I think this article tells us rather more about Nile Gardiner’s attitude to Obama than it does about Obama’s attitude to the UK, to be honest.
Gardiner manages to construe Obama’s view that it’s in the best interests of the US that the UK remain in the EU as an “insult to Britain”. One wonders if he also considered Obama’s view that it was in the best interests of the US that Scotland should remain in the UK as another insult to Britain? If so, it’s unaccountably missing from his list of insults. One suspects that, for Gardiner, tjhe expression of any view about British affairs that he personally doesn’t agree with is, ipso facto, an insult to the UK.
Gardiner also seems to have difficulty distinguishing between (a) Margaret Thatcher, and (b) the UK. Perhaps we should not be surprised; he is, after all, Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center [spelt that way, too] for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. Could you have found a more partisan source to back up your views?
It’s not necessarily a question of disliking him. The leader of country A should be very, very slow to express any view as to how Country B should order any of its affairs that don’t directly impinge on Country A. As it happens, I hope the UK remains in the EU, and if I had a vote in the UK referendum - I don’t - I’d cast it that way. But I’d still be a bit pissed at Obama weighing in. What business is it of his? Why should UK voters care what he thinks on this issue? Obama will presumably look for the referendum outcome which is of greatest advantage to the US, but why should UK voters be at all influenced by that, or why should he imagine that they would be? The whole thing would look a bit officious to me.
Of course, some people will be particularly pissed at a pro-EU Obama intervention, but they won’t be people who dislike Obama. They’ll be people who want the UK to leave the EU.
It depends what we mean by “weighing in”.
Brexit will have some effect on the US, even if only slight, and Obama should be “allowed” to state his personal view, or represent the government’s view.
OTOH, if Obama were directly addressing British voters, or, say, making veiled threats about what might happen if the UK left, then of course that would be beyond the pale. But that’s not the case here.
Look, basically I agree. Obama is entitled to comment, and to draw attention to the implications of the matter for the US. But he would be foolish to think that British voters care about the implications of the matter for the US and, given that, what is the point of drawing attention to them? And there is the risk that he will be perceived to be trying to influence the outcome, a perception which is is likely to be unhelpful to the acheivement of his aims. Hence if he comments at all he needs to do so with great care.
It doesn’t look that way to me; it is common knowledge that he is less willing than some of his predecessors to indulge the “special relationship” fantasies of certain Alanticists in this country, and doesn’t privilege the relationship with the UK over any other US interest. Grown-up people over here probably think it’s not before time, either.
The simple fact is that the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel are more like us than other countries. While we may share common interests with others, we have fewer business, family, and two-way migratory connections.
There are certainly more family and two-way migratory connections between the US and Italy, say, than there are between the US and Australia or the US and New Zealand. In fact the same would be true for connections between the US and India. And the US has more business, family and two way-migratory links with Ireland than with Australia or New Zealand.
Plus, you can’t look at this as a wheel with the US at the hub and every other country mentioned being considered only it it relationship to the US. That’s pretty much the opposite of what a political Union is about, and approaching it in this way is likely to alienate every prospective member that isn’t the US. There are basically no significant business, family or migratory links between Israel and New Zealand, for example, or between Israel and Australia. In fact Israel stands out in your list as a country that has been included solely because of its alignment with the US.
Which misses the point. If those nations are supposed to be a league with each other as well (and not just some kind of puppet states in a US-led union), what affinity do they have with each other other than their relationship with the US? What does joining together really get them?
You’ve made the case it would be beneficial to the US. What do they get out of it, and why should we expect them to agree to a union with obvious benefits to the US but at best dubious benefit to themselves?
Well, I’m not entirely sure why you are “listing countries that have some affinity with and similarities to the U.S.”, given that your OP is about whether the UK would be better served by remaining within the EU or leaving it.
But, given that you are doing that, I repeat that in many respects Ireland, India and Italy cleary have more in common with the US than does, e.g., New Zealand. And to that list we could add Germany, Poland and many other countries with long-standing connections to the US based on the family and two-way migratory links that you have adopted as relevant criteria.
And while Ireland may be a small country, it has a greater land area than Israel, and a greater population and GDP than New Zealand. India, Italy and the other countries I have mentioned are all bigger again, on any measure. Given that your own list includes Israel and New Zealand, jabs about “postage stamp” countries are probably ill-judged. And your mention of the UN General Assembly is, frankly, baffling. It doesn’t seem to have any connection at all either to the subject of the thread, the UK’s optimal strategic partners, or to the question of affinity to the US.
Both sides are getting silly now. The Remainers are forecasting doom, gloom, and war if we leave; the Leavers are likening the EU to a Hitlerian super-state.
It is more like you are listing some American driven fictionalizations of these countries without any real understanding of the political cultures or their interests. It is a fantasy vision.
As a Brit, and someone who will shortly be voting on this issue, I am chiefly concerned about tangible economic and political arguments and rationales. Woolly statements about national pride, identity and sovereignty arouse more suspicion than patriotism - I instinctively distrust politicians who speak in this way.
Alas, I am not an economist - but I know that the IMF, Treasury, London School of Economics and Bank of England all concur that leaving the EU would be economically treacherous. Granted, these organisations no doubt all have their biases and ulterior motives - but their argument from authority is more persuasive than anything than the ‘leave’ campaigners have yet thrown at me.
Not for me. Or rather, I’m noting that it’s all put as ‘could be’, ‘might be’, etc, and remembering that these organisations are averse to change. And in the cases of the Treasury and Bank of England they’re being directed by the government. It’s just the same with the Leavers - we could do this, we could do that, etc.
Boris Johnson is - IMHO - in the Leave camp purely because he wants to be leader of the Tories and thus Prime Minister.
Do we junk the liars we know for the liars and opportunists we don’t know? A tough choice.
I used to be unequivocally pro EU, I am, after all, the child of two Portuguese immigrants who was born in the UK.
Then Cameron started spouting threats of Brexit=European war. Obama threatened us with being last on the list for negotiations. The same people who predicted that not joining the Euro=disaster, didn’t predict the global recession, are now predicting our doom.
We are at once, too significant to leave, and to insignificant to survive alone.
Last year, Cameron told us that the EU needed essential change, or we would leave, he negotiated no real changes, but we need to stay.
He campaigns for the status quo, but the EU project is ever closer union. There is no status quo option.
The leave campaign is almost entirely an anti immigrant rhetoric, and Boris just played the Hitler card.
We get ridiculous leaflets and no real, logical, argument.
No one realistically knows what will happen, because it has never happened before, no one has ever left, and an EU super-state, (the end game), is something entirely new.
I will just go with my gut on the day, because I just don’t know.
As the arab spring has illustrated, radical change is usually worse than evolutionary change and rarely does the kicking out of the bastards do any thing but get you a differrent set of the bastards.
I hope you stay.
The illiberalism of the France will get worse without you.
