Britain has left the European Union in all but name

The Telegraph ^ | 10/23/2012 | Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

[bruinbirdman]

To all intents and purposes, the UK is already out. We stayed still. Europe galloped away without us.

No doubt we can find some elegant formula to paper over the split. As my friend Daniel Hannan puts it, we could devise a Swiss arrangement while pretending that we are still EU members. No point frightening the horses.

For those readers who missed it, the UK is preparing to pull out of almost all areas of "Justice and Home Affairs", the so-called Pillar III of EU jurisdiction. (Pillar I is the single market, and Pillar II is foreign affairs)

This is revolutionary. We are withdrawing from 130 directives, covering everything from the European Arrest Warrant, the European Public Prosecutor, to the European justice department (Eurojust).

Luckily, Tony Blair negotiated the right to a mass opt-out on this Pillar III corpus to be exercised before it all becomes justiciable at the European Court (ECJ) in 2014, a move that would transform the ECJ into Britain's supreme court. (The same ECJ that rubber-stamped the rights violations of Connolly, Andreasen and Tillack, and against which there is no further appeal.)

We did so on the grounds that the UK's Common Law foundation requires special treatment, but nobody really thought at the time that we would use the opt-out. It was a sop to placate people like us at The Daily Telegraph until the Lisbon storm had passed.

Well, it turns out that Theresa May is opting out. Some say she will have to opt back in immediately to almost all of it. We will see about that.

The withdrawal from the insidious arrest warrant gives me particular pleasure. I covered the legislation as it rolled through the Brussels and Strasbourg machine years ago.

We were told categorically that it was to

[Eaker]

Um, yes.

[the scotsman]

You honestly think Britain vacated its position as world superpower because of 1776-83?. You think winning that war made America a world power or THE world power?.

If you do, think again.

Britain’s Empire would expand from 1783 to 1939. After the war in America, British power would never be greater than it would be in the next century and beyond. The British Empire was the greatest power on earth until the Second World War.

To be blunt, overall losing America was just a blip.

[Eaker]

Feel free to believe that.

[Lazamataz]

You lost and we won. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

[the scotsman]

Its not belief, its fact.

You cannot seriously argue that the British Empire stopped being no 1 because of one defeat. Especially when British power and the British Empire got much BIGGER and stronger in the years after that defeat.

When the Empire lost America, it has barely conquered India, hadnt conquered Asia (Hong Kong, Burma etc), and Africa

50 years after the American victory, Britain ruled India, SE Asia, Afghanistan, most of Asia. 100 years later, it ruled almost all of the Middle East and most of Africa as well.

Britain was THE political and financial powerhouse, the only superpower on earth, had the world’s largest navy, produced most of the great Western culture (esp. literature)

By comparison, America was a relatively minor power. Certainly not comparable to either Britain or France. Even the Dutch had more power, with their Empire stretching to Java and Sumatra.

Are you aware that even as late as 1917, half of all American troops carried to Europe for WW1 had to be carried on ROYAL NAVY ships?. And all American troops carried from Britain to France were carried on RN ships.

Are you aware that in 1917-18, American forces in France had no tanks, airplanes and heavy artillery of their own?. A fact even superpatriotic historians like the late Stephen Ambrose admitted. The Doughboys relied on British and French tanks, planes and heavy artillery. And US troops were given combat training in France by British and French officers.

Until WW2, Britain was still THE major world power, in every sense. Militarally, politically, culturally and most of all financially. ONLY with WW2, and the near bankruptcy of Britain due to the war, did the torch pass to America.

You dont honestly think that because America won the war in 1783, that that automatically made America THE world superpower and more powerful than the British?.

By that logic, because the Romans occasionally got mauled, the Roman Empire stopped and never ruled for hundreds of years.

[Eaker]

I hope you have protested enough to convince yourself as my mind remains unchanged.

It was damn sure the beginning of the end and if America hadn’t ramped up in a fashion that Britain could only dream about you would be speaking German had your ancestors survived.

[the scotsman]

Oh dear, the youd be speaking German crap.

You should take up comedy.

[Eaker]

Comedy works best with an audience which possess both a sense of humor and intelligence,

This certainly isn’t the thread for it.

[Cronos]

Britain was THE superpower right up until the late 1800s, then it was challenged by the US, Germany, Russia to some extent

It was only knocked off top position by the US as a result of WWI (though this would have probably happened in any case over time as the UK stagnated from the Edwardian age)

[Cronos]

losing the American colonies wasn't the beginning of the end. Rather it was the end of the beginning :)

The Brits first expanded into North America

This ended partially in the late 1700s (Canada was still retained)

They also looked on the American colonies as a place for Brits to migrate to, not to have Germans etc. coming in. So the chances of the expansion to the west were lesser as they were challenged by the French and Spanish (remember the Louisiana purchase was really because Napoleon conquered Spain -- in fact in the Treaty of Vienna, there was talk of it being handed back to Spain)

you, Eaker, on the other hand are talking about WWI. the US involvement was critical more for it's significance rather than with its actuality -- by this I mean that the number of US soldiers and involvement was useful, but more than useful was it's impact -- it told the Germans that though they had bled the French and the Brits, there was more available fresh manpower from the US

The German military realized this and sued for peace even though German soldiers were all outside Germany (which led to the "stab-in-the-back" theory

Here's a controversial idea -- if the US didn't join in, the war would have ended in 1918 with German borders on the west the same, but expanded on the east, with a collapsed austro-hungary and an expanded Turkey (into Russia, not the Balkans)

There is no way that the Germans would have invaded Britain -- their natural leibensraum and what they wanted was in the east or at best against France

[Cronos]

That’s not fair — the scotsman is correct about your post exaggerating about “speaking German” — in neither I nor II was that a definite possibility — in I, as I described above, the Germans dind’t have the means and in II, they stupidly took on the Soviets in ‘41