Six years after Brexit has Britain bet on the wrong ally?
https://tvpworld.com/91345193/britain-torn-between-europe-and-trump
Posted by ByGollie
Six years after Brexit has Britain bet on the wrong ally?
https://tvpworld.com/91345193/britain-torn-between-europe-and-trump
Posted by ByGollie
36 Comments
Without a question – yes.
A lot of it had to do with the identity crisis that *some* Brits suffer from, the idea that the UK is not a European country, while it actually is and always has been. European through and through – culturally, historically, economically.
> “The only real option,” [David Frost, chief negotiator for exiting the EU] wrote in an op-ed published in the British newspaper The Telegraph, is to do “everything we can to reinvigorate the relationship with the Americans, still the economic and defence superpower.”
>
> “They can defend us now,” he continued. “In return, we have to be a credible ally again, spend much more on defence, accommodate ourselves to US realpolitik, and finally get out of the European economic and regulatory system. It means becoming another Israel to the U.S. Not much wrong with that – Israel is after all richer than we are now.”
Almost looks like satire. It’s always ironic how the so-called sovereignists and conservatives are the first ones to try to sell their country. They were complaining that the EU was too demanding when they had some of the most advantageous terms in the Union, and now the guy who negociated the Brexit is advocating to become a US colony…
Yes.
Ally? The USA is nobody’s ally. The only real allies that the UK had are Canada and the EU. The UK threw the EU under the bus when they had a seat at the EU table and the power that came with it. Probably one of the dumbest foreign political acts i’ve seein in my lifetime.
Brexit and Boris Johnson was England’s trump moment
Bet on the wrong ally? It was Obama who stated clearly directly to the people of the UK, that if Brexit happens, the UK will go to the back of the line in trade talks with the US.
Basically meaning if you want a deal, you’re going to have to give up a lot.
This was the US being a big brother, and trying to help the UK from making a stupid decision.
He was met with pure vitriol and hate. How dare he try and meddle in European politics!
So don’t go blaming us now for following through on what we said before the dumbass decision was made.
What bet? It was a statement.
Almost every country in Europe is still an ally of the US. None of them are pulling out of NATO, beyond calls for diversification or derisking I haven’t seen any of them officially call for an end to cooperation with the US. Singling the UK out for censure is going to appeal to a lot of people in this sub but I don’t want to hear this shit from any of you until your country actually walks and doesn’t just talk.
Additionally, even **after** Brexit and the UK trying to steer a path between its different alliances it’s still done more to shore up pan-European defence than much of Europe has so you peeps can jog on with your reductive onanistic takes tbh.
It’s easy to generalise here, but it’s not that simple. I’m as anti Brexit as you can get, but leaving the EU supposedly wasn’t just about betting the house on the US. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan and China amongst others were used as examples of nations the UK could build stronger relationships with (and that has happened, be it through trade agreements, joint tech projects, visa-free travel or other means). Whether most of the prominent Brexiteers were genuinely sincere about opening these sorts of doors is another question, but it is disingenuous to insinuate that post-Brexit economic and political opportunities proposed by the leave campaign were exclusively tied to the United States.
This framing of the UK “betting” on one ally or the other is just stupid.
The UK is an ally of both the EU *and* the US. It was allies of both while it was in the European Union, and it is allies with both now it has left the European Union. At no point was that a mutually-exclusive choice. Heck, the EU and US are still fundamentally allies despite all the tub thumping to the contrary.
Equally, the UK has more than those two alliances, and leaving the European Union had impacts on all those other relationships as well in positive and negative ways. Reducing this to a binary of just those two relationships is nonsensical.
I firmly opposed us leaving the European Union, but nonsense like this just helps no one
23 years after illegally invading Iraq while being walked by Bush, has Britain finally realised that they bet on the wrong ally?
Brexit was a shitshow of epic proportions. This is happened because the U.K politicians constantly made the EU out to be a boogeyman and blamed then for everything that went wrong.
On top of that a good chunk of the old fossils who voted to leave and WOULDN’T live to feel the consequences of their idiotic and shortsighted vote have died.
Younger people who can now vote are more in favour of rejoining the EU. But if they do they should not get any concessions. No more special treatment.
