• Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    American Exceptionalism!

    I saw a similar thing in Britain during the Leave Campaign - lots of arguments of the “when we’re out the EU will give us most of the rights members have, but without the obligations” kind, anchored only on British Exceptionalism, and enough people fell for it that Leave won.

    Nationalist Delusions Of Grandeur is on hell of a drug.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        Being an EU member comes with both Rights and Obligations and the objective was to have the former without the latter.

        In fact the Referendum was done because the UK wanted to not to have to obbey the Freedom Of Movement rules for EU citizens entering its country (i.e. the Obligation) whilst keeping it for its citizens entering other EU countries (i.e. the Right) and was using the threat of holding a Leave Referendum to try and blackmail the rest of the EU, and the rest of the EU said “No!”

        (This was actually just the later of a long series of instances of the British Government using that technique to get from the rest of the EU “exceptions” from the EU treaties, which went all the way back to Thatcher’s time and was how Britain had so many exceptions that nobody else had).

        The British Exceptionalism part is that many Britons genuinelly expected they would get that (and also similarly for a lot of other Rights and Obligations, such as being able to import bleached chicken from the US at the same time as having open and uncontrolled access to the Free Market were such food products are forbidden) from the EU as part of the Leave Negotiations.

        • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          They could have just gotten some regular chicken and sold it with a little bottle of bleach attached. They really didn’t have to resort to such dramatic measures. But that’s UK politics I suppose.

          • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            Indeed.

            Like Marmite, nobody would have stopped them from selling whatever disgusting seasoning they favour on the side. It’s the having it pre-added that’s the problem!

        • cartoon meme dog@lemm.ee
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          2 days ago

          Agree with most, but I would say the main reason the referendum was held because of domestic politics - Cameron was confident Remain would win, and wanted to shut up UKIP and the Eurosceptic wing of his own party.