What would you like to see in a post-EU UK?

[carryfast]

Rjan:

Carryfast:
The pedantic differences in the level of ‘public accountability’ between EDF v CEGB really misses the point.IE if you’re going for the idea of removing the nation sate and national borders how can it be ‘shared’ with Britain when Britain by your logic is just a provincial non entity of the Eurasian Federation.IE there is no such thing as an entity known as Britain to share anything with.

There obviously is an entity called Britain, just as there are entities called France and China - although existing nations needn’t have the same political significance and role as now.

I’d be as happy if EDF becomes owned by the EU on our collective behalf, but as it stands it isn’t, it’s owned by purely national interests, not by any democratically controlled international institution of which the people of Britain are a constituent. I don’t see what is so hard about this.

As for 1960’s US it was certainly more ‘nationalist’ in the economic sense than it is now having thrown its ‘national’ ( US ) economic interest to the global free market.

I can’t accept that. The US has never been a self-contained nation. It was first a European colony, then it drew in vast numbers of immigrants, and finally an imperial superpower with the USSR and their fingers on the buttons.

The fact that it’s run on the flawed undemocratic Federal system of government,as opposed to Confederal system,certainly being a liabilty not an asset.With no reason to think that the more democratically accountable Confederal Constitution would be an economic disadvantage to it in that regard.

I barely know the difference, other than that “confederations” are just a gaggle of individuals who remain strategically separate, and are free to cooperate or fight with each other according to what suits them at any moment, whereas a union has internal discipline and solidarity and a way of reaching a position on an issue which then binds all its constituents unconditionally.

As for the situation of housing in Surrey.There’s nothing so called Malthusian about it.The fact is housing demand is directly proportional to population levels.Which is why some of the greatest levels of housing demand are in those areas with the highest supply in places like London not ■■■■■■■■ IE the more the population density the more the demand.

Yes, this is my position, that the demand for housing is determined by the supply of humans in a place. But the key point is that a lack of housing does not straightforwardly limit the supply of humans, as most houses have functions in a civilised society that go beyond mere overnight storage of bodies, and when housing is short people will simply give up the civilised functions their homes perform in order to increase its capacity, if that would otherwise be the only constraint on their birth rate. In other words, constraining the overall supply of housing simply impairs civility and at the extreme creates squalor.

If you try to deal with that by increasing the level of urbanisation and population density you solve nothing.You just ruin the quality of live to an untenable level by increasing urbanisation and population to the point where no one really wants to live in the place.So they move out looking for a more rural environment.Which of course is then wrecked by developers meeting that urban demand.Then the process starts all over again. Which is why we’re now in the situation again of Londoners shouting for more housing there but they know they don’t want to live in the resulting urban zb hole when they’ve got it so they want to call yet more of Surrey London by building yet more of London here.IE the problem is one of unsustainable localised demand and which certainly won’t be solved by trying to force more of the country’s population and infrastructure into yet more of the South East by expanding London on a never ending basis.

You falsely assume that urban environments are hell to live in. I agree there needs to be a better distribution of jobs in the country to avoid drawing so many people into London (and supply of housing does limit jobs migration), but there will still have to be more houses built in all places, such is the shortage now.

As for immigrants not being scabs.The fact that they won’t unionise and fight for better incomes and living standards at home.

That’s rubbish. Most other countries have better unionised workforces, and there’s no amount of unionisation that can make up for plain underdevelopment.

While preferring to move to western europe where they are happy to over supply the labour market and under cut the indigenous workforce says it all.

But why would they even know they’re undercutting the settled workforce, and not meeting a genuine shortage? And it’s like I said before, there was no solidarity to begin with amongst the migrants and those telling them to go home - if there was, there’d be picket lines to reinforce the level of wages against undercutting, and then my attitude would be different if migrants knowingly sought to cross lines.

But you can’t criticise them like Ronnie Kray would for breaking the unwritten rules that nobody knows. The rules appear to be that they are free to migrate for higher wages (just as Brits do all the time). If they aren’t free to migrate to undercut, then where are the Brits on strike to demand that anyone employed (whether settled or migrant) is paid the going rate?

Where are the Brits even asking them to join a union? In my experience, they are actually more prepared than the average Brit to join a union when approached, whilst the gobbier Brits just want to bully the weak and are timid to stand together to challenge the strong.

