The English voters' (not so much Scottish voters') decision to leave the European Union has certain implications for the United Kingdom that has preserved its independence, sovereignty, and democracy in this way. I think that even the consequences for the U.K. are being overestimated – I do think that the departure from the EU is a smaller change than e.g. Slovakia's departure from Czechoslovakia because the latter was a real country while the EU is not. The EU began to influence many aspects of the Europeans' lives but it is still deciding about a few percent of the GDP only etc. (and about a small part of non-economic issues, too). So although I often say bad things about the EU, I think it's a smaller deal for the citizens of the U.K. than the dissolution of Czechoslovakia was for us.
Yes, the United Kingdom will liberate itself from some decisions done by Brussels bureaucrats. But in practice, the effect of this change on the life of almost everybody is very small because the bureaucrats and ideologues in London don't differ from their counterparts in Brussels too much. After all, Britain has sent many sons and daughters to the EU headquarters and they were stauncher Eurocrats than many others – such as their Czech counterparts.
Britain is also a key country whose climatological institutions were the template from which the IPCC was created, along with the climate hysteria. Britain is also a home to many multiculturalists. Like Germany, it's largely a welcoming country – one that had no problem to pick an ethnic Pakistani as the mayor of the capital (whether you think it's great or not so great).
My point is that the decisions will be done more locally and more democratically once the United Kingdom leaves the EU. This will improve the feedbacks and the accountability of the politicians and the voters' ability to correct mistakes. But the content of all these decisions won't differ much – and the differences from the EU decisions will fluctuate in "both directions", if you get my point.
But at the end, the political effect of this divorce on the rest of the EU (I don't want to believe there will be any significant economic effect) may be equally profound if not more so. The Englishmen have shown a possible way to go to many other European nations and the Brussels and Strasbourg hierarchy cannot overlook that the Europeans have already tasted the forbidden apple.
I did think that the Bremain result was more likely. I was wrong and so were many fans of the EU who felt much more confident than I was that the independence efforts would be killed. This confidence was visible at many places. One way to see the confidence was through the threats that the British voters were served.
Just days ago, Jean-Claude Juncker happily informed the Britons that the relationships with the EU would be really bad if they decided to leave. "Out is out," they were told. Some month or two earlier, even Barack Obama threatened the U.K. with some consequences for trade. Britain was going to be so small that America would overlook it and it wouldn't have any good trade treaties with Britain and so on, the Britons were warned.
Thankfully, once the decision was made, we were assured that all these people were simply bullÅ¡iting. Juncker, Obama, and others have implicitly confirmed that they were just unsuccessfully trying to help the Remain side by lies. But all these lies have already been abandoned. Obama, Merkel, Juncker, Tusk, and others have made it clear that they respect the result of the referendum – how they could not – and they're going to preserve close relationships both with the EU and the U.K., whenever applicable.
So no one who is important enough is planning any war or a sabotage campaign against the United Kingdom. Thank God. This job may be left to our Muslim friends.
However, the Euroskeptics in many countries of the remaining EU27 have been greatly encouraged. A table shows someone's opinion about the most likely countries of EU27 that may leave after Britain. Czechia – with its Czexit that began to be called Czech-out only today (a word that sports journalists have used dozens of times before) – and Denmark are labeled as "code red".
Denmark is listed as "red" because a patriotic pro-people party DF has about 17% and may want to introduce its Danexit bill. Czechia is probably more red. The table only lists the Parliamentary (basically unreformed) communist party with its 15% and three UKIP-like parties with 3% each as the "drivers" (one of them is the Party of Free Citizens; its chairman Petr Mach, a member of the European Parliament whom I said "hi" on Sunday, said that he would be honored to lead the Czech-out campaign today).
But this description is way too EU-optimistic. In reality, several other parties could easily turn into full-fledged supporters of the Czech-out. That includes ODS, the Klaus-founded (but no longer too close to Klaus) currently center-right party that nominally wants to preserve the EU but has lots and lots of complaints about the solutions adopted by the EU in recent years. The finance minister and billionaire Babiš (and his ANO/YES party of the Führer type that is obliged to be obedient to him) actually has opinions on the EU close enough to ODS and others, too. I actually "liked" 3 tweets of him on Twitter today.
