Should the UK have a second Brexit referendum?

[Hermit]

(Edit: response to Hermit's last)

Very true and given the UK is the largest recipient of goods from several EU countries (including the Netherlands), if the 'deal' isn't right for both sides and the negotiations get completely stuck, a new referendum is a possibility.

Not that I'm sure I want back in if Svarty and SD's attitudes are typical!

You will, provided you discover that it becomes easier to butter your bread.

[Svartalf]

You overestimate old enmities.

You overestimate the pervasiveness of Gallic vindictiveness. Even in France it has assumed the state of permanent abeyance. The frogs have been getting on very well with the krauts for many decades now, don't you think?

The thing is not only gallic vindictiveness... it's the fact that the UK has been a EU wide PITA. I'd not swear France would be the only obstacle to their coming back in if they asked... Plus I'm not sure there really is a bottom line stating they are better to have in than out... then again, my knowledge of economics and all that is not enough for me to really know.

and as for our former enmity with Germany, that's a newish thing... hatred of the Prussian started during the Napoleonic wars... before them, France avoided war with our Eastern Neighbours, we had enough trouble with the British adn the Spaniards.

[Hermit]

The EU would not be happy to reverse anything. UK has been a troublemaker for all of it's membership... most members are happy to be able to do without them. plus, the less players in the game, the easier it is to manage the community. I will take quite some time before old rancours get assuaged.

The EU will readmit the UK the very instant at which readmission is deemed to be of net benefit. Rancour will not feature in the decision-making process. The bottom line will.

Where as that been stated?

Nowhere. It's my prediction, which is based on what usually happens when money is involved.

Based on what?

Based on what usually happens when money is involved.

[Scot Dutchy]

This is the start of the column in our top paper written by one of the best journalists.

In de Haagse wandelgangen zei een collega-journalist over de Britten en hun Brexit: schop onder de kont en wegwezen. De ­Europese top in Salzburg van ­vorige week was daarvan de nette variant. EU-president Tusk bood Theresa May een taartje zonder kers aan. Anders gezegd, hou eens op met jullie irreële onderhandelingsvoorstellen. De intellectuele versie stond in de NRC, een ingezonden stuk van Luuk van Middelaar en Monika Sie van de Adviesraad Internationale Vraagstukken AIV. ‘Vaarwel Britten, het is tijd voor een nieuw Europa’, stond erboven.

My translation:

In the corridors of power in the Hague a fellow journalist said over the Brits and their Brexit: a kick under the bum and out. This was the more polite version from European top in Salzburg last week when EU-president Tusk offered May a cake without the cherry on top. In other words will you stop with your unreal negotiation proposals. The intellectual version was in the NRC (another top line Dutch newspaper) as an article from Luuk van Middelaar and Monika Sie sent to the Advisory Council on International Affairs of the Netherlands with title: "Farewell Brits, it is time for a new Europe".

This is now the general meaning held in most EU countries.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opini ... ~be0dee1b/

[Hermit]

You overestimate old enmities.

You overestimate the pervasiveness of Gallic vindictiveness. Even in France it has assumed the state of permanent abeyance. The frogs have been getting on very well with the krauts for many decades now, don't you think?

The thing is not only gallic vindictiveness... it's the fact that the UK has been a EU wide PITA. I'd not swear France would be the only obstacle to their coming back in if they asked... Plus I'm not sure there really is a bottom line stating they are better to have in than out... then again, my knowledge of economics and all that is not enough for me to really know.

and as for our former enmity with Germany, that's a newish thing... hatred of the Prussian started during the Napoleonic wars... before them, France avoided war with our Eastern Neighbours, we had enough trouble with the British adn the Spaniards.

From "old enmities" to "our former enmity with Germany, that's a newish thing" from one post to the next.

My guess is that you'll bring up more ancient wars between France and England. Don't bother. Franco-German wars precede them. They started not long after Karl der Große's death. He was German, by the way. The Franks were a western Germanic tribe and Karl der Große's throne was located in Aachen.

[Svartalf]

Well, the Franks were largely influenced by Gallo Roman culture by the time Charlemagne got to the Throne... like, 2 centuries and a half of influence... His reliance on Written Law (as accumulated in the many Cartularies he had assembled) was a particularly French trait already. and both his father Pepin the Short, and his grandson Karl der Kahle were "kings of the Franks" only West of the Rhine... but your right to a point, France as a state distinct from the Frankish Empire emerged only with Hugh I Capet, of the Robertian line well after the Grandsons of Karl der Grosse took the empire to small bits (essentially, France, Germany and Elsass-Lothringen) and the proper Caroline line had become extinct.

[Hermit]

Gallo Roman culture

Evidence for which consists of the Gallo-Roman emperor whose capital was Trier, Gallo-Roman figures found in Ingelheim am Rhein and what else? Just face it, Svarty. The Franks were a western Germanic tribe. Your attempt at gallicising them is, to put it charitably, amusing.

[Svartalf]

Karl der Grosse, whom you seem so fond of depicting a purely German was a huge Latinizing figure for what started as a Germanic tribe... he was the guy who insisted that all law must be written and made local law universal rather than each citizen being bound by the Law of his individual tribe, as had been the regimen under the Merovingians, who relied on monks (a definitely unGermanic institution), who developped Roman style Schooling system for the nobility... Previous kingdoms , including Merovingian (but even before Clovis I, some Germanic trib es, like the Burgunds had gone written law before)s had done some of it, he was the guy who made it systematic ... Franks had become Romanized during their domination of Gaul, and Karl is the perfect product of this.. heck, he descended of a family of hereditary Maiores Palatii... That's a job that has no purely German equivalent.

[Hermit]

Karl der Grosse, whom you seem so fond of depicting a purely German was a huge Latinizing figure for what started as a Germanic tribe...

Svarty, I'm just pulling your leg. The origin of "German" as well as "Gallic" was a fabrication by Iulius Caesar. He made the name of one of the dozens of tribes in each region east and west of the Rhine stand for all of the ones in their respective sides. To the surprise of nobody with two brain cells to rub together later personages of note exploited Caesar's summary generalisation to invent a heritage of nationhood. I presume you realise that the concept of "nation" is a relatively recent one. Before the American and the French revolutions there was no such thing. There were only kingdoms, principalities and fiefdoms - polities based on personal rule rather than social compacts.

[Svartalf]

man, German and Gallic DO have a reality; Gauls spoke a Brythonic Celtic language, or set thereof that were mostly intercomprehensible, and 'Germans' spoke Westic languages (the Goths came to the scene much later). Caesar did not make them up, even if he oversimplified for propaganda purposes... I'll grant, as a linguist by training and affinity, I do tend to see the affinity between tribes of similar linguistic heritage more than the differences (one day, I'll haveto go through a thorough linguistic and political history of Scandinavia, to see if Old Norse was a universal language there, or if it's just the Norwegian dialect that got imported to Iceland and used from the 10th century til present)

[JimC]

Alea iacta est...

[Hermit]

man, German and Gallic DO have a reality;

Of course they have. Each was one of several dozen of tribes that Caesar made stand for the lot. About 2000 years of water has flowed under the bridge since then, and 1200 years worth since Karl der Große, king of the Franks, yup, one of the Germanic tribes, died. To claim him for France or Germany today makes as much sense as claiming that Leonardo da Vinci was the founder of the helicopter industry.