On that note telling them to stay at home and turn their own country and economy into a place worth living in isn’t exactly a case of kicking anyone down the ladder.

East Europe is not Africa you know. They are already places worth living - but some people want to live elsewhere for the best of reasons, others are here to take up offers of seemingly good jobs.

Which still leaves the question of why would any agenda which ‘says’ that its all for increasing living standards and democracy then support the undemocratic anti nation state Socialist ideology.While obviously not calling for an EU wide minimum wage and supporting open door cheap labour immigration and wanting the working class to live in zb high density urban council estates to reduce housing costs for employers.

I don’t follow you.

Firstly if definition of ‘nation’ is reduced to the point where it’s no longer a sovereign state in full control of its own destiny then the title of that nation is ‘already’ just that a geographic provincial identifier nothing more.In which case who does what and how regards the economy is the same.The fact is any so called ‘British’ involvement or otherwise is then totally irrelevant and meaningless.IE EDF in whatever form is ‘already’ a European operation not a French one bearing in mind your supposed reasons for wanting to remain an EU member.

As for the US it certainly was a ‘self contained’ entity at least in a political sense.While moreso an economic one.The eventual result being that ideal combination of Fordist Capitalism which minimised imports in favour of domestic production thereby creating domestic demand satisfied by more domestic production.

As for Confederation v Federation it seems strange why you’d regard the so called ‘discipline’ of the Federal system as being superior to the ‘freedom’ of the Confederal one.Bearing in mind that there are no examples of Confederal ‘freedom’ resulting in war between the Confederation.But there are plenty of examples of Federal ‘discipline’ resulting in wars of secession within the Federation or between Confederation and Federation.In all cases the Federation being the aggressor.

As for the supply of humans regarding the historic invasion and destruction of Surrey’s countryside and character by the demands of London’s population.It has always been a case of the housing comes first ‘before’ the increased population then moves in being a result of that.Resulting in higher population density leading to more housing demand etc etc etc.To the point where as I’ve said even London realised that we would need to put a brake on the process in the form of the Green Belt policy.Itself now being shown to be no where near strong enough to repel the thinking of those with your proven failed ideas locally.Which is why we need local planning policy to be decided locally.Not by Northern etc MP’s telling us to wipe out what remains here with more pointless damaging urban development while their own areas are kept an under developed wilderness.The point being that there’s no benefit for the working class in the idea of high density housing projects in a supposed crusade to make house prices fit low wage employment.IE we won’t fix the class divide by forcing the working class into yet more ‘working class’ urban housing estates.

As for East Euro workers wanting to stand together to increase living standards fine then why haven’t they done that at home to create the so called well paid ‘good jobs’ they want there.

As for Brits being as bad.Yes agreed mostly recent generations indoctrinated by decades of Thatcherite ideology.Which again won’t be fixed by adding yet more ranks of immigrant workers with even lower expectations.

[winseer]

Carryfast:

Winseer:
Let’s borrow the Chinese money, and then build the damned thing ourselves. We don’t need outside help to budget-overrun FFS.

A country that’s already trillions in debt borrows more to build an expensive nuclear power station.Then to add insult to injury it has to pay a lot more than the going rate for the electricity it produces as part of the return on Capital used to build it.As opposed to building more affordable coal fired power stations producing more affordable electricity,fuelled by our own self sufficiency in coal reserves,creating more domestic employment in the mining industry and all those associated indirectly.

If we built it ourselves and it’s “Expensive” - then the money stays in the UK economy. We borrow from the Chinese because we can do so at rates under 1% long term as it is. It makes perfect sense to borrow at below the rate of real inflation in this country.

What we don’t want to do is pay some foreign competitor an open-ended amount to do something that - if it’s going to be overpriced - needs to be “kept in the family”.
THAT is what I am getting at here.

There’s no point looking to Scotland for Hydro power - seeing as Scottish Power has already been flogged off.
“Foreign Owned” = Fast track to rising prices. It’s a lot harder to regulate the damned energy market - once we own so little of it ourselves.
I reckon some protectionist policies might be in order, such as charging an import tariff to those firms that would bring it in from abroad, rather than build some more bloody power stations and generate it any way possible at home and by ourselves!

