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magister ludi

win-win

According to the Guardian........"William Hague has intensified a Tory campaign against Tony Blair by warning the EU that his appointment as president of the European Council would be seen in Britain as a hostile act.

The shadow foreign secretary, who has said in private that Blair will only be appointed "over my dead body", told the 26 EU ambassadors in London that they should think carefully before choosing the former prime minister."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politic...ct/21/tony-blair-eu-william-hague


    "over my dead body"......looks like a win-win situation to me.


The article continues however......

"Hague, who last night met the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, amid concerns in Washington at the Tories' Euroscepticism......."

Implying, I suppose that the US foreign policy position is "pro" the UK being in Europe.

And given that the only problem appears to be from Vaclav Klaus:

"European leaders are hoping to finalise a deal at their October summit in Brussels next week by persuading the Czech president Václav Klaus – leader of the only country not to have ratified the treaty – to accept it."

I found this character assassination piece (from just before his appointment as president) chucklesome........http://cryptome.info/0001/vaclav-klaus.htm
Kevin

I'm not sure why it should matter what the US's position is on the UK being in the EU.
Alasdair

I would have thought that the US govt would rather europe was dis-united, unless they believe the euro-block will always back them over other areas.

I united european super-state would be potentially far more powerful than the US.

If the eu grows closer, they may threaten the US position of dominance, just as other areas develop and also threaten their dominance.
Dave Coull

Alasdair wrote:
I united european super-state would be potentially far more powerful than the US.
The United States of America is a historical reality, whereas the United States of Europe is a complete fantasy based on the existence of a USA. The USA was formed by a small group of English-speaking and (by European standards) culturally homogenous entities, with a very short background of independent existence, and this USA then proceeded to spread language and cultural homogeneity across an entire continent by military means, a continent which had no other entities capable of withstanding such a spread. The idea that a United States of Europe could develop is a total fantasy because of the very different historical backgrounds of Europe and North America.
Alasdair

Dave Coull wrote:
The idea that a United States of Europe could develop is a total fantasy because of the very different historical backgrounds of Europe and North America.


The differing historical context does not preclude the development of a 'united states of europe' it merely highlights the different route by which such a single nation might develop.  

Clearly the notion of military conquest and homogonisation of culture isn't about to happen and is unlikely to happen yet that does not mean that such super state might not ultimately occur via a political route that sees the ceding of powers to a central european parliament, indeed is this not where much of the fuss over the Lisbon treaty has been centred.

Dave wrote:
The USA was formed by a small group of English-speaking and (by European standards) culturally homogenous entities ...


I doubt that any of the larger nations have a single culture, it's not true of France, Germany, Italy, and certainly not the UK or US.  They [the european countries] may well have been formed over centuries of conquest yet our own UK was formed as a result of a democratic agreement (let's not get into the detail, it was mutually acceptable to the leaders at the time).

There are political forces and those with a desire to see an expansion of the european project and I doubt that unless there is great and overwhelming objection articulated by the various populations that this will be halted.  I suspect that what we'll see in my lifetime is the development of a federal form of european governance, undoubtedly the model will be far removed from the US one and yet an effectively united states of europe it would be.

This is reasonabley interesting http://thesocietyofqualifiedarchi.../02/balkanisation-of-britain.html
Dave Coull

Alasdair wrote:
The differing historical context does not preclude the development of a 'united states of europe'
I think it makes such a development extremely unlikely. That doesn't mean there won't be some who will try. But I think it does mean they will fail.
I wrote:
The USA was formed by a small group of English-speaking and (by European standards) culturally homogeneous entities ...
Alasdair wrote:
I doubt that any of the larger nations have a single culture
The USA has Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, etc etc etc, but there has never been any need to invent the classification "English-Americans", because they were "just" Americans. English-American was the default setting. In the 18th Century, the colonists of New England etc were very insistent that they were ENGLISH (not "British") and there was widespread prejudice against Scots in New England, as there was in old England at that time. The USA, despite being a "melting pot" of numerous different cultures, nevertheless still has a constitution which retains remarkably unchanged many of the features of the one adopted by a group of wealthy English colonists in the 18th Century. And of course it is still the case that all immigrants are expected to learn English.
Alasdair wrote:
our own UK was formed as a result of a democratic agreement
That's a rash statement to make! Remind me again, what percentage of the population were entitled to vote? And when, exactly, was the referendum on Union held?
Alasdair

Dave Coull wrote:
Alasdair wrote:
our own UK was formed as a result of a democratic agreement
That's a rash statement to make! Remind me again, what percentage of the population were entitled to vote? And when, exactly, was the referendum on Union held?


Given the context of the era it was democratic in the extreme Wink
Shagpile

Kevin wrote:
I'm not sure why it should matter what the US's position is on the UK being in the EU.


It ought not to...... it'll figure in there no doubt somewhere.
Aventinian

Alasdair wrote:
Dave Coull wrote:
Alasdair wrote:
our own UK was formed as a result of a democratic agreement
That's a rash statement to make! Remind me again, what percentage of the population were entitled to vote? And when, exactly, was the referendum on Union held?


Given the context of the era it was democratic in the extreme Wink


I suppose it was. If one is to dismiss the 'community of the realm' in pre-union Scotland as undemocratic - when do legislatures in Britain become democratic? When women get the vote? When all property qualifications were removed? When the age was equalised for men and women? When the voting age was reduced to 18? Are we not democratic until we reduce it to 16? Dave Coull there appears to be suggesting that no law is democratic unless promulgated by a referendum - in which case, no law in the UK has ever been democratic (the one national referendum, on EC membership, had no legislative consequences and simply confirmed that which had gone before).

For my part, I see democracy as a sliding scale. Democratic ideals influence a form of government, but no form of government entirely embraces these ideals as its only guiding principle.

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