Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has launched an attack on David Cameron for "isolating" the UK in Europe with his veto of changes to the EU treaty.

Sources close to the Liberal Democrat leader said he did not feel the failed eurozone crisis negotiations had resulted in a good deal for the UK.

The BBC understands Mr Clegg was dismayed when he was woken early on Friday to hear of the PM's decision.

Initially Mr Clegg said the coalition government was united in its position.

But now sources close to him have confirmed that he "doesn't think this is a good deal for Britain".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16129004

Britain's hard-pressed manufacturers have expressed growing unease that the financial sector was defended in EuropeDavid Cameron at the expense of Britain's industrial interests. by

Steelmakers fear the UK could lose its "leadership" position on issues such as deregulation and competitiveness, while other manufacturers fear a growing isolatrion from a key market.

"In the short term it should make no difference as all the [EU] structures are in place, but across [the] longer term … we are going to become less relevant in political decision-making," said Ian Rodgers, director of the trade body UK Steel.

The domestic metals industry is dominated by foreign firms such as Tata, of India, and Celsa, from Spain, which would have made their investments in Britain on the basis that the UK was a key part of the European community, Rodgers added.

Up to 40% of UK steel exports go to the continent.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/11/uk-industry-fears-eu-treaty

The split at the top of the Coalition deepened yesterday when Nick Clegg boycotted David Cameron's Commons statement on Europe and the two men clashed over Britain's next moves in its bitter dispute with the rest of the EU.

The Prime Minister and his deputy are at odds over whether the Government should move quickly to rebuild bridges with the 26 other European Union countries after Britain was left isolated at last week's Brussels summit.

In an astonishing gesture, Mr Clegg refused to take up his usual place at Mr Cameron's side when he explained to MPs why he had become the first British Prime Minister to veto an EU treaty. The Liberal Democrat leader, who was accused of cowardice by Conservative and Labour MPs, said he did not want to be a "distraction". But his absence also underlined his very public disagreement with Mr Cameron on Europe.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cleggs-day-of-rage-6276130.html

 

 

See toon at top...

Britain's self-imposed isolation from European treaty reform talks is a "blessing" for other EU nations, one of President Nicolas Sarkozy's leading advisers said at the weekend. Although Britain's split with the rest of the EU was "regrettable", it would make future negotiations on a fiscal union to save the euro much simpler, said Jean-David Levitte, President Sarkozy's chief diplomatic adviser.

David Cameron's veto of a formal EU treaty in Brussels on Friday could therefore be seen as a "bénediction", or "blessing", Mr Levitte told the World Policy Conference in Vienna. It would short-circuit the need for laborious negotiations with Britain on a formal EU treaty. It would therefore make it possible for the other 26 EU countries to reach a looser "inter-governmental" agreement by March on rules to harmonise fiscal and economic policies and rebuild global confidence in the euro.

Mr Levitte's words may strengthen the arguments of those in Britain who suggest that Mr Cameron fell into a "French trap" in Brussels on Friday.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/clumsy-camerons-walkout-a-blessing-for-europe-says-france-6275767.html

Messy and poisonous though it already is, Britain's 26 to one row with the EU could yet become nastier and more bewildering. EU officials say that the Government has to make a critical choice in the next few days. David Cameron could reach out to his EU partners and risk howls of "U-turn" from anti-European backbenchers and the Eurosceptic press. Alternatively, he could ratchet up his row with the "other 26" by opposing the use of EU institutions to implement the "inter-governmental" plans for closer fiscal union agreed in Brussels last Friday. This could undermine already fragile market confidence in the credibility of a legally vague agreement and help to propel the euro over a cliff.

A collapse of the euro, blamed rightly or wrongly on British "dog-in-the-manger stubbornness", would make the present row "look like a passing cloud on a summer's day"...

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-lichfield/john-lichfield-if-cameron-ups-ante-on-the-euro-things-will-get-very-nasty-6276629.html

France has fuelled a burgeoning cross-Channel row on Friday, describing Britain's economy as "very worrying" as London's press reacted with fury to French calls for British debt to be downgraded.

The row comes after Britain clashed with France at last week's EU crisis summit and refused to join the members of the eurozone single currency bloc in a new fiscal pact, prompting French president Nicolas Sarkozy to declare there were now "two Europes".