[carryfast]

Winseer:

Carryfast:

Winseer:
Let’s borrow the Chinese money, and then build the damned thing ourselves. We don’t need outside help to budget-overrun FFS.

A country that’s already trillions in debt borrows more to build an expensive nuclear power station.Then to add insult to injury it has to pay a lot more than the going rate for the electricity it produces as part of the return on Capital used to build it.As opposed to building more affordable coal fired power stations producing more affordable electricity,fuelled by our own self sufficiency in coal reserves,creating more domestic employment in the mining industry and all those associated indirectly.

If we built it ourselves and it’s “Expensive” - then the money stays in the UK economy. We borrow from the Chinese because we can do so at rates under 1% long term as it is. It makes perfect sense to borrow at below the rate of real inflation in this country.

What we don’t want to do is pay some foreign competitor an open-ended amount to do something that - if it’s going to be overpriced - needs to be “kept in the family”.
THAT is what I am getting at here.

There’s no point looking to Scotland for Hydro power - seeing as Scottish Power has already been flogged off.
“Foreign Owned” = Fast track to rising prices. It’s a lot harder to regulate the damned energy market - once we own so little of it ourselves.
I reckon some protectionist policies might be in order, such as charging an import tariff to those firms that would bring it in from abroad, rather than build some more bloody power stations and generate it any way possible at home and by ourselves!

Firstly even if we build the thing ourselves the cost will still be the same and the capital to build it will still need to be borrowed from foreign sources.While the electricity it produces will still be massively over priced to provide the return on capital and pay for all the expense of running a nuclear power plant. So what’s the difference.

Which leaves the question why do we need ( much ) more expensive and potentially dangerous nuclear power,when we’re sitting on a mountain of our own coal and it’s much cheaper to build more coal fired power stations and all of which adds up to more employment.Bearing in mind the German example which has,correctly,already,reached exactly that conclusion without even leaving the EU’s bs global warmist agenda.Let alone the advantages of a country which can tell it to shove it completely.

[rjan]

Carryfast:
Firstly if definition of ‘nation’ is reduced to the point where it’s no longer a sovereign state in full control of its own destiny then the title of that nation is ‘already’ just that a geographic provincial identifier nothing more.

China is as sovereign a state as any, and contrary to Brexit rubbish, France (like Britain) is still very much a sovereign nation.

I should also point out that EU integration would not mean an end to national sovereignty as a concept. It’s just that the EU itself would become the sovereign nation, and Britain in the EU would become like England or Scotland are within the UK.

It’s like I’ve said before, the real losers from integration are not workers but British bosses and national political masters. If EU integration was bad for workers, the Murdoch press would not be broadly against it (although even Kelvin McKenzie has expressed Bregret because they’re really playing with fire).

Frankly, I’d be interested to hear of a single case where the likes of the Sun whipped up support for something that was actually good for workers. Even their support of New Labour, we now know was because New Labour intended to do nothing to rebalance the economy for ordinary people, nothing to strengthen trade unions. The support of the Murdoch press for austerity, now rubbished by the IMF as an economic disaster in which only Greek workers have lost more since 2010.

Meanwhile, they attack EU integration, because it would be good for workers (and the EU politicians less in hock to Murdoch). They attack Corbyn, because his policies will be good for workers (especially if implemented EU-wide) - and in fact Owen Smith is broadly advocating the same agenda now, though only to oust Corbyn whereupon they can return to the old Blairite policies. I could go on.

In which case who does what and how regards the economy is the same.The fact is any so called ‘British’ involvement or otherwise is then totally irrelevant and meaningless.IE EDF in whatever form is ‘already’ a European operation not a French one bearing in mind your supposed reasons for wanting to remain an EU member.

You’re on a hiding to nothing with this one - and I must admit I’m getting tired of rebutting your assertions that are plainly false. EDF is owned by the French national government, not by the EU. We do not vote in the French national elections or have any other democratic representation or influence there. And the Chinese are obviously not an EU member at all, and don’t even have democracy.

If you can’t bring yourself to understand a relatively straightforward point, that a company which is not owned by Britain, not even as a partner or where the British are a constituent of a larger body (which would be the case with the EU), then there’s no hope for you.