Honestly I think they type a catchy headline first then build a story around it
I wish we never left the EU. Even as someone in my teens if was my first vote and even I could tell Brexit was a load of bollocks.
The UK didn’t bet on anyone, certainly no less than other European countries – Greenland got threatened with invasion by the Americans and we saw how many EU countries cared enough to oppose it, it certainly wasn’t the rousing unity we keep getting told the UK doesn’t understand.
If you’re worried about European Defence and your focus is the UK, then you are just choosing to bury your head in the sand and go off dumbly manufactured bias as opposed to reality.
Six years after Brexit is this a serious question that real people are asking?
Always had.
But five eyes and all that.
*looking at UK political polling right now*
UK: Wanna see me do it again?
Since WW2, Britain has effectively considered the US’ power and influence as an extension of its own, because they are so heavily influenced by American culture and don’t really consider Americans foreigners in the same way that they think of the French, German or Italians. Britons consequently are inevitably going to be slower to realise that the feeling isn’t mutual, but Trump’s obvious greed, narcissism and hostility to the US’s allies has proven a major shock for most, but some will still excuse his behaviour.
The dumbest Brexiteers where the ones living in Spain and voted to leave. Now they can’t just live on Spain anymore.
No. Britain is getting the exact same treatment it always got from America, “Obey and we may not hurt you as much as some of the others.”
The only reason America ever tolerated Britain was that it was the only country in Europe that wanted to mimic the US as closely as possible. No need to invade, it was a willing colony.
Britain was useful. Now, it’s less useful but keeping it is free so…
Britain is experiencing the worst commodity and prices inflation of it’s history and they themselves are responsible for this by brexiting
Hmmm… let’s analyse it:
On the one hand we have a continent that completely rebuilt and reinvented itself after millennia of wars, establishing a peaceful cooperation of trade and travel.
On the other hand we have a warmongering nuclear power, that is known for randomly bombing stuff and regularly voting total nutjobs into office.
Difficult choice, really difficult.
There is a saying, ‘no shit Sherlock’, which I feel really applies to this situation.
Yes
Spoiler alert: Yes Obvs
There’s a very interesting argument to be had about Europeaness and Britishness
My personal thought is that so much of British history is framed as either in opposition to continental Europe or as the UK needing to interfere in Continental Europe
I’m sort of just going over my vague memories of school history and my own personal knowledge
1066 is viewed as the last major European successful European invasion
Obviously William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution but the British view is that it wasn’t a invasion as we decided we didn’t want our monarch and chose to crown William of Orange
Hundred years war is usually viewed as the end of direct British conquest and influence of continental Europe
Glorious revolution where we choose to bring a new king from Europe
Napoleonic wars are about preventing a European hegemony which can oppose the Empire
WW1 is the Empire having to interfere in continental Europe because of European attachments
WW2 is Europe falls but Britain and the Empire stand unlike Europe before The UK, Commonwealth and America liberate Europe
Cold war is usually framed as a western/American group vs the Soviet group instead of a European and American group
combined with this the fact there are other countries which share a significant amount of history and a language makes them (Commonwealth + US) seem more culturally similar than Europe who we don’t even share a language about
This is all sort of shower thoughts but i’d figure as some from the UK i’d give my two pence
Yes.
Brexit was one of the most brain-dead moves in all of UK politics and that says a lot.
Odd thing to ask when the Brexiteers were always MAGA adjacent. But go ahead, blame America instead of yourself. I’m sure there was no Russian money for Farage and co.
Yes. You know what the “beauty” of Brexit was? The whole show was run by Putin, the FSB and the campaign money came from Russian Oligarchs. Not kidding. Now please read Alexander Dugin’s Russian strategy book “Foundations of Geopolitics” from the 1990’s and you read the history of the last decades, run by Putin’s KGB/FSB.
One of the biggest UK strengths was to be able to bridge US, Asia and EU markets and be a true global power in many sectors.
Without the EU access a big part of that strength is quite gone and the US Asia etc don’t need to go though London.
Yep
Uh yeah.
Yes we know and Keir’s trying to unfuck it
Britain was once a global player. Now noone cares about them anymore.. The importance is on the same level like Nigeria.