Despite widespread condemnation in London of criticisms from Paris on Thursday, finance minister Francois Baroin picked up the issue again on Friday, saying the French economy was in better shape than the British situation.

"It's true that the economic situation in Great Britain is very worrying and that we prefer being French rather than British on the economic front at the moment," Mr Baroin said.

"We don't want to be given any lessons and we don't give any," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-16/france-lobs-fresh-attack-on-uk-economy/3736104

 

France was told by Nick Clegg today to end "simply unacceptable" attacks on the UK economy amid mounting cross-Channel tensions over the eurozone crisis.

French prime minister Francois Fillon telephoned the Deputy Prime Minister to insist he had not intended to call into question the UK's credit rating.

Mr Fillon and the head of the French central bank had suggested Britain was a candidate for a downgrade amid fears in Paris that France might lose its coveted AAA rating.

His finance minister Francois Baron further inflamed the situation today by calling the UK's situation "very worrying" and suggesting France was better off.

Downing Street resisted any direct retaliation but Mr Clegg launched a furious retort in his conversation with Mr Fillon.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nick-clegg-tells-france-to-stop-attacks-6277867.html

 

"I'm no European," Moore, 89, said. "Why? Go to Europe and look around. The Germans tried to conquer us. The French betrayed us. The Belgians did very little and the Italians made us our ice cream."
...

"We must take care," he continues in the interview. "There may be another war. The Germans will try again, given another chance. A Kraut is a Kraut is a Kraut. And the only good Kraut is a dead Kraut. There can be good, free, honourable, decent Germans. I haven't met them myself, but I'm sure they exist."

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/people-news/46588/sir-patrick-moore-only-good-kraut-dead-kraut#ixzz1tg22sKZJ

----------------

see toon at top...

In an interview on the BBC's Today programme, the Chancellor hinted that Cameron's greatest fear is that the 17 eurozone countries will agree a banking union, and then gang up on Britain and force London to swallow a 'Tobin tax' on all transactions to raise billions of euros to bail out the single currency.

Merkel and the new French president Francois Hollande both support the transaction tax, a levy on all financial deals, and that could be the price they will demand from Cameron for agreeing to the idea of a banking union, which, in effect, would mean Germany and France underwriting the Spanish and Greek banks.

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/eurozone/euro-debt-crisis/47286/cameron-dilemma-euro-banking-union-could-force-tobin-tax#ixzz1xCAUEOZj

see toon and article at top...

Recently, you may have caught the news about Cameron willing a referendum — on the UK quitting Europe — for 2017 or such... Then the US intervened and told the UK "it should stay in Europe", to which the UK told the US to mind its own business... All in all, some joviality there between the two english speaking cousins but, I may be wrong, I have long suspected both the US and the UK need the UK in Europe as to "sabotage" Europe's chances of getting off the ground — as if it had a chance in hell... That is why the Poms have not joined the Eurozone... Presently despite the Euro worries and the French being broke, the Pound is taking a nose dive against the Euro...

Now some religious quiet nut analysed the caper and produced a long long but cute lot of religious rubbish on how to proceed for the formation of Europe:

...

 

However imperfectly, the EU remains so far the only serious attempt to build the first transnational political community whose members come together to form a voluntary association of nations that pool some of their sovereign power for the common good of their people and others across the globe. Europe has a terrible colonial history, but it has also given rise to a set of institutions and practices that have transformed tribalism and nationalism at home and abroad.

Indeed, Europe has shaped global history not through sheer size or military might but rather thanks to its inventiveness and the creation of force multipliers. European inventiveness today is mirrored in the international order that reflects Europe's Christian heritage. For example, European Protestant theologians and Catholic figures played a decisive role in creating the League of Nations after 1919 and the United Nations following the Second World War. Christian Democrats from Italy, Germany, the Benelux countries and even France led the way in setting up the project for European integration and enlargement in the late 1940s and 1950s. They were inspired by Christian social teaching which, since the ground-breaking encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), has always viewed the supremacy of the national state and the transnational market over the intermediary space of civil society and economy (ultimately upheld by the Church) as contrary to the Christian faith.