Social democracy in the government, its small KDU coalition partner, and TOP09 in the opposition are seemingly strongly pro-EU. But many of their lawmakers could still be capable of approving a referendum. A month or two ago, the lawmakers already scheduled a discussion about the Czech-out referendum. Because of a shortage of time, this item wasn't discussed at the end... A referendum could end with a 70% result for Czech-out. Once such a referendum were scheduled, it could be a done deal. Even though we don't have any sizable portion of the immigrants here, over 95% of Czechs were terrified by the EU approach to this issue and it would almost certainly be the most important (albeit not quite unique) driver of the Leave vote.
The table lists Austria (with Oustria), Netherlands (Nexit), Finland (Finnish), Poland, Hungary, and Sweden as "code orange". Other countries such as Portugal (the exit is known as Departugal or Portugone) and Italy (exit: Italeave) are absent. There are various political forces that could support the exit from the EU in those countries. But you should understand that each of these countries is very different. Especially if you're American, you may misunderstand the fact that e.g. the difference between Czechia and Poland is vastly larger than the difference between Texas and Arizona. For example, a referendum in Poland would almost certainly say Remain, in a striking contrast with Czechia. Poles like to view themselves as some important components of the Western European or trans-Atlantic power blocs. We the Czechs mostly don't because 1) we have our suspicions about the perfection of our more Western friends and everybody else, 2) we have even greater doubts about our importance and the question whether we matter for anyone else. Although Czechia is ahead of Poland in numerous respects, it's simply not popular for us to pretend to be a regional power or things like that.
The table claims that Germany and France (exit: Fraurevoir) are safely in the EU and no exit could be approved anytime soon. I am not so sure about France.
At any rate, there is a potential for the domino effect. What can the EU officials afford to do in the near future?
I believe that certain deeply unpopular EU policies, especially those involving the forced Islamization of the continent, will have to stop or become voluntary if the EU leaders don't want to turn the dissolution of the rest of the EU to the question of "merely when". (None of these programs has worked so far, anyway.) If someone in Brussels will repeat his or her request for the EU countries to pay a €250,000 fine for an immigrant "assigned" to the country that the country rejected, the Euroskeptics in Czechia and elsewhere will be instantly activated. Be sure that on similar sensitive matters, they enjoy the support from millions of people who are otherwise not interested in refined ideological disputes.
In Brussels, most of the officials may believe that it's politically incorrect to suggest that the fine shouldn't be paid. But the reality is that in whole countries – that are credibly capable of following in the British footsteps – it's the other way around. It's the fine that is politically incorrect in V4 and elsewhere, or the very suggestion that Europe should be Islamized according to an intentional plan.
As long as it could have been assumed that no dissolution was realistically possible, the would-be EU elites could have pictured all the people who disagree with them as lunatics, Hitlers who returned from a fattening station, and so on. But the Brexit referendum has changed that. I think that the would-be EU elites were reminded that these people are voters who may simply leave the EU if they are really dissatisfied with something that is fundamental enough for them. The would-be EU elite have often acted that they have the absolute power but it's clear once again that they don't. It's rather straightforward to tell them [an expletive].
However, I believe that the Islamic migration wave isn't the only possible theme that may ignite new waves of secession from the EU. Pretty generally, the Euroskeptics can no longer be treated as psychopaths.
In the United Kingdom, the Euroskeptics turned out to be a majority. But in an average EU member country, the Euroskeptics still represent a percentage of the population whose size is comparable to 50%. This is a fundamental fact that the EU elites loved to deny and obfuscate. But I think it is no longer possible to obfuscate it. Polls in the EU countries indicate that the opposition against the EU could be above 50% in some 50% of the EU member states.
Let me say that it's not "totally painful" when the approval rate of a political organization – a party or the EU – drops to 50% or below 50%. Nobody can be beloved by everyone else. But the problem with the EU is that due to the democratic deficit, its basic ideology has been unchangeable. When it's so, a decrease of the approval rate below 50% is simply a huge problem. It's as bad as if a majority of a nation says that they hate their country. To hate a particular party or a politician that can be replaced by another is OK but to hate the whole long-term project such as a country or the (unchangeable) EU is a big problem.
A lesson should be obvious. To make the EU acceptable to a percentage of the EU countries' citizens that may be sustained above 50%, the Euroskeptics simply must be treated as legitimate citizens who must also have their representation in the EU structures (and not just the impotent EU Parliament). The Czech member in the EU commission Ms Věra Jourová told us that so far, an EU regulation says that every new EU commissioner has to undergo lobotomy. Her brain is removed along with all traces of her national identity and she's turned into a Euronaive obedient zombie (the salary is great so many people think it's worth it). That's simply the current practice performed by the Belgian surgeons.
