Losers

[Khandro]

Do you think we are surrounded by them? By losers I mean people who can't understand why they are not in charge of everything, seeing themselves as victims, despite the fact that they never initiate or propose anything, but delight in attacking other's proposals, finding that they get easy support from fellow losers.

[jno]

Seems to me the real moaners are those who blame everything on the EU. Including those straight bananas!

Can't understand why they are not in charge of everything... See themselves as victims ... Getting easy support from fellow losers ... Yes, it all fits the OP perfectly.

[KARL]

Those old enough will remember the near triumphalism in the UK media on being accepted into the (Common Market) EU after years of (being the victim of unfair treatment at deGaulle's behest) pleading to get in - finally the thing was going to amount to something, enriched by capable UK leadership.

Now that the UK's ways have not been enforcable and the UK was clearly not going to become supreme, the UK is leaving. There are very evident voices clamouring for the EU to be told what the EU will have to accept and provide in the new scheme of things - astonishingly the EU does not seem to be ready to comply. Again, victimhood beckons for the UK.

Yes, there are lots of losers around, some of them boast of military strength which they want to poject worldwide in defense of their country, all the while having no defense against their own worst enemy right beside them at home.

[Kromovaracun]

This thread is strange and fascinating.

[ludwig]

I don't think strange and fascinating threads should be allowed. I blame Brexit for the recent rise in strangeness.

[New Judge]

"There are very evident voices clamouring for the EU to be told what the EU will have to accept and provide in the new scheme of things..."

Since this question seems to have veered round to Brexit perhaps a bit of explanation is required for those who are under the misapprehension that Brexiters believe that the EU must "accept and provide" all manner of things. From my point of view I do not want the EU to accept or provide anything. I do not believe they should make any special arrangements for the UK post-Brexit. Any that they did agree to make would extract such a high price that they would simply be not worth the rub. In any case it is unreasonable of the UK to expect any special treatment. I do not want them to provide anything either. I would far rather the UK retain its funds and it can then provide anything it wants with all of that that cash. This is far more preferable than having only half of it returned to spend as directed and the other half retained to spend on various lost causes.

All I want is for the EU to treat the UK as a normal nation the same as it treats any other non-EU member. In this context the “losers” are those who believe that only the EU can provide their wants and needs and are now wailing because it seems they may have to make do with a democratically elected UK government instead.

[albaqwerty]

Thoroughly agree with your last paragraph NJ.

Am not quite old enough to remember the vote to the Common Market, but it seemed a good idea at the time from what I heard my parents mentioning, but since it has turned into the EU and such, I voted for out.

[Mamyalynne]

With you there Kromo, it's like cloud watching - it keeps changing shape.

[New Judge]

"Am not quite old enough to remember the vote to the Common Market, but it seemed a good idea at the time..."

A Common Market remains a good idea. A Federal European State run by unelected foreign civil servants most certainly isn't.

[albaqwerty]

the vote for the CM was early 70's wasn't it? was but a nipper, I do know my dad, businessman, wasn't overly keen as he thought it could expand into something not conducive to business.
Might have been a child, but I listened to what me dad had to say :-D (well, over-heard tbh)

[Gromit]

albaqwerty

The British public didn't get a vote on joining the Common Market in 1973.
Then in 1975, the newly elected Labour Government conducted a referendum and the question was about whether we should stay or leave, and stay won that day.

[Khandro]

Gromit; Are you sure about that? I don't remember a 'stay or leave' question, I remember a 'yes or no' question, because I was in Wolverhampton at the time, and I wore a NO badge.

[naomi24]

Khandro, Gromit is right.

//The question facing voters was, “Do you think the UK should stay in the European Community (Common Market)?” //

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/25/britains-1975-europe-referendum-what-was-it-like-last-time

[New Judge]

"Then in 1975, the newly elected Labour Government conducted a referendum and the question was about whether we should stay or leave, and stay won that day."

Yes, by about two to one. Here's the pamphlet sent to every household to "help them decide":

http://www.harvard-digital.co.uk/euro/pamphlet.htm

To my eternal shame I voted to remain but as I have said before I was young, foolish and naive then (and I had a lot more hair). Among the import items which demonstrated my gullibility was this on pages 11 and 12:

"Another anxiety expressed about Britain's membership of the Common Market is that Parliament could lose its supremacy, and we would have to obey laws passed by unelected 'faceless bureaucrats' sitting in their headquarters in Brussels."

The pamphlet went on to explain that this was not the case. "The Minister representing Britain can veto any proposal for a new law or a new tax if he considers it to be against British interests."

He may have been able to then, but since the Common Market's metamorphosis into a wannabe super-state there are certainly very few areas where a single British Minister would have any success in thwarting, by power of veto, the Euromaniacs' odious decisions now. Fortunately one paragraph in the pamphlet remains true:

"The British Parliament in Westminster retains the final right to repeal the Act which took us into the Market on January 1, 1973."

So let's get on and do just that before that right becomes subject to the "qualified majority" voting system and our right to leave is blocked by the likes of Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and a few others.

[jim360]

"He may have been able to then, but since the Common Market's metamorphosis into a wannabe super-state there are certainly very few areas where a single British Minister would have any success in thwarting, by power of veto, the Euromaniacs' odious decisions now."

Well, certainly not after we've left.

[Khandro]

naomi; I see, if the question was put that way round then my NO badge would be right.
Pity not enough people agreed with me.

[jim360]

At the time, hadn't the UK been trying desperately to get into the Common Market for, what, over a decade? MacMillan started the effort -- I don't think he can be accused of being a wishy-washy left-liberal Anti-British traitor, instead being concerned that being outside the Common Market would be damaging for the UK.

Whatever the Common Market turned into -- and I do find it interesting that no-one seemed aware that it was going to become a political union as well, because of course it would -- it seemed rather too important to stay out of at a time when the UK on its own was struggling.

[Khandro]

I remember my thoughts at the time were encapsulated by the playwright John Osborne, who called joining with Europe, "the last desperate dream of dull, dim tradesmen without vision, imagination, self-respect or a feeling for life or history."
Had a way with words, did John, r.i.p. :0)

[jim360]

Why am I not surprised that your opinion was heavily motivated by a random quote, rather than embedded in any particular substance?

[naomi24]

I don't think anyone who voted the first time to remain had any idea of what the Common Market would become - hence the result of the second referendum.

[jim360]

I am not saying that this isn't true, I'm just saying that, to an extent at least, I'm puzzled by it. One of the founding fathers of the Common Market (then the ECSC), Jean Monnet, once declared that

"There will be no peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty... The European states must constitute themselves into a federation..."

Maybe people didn't have Wikipedia back then (how did you live back then?!) so it might have been harder to discover this, but that the Common Market would eventually have a political element was embedded in its DNA from the start.