In contemporary parlance, the Christian origin and outlook of the post-1919 world order is based on the idea of "networking" and "mainstreaming" Christian ideas and thus multiplying the power of European's vestigially Christian polity. The invention of international organisations and supranational bodies reflects the Christian commitment to create a cosmopolis - a cosmic city that upholds universal, global principles embodied in particular, national or regional practices.

Arguably, Christianity - whose global spread outstrips that of Islam and other world religions - is the force multiplier of Europe. Without embracing its Christian heritage, the future of Europe seems uncertain and bleak.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/01/31/3679912.htm?WT.svl=featuredSitesScroller

 

 

Yes of course, I have a mate in Europe who's a country parish priest to a few old ladies in black... and a deaf old codger with an old dog plus a goat... Bloody goat again... See toon at top.

Why Is Britain Running Away from Europe?

An Essay by Will Straw

Great Britain used to play a key role in leading Europe, and the benefits have been substantial. But now, the UK is turning its back on the EU and has chosen to focus on peripheral issues. It is the wrong move.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Winston Churchill called for the creation of a "United States of Europe" to bind France and Germany together. In doing so, he made clear that Britain would be a supportive but independent partner of any such entity. He famously said: 'We are with Europe but not of it."

In the end, Britain did join the European Economic Community but only in 1973, 15 years after the Treaty of Rome was signed. We joined the Social Chapter in 1997, eight years after it was adopted by other member states. And we never signed up to Economic and Monetary Union or the Schengen Agreement on common borders.

In other words: Britain was always a bit late to the party. But once it found its way to Belgium, Britain had an uncanny knack of winning the big strategic battles. It is therefore a puzzle that the current British government has diverted its attention from winning the next round of key policy debates in Brussels and, instead, focused on a pointless exercise of seeking treaty change to repatriate powers. Britain should stop wasting its time with this futile endeavour and concentrate on aligning the EU's institutions with an agenda of growth and democracy.

While Britain's political leaders have been cautious and incremental in expanding the UK's involvement with Europe, they have been phenomenally successful in shaping its institutions to British strategic goals:

First, the UK succeeded in ensuring that "broadening" rather than "deepening" was the underlining objective of the EU over the last two decades. From 12 member states in 1973, the EU expanded to 15 in 1995, 25 in 2004 and has recently accepted its 28th member with the accession of Croatia. While Turkish membership may be a way off, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia are all candidate countries.

Second, the different voting systems used by the EU's institutions tend to favour British interests. For example, the single market, which most Britain's are united in supporting, and the regulations that help create and preserve it have been advanced using Qualified Majority Voting. Meanwhile, issues where Britain exerts more caution -- such as tax harmonisation, redistribution, and defence -- have to be agreed on the basis of unanimity. These were all "red lines" during the negotiations last decade on a new European constitution.

A Constructive Role for Britain?

Third, despite successive attempts by federalists to see it expanded, the EU's budget has been kept below 1 percent of GDP across the continent and Britain has successfully defended its budget rebate which was secured by Margaret Thatcher to compensate for the high net cost to the UK of the Common Agricultural Policy.

Fourth, as outlined above, Britain has ensured that "variable geometry" has been possible on new areas of co-operation. As a result, other member states have gone faster on economic and monetary union, and on common borders. The current debate about justice and home affairs powers is another example where the British government, if it can reach its own consensus, is able to go at a different speed to the rest of Europe.

Fifth, Britain has dictated much of the EU's common foreign and security policy. The E3 negotiations between Britain, France, Germany and Iran were a London-led initiative. Meanwhile, Britain was instrumental in pushing for a European External Action Service. In difficult circumstances, Commission Vice-President Catherine Ashton helped to shape that institution.

Given these successes, Britain might have been expected to play a constructive role in helping the EU deal with the two most fundamental challenges of the current crisis: growth and democracy. The global financial crisis has put a huge strain on the Union and the euro-zone countries in particular. Those on the periphery of Europe, which developed current account deficits during the last decade, have been unable to devalue in order to enhance their competitiveness as would normally take place. Instead they have been forced to undertake painful cuts to public spending in combination with tax increases in an attempt to bring their deficits under control. As a result, the euro zone as a whole fell into a double dip recession last year and around half of EU member states contracted in the first quarter of 2013, though the situation now appears to be improving. Far from achieving fiscal consolidation, all but nine of the EU28 countries saw debt levels increase in the final quarter of 2012.

