not going to stop.
The EU is a manifestation of that process.
In a world that is rapidly moving to be dominated by four major platforms, Google Microsoft, Appel,
We got to grow up fast-moving to merit-based society that protects the values that are common to all of us, not Profit for profit sake.
It just indicates how difficult it is to see daylight.
I just feel sorry for all those who don’t have that option who are being stripped of their EU citizenship on the basis of a referendum campaign full of lies and bankrolled by the worst members of our society.
The only encouragement for the future is that most of those under 40 in England can already see the folly of Brexit and will eventually help to lead it back into Europe.
The forthcoming negotiations will be a war, the chaotic state of being that the European project was designed to prevent.
Perhaps all that is happening is that England is once again legitimising that “You can’t have a club where one member has special terms.”
The EU has been nothing but transparent and incredibly clear since England triggered A50.
It’s hardly their fault that, despite all the talk of how the EU referendum would finally put Tory EU divisions to bed, it’s done nothing but drive that wedge even deeper.
You can’t move forward as a nation until you have a better understanding of where you really are in the World.
Let’s hope we don’t pay too high a price finding out!.
Should the EU agree on a deal? Yes. But not a piecemeal deal. The full monty or WTO.
These days ‘Fake news’ is called out and debunked quickly and thoroughly on social media.
“The EU is threatening sanctions to stop Britain undercutting the continent’s economy after Brexit…the bloc wants unprecedented safeguards after the UK leaves to preserve a “level playing field” and counter the “clear risks” of Britain slashing taxes or relaxing regulation. Brussels…wants…to enforce restrictions on taxation…and employment rights. …the EU negotiators highlight the risk of Britain ‘undermining Europe as an area of high social protection’…the UK is “likely to use tax to gain competitiveness” and note it is already a low-tax economy with a “large number of offshore entities”. …On employment and environmental standards, the EU negotiators highlight the risk of Britain “undermining Europe as an area of high social protection”.
Something is coming to England and it is not HS TWO.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
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