But why do I care about that if I am a working class plumber in Wigan who has seen my wages go down in the last ten years due to competition from Eastern Europeans.
People like us (educated, culturally competent, upwardly mobile) benefit from free movement, but we are not the majority.
I’m not European myself so I have a hard time understanding the concept of EU. In my shoes, I couldn’t imagine a similar Asian union. Do Europeans really value their European identity more than their nationality for them to take some sacrifices of things like freedom of movement where some countries people will clearly be the losers and some winners.
I’ll likely gain citizenship and benefit from it but I can see why most people are not benefiting from it.
There is no European identity. What there is is fear of another World War. Because these World Wars tend to start there.
Heaped upon this fear is a whole lot of wishful thinking to help the medicine go down. It’s all a huge neurotic reaction.
It’s called internationalism.
It’s the split between what political writer David Goodhart calls the “somewheres” and “anywheres”.
Anywheres can exist in any metropolitan environment across the globe, have marketable skills, speak many languages etc. They are secure enough not to rely on the nation state to form their self identity. Somewheres belong to a place, will live their whole lives in the same area and need the security of a strong sense of belonging to the nation.
Basically the winners and losers of globalization.
Most of us here are anywheres, but we really only account for 25% of the population in our countries.
Before the EU nationals of most member states would have been treated as foreigners in each others countries: no automatic right to visit, work, reside etc. However under EU treaties EU nationals have similar rights to locals.
I value my EU identity and I would go so far as to say that I put it above my EU member state nationality yes. If I had to choose between loosing EU citizenship, and swapping my nationality for another EU nationality, I’d choose the swap.
Speak for yourself
Income inequality in the UK predates the EU and is not likely to get better when the UK leaves. In fact it is just going to put more power into the hands of the elite who have a track record of screwing the proles. How come there is less inequality in the UK neighbors states? They are in the EU too, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, France? Not without their problems but less stress on the working poor for sure.
People who think they’re Anywheres are deluded. A couple months back I saw a story about a couple of privileged, sheltered younguns who took a trip around the world to prove that people are all the same deep down. They got murdered in some shithole.
A sheltered person is someone who thinks he’s an Anywhere. He can get by in Seattle or Tokyo or Berlin, so he thinks he can get by in Kabul.
Sheltered people don’t know they’re sheltered. There’s no one more sheltered than a cosmopolitan.
(Hey, remember that Warm Beer kid? That’s an Anywhere. Only now he’s a Nowhere.)
Found it:
https://leonoudejans.blogspot.com/2017/03/why-is-there-no-european-blueprint.html
I’m gonna emigrate to Cascadia.
Say, can I take classes to learn to speak European?
You are talking about this on a macro level. This means little to labourers and tradesmen who have seen their income directly decrease because of EU immigration.
Fair enough, but if leaving the EU makes salaries and conditions for workers on low incomes improve I will gladly eat my hat. Its pretty obvious that it is going to be headed in the exact opposite direction.
Anywheres do exist, but as you mentioned, mostly in metropolises. And there definitely is a European identity. I know friends in London who strongly identify with being European, but the point is that on a national scale they are a minority.
Also the Europe they identify with is the one drinking espresso in Milan or visiting Art Basel in Switzerland, but not that of the racist football fan making monkey noises to black players in Spain.
I don’t disagree. Well in the short term at least. We will be fine in the long run.
But I think if the EU was to work effectively, then it should take into account the problems of people like this. When David Cameron went to Brussels to negotiate, they wouldn’t make any accommodation at all. If there wasn’t a brexit referendum, tensions would have carried on growing and lead to some other disastrous outcome.
Look on any proper map and you’ll see that all the First World cities put together are only a tiny fraction of the world’s land mass.
They only think they’re Anywheres because they’re unaware of the existence of most of the planet. I’ve seen lots of places where a metrosexual wouldn’t survive a week.
Anyone who thinks he’s a European also probably needs to stop reading Captain Euro comics and get out more.
There’s nothing more European than a racist football fan. Soccer fan, to be precise.
To the extent that Europe is a thing, it’s not all that great…
No
Not true, working class people from all over the EU benefit from freedom of movement in the EU directly.
They indirectly benefit from investments that are spread through different countries because the employers can hire workers from across the EU.
Yea some of the bushy barns that do classes in ‘American’, ‘British’ and ‘Canadian’ teach it
As opposed to a racist hand-egg fan
I’m not sure which countries were clearly the losers.
Shurrup Rowland you only think your American but you are actually from Planet ConspirA-C.
The guy on the grassy knoll told me himself.
The British media and government cultivated an anti immigrant anti foreigner agenda over the last decade.
It’s not up to the EU to fix that. It wasn’t the EU that told the Tories to implement austerity and universal income.
It also wasn’t the EU that made the decision to open to Eastern European immigration so early.
Nor does the EU have any responsibility for indian subcontinent immigrants to the UK.
The UK made the decision to leave all in its own.
Enough people in the UK felt they were the losers to leave. I can respect their decision as it was voted democratically.