As a result of the economic malaise, but also due to a sense of detachment from EU decision-making, public support for the EU is on the wane across the continent. Britain's antipathy has long been a feature of public opinion research but other countries are now following suit. Research by Pew found that the number of Europeans who are favourable about the EU fell from 60 percent in 2012 to 45 percent in 2013. Among the eight countries surveyed, the biggest fall in support came in France (down 19 percentage points), Spain (down 14 percentage points) and Germany (down 8 percentage points). Support in Britain fell by a more modest 2 percentage points but from a low base of 45 percent.

A Degree of Instibility

The UK government could have been constructive in addressing these two challenges but instead it has created a degree of instability for the British business community by calling for a repatriation of powers and a referendum on the continued membership of the EU. The 2010 Tory party manifesto set out that a Conservative government would, "negotiate for three specific guarantees -- on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, on criminal justice, and on social and employment legislation -- with our European partners to return powers that we believe should reside with the UK, not the EU."

The Cabinet Office launched a "review of the balance of competences" with terms of reference to "look at where competence lies, how the EU's competences, whether exclusive, shared or supporting, are used and what that means for our national interest." This bureaucratic process covers 32 different reviews of policy areas including trade and investment, social and employment, and fundamental rights. It is expected to conclude in the autumn of 2014.

TheFresh Start group of over 100 euro-sceptic Conservative MPs has pre-empted the conclusions with their own set of recommendations, published in January 2013. One motivation for the group's work appears to be to hack away at workers' rights. In 2011, a report for the government by Adrian Beecroft concluded that "much of employment law and regulation impedes the search for efficiency and competitiveness … [and] simply exacerbates the national problem of high unemployment." Many of the recommendations were buried by the Conservative's coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, but the report remains a cause célèbre for Tory backbenchers.

Consistent with this, the Fresh Start report includes a call for EU treaty revisions to, among other ideas, "repatriate competence in the area of social and employment law to Member States." Foreign Secretary William Hague wrote a foreword. While he did not endorse all the ideas, he wrote that it was "doubly welcome" and "will be essential reading for all of us when we come to write the Conservative Party's next general election manifesto."

If these ideas became formal British government policy, there is very little to suggest that EU member states would be willing to negotiate with the UK on a new relationship. Commission President José Manuel Barroso has said that there are no supporters on the continent for a British repatriation of powers. One MEP told TheEconomist that, "goodwill towards the UK is rapidly running out in Europe."

Diminishing Leadership Role

Over the period that British energy in relation to the EU has focused on repatriating powers, the UK has seen its leadership role in Brussels diminish. Figures collected by the Vote Watch website indicate that Britain is losing more votes in the European Council than at any point in recent history. In 2009-10 and 2010-11, the UK lost just 2 percent of Council conclusions that went to a qualified majority vote. In 2011-12, the year in which David Cameron walked out of the Council meeting, the number of defeats rose to 5 percent. In 2013, it has increased to 7 percent. There is a widespread view in Brussels that there are many more instances which do not come to a formal vote when Britain is now on the losing side. This decline in power is mirrored within the Commission where the share of British staff has fallen by 24 percent to 4.6 percent over seven years.

Instead of losing votes in the Council, proposing unrealistic treaty changes, and creating bad will, Britain should be working at the heart of Europe to enhance prosperity and democracy.

In relation to growth, the British government should have played a greater role in helping resolve the euro-zone crisis. This should have involved a four-pronged programme.

First, the EU should have encouraged greater flexibility on fiscal targets so that countries suffering rapid increases in employment could ease off spending cuts (a policy belatedly adopted by the Commission).

Second, the EU should have called for more rapid action by the European Central Bank and the European Systemic Risk Board to create proper macro-prudential regulation to complement the existing proposals for a banking union.

Thirdly, the EU should have developed a more stringent and symmetrical monitoring of current account imbalances to prevent core countries like Germany building up massive surpluses at the expense of deficits on the periphery. If Britain had been at the forefront of efforts along these lines since 2011 it could have helped prevent the euro zone's double dip recession.

