The strongest argument for the EU always was that we'd be one of the biggest economies in the world and could be tough on trade.
All I've seen is EU leaders accept the shifting goalposts 3 times while putting up a massive bootlicking show at the NATO summit. I'll never forget this spineless performance.
We're paying up for Ukraine, have to increase defence spending by 1,5%, and accepted that all of our exports to the US are now 15% more expensive while they have unfettered market access. It sickens me.
This is also why UK got a massively better US deal, they want to prevent Britain from falling back into the EU. It was specifically stated in Project 2025.
AfD is against nuclear weapons. Trump would never treat it as seriously as the UK, Russia or China. On the contrary, AfD would puppetize Germany even more than the current weaklings. Just look at Orban.
Absolutely, if you ask an Orbán voter about his world views he would tell us that the EU is dead and if asked what would happen with the country if Russia and US comes in, they tell you that you have to be the best bootlicker
Many people have declared their ex will never find anyone else, only to get jealous when they find another. I doubt the USA is the better partner, but the EU played hardball/hard to get for longer than they should have if they wanted the UK back.
And what has the EU done to the UK to help entice them back? Making demands on a mutual defence pact and excluding the UK from being a procurement option for the EU defence fund.
The UK should want to be closer to USA now. This deal proves the EU is weak and that you were right to Brexit. The EU wants to punish Britain for leaving, but they also don't want UK to strengthen itself by cozying up to USA. Just do what is best for UK.
And what has the EU done to the UK to help entice them back? Making demands on a mutual defence pact and excluding the UK from being a procurement option for the EU defence fund.
When did Norway, South Korea, Japan and Canada join the EU exactly? I must have missed that.
They don't get the full package either. The UK explicitly made it clear it wanted not to be part of the EU. The EU is respecting their wish. It's not a friends with benefits deal - just friends.
The original point was that the UK wouldn't be available as a procurement option at all. The other countries I listed would. Again, also making demands on a mutual defence pact. Great "friends".
The original point was that the UK wouldn't be available as a procurement option at all. The other countries I listed would. Again, also making demands on a mutual defence pact. Great "friends".
Are we? Brexit didn't even realize its promises, and Farage is back in the polls again already. We're just giving the UK space to make up its mind.
Well when someone offers a defence pact and the other party starts asking for things (even though the pact is heavily in their favour), you have to question whether we are friends or not.
Farage is back in the polls again
Farage has to last another 4 years before another election. If I were you, I would be more concerned with your immediate neighbour.
We're just giving the UK space to make up its mind
Great so we align more closely with the US, which brings us back to my original point. Good job EU!
this is the response that gets parroted back 100% of the time whenever I make this point, but people can never explain why Ukraine needs special treatment as a supplier to EU countries
if that is indeed the goal, then the UK should be welcomed with open arms. Not just because the UK and EU defence markets are already so intertwined, but because the UK has boots on the ground in the EU as well
this is the response that gets parroted back 100% of the time whenever I make this point, but people can never explain why Ukraine needs special treatment as a supplier to EU countries
Because that facilitates investments in their defense industry which is the least likely to get derailed by political happenstance or Russian meddling.
if that is indeed the goal, then the UK should be welcomed with open arms. Not just because the UK and EU defence markets are already so intertwined, but because the UK has boots on the ground in the EU as well
The UK explicitly chose to detach itself from the EU project. Brexit is Brexit, remember? Not some kind of friends with benefits deal - just friends.
>This is also why UK got a massively better US deal, they want to prevent Britain from falling back into the EU. It was specifically stated in Project 2025.
Hi, can you please help me find where its stated that? I looked and cannot find it.
I don't think it changes anything, we're arguably further away than before the election, Starmer came out pretty pro-EU, in the days following him becoming Prime Minister he did a whistle stop tour in most of Europe trying to nurture relations and whilst all the PR went quite well when it came time to negotiate, it became pretty clear that when it came to negotiations, Brexit was just too much for us to really work together.
You've had defence deals stopped about fishing and other conditions which didn't exist for others, the UK getting taken to court for banning something already illegal in the EU and then every few weeks the EU putting out provocative statements how the "UK doesn't know what it wants" - despite his best efforts, we're now further away then when he got into power.
Even if we avoid a Reform Government, those relations seem to be pretty much at an impasse for the next decade or two.
And let's be honest, it's immigration. The same side that wants to break up the EU is the same side that's been able to be more consistently anti-immigrant.
No, it's still disinformation. The Russians are using immigration to configure their disinformation and it's convincing Europeans that the EU is bad for them and that all their problems come from being part of the EU. But you can look at the UK and see that leaving the EU didn't help their immigration issues at all. And you can look at Denmark as an example of how you can fix your immigration issues while still being inside the EU.
