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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   26088 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 30, 2024

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Turkey being accepted into the EU seemed like a real possibility before Erdogan went all strongman, so was it really a lie at the time of Brexit?

so was it really a lie at the time of Brexit?

No, it wasn't. There was no way in 2016 that someone could credibly claim that Turkey had zero percent chance of EU admission within, say, the next 15 years.

I'll go further.

Brexit only "failed" because post-Brexit politicians in Britain made all the same mistakes as their EU counterparts : mass immigration, heavy-handed regulation, anti-speech tyranny, etc...

Brexit was a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the revival of the British nation.

Despite everything, the UK is better off due to Brexit because it makes reform possible. Things can sometimes pivot quickly, and maybe within 5 years the reform party can take power and lead the country to a better path. But it would be a lot tougher with the EU barring the way.

Almost no reform was genuinely blocked by EU membership. Even stuff like mandatory ECHR membership doesn’t matter, because other member states routinely ignore rulings with impunity. The UK would never have been serious punished by the EU executive because there are always at least 2-4 other countries angry at Brussels for whatever reason. It was completely pointless and achieved nothing other than hugely accelerating mass immigration from the third world for no reason.

Almost no reform was genuinely blocked by EU membership. Even stuff like mandatory ECHR membership doesn’t matter, because other member states routinely ignore rulings with impunity.

True, politicians could have worked around the EU if they wanted to, but they didn’t want to. Thus the performative shock when anyone suggests ignoring the EHRC.

Leaving the EU was necessary not because it gave politicians more power, but because it removed their biggest excuse for not using the power that they had.

(That, and avoiding Ever Closer Union. The EU as it was in 2016 was a moving target, explicitly focused on making it ever harder to leave. It felt very much like a now-or-never moment.)

This was, and is, basically my attitude. The government drastically underperformed my expectations but even so, it’s GOT to be a good thing that they can no longer hide behind “the EU says we can’t do that”.

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