New Measures for Democracy

Fourthly and looking forward, the UK should encourage the appointment of a new growth commissioner within the next European Commission. He or she should ensure that the new budget for competitiveness in the multi-annual financial framework is focused in the right areas, including funds to help the crisis countries make structural reforms to their countries such as tax resilience, labour market reform, childcare expansion, skills enhancement and pension reform. In recognition that Europe's future prosperity depends on staying at the technological frontier, there should be increased resources for joint research and development projects, particularly focused on encouraging a transition to a low-carbon economy across the EU. Third, the commissioner should push for enhanced co-operation on services and a digital single market.

To reinforce democracy, new measures are necessary to enhance the legitimacy of the EU's institutions. The UK government should support the efforts to ensure that a single figure from the party grouping gaining most votes at the 2014 European election should become the next president of the Commission and Council -- a reform that does not require treaty change. This should go hand-in-hand with a rebalancing of the EU's institutions away from the Commission, with the power of initiation residing in the Council and Parliament. Meanwhile, individual commissioners should be accountable to their national parliaments for the work of the whole Commission.

Britain should encourage a renewed focus on improving the stock and flow of EU regulation with old regulations being scrapped on a simple majority Council vote. National parliaments should be given an enhanced role in blocking new legislation and identifying old legislation that could be amended or repealed. National consultations should take place to devise lists of EU legislation that citizens would most like to remove or significantly amend. Meanwhile, closer co-operation within the EU should only take place where public opinion supports it as it does in relation to non-military threats, including climate change, organised crime and terrorism, protectionism, the rise of Asia and irregular migration.

These reforms would go a long way to reviving growth and democratic legitimacy in Europe, but the British government has wasted time by focusing on the party interest of the Conservatives rather than on the broad national interest of the UK. This has been to the detriment of both Britain, which has been marginalised in Europe, and of Europe, which has benefited in the past from an engaged and pragmatic Britain. A new approach is desperately needed if Britain and Europe are to get out of their current predicament.

URL:

• http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/will-straw-essay-on-the-role-of-britain-in-the-european-union-a-956230.html

See toon at top and read all articles below it... Note that we've been on the case for a long time

 

Chancellor Angela Merkel would rather see the UK exit from the European Union than compromise over the principle of free movement of workers, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel.

Mrs Merkel is alleged to fear that the UK is approaching a "point of no return".

Downing Street would not comment on the reports.

Mr Cameron wants to renegotiate the terms of the UK's continued membership before holding an in-out referendum.

The prime minister said that freedom of movement would be "at the very heart of my renegotiation strategy for Europe", but Mrs Merkel is said by the magazine to have made clear she will withdraw her support for the UK's continued EU membership if he continues to push for migration reform.

Point of no return

This is the first time that Mrs Merkel has acknowledged that the UK's exit from the EU is possible, Der Spiegel said.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29874392

 

See toon at top... Note date...

 

Peter Reith has not understood anything about the price of fish:

 

It's quite possible that British voters have had enough of the European Union and will exit the EU in the forthcoming June referendum. The so called Brexit could lead to a domino effect. The Czechs might leave and maybe others. And within Britain, the Scots might start agitating for another referendum.

The Brexit supporters have got John Howard on side and, in Britain, senior members of cabinet, London mayor Boris Johnson, former Tory leader Michael Howard - and there are others - are jumping on the Brexit bandwagon. Some bookies are reporting that the likelihood of an exit has jumped from 29 per cent to 33 per cent in the past week. Some polls are higher.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/if-britain-heads-for-the-eu-exit-others-may-follow-20160229-gn6k1r.html#ixzz41aoMvvVH
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

Gus, speaking from experience:
Europe DOES NOT CARE WHETHER BRITAIN STAYS IN OR OUT OF EUROPE... To say the least, Britain has been a pain in the arse, being an agent of the US to prevent Europe being "strong". It has its own "Five Eyes" arrangement with the US, which it does not share with its partners and has held on to its own currency in a move that shows Britain is not committed to Europe at all.
Britain wants the benefits — and there is plenty of benefits in the European Union — but without the commitment. Brexit would be a boon for Europe (bon voyage) and a disaster for Pommyland. 
In fact, the sooner the Brits get rid of the pound, the better for everyone, should they stay in Europe. But for an old fool like me, Britain should EFF-OFF from Europe. Good medicine for everyone else.
Whether the Czechs stay in Europe or not would have no implication for the Union — apart from cleaning up. The Czechs harbour quite a lot of bogus businesses (organised thieves), which the Swiss organisations warn people about when dealing with the bad Czechs — and I don't mean bad cheques... (I know the Swiss are not in the Union but deal with it adequately)

See toon (2011) at top...