I’ll just finish on this point by reasserting that my support for the CEGB has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that it was a national body, and everything to do with the fact that citizens residing within the geography of Britain had a democratic say on how it was run and a claim on any financial surplus it generated.

We do not have a democratic say on EDF (because it is not owned by any entity which democratically represents us), we do not have a claim on the surpluses it generates (because it is not owned by any entity which democratically represents us). That is the difference, plain and simple, can’t you understand?

As for the US it certainly was a ‘self contained’ entity at least in a political sense.While moreso an economic one.The eventual result being that ideal combination of Fordist Capitalism which minimised imports in favour of domestic production thereby creating domestic demand satisfied by more domestic production.

The US was politically self-contained yes, just as it still is - that’s the whole point of imperialism, for one politically self-contained nation to go around the world whacking the rest (essentially subjecting the rest of the world to foreign government).

But I can’t agree that it was ever economically self-contained. Yes, there was a period of a few decades when it had relatively more jobs and domestic industry (particularly the most advanced industry), but it has always heavily imported raw materials, always heavily imported workers, always been heavily involved in international trade.

Like I say, the history of the USA as a European outpost and a construct of European nations, is the most glaring and undeniable example of the fact that the USA as a nation has never had economic self-containment - it is a product of the very opposite kind of policy by European nations.

You either do not know your history, or you are just overlooking it in your ahistorical conception of the self-contained nation. As I’ve said, the UK through its existence has never been economically self-contained (it was built on the back of international trade), and the last time England as an earlier kingdom could have been self-contained (overlooking Norman, Viking, and Roman conquests, and sea trade which did in fact occur) was in a peasant economy, in which all the essentials of a peasant life are grown or produced locally in the village.

Even examples of nations that had a specific, explicit policy of self-containment in the modern era, like Japan, abandoned it when their economic development became moribund and the iron warships of the USA turned up at their shores!

I don’t know whether you know anything about the history of Japan but it remains the clearest and most determined modern example of what you propose, an attempt at total national self-sufficiency and self-containment, zero international trade and a total exclusion of foreigners, and it turned out to be nothing but an economic hobble which they later abandoned (because if they hadn’t, they’d have just been whacked by one of the imperialist nations and their economy opened up by more powerful foreigners jabbing a sucker into it, like Britain to India).

And there is no third way, in which there is self-containment but still some international trade for essential economic inputs, because then other nations simply wage economic war to get their own way, by controlling or restricting the supply of those inputs (like today with economic sanctions, or with Russia turning off the gas to Ukraine).

As for Confederation v Federation it seems strange why you’d regard the so called ‘discipline’ of the Federal system as being superior to the ‘freedom’ of the Confederal one.

Because there isn’t more freedom under confederalism. Your neighbours still impose themselves on you, just (perhaps) on a different set of issues, and what is more it closes off a large amount of freedom to cooperate, because any cooperation frequently impairs the strategic interests of at least one side.

Bearing in mind that there are no examples of Confederal ‘freedom’ resulting in war between the Confederation.

Europe is actually a long-standing example of war resulting from confederalism. Even where confederations exist peacefully, they strategically try to keep themselves separate to avoid later conflicts which would arise if they allow a dependency to be created which will then be exploited by the other side (which will occur, because the other side sees it as their duty to exploit the weakness of neighbours, rather than a family in which weaknesses are tolerated in other family members in order that their strengths can be usefully employed, and in order that they tolerate out weaknesses and provide a positive outlet for our strengths).

But there are plenty of examples of Federal ‘discipline’ resulting in wars of secession within the Federation or between Confederation and Federation.In all cases the Federation being the aggressor.

In fact the only war that unionising causes is usually over the issue of unionising by those who don’t want it, or because internal factions abandon egalitarianism (which is a deunionising force and creates civil war). I can’t think of an example of a union that caused more civil war than it prevented - usually the pressure for union arises as a solution to the costs of war (which might take various forms), and a union that caused more civil war than it prevented I’m not sure has existed (for a union to even establish, it’s benefits must usually be overwhelming).

As for the supply of humans regarding the historic invasion and destruction of Surrey’s countryside and character by the demands of London’s population.It has always been a case of the housing comes first ‘before’ the increased population then moves in being a result of that.

Malthusian rubbish. Housebuilders don’t build houses for a population that isn’t even born yet, and women do not decide against having children simply because they have to share a bedroom with their kids.