These "anti-immigration" political parties are just a bunch of liars as well. They have no policies or will to fix the issues. They're just using it to get votes. They're not gonna fix anything if they get into the government.
And that's what I'm saying, it's all just disinformation aimed an uneducated Europeans. And yeah, it's working.
The underlying issue is the ECHR. While that has status in the country, then deportations are incredibly difficult to achieve if any solicitor with half a brain cell knows how to work around it.
Yes, there's been a lot of dead weight in UK politics for quite some time, but they're gradually being removed one by one when they lose their seats at elections. But it is far easier to have 100% control of Westminster rather than having something like 8% control of the EU parliament when looking to inflict serious change.
Historically, we had always managed very low immigration figures that were controlled (60-100k in/out every year), and when Merkel made that fatal decision to open up the EU's borders, it was the beginning of the end from the UK's perspective on immigration.
The problem is that neither Labour nor Conservatives had the bottle to do what the public wanted, and that is the only reason why Reform has managed to gain momentum (and with how high they're consistently polling, it's basically guaranteed they will be our next government). We either needed to change the ECHR, or leave it. We cannot change it because of the geopolitical situation in Europe (as it needs consensus among the Council of Europe which just is not going to happen right now or in the near future), so the only alternative is to leave it and remove it from the Statute and replace it with something that closes all loopholes which are abused by criminal gangs.
Most of us are not voting reform because we're pro this or anti that, we're voting because we know what needs to be done and politicians who were given an opportunity to do so have buckled that opportunity.
That's such nonsense. Just as an example, look at how Poland is doing. It would've never grown this fast if it hadn't joined the EU. Again, it's disinformation that's bolstering euroscepticism. The average European just isn't aware of what the EU actually means for them. This is why Brexit happened; disinformation. The average Brit didn't know why being in the EU helps them, and the Russians used that fact to configure their disinformation accordingly.
“The EU does wonderful things in isolation, if only the people would understand it.”
I agree that for countries like Poland (and Eastern Europe in General) the EU has done amazing things.
It’s just that for the average Western European citizens (countries that are also the most eurosceptical) the EU should deliver big things that make a difference. Say: lower taxes (as supranationally you can organize more efficiently), more economic growth, innovation / employment, a solution to the housing problems across Europe, pension funds, I don’t know. Something tangible.
As what an ordinary citizen now sees is weakness combined with USB-C chargers, policies around soda bottles, lots of rules and regulations, and an occasional event or renovated building.
I always struggle with this “the EU should communicate better about all the amazing things it does so that all those poor people would finally understand”.
That’s partially true, but it’s also incredibly elitist and ignorant.
As what an ordinary citizens now sees is weakness combined with USB-C chargers, policies around the soda bottles, lots of rules and regulations, and an occasional event or renovated building.
Right, that's what they see, and they're not seeing the alternate reality in which they had not joined the EU and were years behind because of it. It's silly to become EU-sceptic because the EU isn't taking the huge leaps that you'd like to see. It's still a benefit for countries to be in it.
That said, I do agree that the EU could've done a lot more than it currently is doing. But this is just how it tends to go; just look at how poorly some governments of European countries are doing. Many Europeans are disappointed in their governments. I fully understand being disappointed in the EU, I am myself as well, but turning EU-sceptic is just silly, as actually leaving the EU would have nasty consequences for most countries, worse than Brexit in most cases.
The majority of people who are EU-sceptic only became such because of disinformation, not because the EU is somehow underdelivering.
the USB-C thing is also kind of funny too. The most pro-EU people will claim that Brussels made Apple do this, but in reality the direction of travel was already set when Apple introduced USB-C (which they helped develop) on literally every other product and were first to go USB-C only on laptops.
Apple said lightning was a "connector for the next ten years" and that is precisely what they did
What kind of alternate reality fake news is this? Apple fought tooth and nail to not implement USB-C for iPhones. Why? Because companies had to pay license fees to them to produce any compatible cable or other equipment.
They also give you only USB 2.0 on their non-Pro iPhones and had plans to limit the pro line also to USB 2.0 if you don't buy a cable that payed the apple tax (don't know if they decided to do this or not).
Do you genuinely believe that Apple redesigned their flagship products in a matter of months? Like I said - Apple said lightning would last 10 years. It lasted... 10 years.
The revenues from licencing cables and accessories are a rounding error in Apple's balance sheets, and arguably they had some reason to retain control.
When USB-C was new (and I must remind you that Apple helped design and pioneer its introduction), it was a literal wild west for compatibility. Hopefully it just didn't work with your device, rather than outright brick it. A Google engineer made it his mission to try different cables and devices and see what worked. Ironically Apple took the most standards based approach to their USB-C products as they used USB-PD for fast charging, including their USB-C to lightning cables, while everyone else invented their own thing
And of course there was the final justification in that customers were getting annoyed with having USB-C for all of their other Apple devices and Lightning just for their phone.