 

 

Jean-Claude Juncker isn't the kind of man who likes to be told to keep quiet. When it comes to defending the European Union, the Luxembourger doesn't usually hold his tongue for long. But when it comes to what could turn out to be the most important issue of his term in office -- the threat of Britain's exit from the EU -- the head of the powerful European Commission has been astonishingly quiet.

 

The reason is that Juncker had to promise British Prime Minister David Cameron that the EU executive branch would stay out of the Brexit debate. Officials in Brussels have a miserable reputation in Britain, and the last thing Cameron needs at the moment are EU commissioners promoting the union. Much to Juncker's chagrin, that also applies to the Commission president himself.

Juncker only managed to convince Cameron to give him a small loophole: If Brexit supporters have a clear lead in polls in the week prior to the June 23 referendum, the Commission president will be allowed to make his voice heard. That, of course, would be too late to significantly shift public opinion, but it would mean that Juncker could not be accused of having done nothing to prevent a Brexit. Under no circumstances does Juncker want to go down in history as the first Commission president to preside over a member state departing the EU.

Driven By Fear

The image put forward by the EU these days is not a strong one. On the contrary, fear appears to have the upper hand. Juncker's Commission, with its 30,000 civil servants, has nearly ground to a halt, with June 23 marked in red on staff calendars. All initiatives are anxiously examined to determine whether they might provide ammunition for Brexit supporters. Juncker even personally asked each of his 27 commissioners to use "common sense" during any visits to Britain.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/why-eu-leaders-are-not-speaking-out-about-brexit-a-1094261.html

 

Auf Wiedersehen

 

 

London: Britain has voted to leave the European Union, in a shock referendum result that defied late polls and is predicted to hurt the global economy.

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party and for years the face of British separatism, said he hoped this "independence day" marked the beginning of the collapse of the "failed" European project, leading to a Europe once again of sovereign nation states.

 

 

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/brexit-campaign-wins-britain-votes-to-leave-the-european-union-20160624-gpr3o0.html

 

By the way, Britain was "never" fully in Europe. It was doodling. It was far closer to the US than Europe and a few to many times Britain took the US side against Europe, including the war on Iraq... It is most likely that should Europe play its card right, it will become stronger and will disengage from NATO and become a force to compete against the USA. Britain was like a double dealing dead weight in this regard.

 

Time to vote Malcolm and his ultra-right wingers OUT. They have been very quiet lately, having been told to shut up by the Malcolm machine. Apart from Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott we have hear no big squeak out of the rest of them. Europe bent over backwards to accommodate Britain, but they French and the Germans were fed up with the Brits.... See toon at top.

"For Russia, this is a great win as it demonstrates that the institutions that hold together the West are cracking, and can be prised apart – which is exactly what Russia's policy toward the EU and NATO is seeking to achieve," Professor Fruehling said.

"Russia is already financing anti-EU parties in many European countries, and will be encouraged to step up its corrosive and subversive influence on domestic debates in the EU member states."

Critically for Australia, it would leave Washington less time to focus on its "pivot" to Asia.

"The turmoil to come can only reinforce the recent tendency of US re-engagement with Europe on the security front," he said. "Washington now has yet another crisis to manage in Europe, and will have even less time for allies in Asia."

A US focus on Asia is generally regarded as vital to reassuring the region it will not be swamped by China's rise, which would otherwise encourage a major Asian arms build-up.

Australian officials believe that Moscow will welcome the move but China is likely to be worried about the global economic uncertainty, Fairfax Media understands.

Euan Graham, director of international security at the Lowy Institute, branded the result "a disaster".

"It just means a more splintered and fractured EU and a broader West into the bargain," he said.

Britain's credibility as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council would come into question, he said. He added that the strategic and political uncertainty could last longer and be more profound than the economic upheaval.

Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, likewise said it was a "serious blow to the UK's standing as a global permanent five security power".

Britain would struggle to play the same prominent security role especially if there was a revived Scottish bid for independence – which is widely considered likely.

