I didn’t ask at all for the UK to be treated as “a special snowflake”. Obviously the EU can set whatever joining terms they want to set.

used to be relevant 100 years ago

I could say the same thing about various EU countries if I wanted to, but I don’t want to, because I like EU countries and I hope for good UK-EU relations.

I think EU politicians these days are saying completely sensible things about the UK, but I get the sense from some people online (not all, thankfully) that they just don’t like the UK. Personally I hope the UK and EU can both be positive and have a good relationship.

I’m not talking about British exceptionalism in any way. Clearly lots of people in this thread don’t like the UK. Fine. That doesn’t mean you should twist my words though.

Multiple EU countries haven’t adopted the euro and don’t show signs of adopting it. So clearly the EU already practises “flexibility” on the euro, to some degree.

If EU citizens decide they don’t want the UK in the EU, okay. I would like good UK-EU relations, but I can’t control what EU citizens think of the UK.

Yeah I thought it was something like that. So if the EU did offer membership terms to the UK, I wonder whether it would be “you have to join the euro within 5 years”, or whether it would be “you’re supposed to join the euro but you can postpone it forever like Sweden does”. I guess it’s unlikely that Denmark’s opt-out from the euro would be offered to any other country because it hasn’t been offered to recent countries.

True I used the words “if the EU just wants to punish the UK” but I guess I meant if hypothetically the EU wanted to punish the UK. The post I responded to said: “Fuck no. Full EU or stay out.”, and I suppose if the EU adopted words like that, maybe it seems a bit hostile. I definitely get the point about fairness among EU countries of course. If other EU countries had to sign up to certain terms (Schengen Area, adopting the euro) then yes it makes sense to present the same terms to the UK.

But I guess there has already been flexibility in the EU. They’re not compelling Poland and Sweden to adopt the euro, right? Even if those countries are technically supposed to adopt the euro. Also maybe it’s a matter of opinion whether Denmark’s permanent opt-out from the euro is fair. You could say “it’s fair because those are the terms Denmark agreed to”. Or you could say “it’s not fair because more recent EU joiners weren’t offered those same terms”.

If all EU members and potential members have the same joining terms then yes that seems fair. Anyway, the UK is surely not going to rejoin the EU anytime soon. It could happen one day, and maybe that would involve the UK adopting the euro, but before then I think gradually closer relations are probably likely.

I’m not in any way after “preferential treatment”. I pointed out that there are several EU countries already who, as far as I’m aware, have no plans to adopt the euro. It seems Denmark has a permanent opt-out, while Sweden and Poland are deliberately delaying euro adoption forever, until their people support euro adoption in referendums.

If we go out of our ways to let you in at any costs

I don’t believe you should.

Anyway, I think the EU has made sensible comments on relations with the UK recently. So I don’t think the EU currently wants to punish the UK, which is good. But I get the sense from some people (not from the EU itself) that they want to punish the UK. An attitude of “yeah fuck them, Europe-hating backstabbers”. It’s of course true that some Brits don’t like the EU, and they still support Brexit, but it’s also true that there are Brits who want closer relations with the EU, in a way that is agreeable to both sides, rather than one side dominating or punishing the other.

If you’re implying that Brits are all a bunch of Europe-hating backstabbers then I don’t think that’s true. I’m British and yes, some Brits don’t like the EU. Mainly older Brits. But a lot of Brits do like the EU.

According to YouGov, a British polling company, a majority of Brits have wanted to rejoin the EU for at least the last two and a half years, perhaps longer. Of course that level of support could change depending on the terms of rejoining the EU, but still.

Personally I think it would be good if the UK and EU forge closer relations in the coming years, but I don’t think rejoining the EU will be a realistic possibility for at least a few years, because eurosceptics in the UK continue to wield political power.

Why? Ireland isn’t in Schengen, and multiple EU countries aren’t using the euro, with no plans to adopt it (Poland, Sweden, Hungary, Czechia).

I’m British and I hope the UK and EU can have closer relations. But if the EU just wants to punish the UK for Brexit then that is going to go down badly with many Brits, so closer relations will become less likely.

It’s like running with a bucket of water to a burning man and saying “I’ll douse you, but it’ll cost you 100 bucks”

I’m just going to leave this here.