The main impediment to children is women being able to express alternative interests besides childcare, and the effort required to socialise a child to an acceptable level. Frequently, poor housing is an expression of class war, and that normally implies social forces which frustrate access to fulfilling alternatives for women, and in which frustrate proper socialisation. This is why poor women often have several tearaway kids in an overcrowded house, not no children at all, because work is not fulfilling, they are too poor for leisure, and they can honestly claim to be doing their best to socialise their children (and that any deficit is because society does not equip them properly - which is not a sufficient good reason to avoid having children, but a reason to have kids anyway and feel less guilt about the variable outcome, whereas the risk of being seen to have a tearaway child would deter middle-class mothers from having them, where they have the means to socialise children properly but simply don’t want to put the necessary effort in to raising 5 kids when they can enjoy other things).

In the worst societies, there might also actually be a demand for a high birth rate to replace high death rates and maintain numerical strength. Usually in these societies, they are organised in order to deprive women of any control at all in order to maximise birth rates.

This is why it is often absurd to say that Africa’s problems could be solved by the poorest choosing to have fewer children. Fewer mouths would not lead to more food to go around, it would lead to even lower military strength for the oppressed groups and more food being seized by the powerful in those societies (and therefore total starvation for those who abstain from producing children, rather than severe hunger as now).

Resulting in higher population density leading to more housing demand etc etc etc.To the point where as I’ve said even London realised that we would need to put a brake on the process in the form of the Green Belt policy.Itself now being shown to be no where near strong enough to repel the thinking of those with your proven failed ideas locally.Which is why we need local planning policy to be decided locally.Not by Northern etc MP’s telling us to wipe out what remains here with more pointless damaging urban development while their own areas are kept an under developed wilderness.The point being that there’s no benefit for the working class in the idea of high density housing projects in a supposed crusade to make house prices fit low wage employment.IE we won’t fix the class divide by forcing the working class into yet more ‘working class’ urban housing estates.

You’re just a Malthusian, as most supposed environmentalist thinkers are. The working class, given a choice between having adequate housing and countryside, prefer adequate housing.

The real key is to understand that these things are not exclusive, and that our society is more than capable of building new pleasant, high-density cities - but quality, waterfront high-rise apartments with internal communal spaces and corridors are, unsurprisingly, more expensive and less durable than ground-floor Victorian slums with open-air tarmac ‘communal corridors’, and the only way we can achieve higher densities, is to increase the wealth and civility of the humans who will live in them, and to ensure that they are built at a standard that all social classes would be content to live in them (rather than high-rises exclusively for the poor).

Indeed, it is the rich who need to be encouraged to live at much higher densities than now. Instead of large houses in sprawling grounds, they need to be put into spacious high-rise apartments where they can be trusted to look after the infrastructure and live civilly, whereas it is the poorest who need to remain on the ground floor where they can do least damage. This would require political action, because the market allocates the most land and the most distance from neighbours to the rich, not to the poor who need it.

As for East Euro workers wanting to stand together to increase living standards fine then why haven’t they done that at home to create the so called well paid ‘good jobs’ they want there.

Because it needs capital investment, and we need to ensure that we aren’t competing against them so much that we accelerate away from their standards rather than allowing convergence. It’s not something that can be done purely by themselves (unless they form a large communist bloc which can adequately compete with the advanced capitalist economies, but even that would not be by themselves as individuals).

As for Brits being as bad.Yes agreed mostly recent generations indoctrinated by decades of Thatcherite ideology.Which again won’t be fixed by adding yet more ranks of immigrant workers with even lower expectations.

I don’t find that they do have low expectations. They expect to earn much larger wages than the norm for their society (so they are not degrading themselves), and I seem to find they are typically more politically conscious than the average British driver.

[winseer]

Well - that’s the Pound giving back all it’s gains for the week. Fairly mild damage considering there’s an extra £60 billion being printed as well as the base rate being halved from 0.5 to 0.25%…

[carryfast]

Rjan:

Carryfast:
Firstly if definition of ‘nation’ is reduced to the point where it’s no longer a sovereign state in full control of its own destiny then the title of that nation is ‘already’ just that a geographic provincial identifier nothing more.

