Britain’s vote to leave the European Union has started the bloc’s “disintegration”, Italy’s minister for European affairs has said.
Sandro Gozi, an ally of outgoing Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, said his country was facing a “period of uncertainty” following the vote this weekend to reject a planned constitutional reform.
The centre-left Democratic Party minister argued that the referendum defeat represented a missed opportunity to reform European institutionus [sic] and save the EU from falling apart.
“I think that the beginning of European disintegration has started with Brexit,” Mr Gozi told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Well, if he’s right, then Britain, in the fine tradition of Lord Wellesley and Churchill, have done Europe a favour.
No, no, that’s fine, don’t thank us, guys…
Oh, and note the use of language of late. The left wins, it’s democracy, the right wins it’s populism…
I don’t think it’s left or right, it’s universal.
A party gets elected to govern, even if it had the best intentions once incumbent it is confronted by the brick wall of establishment, empires have been built, palms have been greased, all this has to be protected.
Yes we hear what you say as the newly elected governing party but you can’t do that as it would in direct conflict of rule four, paragraph three, subsection B, clause twelve.
The ongoing constraints are to work within the rules, what we need is statesmen or women to call out the rules and say this is how it’s going to be.
In order to resume any form democratic state we would need to shave off the top layers of bureaucracy on every change of government, not going to happen, we have a system, I don’t know what you would call it but anyone who thinks it’s democracy is seriously delusional.
Further, let’s actually recognise what democracy is: It’s a position held by the majority.
Democracy to governments is a majority position held by the populace that the government agree with is democracy in action. A majority position they don’t agree with is dismissed as mob rule.
Just think, if we had actual democracy there would be no unlimited immigration, we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq or Afghanistan, we wouldn’t have relinquished our governance to the eu, the list is near endless.
I don’t know if UKIP are the answer but what I am sure of is if we don’t have the courage to change something nothing is going to change. The established parties are working to an agenda………..and it isn’t ours.
Only too happy to help out! Another favour owed to old Blighty!
If the European Union was such a great idea, it wouldn’t have anything to fear from so called populist movements. The reason that these movements are popular is because it is belatedly dawning on people that they are being screwed. People have been saying that the EU is in need of reform for decades now. It is rather sad that it has taken them so long to realise that the people running the EU don’t want it reformed, they are quite happy with it being undemocratic and with no real control over where all the money goes. The plebs have finally noticed that they are having their pockets picked by people that they soon won’t be able to vote out.
The seeds of the EU’s demise are built into its construction. Like all the previous multi-state alliances before it, they’re finding out that you can’t weld disparate cultures together over a mere fifty years, it takes centuries, and even then there is no guarantee that they will hold together unaided. Even the Holy Roman Empire eventually went away. It is an incontrovertible fact of History that all Empires fall. No use blaming the Brits, that’s like blaming a bit or rough skin for the fact your patients fingers are already dropping off with Leprosy.
Agreed, Bill. Some years ago (do stop me if I’ve told this story before …) I was sitting in my local pub talking to a good friend who just happened to be a History teacher in the local school. The conversation turned to the European Union. Now, back then, I and my OH were the only people we knew who harboured any reservations at all about the EU. It was, I’d say, getting on for 15 years ago, and most people simply didn’t give the EU a second’s thought or, if they did, they didn’t say much about it. We were regarded by most of our acquaintances as something not far removed from conspiracy theorists whenever we started on about all the faults and failings of the EU. Most people saw the EU as an irrelevant bureaucracy which, to be honest, didn’t really affect them very much.
Anyway, this conversation turned to the European Union, and, just out of interest, I asked my friend what he thought about the EU. His answer was swift and unequivocal. “It’ll fail,” he stated simply. When I queried why that might be (seeing as that seemed like such an unlikely prospect back then), he explained that he saw things from a historical perspective and that, just as you say, Bill, no expanding (and expansive) empire down through history had ever lasted. All had gone through the same stages – starting fairly innocuously but enthusiastically as a small entity, gradually growing in power, then often swiftly expanding beyond its original means, before finally, like an over-used piece of material, starting to fray at the edges. “The rot always starts at the outer edges,” he said. “Both metaphorically and geographically, because that’s where the Empire – whatever Empire you’re talking about – has least to offer the people and has least physical control.” When I asked, rather hopefully, when this “fraying” might start – expecting him to say “about a century or so,” he replied instead: “Oh, it’ll probably be due to start some time in the next 10 years.”
OK, so he was five years or so out. But not a bad prediction, though, was it?
I’m not sure he was five years out. I’d say he was bang on the money.
“Populism” is the left’s new smear word for when voters actually start demanding and voting for things that will benefit them. Who on earth told them they could vote for that?
“referendum defeat represented a missed opportunity to reform European institutionus”
What is she on about, the referendum was about the Italian constitution, nothing to do with European institutions.
They just twist and lie about everything, don’t they. And they still don’t understand that there has been a political earthquake and that things will never be the same again, and that their days as a comfortable elite are coming to an end…