I definitely think Europe should have strong relationships with good allies, like Canada and Japan. Hopefully they would both be reliable.

Mexico, potentially yes, they could be a reliable ally. As for India I’m not so sure, because India seems to want to be quite friendly with Russia (I think India buys a lot of military equipment from Russia), and Russia has been waging war against Europe for the last 12 years.

I think more Europeans need to realise that the only countries which care about the security of European countries are European countries.

Oppressive authoritarianism? But tankies told me that China is a place of unbridled liberty. A land of milk and honey. Unlike the evil West which is always horrible and terrible.

Your in-laws sound like GB News viewers here in the UK. GB News is a right-wing news TV channel, and it has only existed for a few years. Previously people had to watch BBC News or Sky News, which are both pretty moderate. But now right-leaning voters can get sucked into GB News propaganda. They are never shown different sides of an argument presented fairly; instead everything they are shown is highly biased.

Maybe actually I’m making a mistake by comparing the French election with the 2024 US election because of the different voting systems.

I suppose leftist voters in France might think “if we can get Melenchon into the second round then moderates will have to vote for him to keep out Le Pen”. So then the second round polling between Melenchon and Le Pen might change when the reality sets in that Melenchon and Le Pen are the only two options. Which is different to the single-round US presidential election, where the only two realistic candidates to win were Trump and Harris. In that US election, every anti-Trump non-voter just helped Trump.

As for Melenchon being anti-Ukraine, I don’t know his stance in detail, but like you, I’m not in favour of anti-Ukraine stances.

I’m just looking at polling. In fact Melenchon now seems to be in second place for the first round, behind Le Pen, so perhaps he is likely to get into the second round. But the problem is that he fares worse than Philippe in the second round against Le Pen.

The most recent second round polls seem to show this:

• Philippe ~44%, Le Pen ~56%
• Melenchon ~31%, Le Pen ~69%

Of course polling can change. Pollsters in 2016 thought Hillary Clinton would enter the White House. But still, at the moment, if Melenchon gets to the second round, it looks like a victory for Le Pen is more likely.

I guess with the French election I’m mainly thinking about the second round. If it’s Philippe versus Le Pen then hopefully enough people will back Philippe, because I think Le Pen would be worse.

In the first round maybe there’s more freedom to vote for who you really like. But if it ends up being Melenchon versus Le Pen in the second round, it could be pretty difficult to stop Le Pen winning.

I’m trying out Piefed. Lemmy looks like relatively good software, but I don’t like the political views of the developers behind Lemmy. Their whole shtick seems to be “non-western countries good, western countries bad”.

Of course, western countries have done many bad things. But I think plenty of non-western countries have also done bad things. I just don’t buy into a narrative which always tries to paint western countries as “the bad guys” and non-western countries as “the good guys”.

Fuck America

I don’t think that quote is referring to the deal that the UK had when it was in the EU. I think the quote is referring to the UK’s post-Brexit deal with the EU (the Trade and Cooperation Agreement). I guess Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader who gave that quote, believes that the Prime Minister is wasting time if he tries to get an improvement on that deal, because she thinks the EU won’t significantly change it. I disagree with Badenoch’s pessimism though. I think the UK should try to get a closer relationship with the EU, and I think the EU might be receptive to this.

Michel Barnier, formerly the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, recently indicated his support for “a stronger EU-UK defence pact”, for example. That article shows that Barnier considers freedom of movement to be a non-negotiable part of single market membership (just like it was when the UK was in the EU). But he seems open to the idea of the UK not adopting the euro, if it rejoined the EU: “he added that adopting the euro need not necessarily be a condition of renewed membership”. This is coherent with Barnier earlier this year saying that the UK could potentially stay out of the euro and out of the Schengen Area if it rejoined the EU:

I am speaking about Schengen, I am speaking about the single currency: there are other member states who are not in them. It is perfectly possible to have opt-outs in these fields.

If Europe doesn’t build stuff like this then it will probably just become poorer and less relevant, while the US and China push forward and dominate the world with their technology.

Europe definitely has the talent for advanced technology. It’s probably just a question of having the political will to create the right conditions.