The Brexit referendum makes it rather obvious that people should be allowed to serve as EU commissioners even if they haven't undergone the lobotomy.
I urge Tusk, Juncker, and others: Tear down this wall. You simply have to start a perestroika followed by a Velvet Revolution. It could be a good idea to fire Juncker and ask Prof Václav Klaus to serve as the chairman of the EU commission, as a representative of Euroskeptics from the EU27. He is widely respected, experienced, was responsible for the successful post-communist transformation of the Czechoslovak economy as well as the Velvet Divorce with Slovakia (which could he helpful to deal with the departure of the U.K.), and doesn't produce any "extreme" views.
On Monday, Merkel will host Hollande, Renzi, and Tusk in Berlin. Tusk is meant to represent the EU27. Merkel, Hollande, and Renzi are leaders of the 3 Western European powers that signed the Munich Treaty. Well, you may object that there were four of them. Right. But note that Chamberlain was just replaced by a Churchill so one of the Munich signatories has been subtracted. (Funnily, Klaus or someone proposed an analogy of Brexit with the Chamberlain-to-Churchill replacement independently of me.)
I think that it's unfortunate for Merkel to try to continue with this old "Brezhnev" politics especially now when the Reich failed to secure the British Islands. ;-) Frau Merkel, assuming that you don't want to follow your predecessor's act on April 30th, 1945, why don't you invite a representative of the European Euroskeptics such as Prof Klaus as well? The independent United Kingdom which will arguably be just fine outside the EU will remain visible to all other Europeans in coming years. You can't make this role model disappear.
You simply need to open the European Union to all citizens of the EU member countries including the Euroskeptics – which may be something like 50% of the population. And you need to start to talk to these people. These people's voice simply must be heard when it's being decided how the EU should operate and whether certain decisions and processes should be kept or moved to the EU level at all.
If you allow me to use the jargon of the ecoterrorists, the dirty technologies to govern the European Union that we were witnessing in recent years are no longer sustainable. As the "moderately pro-EU" Czech PM Sobotka (who is nominally disappointed by the Brexit result) said today, the European Union should better change quickly. Another old-fashioned meeting of Merkel, Hollande, Renzi, and Tusk seems like you're losing time and you're bringing the domino effect closer.
It's a new epoch and it requires a new kind of behavior.
Yes, the United Kingdom will liberate itself from some decisions done by Brussels bureaucrats. But in practice, the effect of this change on the life of almost everybody is very small because the bureaucrats and ideologues in London don't differ from their counterparts in Brussels too much. After all, Britain has sent many sons and daughters to the EU headquarters and they were stauncher Eurocrats than many others – such as their Czech counterparts.
Britain is also a key country whose climatological institutions were the template from which the IPCC was created, along with the climate hysteria. Britain is also a home to many multiculturalists. Like Germany, it's largely a welcoming country – one that had no problem to pick an ethnic Pakistani as the mayor of the capital (whether you think it's great or not so great).
My point is that the decisions will be done more locally and more democratically once the United Kingdom leaves the EU. This will improve the feedbacks and the accountability of the politicians and the voters' ability to correct mistakes. But the content of all these decisions won't differ much – and the differences from the EU decisions will fluctuate in "both directions", if you get my point.
But at the end, the political effect of this divorce on the rest of the EU (I don't want to believe there will be any significant economic effect) may be equally profound if not more so. The Englishmen have shown a possible way to go to many other European nations and the Brussels and Strasbourg hierarchy cannot overlook that the Europeans have already tasted the forbidden apple.
I did think that the Bremain result was more likely. I was wrong and so were many fans of the EU who felt much more confident than I was that the independence efforts would be killed. This confidence was visible at many places. One way to see the confidence was through the threats that the British voters were served.
Just days ago, Jean-Claude Juncker happily informed the Britons that the relationships with the EU would be really bad if they decided to leave. "Out is out," they were told. Some month or two earlier, even Barack Obama threatened the U.K. with some consequences for trade. Britain was going to be so small that America would overlook it and it wouldn't have any good trade treaties with Britain and so on, the Britons were warned.
