Re:UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold...
by Silhouette on Tuesday April 18, 2017 @03:43PM
(#14142209)
I agree that certain forms of nationalism and an aggressive Russia are real and significant concerns, but I don't see how Brexit is going to make much difference to either of them.
There were always unpleasant people using nationalism as cover for doing unpleasant things, even though the current sentiment in many western countries has brought them a higher profile. They're still a relatively small minority, they've never amounted to much before, and I don't see them achieving much in the long term either, even if they cause nasty irritation for a while. More generally, broader nationalist sentiment might lead to a more isolationist foreign policy for a while, with the pros and cons that brings, but talk of that getting us into a war any time in the near future seems hyperbolic.
Russian aggression in Eastern Europe seems a greater and more urgent threat in terms of geopolitical stability, but then NATO seems a more likely forum to moderate that influence than the EU. Given that even NATO has had a limited effect on Putin so far, I don't see the UK's membership or otherwise of the EU making much difference to anything in this respect. With the US not knowing what its foreign policy is from one day to the next under Trump and with many of the other relatively powerful European nations systematically underinvesting in defence for years, I think there are much more influential factors that would need to change here before Brexit started to have much relevance in this context.
Meanwhile, with the tuition fees and student loans system we now have and with current inflation rates, we're talking about crippling around half of a whole generation economically, possibly for their entire lives. I'm already somewhat concerned that inequality and generational conflict could lead to widespread disorder within the next few years here at home, regardless of anything going on abroad. The effects of Brexit surely wouldn't help with that, but I don't believe any outcome in relation to Brexit (including completely stopping it) would fix these deep problems in our own society or their long term consequences either.
There were always unpleasant people using nationalism as cover for doing unpleasant things, even though the current sentiment in many western countries has brought them a higher profile. They're still a relatively small minority, they've never amounted to much before, and I don't see them achieving much in the long term either, even if they cause nasty irritation for a while. More generally, broader nationalist sentiment might lead to a more isolationist foreign policy for a while, with the pros and cons that brings, but talk of that getting us into a war any time in the near future seems hyperbolic.
Russian aggression in Eastern Europe seems a greater and more urgent threat in terms of geopolitical stability, but then NATO seems a more likely forum to moderate that influence than the EU. Given that even NATO has had a limited effect on Putin so far, I don't see the UK's membership or otherwise of the EU making much difference to anything in this respect. With the US not knowing what its foreign policy is from one day to the next under Trump and with many of the other relatively powerful European nations systematically underinvesting in defence for years, I think there are much more influential factors that would need to change here before Brexit started to have much relevance in this context.
Meanwhile, with the tuition fees and student loans system we now have and with current inflation rates, we're talking about crippling around half of a whole generation economically, possibly for their entire lives. I'm already somewhat concerned that inequality and generational conflict could lead to widespread disorder within the next few years here at home, regardless of anything going on abroad. The effects of Brexit surely wouldn't help with that, but I don't believe any outcome in relation to Brexit (including completely stopping it) would fix these deep problems in our own society or their long term consequences either.