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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/15/britain-rejoin-european-union-needs-to-understand-it-uk>
"As Britain approaches the 10th anniversary of its vote to leave the EU, the
British are beginning to debate rejoining what they call Europe. But, as in
most previous British debates about “Europe”, this is Europe with the Europe
left out. The discussion is all about what would be best for Britain
economically and the British politics of getting there. Little or no account is
taken of what the rest of Europe thinks or cares about. The other day, the
Treasury minister Lord Livermore became the first member of the government to
publicly endorse rejoining the EU. “Of course,” he told the House of Lords,
“the UK will re-enter the European Union because it’s absolutely in our
national economic interest.” As if we had only to knock on the EU’s door and –
abracadabra! – we would immediately be welcomed back in.
If you asked all sitting British MPs to say when the European Council is next
meeting in Brussels, I doubt that more than a handful could give you the right
answer. In fact, I wonder how many could immediately tell you what the European
Council is. It’s instructive to look at the agenda for that top table gathering
of the national leaders of the 27 EU member states, together with the union’s
key institutional leaders. Between 6pm this Thursday and lunchtime on Friday,
they hope to discuss Ukraine, the Middle East, the EU’s next seven-year budget,
global economic challenges, European defence and security, migration and
illicit drugs. So they have, to put it mildly, a lot on their plate.
If you follow European media, or listen to Germans talking about Europe with
Poles, or Italians with Portuguese, our sceptred isle hardly features at all.
On both sides of the Channel, “Europe” is again being construed as not
including Britain. The only major exception is defence and security, where the
British are still seen as playing an important role. Poland’s Oxford-educated
and once-anglophile foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, now coldly describes the
UK as a “security provider”.
As for countries wanting to join, the EU has no shortage of them. There are
already nine acknowledged candidates for membership, including small
frontrunner Montenegro and the very large Ukraine (UKR is more important than
UK to Europe today). This August, Iceland is holding a referendum on whether to
resume negotiations for membership. A debate has opened up again in wealthy
Norway. And let’s be honest, there are some in the EU – a minority to be sure,
but a significant minority – who would not welcome Britain back.
All countries think mainly about themselves, but if there were a World Cup for
solipsism, the British would effortlessly carry off the trophy. A new BBC
documentary revisiting the 2016 vote painfully reminds us of the poverty of the
British European debate. Here, amid a procession of the scheming boys who gave
us the biggest act of national self-harm in our recent history, we again meet
Boris Johnson, his thoughts as disordered as his hair. He sums up the core
issue thus: “You either want the country to be independent or you think that we
should create a federal Europe.” Actually, the entire mainstream of continental
European politics today is precisely about finding a middle way between those
two extremes. On the most charitable interpretation, Johnson has learned
nothing and forgotten nothing since his time as a Eurosceptic Brussels
correspondent in the early 1990s."
Via Joerg Fliege.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