Britain would immediately lose about 10 per cent of its military force to an independent Scotland and, critically, have to find a new home for its fleet of strategic nuclear submarines – at a potential cost of tens of billions of pounds.

Mr Jennings said Britain had been a natural "entry point" into Europe for Australia.

Australia had "significantly underinvested" diplomatically in Brussels, Paris and Berlin, which would now have to be rectified.

"In time we might have to think about reducing military connections with the UK … because there's less interest for us to continue those connections."

He added it could strengthen Donald Trump's campaign for the US presidency by signalling to voters that "you can poke the establishment in the eye".

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/brexit-australia-will-be-hit-as-world-will-become-more-fragmented-less-safe-say-experts-20160624-gpr9jb.html#ixzz4CTzqz7Ou
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

Britain was never a team player in Europe and was doing the secret bidding of the US against Europe. Europe has the burden of dragging the Brits along lifted and Europe can become STRONGER against the hegemony of the US. France and Germany should cuddle each others now. The Uk was spying on Europe on behalf of the Yanks. Tada, bye bye...

Financial chaos, economic crisis, the likely breakaway of Scotland and possibly Northern Ireland: quite a morning’s work for the Bullingdon Club.

Remember as the pound plunges and the markets slide that this entire referendum was called by David Cameron to fend off Nigel Farage and his own Tory ultras. There was no public outcry for a ballot – but for the sake of a bit of internal party management, he called one anyway. He gambled Britain and Europe’s future to shore up his own position. With all the confidence of a member of the Etonian officer class, he thought he’d win. Instead he has bungled so badly that the fallout will drag on for years, disrupting tens of millions of lives across Europe.

All this from a man who sauntered into the job of prime minister “because I thought I’d be good at it”. He rarely showed any reason for such self-confidence. His plans to modernise the Conservative party crumbled upon first touch with the banking crisis, which forced him and Osborne to reheat the Thatcherite economics they’d imbibed as students. The “big society” turned almost immediately back into the Small State. At No 10, he launched an austerity drive that was meant to be over within five years, but is now scheduled to go on for double that. Other prime ministers handed power for a long stretch come up with ideas, policies, a style of governing that defines them: Thatcherism, Blairism. What was Cameronism, apart from a hectoring manner at PMQs and an inability to keep on top of detail?

You’ll be reminded endlessly over the next few days how tight this referendum was – that half the country didn’t vote for this. Quite right – and also serious evidence of the weakness of the PM. At the last referendum over Britain’s future in Europe, in 1975, Harold Wilson secured a whopping majority. Never a man to ask a question of whose answer he wasn’t absolutely certain, he got a landslide. But when Cameron was handed the full resources of the British state to run this campaign, he still couldn’t count on anything more than a small lead in the polls. A born member of the governing class, he simply wasn’t able to govern.

Not all of this was his creation; much of it is his political inheritance. For the past 40 years, prime minister after prime minister has embraced a regime that has allowed a massive wealth gap to open up between those at the top and the rest of us, that has fattened up central London even while starving other regions of the country – and that has offered the rest of the country elected police chiefs and city mayors instead of an actual voice.

This morning’s results reflect those decades of calculated callousness and the distrust of the political elites they have produced. Thatcher, Blair, Cameron: all pursued an economic inequality – which in turn bred a political and regional polarisation that marked out this referendum campaign. No wonder inner London voted so strongly for the status quo – it’s one of the few places that is doing well out of it. Likewise, it’s no wonder South Wales mutinied, when all the status quo has offered people there for the past four decades is broken promises and rolling immiseration. The shame of it is that all these justified resentments were mobilised by the racists and the hard-rightists. You know things are upside down when the “big merchant banks” are attacked by a former City trader called Nigel Farage.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/david-cameron-resign-teflon-cockiness

A stunned European Union has urged Britain to leave as "soon as possible" amid fears the devastating blow to European unity could spark a chain reaction of further referendums.

Key points:

• European leaders are calling for urgent reform after Britain's exit
• French President Francois Hollande called the outcome 'a grave test for Europe'
• Far-right leaders in France and the Netherlands want similar referendums

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande led calls for the European Union to reform in order to survive a traumatic divorce with Britain, after 52 per cent of voters there opted to leave the EU.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-25/european-union-tells-britain-to-leave-quickly-after-brexit-vote/7542948

 

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