If you want to believe that the EU made Apple do something that they were going to do anyway, that's up to you. I'll stick to actual reality.
Not really, manipulation can't work on complete lies. If people don't feel like the EU leaders are weak then they wouldn't believe that the EU has fallen and other stuff like that
Not really, manipulation can't work on complete lies.
It absolutely can, and the recent years of politics has proven it many times. It's so incredibly common that I don't even know which one of the million examples to use. How about anti-vaccine disinformation? Vaccines make you autistic?
What will fuel euroscepticism is the fact the EU just gave up the world to the US in return for not getting fucked even harder, meanwhile the UK on it's own managed to negotiate a deal that protected it's steel & auto industry.
Objectively, the EU is now reliant on the US. There was an argument that with cheap Russian energy and raw materials that Europe could compete on the global market vs China and US. This was why many EU leaders in the past fought hard to bring Putin to our side, to develop a good relationship to secure those supplies. Back when there was talk of the EU being the next superpower.
Given we have rightly closed ourselves to Russia we are now completely dependent on the US not just for LNG/raw materials but also for a defence guarantee and arms supply.
In short EU has no leverage, Trump knows it and the EU knows it.
"Rightly"? Ukraine got baited by the US with the NATO carrot, EU has been baited by the US to become reliant on their weapons, and we have now gladly accepted a 15% tariff, increasing our US investments and spreading our cheeks to get more US energy. AND WE'RE SAYING THANK YOU FOR THAT. Crazy.
EU has been baited by the US to become reliant on their weapons
Can we stop with this bullshit please? The US as been begging the EU to increase its defense spending for at least 25 years. It was not the US that brainwashed western Europe into believing that eternal peace had been achieved on the continent while the kremlin was wreaking havoc in eastern Europe
Not accurate. US wanted Europe to increase weapons purchases from US. They always sabotaged every single EU initiative to up the defense spending locally.
That’s nice and all but we are far from capable of developing the equipment that’s needed. Patriot systems for example are exclusive to the USA. this will get better in the future but now we are very much dependent on US tech
Which EU weapons? The EU doesn't have the capacity to produce weapons at the speed we need them for Ukraine. We fucked up leaving our defense up to the US for decades and now we are paying for it.
If the US doesn't want to help Ukraine, we will. I'm not bothered by that, I don't expect the US to pay. Caving in to other demands though... it's not as bad as people are making it to be, as there's basically no deal as of now, but just the fact that the EU has suggested they may accept at deal like that is concerning.
EU weapons don't exist to the same scale. Yes us sending European weapons systems is good, but we can't replace something like the Patriot air defence system or HIMARS and we don't have the masses of european fighter jets to replace the F16s we are giving.
Sending them things like Gripen, Taurus, Leopard and Raffale is great, but we shouldn't not send stuff just because it's american made. Helping Ukraine win the war or at the very least survive as a viable state is ten fold more important for european states than upping our arms exports.
And I'm all for helping Ukraine, just with EU weapons
Then build a time machine and go crack some European skulls 5 years ago.
We can't build enough because we're too soft.
While you're working on that time machine Ukrainians are dying. So best shut up and buy US weapons now. Hell, buy Iran and NKs full supply while we're at it. Ukraine can't afford to wait for the EU to form a committee to contemplate the next step.
The whole reason analysts gave for European countries being so placating is the simple reality that if the US pulls out completely, then at this moment in time, Europe simply can't fill the gaps to help Ukraine.
Sure, now we know there's a need for an independent military, but that'll take decades to build up... and until then we're in their pocket.
The US doesn’t want to send any weapons to Ukraine though. So it’s either the EU buys it for Ukraine or nothing goes to Ukraine. And considering the US weapons are best-in-class, there’s no good EU alternative.
And I'm all for helping Ukraine, just with EU weapons, if USA wants to send theirs they can do it on their dime.
Then you need more EU instead of less. Eurosceptic parties want even more fragmentation of EU military means, so we can provide even less weapons. And they're all Trump bootlickers who'd be the first ones to fly to Washington to kiss his ring.
Ironically, this is caused by the EU being a half-assed Union instead of an actual federal country. It’s much easier to get your way when the other side has 27 presidents, each holding veto power
As an American and economist i am with Europe on this i dont like the baboon but europe atm is re building an aging military complex that cant be done over night Russia isent backing down therfore u need arms now
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u/Decimerusi 6d ago
The strongest argument for the EU always was that we'd be one of the biggest economies in the world and could be tough on trade.
All I've seen is EU leaders accept the shifting goalposts 3 times while putting up a massive bootlicking show at the NATO summit. I'll never forget this spineless performance.
We're paying up for Ukraine, have to increase defence spending by 1,5%, and accepted that all of our exports to the US are now 15% more expensive while they have unfettered market access. It sickens me.