Meanwhile in news from the 'through the looking-glass' land known as the EU:
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'Other EU leaders are ready to copy David Cameron’s referendum tactics for their own “egotistic goals”, the European Council president has said, as he sounded the alarm over populist politics bringing the bloc to the brink of “suicide”. Donald Tusk’s forthright warning on Wednesday came as he announced he was clearing his diary next week to concentrate on the “very fragile” talks on a “new settlement” for Britain, which will be discussed at an EU summit next week. – Financial Times - www.digitallook.com/news/press-round-up ... 31297.html
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The UK PM is in Europe trying to get some concessions from the EU. In short, a lot of Brits are feeling strangled by the undemocratic centralised monolith that is the EU, and they are angry at their loss of democracy.
[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Tusk
President of the European Council (EU 'upper chamber')
Former activist against the communist Polish regime
Poland - a long-time ally of the UK, esp. against Germany during WW2.]
So here is a man [Tusk] who rose due to his anti-authoritarianism, to lead the recently democratic Poland, accusing the democratically elected UK-PM who is simply acting on his citizen's will, of being 'egotistic'. But surely it's the reverse, surely he is simply doing his job of conveying the wishes of his electorate.
And once again, rather than there being any possibility of concessions, even the smallest ones, the spectre of such causing the 'suicide' of the entire EU is suggested. [Shaking head] - well, at least you don't have to wonder any longer why anti-EU sentiment is growing so widely across Europe; it's like trying to negotiate the people's will vs a communist super-power.
Anyway, the outcome of these talks will be the same as usual. The EU might concede something superficial, so, not a rolling back of their powers, but perhaps a brief delay in implementing further future integration policies. At least for now, the EU will probably U-turn on any such promises in future, that is how arrogant and undemocratic they are.
And Cameron; well he is quietly pro-EU himself whilst trying to appeal to populism by pretending to be one of the undecided. So once again he'll return to Britain clutching some worthless and reversible micro-concession, exclaiming what a huge battle he fought and huge victory he managed to win vs the EU. We've heard it so many times before, no one believes it any more, and disdain for the EU just grows even more.
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'This is exactly the tonic that the populists have been waiting for. Despite their dramatic emergence, they have so far failed to make a real breakthrough. The SNP was unable to win the Scottish referendum and the National Front didn’t gain a single region in France. Mariano Rajoy remains Spain’s prime minister, and anti-establishment parties have been thwarted in Germany. Even lighter forms of populism, such as Ed Miliband’s [UK], were rejected. Syriza’s victory in Greece was one of the few genuine populist triumphs; but it was soon crushed by the combined might of Brussels and Frankfurt.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... ow-it.html
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So much for democracy in Europe. An irony is that by the day the EU increasingly resembles some authoritarian super-state, much like the collapsed Soviet Union once was.