China is as sovereign a state as any, and contrary to Brexit rubbish, France (like Britain) is still very much a sovereign nation.

I should also point out that EU integration would not mean an end to national sovereignty as a concept. It’s just that the EU itself would become the sovereign nation, and Britain in the EU would become like England or Scotland are within the UK.

It’s like I’ve said before, the real losers from integration are not workers but British bosses and national political masters. If EU integration was bad for workers, the Murdoch press would not be broadly against it (although even Kelvin McKenzie has expressed Bregret because they’re really playing with fire).

Frankly, I’d be interested to hear of a single case where the likes of the Sun whipped up support for something that was actually good for workers. Even their support of New Labour, we now know was because New Labour intended to do nothing to rebalance the economy for ordinary people, nothing to strengthen trade unions. The support of the Murdoch press for austerity, now rubbished by the IMF as an economic disaster in which only Greek workers have lost more since 2010.

Meanwhile, they attack EU integration, because it would be good for workers (and the EU politicians less in hock to Murdoch). They attack Corbyn, because his policies will be good for workers (especially if implemented EU-wide) - and in fact Owen Smith is broadly advocating the same agenda now, though only to oust Corbyn whereupon they can return to the old Blairite policies. I could go on.

In which case who does what and how regards the economy is the same.The fact is any so called ‘British’ involvement or otherwise is then totally irrelevant and meaningless.IE EDF in whatever form is ‘already’ a European operation not a French one bearing in mind your supposed reasons for wanting to remain an EU member.

You’re on a hiding to nothing with this one - and I must admit I’m getting tired of rebutting your assertions that are plainly false. EDF is owned by the French national government, not by the EU. We do not vote in the French national elections or have any other democratic representation or influence there. And the Chinese are obviously not an EU member at all, and don’t even have democracy.

If you can’t bring yourself to understand a relatively straightforward point, that a company which is not owned by Britain, not even as a partner or where the British are a constituent of a larger body (which would be the case with the EU), then there’s no hope for you.

I’ll just finish on this point by reasserting that my support for the CEGB has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that it was a national body, and everything to do with the fact that citizens residing within the geography of Britain had a democratic say on how it was run and a claim on any financial surplus it generated.

We do not have a democratic say on EDF (because it is not owned by any entity which democratically represents us), we do not have a claim on the surpluses it generates (because it is not owned by any entity which democratically represents us). That is the difference, plain and simple, can’t you understand?

As for the US it certainly was a ‘self contained’ entity at least in a political sense.While moreso an economic one.The eventual result being that ideal combination of Fordist Capitalism which minimised imports in favour of domestic production thereby creating domestic demand satisfied by more domestic production.

The US was politically self-contained yes, just as it still is - that’s the whole point of imperialism, for one politically self-contained nation to go around the world whacking the rest (essentially subjecting the rest of the world to foreign government).

But I can’t agree that it was ever economically self-contained. Yes, there was a period of a few decades when it had relatively more jobs and domestic industry (particularly the most advanced industry), but it has always heavily imported raw materials, always heavily imported workers, always been heavily involved in international trade.

Like I say, the history of the USA as a European outpost and a construct of European nations, is the most glaring and undeniable example of the fact that the USA as a nation has never had economic self-containment - it is a product of the very opposite kind of policy by European nations.

You either do not know your history, or you are just overlooking it in your ahistorical conception of the self-contained nation. As I’ve said, the UK through its existence has never been economically self-contained (it was built on the back of international trade), and the last time England as an earlier kingdom could have been self-contained (overlooking Norman, Viking, and Roman conquests, and sea trade which did in fact occur) was in a peasant economy, in which all the essentials of a peasant life are grown or produced locally in the village.

Even examples of nations that had a specific, explicit policy of self-containment in the modern era, like Japan, abandoned it when their economic development became moribund and the iron warships of the USA turned up at their shores!

I don’t know whether you know anything about the history of Japan but it remains the clearest and most determined modern example of what you propose, an attempt at total national self-sufficiency and self-containment, zero international trade and a total exclusion of foreigners, and it turned out to be nothing but an economic hobble which they later abandoned (because if they hadn’t, they’d have just been whacked by one of the imperialist nations and their economy opened up by more powerful foreigners jabbing a sucker into it, like Britain to India).

