How is Great Britain looking from abroad?

[longwayoff]

I've seen various remarks that other countries are confused by our current situation, although surely Ukraine's running it close. Any comments from outside UK mumsnetters?

I think it's quite simple. Economic inequality.

Globalism has created fantastic opportunities and financial rewards galore for those at the very top. Those that serve them, the upper middle class who are well educated and mobile and their children see lots of opportunity. Unfortunately those that are not mobile because of poverty and haven't gained due to lack of skills and education are often still stuck in areas which were devastated by the switch from a manufacturing to a service economy in the 1980s. In the UK we are reaping what we sowed in a scandalous lack of investment in the regions outside the South-East of England. By devaluing money (quantitative easing) after the economic crash of 2008 it helped those with assets and debts but made the mountain of success much harder to climb by increasing costs for the young and working class. Austerity also hit poor areas much harder. Those people watch those with more education and mobility jump over them and often they are immigrants who are naturally following the jobs.

We also have created an ideology where whiteness it linked to oppression, colonialism and everything now considered evil in history. So working class whites feel having pride in your culture and country is suspect and scorned. We have missed the opportunity to talk about anything positive we offer culturally to the world: modern democracy, art literature, free speech etc. etc. So while the upper middle class in academia make a living demonizing history, working class whites, especially men know they are blamed. We have abandoned Christianity so we don't have popular ideas which bring us together. When people were concerned and trying to make sense of very quick changes, such as the large increase in immigration and how their towns and neighborhoods didn't seem to be benefitting from globalism they were scornfully shot down. I am not right wing but it was very obvious that in the 1990s onwards there were conversations that were just not allowed publically. The result is a fractured nation where people struggling are blamed for it and there is no overarching ideology to bring us together (except maybe the World Cup and the Olympics every four years). The stories we have been telling about our own culture are all negative. Globalism means companies are gaining as much power as nation states and blurring the distinction of who are the ultimate decision makers. People feel powerless and want to gain some control over their lives - causing the protest vote that was Brexit.

That’s an excellent analysis Ida

Brexit was not just a protest vote against the government, but also a protest vote against the modern world and the UK’s place within it. Much the same as Trump.

Which then begs the question, if brexit isn’t really about the EU, how is anyone supposed to deliver it?

In the short term at least, leaving the EU will make leavers lives worse, not better.

@Fiveredbricks
It's spelt bloc. Although on second thoughts, trading blocks are more likely.

The way I put it to my American friends is this: How would you like it if Nafta were not a free-trade agreement but instead a self-avowed political union?
(FT article quoted above)

The author has obviously forgotten that the US is itself a 'self avowed political union', and that in fact a bitter civil war was fought to overturn the Brexit attempt of the South and to make sure no other state or group of states ever tried such a preposterous stunt again.

How would you like it if there were a North American Court of Justice, in Ottawa perhaps, to which U.S. laws were ultimately subordinate? How about if there were complete freedom of movement, so that a Mexican or Canadian could legally move to the U.S., live, work and enjoy public benefits here?

LOL. It gets even better.

The author clearly has no idea that there is always a tension between states rights and the federal powers, and either never knew or has forgotten all about the Supreme Court, its jurisdiction and remit, and the resentment of an 'activist' court or frustration about a 'conservative' court. Also forgotten - the unrestricted immigration that allowed the United States to populate the whole contiguous 49 state area during the 19th century.

This rank ignorance of what the United States is (the hint about what it is lies in the name) and how its structure involves a certain amount of tension and balance between state and federal powers won't go down well in the US, where people who read the FT tend to have something of a glimmer of their history and constitution.

And what if, for the privilege of all this, the U.S. had to pay about $100 billion a year—proportionate to the annual net contribution the UK makes to the EU?
(FT again)

Or, put another way, why should a single mom in Detroit or a coal miner pay for Sesame Street? (To mangle the words of Trump's budget director).

The whole article was a monument to stupidity, designed to play groups off against each other, blatantly racist, blatantly appealing to isolationist tendencies, blatantly appealing to a presumed ignorance of history and economics of FT readers (big misstep there, no surprise).

Well said, mathanxiety.

(FT article quoted above)

Perfectly correct, except that it's not an article, it's an opinion piece, and it's not from the FT. You would know both had you bothered to click on the link or read the attribution I clearly stated.

The author has obviously forgotten that the US is itself a 'self avowed political union', and that in fact a bitter civil war was fought to overturn the Brexit attempt of the South and to make sure no other state or group of states ever tried such a preposterous stunt again.

The US was conceived as a political union, the EU was not - it started out as the European Economic Community and became a political union over time.

The comparison to the US civil war is also flawed. The UK exercised an option to leave the EU that was clearly allowed it under the treaty it signed to enter. There is no such exit option in the US constitution. And the south might well have been allowed to negotiate an exit if they hadn't been leaving to preserve the institution of human chattel slavery.

I'm a Yank, so I have no dog in this fight. I offered the quote from the opinion piece because OP asked how brexit was seen abroad. The piece I quoted was written in New York and published in a major newspaper.

An even worse audience to convince that there is any sound reason for Brexit - the WSJ.

Hair splitting - article/opinion piece, knock yourself out...

