The day Europe lost patience with Britain

SweetLeftFoot Thursday 15 Dec 2011

No I wouldn't.

SweetLeftFoot Thursday 15 Dec 2011

LOL - you do understand that in the great scheme of things Australia has relatively low immigration and that by far and away the biggest number of migrants are heavily vetted - the famous points system - whites from Britain and Ireland? In fact, right now we're benefiting hugely from the Euro meltdown with large numbers of educated young Irish heading here to make new lives for themselves? The number of refugees from non-white countries is remarkably low (too low in my opinion but anyway) and with minor exceptions, these people can't wait to do the whole get a job, pay tax, buy a house thing.

Just because the US has a fucked to non-existent immigration system, don't think every Western country does.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/when...ly-way-out-20111214-1ouqs.html?skin=text-only

nuclear launch detected Thursday 15 Dec 2011

lol i love this. As I pointed out in the shoutbox a few weeks ago how are the Greeks and the rest of the PIIGS going to pay back all those 100 of billions to private banks if half the population is unemployed and the other half works for the government. There's literally no source of private enterprise (where the real wealth is created) to draw taxes from because the austerity measures have made it a too hostile of an environment to do business in. So the Europeans are faced with two choices, either print their way out of this mess and devalue the dollar, which the Germans absolutely refuse to do, or face default of catastrophic proportions.

Niccolo and Donkey Thursday 15 Dec 2011

Nordic Norm Ferdinand gus vasa SweetLeftFoot

Par for the course for the Brits, they intend to sow discord on the continent........

Britain Looks for Allies among the EU 26

[IMG]

Errigal Thursday 15 Dec 2011

Britain has been remarkably bad at EU/EEC diplomacy for as long as I can remember. I mean by even minimal standards. Even the europhile types can't help making Hitler jokes.

Ash Friday 16 Dec 2011

The Fawlty Towers school of diplomacy.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/7xnNhzgcWTk

Ferdinand Saturday 17 Dec 2011

Alas this is very true. In the political mainstream our Europhiles have been son for the worst reasons i.e. to accede to the leftist human engineering, or to the economic integration. There are few such as Auberon Waugh who saw the EU as something to counterbalance American cultural and political hegemony. On this note though, I can’t be overly sad to see any pain inflicted on the EU. Alain de Benoist has suggested that the major problem with the project is that it was never really political and cultural, but merely economic. As such we encounter the bizarre world in which we could consider Turkey as a potential member.

I long to see a Toryism that is able to make allies in Germany and other northern European countries. Unfortunately it seems unlikely.

Niccolo and Donkey Monday 19 Dec 2011

Ferdinand SweetLeftFoot Asterion Nordic Norm

Britain's Mounting Distrust of Germany

The English Channel has suddenly become wider, deeper and foggier once again. The London-based Daily Telegraph newspaper has warned its readers against what it calls Berlin's blatant effort to dominate Europe and already sees "a new era of Anglo-German antagonism" on the horizon -- again characterized by two leaders who are bound together in their sincere dislike for each other, like past leaders of the two countries: Helmut Kohl and Margaret Thatcher, or Gerhard Schröder and Tony Blair. Reverend Peter Mullen, the Anglican chaplain to the London Stock Exchange, where he is not popular for his crude views, goes even further. According to Mullen, Germans tried to achieve hegemony in Europe by military force in 1870, 1914 and 1939, and now Merkel is trying to do the same with the weapons of the financial system.

Distrust of the European Union goes hand-in-hand with distrust of Germany, especially among "euroskeptics," the current euphemism for the many haters of the EU in Britain. The headline "Welcome to the Fourth Reich" in the high-circulation Daily Mail summarized the German-French plans to rescue the monetary union. In another story, the paper wrote: "What we are witnessing is the economic colonisation of Europe by stealth by the Germans."

Of course, many Britons -- and even some Englishmen, among whom the resentment is the most widespread -- know that such talk is nonsense. But surprisingly many do not. Whenever someone on in Britain utters the word "Germany," it doesn't take long, a matter of milliseconds, in fact -- even in many well-informed circles in politics, journalism or the world of comedy -- before someone says: "Hitler."

It's been this way for decades. Nazis are practically an obsession in Britain, and associating Germans with them is such a strong reflex that it stifles almost all interest in the real Germany of today. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, a British education authority, found that the teaching of history suffers from excessive "Hitlerization." For British schoolchildren, Germany came into the world as a freak in 1933 and, thanks to then Prime Minister Winston Churchill, died a well-deserved death in 1945.

The anti-German rhetoric was particularly strong after German reunification, which then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, nicknamed "the Iron Lady," sought to prevent. Even the levelheaded Economist warned against what it believed to be the threat of a German nuclear bomb. In 1990, Thatcher invited leading British historians to a conference at Chequers to analyze the dangerous German national character. According to the minutes of the meeting, some of the supposed German character traits discussed there included "aggressiveness, egotism, an inferiority complex and sentimentality."

For the British, the fact that the Germans, with their renowned engineering prowess, still produce goods and sell them around the world is a wistful reminder of their own days as major exporters during the Victorian age. While today's financial industry may be profitable for the British nation, unlike the now-faltering British industrial sector, it is not suited to generating a sense of national identification or even pride.

The Indians bought Jaguar a few years ago, Rolls-Royce is now part of BMW, Volkswagen owns Bentley, and once-proud brands like Triumph, Austin and Vickers no longer exist. Even the colorful candies known as "Smarties" haven't been produced in York, where they were invented, for the last five years. All European production has now been moved to Germany.

But outside the big cities, especially in conservative areas, there is a growing mood of indifference, if not hostility, toward Germany, as evidenced by the example of Bishop's Stortford, an affluent bedroom community of 35,000 people near London Stansted Airport.

At the end of November, John Wyllie, the Conservative mayor, wrote letters to officials in his town's twin cities, the German town of Friedberg, near Frankfurt, and the French town of Villiers-sur-Marne, near Paris. Without giving any reasons, he terminated the partnership effective Sept. 28, 2012, putting an abrupt end to an unclouded relationship of more than 46 years.

Officials in the German and French twin towns are dumbfounded at the decision taken by their British twin town, whose council has been dominated by Conservatives since a local election in May.

The day Europe lost patience with Britain

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