Thankfully, once the decision was made, we were assured that all these people were simply bullÅ¡iting. Juncker, Obama, and others have implicitly confirmed that they were just unsuccessfully trying to help the Remain side by lies. But all these lies have already been abandoned. Obama, Merkel, Juncker, Tusk, and others have made it clear that they respect the result of the referendum – how they could not – and they're going to preserve close relationships both with the EU and the U.K., whenever applicable.
So no one who is important enough is planning any war or a sabotage campaign against the United Kingdom. Thank God. This job may be left to our Muslim friends.
However, the Euroskeptics in many countries of the remaining EU27 have been greatly encouraged. A table shows someone's opinion about the most likely countries of EU27 that may leave after Britain. Czechia – with its Czexit that began to be called Czech-out only today (a word that sports journalists have used dozens of times before) – and Denmark are labeled as "code red".
Denmark is listed as "red" because a patriotic pro-people party DF has about 17% and may want to introduce its Danexit bill. Czechia is probably more red. The table only lists the Parliamentary (basically unreformed) communist party with its 15% and three UKIP-like parties with 3% each as the "drivers" (one of them is the Party of Free Citizens; its chairman Petr Mach, a member of the European Parliament whom I said "hi" on Sunday, said that he would be honored to lead the Czech-out campaign today).
But this description is way too EU-optimistic. In reality, several other parties could easily turn into full-fledged supporters of the Czech-out. That includes ODS, the Klaus-founded (but no longer too close to Klaus) currently center-right party that nominally wants to preserve the EU but has lots and lots of complaints about the solutions adopted by the EU in recent years. The finance minister and billionaire Babiš (and his ANO/YES party of the Führer type that is obliged to be obedient to him) actually has opinions on the EU close enough to ODS and others, too. I actually "liked" 3 tweets of him on Twitter today.
Social democracy in the government, its small KDU coalition partner, and TOP09 in the opposition are seemingly strongly pro-EU. But many of their lawmakers could still be capable of approving a referendum. A month or two ago, the lawmakers already scheduled a discussion about the Czech-out referendum. Because of a shortage of time, this item wasn't discussed at the end... A referendum could end with a 70% result for Czech-out. Once such a referendum were scheduled, it could be a done deal. Even though we don't have any sizable portion of the immigrants here, over 95% of Czechs were terrified by the EU approach to this issue and it would almost certainly be the most important (albeit not quite unique) driver of the Leave vote.
The table lists Austria (with Oustria), Netherlands (Nexit), Finland (Finnish), Poland, Hungary, and Sweden as "code orange". Other countries such as Portugal (the exit is known as Departugal or Portugone) and Italy (exit: Italeave) are absent. There are various political forces that could support the exit from the EU in those countries. But you should understand that each of these countries is very different. Especially if you're American, you may misunderstand the fact that e.g. the difference between Czechia and Poland is vastly larger than the difference between Texas and Arizona. For example, a referendum in Poland would almost certainly say Remain, in a striking contrast with Czechia. Poles like to view themselves as some important components of the Western European or trans-Atlantic power blocs. We the Czechs mostly don't because 1) we have our suspicions about the perfection of our more Western friends and everybody else, 2) we have even greater doubts about our importance and the question whether we matter for anyone else. Although Czechia is ahead of Poland in numerous respects, it's simply not popular for us to pretend to be a regional power or things like that.
The table claims that Germany and France (exit: Fraurevoir) are safely in the EU and no exit could be approved anytime soon. I am not so sure about France.
At any rate, there is a potential for the domino effect. What can the EU officials afford to do in the near future?
I believe that certain deeply unpopular EU policies, especially those involving the forced Islamization of the continent, will have to stop or become voluntary if the EU leaders don't want to turn the dissolution of the rest of the EU to the question of "merely when". (None of these programs has worked so far, anyway.) If someone in Brussels will repeat his or her request for the EU countries to pay a €250,000 fine for an immigrant "assigned" to the country that the country rejected, the Euroskeptics in Czechia and elsewhere will be instantly activated. Be sure that on similar sensitive matters, they enjoy the support from millions of people who are otherwise not interested in refined ideological disputes.
In Brussels, most of the officials may believe that it's politically incorrect to suggest that the fine shouldn't be paid. But the reality is that in whole countries – that are credibly capable of following in the British footsteps – it's the other way around. It's the fine that is politically incorrect in V4 and elsewhere, or the very suggestion that Europe should be Islamized according to an intentional plan.