And there is no third way, in which there is self-containment but still some international trade for essential economic inputs, because then other nations simply wage economic war to get their own way, by controlling or restricting the supply of those inputs (like today with economic sanctions, or with Russia turning off the gas to Ukraine).

As for Confederation v Federation it seems strange why you’d regard the so called ‘discipline’ of the Federal system as being superior to the ‘freedom’ of the Confederal one.

Because there isn’t more freedom under confederalism. Your neighbours still impose themselves on you, just (perhaps) on a different set of issues, and what is more it closes off a large amount of freedom to cooperate, because any cooperation frequently impairs the strategic interests of at least one side.

Bearing in mind that there are no examples of Confederal ‘freedom’ resulting in war between the Confederation.

Europe is actually a long-standing example of war resulting from confederalism. Even where confederations exist peacefully, they strategically try to keep themselves separate to avoid later conflicts which would arise if they allow a dependency to be created which will then be exploited by the other side (which will occur, because the other side sees it as their duty to exploit the weakness of neighbours, rather than a family in which weaknesses are tolerated in other family members in order that their strengths can be usefully employed, and in order that they tolerate out weaknesses and provide a positive outlet for our strengths).

But there are plenty of examples of Federal ‘discipline’ resulting in wars of secession within the Federation or between Confederation and Federation.In all cases the Federation being the aggressor.

In fact the only war that unionising causes is usually over the issue of unionising by those who don’t want it, or because internal factions abandon egalitarianism (which is a deunionising force and creates civil war). I can’t think of an example of a union that caused more civil war than it prevented - usually the pressure for union arises as a solution to the costs of war (which might take various forms), and a union that caused more civil war than it prevented I’m not sure has existed (for a union to even establish, it’s benefits must usually be overwhelming).

As for the supply of humans regarding the historic invasion and destruction of Surrey’s countryside and character by the demands of London’s population.It has always been a case of the housing comes first ‘before’ the increased population then moves in being a result of that.

Malthusian rubbish. Housebuilders don’t build houses for a population that isn’t even born yet, and women do not decide against having children simply because they have to share a bedroom with their kids.

The main impediment to children is women being able to express alternative interests besides childcare, and the effort required to socialise a child to an acceptable level. Frequently, poor housing is an expression of class war, and that normally implies social forces which frustrate access to fulfilling alternatives for women, and in which frustrate proper socialisation. This is why poor women often have several tearaway kids in an overcrowded house, not no children at all, because work is not fulfilling, they are too poor for leisure, and they can honestly claim to be doing their best to socialise their children (and that any deficit is because society does not equip them properly - which is not a sufficient good reason to avoid having children, but a reason to have kids anyway and feel less guilt about the variable outcome, whereas the risk of being seen to have a tearaway child would deter middle-class mothers from having them, where they have the means to socialise children properly but simply don’t want to put the necessary effort in to raising 5 kids when they can enjoy other things).

In the worst societies, there might also actually be a demand for a high birth rate to replace high death rates and maintain numerical strength. Usually in these societies, they are organised in order to deprive women of any control at all in order to maximise birth rates.

This is why it is often absurd to say that Africa’s problems could be solved by the poorest choosing to have fewer children. Fewer mouths would not lead to more food to go around, it would lead to even lower military strength for the oppressed groups and more food being seized by the powerful in those societies (and therefore total starvation for those who abstain from producing children, rather than severe hunger as now).

Resulting in higher population density leading to more housing demand etc etc etc.To the point where as I’ve said even London realised that we would need to put a brake on the process in the form of the Green Belt policy.Itself now being shown to be no where near strong enough to repel the thinking of those with your proven failed ideas locally.Which is why we need local planning policy to be decided locally.Not by Northern etc MP’s telling us to wipe out what remains here with more pointless damaging urban development while their own areas are kept an under developed wilderness.The point being that there’s no benefit for the working class in the idea of high density housing projects in a supposed crusade to make house prices fit low wage employment.IE we won’t fix the class divide by forcing the working class into yet more ‘working class’ urban housing estates.

You’re just a Malthusian, as most supposed environmentalist thinkers are. The working class, given a choice between having adequate housing and countryside, prefer adequate housing.