The piece was written by someone who was not American (Gerard Baker is a Brit) whose opinion betrays ignorance of vast chunks of American history, historical arguments, and constitutional law and ongoing debate.

...the problem for the independent-minded UK is that the EU’s aspirations reach way beyond that. For the last 25 years, in fact, it has acquired the characteristics, laws and institutions of a political union.
Actually, the EU became a limited political union and more extensive economic union over time and (this bit is important) with full consent of each member - including the UK - at every turn.

There is no passive verb involved here (i.e. your "it started out as the European Economic Community and became a political union over time.") The establishment of the EEC and its forbears, the fact that the UK joined and all further developments have all occurred with full consultation and full consent of members. All members are and were free to advance arguments on all EU issues including the admission of new members. It was the UK that campaigned loudest and longest and ultimately successfully for the accession of Eastern European states to the EU after all, playing the role of the mouthpiece of the US State Department, which wished to poke Russia in the eye by dislodging the former Warsaw pact from Russia's sphere of influence and scupper plans for some sort of eastern European economic union with close ties to Russia.

The EU has a standardised set of laws relating to internal trade and is getting closer to standardisation of concepts of human/civil rights, all accomplished by consensus and in some cases by referenda held in individual member states - direct democracy, in other words.

The author's implication that the EU is a union that was sprung on member states by trickery or fiat or without consultation is flat out dishonest and all sorts of unconvincing.

Also unconvincing is your take on the origins of the Civil War and the what the constitution says wrt secession.
The UK exercised an option to leave the EU that was clearly allowed it under the treaty it signed to enter. There is no such exit option in the US constitution. And the south might well have been allowed to negotiate an exit if they hadn't been leaving to preserve the institution of human chattel slavery.

The US was was conceived as a political union of states. The SC has asserted that this is the direct will of the people, but over time what exactly the political union means continues to be debated and defined just as in the EU, though the author dodges this inconvenient truth. There is a vast body of constitutional law related to states' rights vs federal rights with several Supreme Court cases preceding the Civil War and of course the Civil War itself, whose monuments stand as testament in perpetuity to the ongoing debate. Also testament to the ongoing nature of the debate are cases related to abortion, gun ownership, gerrymandering, the Electoral College and more.

Despite a few SC judgements, the South very clearly felt they had the best of any argument on their right to sovereignty including the right to leave, and war began in order to settle competing claims (Union vs Confederacy) regarding 'sovereignty'. South Carolina had voted to secede previously, over tariffs on interstate commerce in the 1830s, but found itself politically isolated. The Union threatened military opposition in the 1830s too (under Andrew Jackson).

Obviously it fancied its chances again on the eve of the Civil War that was precipitated by its alliance with the six other states that became the Confederacy. Reasons for the rest of the Confederate states to join in after 1861 (after the initial six had voted and after hostilities had commenced) included the argument that Lincoln had exceeded his constitutional remit in mustering an army and sending it to stop secession.

www.law.virginia.edu/news/201710/was-secession-legal
Fwiw, this is a link to a book discussing the rights and wrongs of the Confederacy's argument, pointing out that Jefferson Davis was not tried for treason and describing why. The reasons were not all circumstantial.

The Constitution was silent on the matter of the legality of secession.
The Supreme Court weighed in on the secession issue in Texas v. White in 1869, declaring it unconstitutional. The case had none of the complications of Davis’ case, and it was much easier for the court to address secession in that context. Still, Nicoletti pointed out, many Americans didn’t think that Texas v. White had completely — or fairly — resolved the issue. It took another generation or two for the issue to fade from constitutional discourse.
Until Texit or the prospect of California seceding start to gain steam, perhaps...

..........
And what if, for the privilege of all this, the U.S. had to pay about $100 billion a year—proportionate to the annual net contribution the UK makes to the EU?
Clearly an argument that appeals to patriotic feelings around the American Declaration of Independence, taxation without representation, etc., and clearly an argument that is (1) completely dishonest when it comes to Brexit and the financial relationship of the EU and UK, and (2) manipulative in its appeal to American knee jerk patriotism.

The UK is allocated funds from the EU that have benefited regions that were underdeveloped (9 out of the lowest 10 regions in terms of economic development in 1973 were British/NI) and has always had the power and authority to use those funds fairly and wisely. The UK has always had the power to vote on the EU budget and the right to argue for more funds. The UK negotiated many opt outs from the EU wrt money and other matters. It absolutely wasn't a one way street, or a question of taxation without representation.

How would you like it if there were a North American Court of Justice, in Ottawa perhaps, to which U.S. laws were ultimately subordinate?
Ah yes, the interfering ECJ and the ECHR, maybe equivalent to the Supreme Court, that well-known arrogant trouble maker, interfering in everybody's business . The author needs to sit down and list all the ways the judgements of those three courts have made life worse for hundreds of millions of people. Maybe provide another list showing the improvements, the enhanced consumer protection, the personal rights, the judgements affecting health and safety of employees?

How about if there were complete freedom of movement, so that a Mexican or Canadian could legally move to the U.S., live, work and enjoy public benefits here?
An execrable exercise in dog whistling.
Britain never signed on to Schengen and has always had the right to control immigration. The political will wasn't there because actually, immigrants are net contributors to the British economy, paying in a lot more than they take out.

'Enjoy public benefits'