As long as it could have been assumed that no dissolution was realistically possible, the would-be EU elites could have pictured all the people who disagree with them as lunatics, Hitlers who returned from a fattening station, and so on. But the Brexit referendum has changed that. I think that the would-be EU elites were reminded that these people are voters who may simply leave the EU if they are really dissatisfied with something that is fundamental enough for them. The would-be EU elite have often acted that they have the absolute power but it's clear once again that they don't. It's rather straightforward to tell them [an expletive].
However, I believe that the Islamic migration wave isn't the only possible theme that may ignite new waves of secession from the EU. Pretty generally, the Euroskeptics can no longer be treated as psychopaths.
In the United Kingdom, the Euroskeptics turned out to be a majority. But in an average EU member country, the Euroskeptics still represent a percentage of the population whose size is comparable to 50%. This is a fundamental fact that the EU elites loved to deny and obfuscate. But I think it is no longer possible to obfuscate it. Polls in the EU countries indicate that the opposition against the EU could be above 50% in some 50% of the EU member states.
Let me say that it's not "totally painful" when the approval rate of a political organization – a party or the EU – drops to 50% or below 50%. Nobody can be beloved by everyone else. But the problem with the EU is that due to the democratic deficit, its basic ideology has been unchangeable. When it's so, a decrease of the approval rate below 50% is simply a huge problem. It's as bad as if a majority of a nation says that they hate their country. To hate a particular party or a politician that can be replaced by another is OK but to hate the whole long-term project such as a country or the (unchangeable) EU is a big problem.
A lesson should be obvious. To make the EU acceptable to a percentage of the EU countries' citizens that may be sustained above 50%, the Euroskeptics simply must be treated as legitimate citizens who must also have their representation in the EU structures (and not just the impotent EU Parliament). The Czech member in the EU commission Ms Věra Jourová told us that so far, an EU regulation says that every new EU commissioner has to undergo lobotomy. Her brain is removed along with all traces of her national identity and she's turned into a Euronaive obedient zombie (the salary is great so many people think it's worth it). That's simply the current practice performed by the Belgian surgeons.
The Brexit referendum makes it rather obvious that people should be allowed to serve as EU commissioners even if they haven't undergone the lobotomy.
I urge Tusk, Juncker, and others: Tear down this wall. You simply have to start a perestroika followed by a Velvet Revolution. It could be a good idea to fire Juncker and ask Prof Václav Klaus to serve as the chairman of the EU commission, as a representative of Euroskeptics from the EU27. He is widely respected, experienced, was responsible for the successful post-communist transformation of the Czechoslovak economy as well as the Velvet Divorce with Slovakia (which could he helpful to deal with the departure of the U.K.), and doesn't produce any "extreme" views.
On Monday, Merkel will host Hollande, Renzi, and Tusk in Berlin. Tusk is meant to represent the EU27. Merkel, Hollande, and Renzi are leaders of the 3 Western European powers that signed the Munich Treaty. Well, you may object that there were four of them. Right. But note that Chamberlain was just replaced by a Churchill so one of the Munich signatories has been subtracted. (Funnily, Klaus or someone proposed an analogy of Brexit with the Chamberlain-to-Churchill replacement independently of me.)
I think that it's unfortunate for Merkel to try to continue with this old "Brezhnev" politics especially now when the Reich failed to secure the British Islands. ;-) Frau Merkel, assuming that you don't want to follow your predecessor's act on April 30th, 1945, why don't you invite a representative of the European Euroskeptics such as Prof Klaus as well? The independent United Kingdom which will arguably be just fine outside the EU will remain visible to all other Europeans in coming years. You can't make this role model disappear.
You simply need to open the European Union to all citizens of the EU member countries including the Euroskeptics – which may be something like 50% of the population. And you need to start to talk to these people. These people's voice simply must be heard when it's being decided how the EU should operate and whether certain decisions and processes should be kept or moved to the EU level at all.
If you allow me to use the jargon of the ecoterrorists, the dirty technologies to govern the European Union that we were witnessing in recent years are no longer sustainable. As the "moderately pro-EU" Czech PM Sobotka (who is nominally disappointed by the Brexit result) said today, the European Union should better change quickly. Another old-fashioned meeting of Merkel, Hollande, Renzi, and Tusk seems like you're losing time and you're bringing the domino effect closer.
It's a new epoch and it requires a new kind of behavior.
An arrogant centralized EU is no longer sustainable
![An arrogant centralized EU is no longer sustainable]()
Reviewed by MCH
on
June 24, 2016
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