The real key is to understand that these things are not exclusive, and that our society is more than capable of building new pleasant, high-density cities - but quality, waterfront high-rise apartments with internal communal spaces and corridors are, unsurprisingly, more expensive and less durable than ground-floor Victorian slums with open-air tarmac ‘communal corridors’, and the only way we can achieve higher densities, is to increase the wealth and civility of the humans who will live in them, and to ensure that they are built at a standard that all social classes would be content to live in them (rather than high-rises exclusively for the poor).

Indeed, it is the rich who need to be encouraged to live at much higher densities than now. Instead of large houses in sprawling grounds, they need to be put into spacious high-rise apartments where they can be trusted to look after the infrastructure and live civilly, whereas it is the poorest who need to remain on the ground floor where they can do least damage. This would require political action, because the market allocates the most land and the most distance from neighbours to the rich, not to the poor who need it.

As for East Euro workers wanting to stand together to increase living standards fine then why haven’t they done that at home to create the so called well paid ‘good jobs’ they want there.

Because it needs capital investment, and we need to ensure that we aren’t competing against them so much that we accelerate away from their standards rather than allowing convergence. It’s not something that can be done purely by themselves (unless they form a large communist bloc which can adequately compete with the advanced capitalist economies, but even that would not be by themselves as individuals).

As for Brits being as bad.Yes agreed mostly recent generations indoctrinated by decades of Thatcherite ideology.Which again won’t be fixed by adding yet more ranks of immigrant workers with even lower expectations.

I don’t find that they do have low expectations. They expect to earn much larger wages than the norm for their society (so they are not degrading themselves), and I seem to find they are typically more politically conscious than the average British driver.

China isn’t a sovereign state.Its a corrupt typical Communist run Federation that equally typically doesn’t respect the right of self determination or national sovereignty of others.Just ask any of the indigenous population of Tibet or South Vietnam in the 1960’s or South Korea in the 1950’s.To which your typically biased bs socialist ideology blames the free world as the aggressor not the Chinese socialist scum who started it all and who continue to subjugate Tibet for example.While yes we know you continue to ‘point out’ the bs contradiction that turning us into a Federal state of a Federal Europe isn’t the same thing as Tibet under Chinese ideological not National rule.On that note how does Scotland supposedly have any sovereignty over its own affairs under UK Federal rule.The fact is it doesn’t and you know it because like all Socialists your idea is all about centralised rule along ideological lines.Not democratic rule on national and locally democratic lines.

As for Brexit supposedly being all about the Murdoch view how do you explain Corbyn having more allies for EU membership among the CBI and Conservatives than the Labour vote who obviously swung the Brexit vote and people like Hoey.On that note as I said it’s time for the Socialists to zb off and get where they belong in Socialist Labour and stand on a clear electoral mandate to match.Thereby in doing so give us the Nationalist choice within Labour we need to reflect that Brexit referendum vote.But you obviously won’t do that because you know that you’ll be electorally massacred when you don’t have the Blairite vote to support you and hide behind.

As for EDF you’re the one who’s making all the bs contradiction between Federal EU rule when it suits you v National democracy when it doesn’t.No we don’t have any vote over any other part of the EU,France being one,except our own National MEP group.Who are overruled by foreign majority EU MEP vote who are themselves controlled by the EU commissioners.Bearing in mind that you see no advantage in a Confederal system that gives the National MEP groups the right of opt out,substitution or VETO.On that note EDF as the EU stands is no less a European institution than any other European industrial conglomerate.Which is just how the CBI wants it.

The rest of it is typical raving Socialist thinking in which your idea of heaven is an over populated over developed urban zb hole that if we can’t over populate ourselves you’ll do it by bringing the world in to make the numbers up.On that note no the interests of the rich and the working class are the same in opposing your bs ideas.The bit where they divide being the bit where the rich want to go along with your ideas to save themselves the money needed to develop/maintain decent areas to live in for all not just some.To which you answer is a zb inner city/suburban environment for everyone not just the working class.

On that note having already been a working class refugee from your development ideas and now allied with the so called ‘rich’,in defence of what remains of Surrey as we know it,together with plenty of others.While you’re no different to generations of Socialists who are all about the politics of envy not improving the quality of life of the working class.If that’s what you and Corbyn want then zb off where you belong in the Socialist Labour Party and get a democratic mandate for it.Oh wait you don’t do democracy.