United we stand

[cromwell]

Interesting article in the Guardian website. A French journalist, Natalie Nougayrede.

She says "I spent my teenage years in Alsace, on the border between France and Germany, and was taught in school that as Europeans we should tirelessly work to overcome the nation-state, because of the devastation it had wrought on the continent".

Well there you go. That's the first time I've seen it admitted.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ism-europe

[Suff]

Suff, you miss the point I am making.

Yes I get that. But the point I was making is that Barnier is running a huge bluff about huge penalties and impacts to the UK, whilst only making a mild not to the real issue. That the EU is heavily fractured and the UK can pick and choose who it wants to pressure the negotiators.

Barnier is, in essence, saying "I'll make it as bad for the UK as possible and don't interfere otherwise the deal for the EU will be BAD". Which, in itself, is a huge bluff. The only BAD deal the EU can do with the UK, for the EU, is No Deal.

[Suff]

Well there you go. That's the first time I've seen it admitted.

In the UK maybe. But if you read the other EU countries press it is a constant refrain.

Yet another reason I was always for Leave. Our press can't tell us the truth because we won't stand for the truth. I really hat living a lie.

[Workingman]

Natalie Nougayrède was a teenager of the 80s, long after the beginning of the European project. What she was being taught was common throughout Europe, including the UK. It was seen as a good thing. What she is saying is not some new revelation recently uncovered from secret files hidden is some dark vault. It has been common knowledge for yonks and yonks.

I remember my lad coming home from school with homework containing much the same in the 90s.

[Suff]

It may be taught in the schools, but it is denied in the press.

Way to go as the Americans say.

[Workingman]

The media does not have to state the bleedin' obvious every day, even though it happens.... regularly.

The teaching that European unity is a good thing has been going on in UK schools for at least 40 years, probably longer. The idea was certainly out in the public domain and well to the fore from the mid sixties to Ted Heath taking us in to the old EEC.

[Suff]

Ah but European Unity is one thing. A country called the European Union is another.

The country version is alive, well and taught as the goal for the EU, eventually, in virtually all countries except for the UK. It is accepted by the press in virtually all EU countries except the UK.

A subtle but important difference.

[Workingman]

Of course the country version is/was taught in the UK and is/was in the UK press. That is how we all got to know about it and why UKIP was able to campaign on the sovereignty thing during the referendum - you know, getting out of the EU "country" project and getting our sovereignty back.

[Suff]

As I recall every time it came up in the press the Politicians denied it was true.

[Workingman]

Nobody denied anything, as I recall, it was all out there.

If the country project was not known about then why were all you Leavers constantly banging on about it and the USofE, EU armed forces, EUROPOL, the European arrest warrant, EU 'Embassies', UK sovereignty and on and on and on?

Were these bits of information only available to Leavers as special people with super inside knowledge while the rest of us were somehow kept in the dark? I don't think so.