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[Flying Dice]

Yeah, and I don't appretiate burning around 6000+€ into a rotation abroad only to be ignored and have xenophobic epiteths hurled at me. But such is life, huh?

Wut?

Spent a shitload of money studying abroad, spent most of that time being ignored or insulted by foreign students and professors.

[Arx]

Less studying and not practicing medicine (surgery of some kind, I think) but I think it's a similar concept.

[Sheb]

It takes skill to ignore and insult someone at the same time. :p

[ChairmanPoo]

.

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You know what time it is

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Banter time

[Rolepgeek]

It's fun to see LW complain about the Commisssion being unelected. Surely a eurosceptics wouldn't want to see Commissioners elected rather than depends on the national governments? 

You have very odd conceptions of what makes a eurosceptic. What part of unelected officials having supremacy over national democracy do you not grasp? Why would I rather have that as opposed to just having German ministers choosing who it is? This is like telling me I should rather have sawdust in my eyes than fine wood chippings

The truly sad part is that, in the end, it all starts with elected officials. The people who get appointed are appointed by elected officials, or by people are themselves appointed to their positions by elected officials. Democracy is a self-stabilising system, but this means it wobbles in the first place really easily. Or it just contains the seeds of it's own doom because it kinda relies on coordination of utterly massive groups of people to be really effective and that's a laughable notion of it's own.

Besides, Europe seems like it needs a good King-ing. Still has some pangs left in the system from the olden days, having a bit of indigestion now for the lack. Either that or it'll be a good reminder in whether we want to go back to those old days with the executions and all. Still, my support will always go towards the rightful Lord of Yurop, God-Emperor Donald Trump the Trumpst.  Trumpingrad for life. He'll make an indiscriminate number of countries great again.

[Evil Knievel]

TLDR: no union without solidarity + solidarity is more than a lip service, it can cost you, so don't whine.

Given the notion that a country, and likewise a unions, stability ultimately depends on the sense of solidarity between its members (which are states, representatives and citizens), the EU is over. You can force it a bit to draw it out (others, like business, want the EU nevertheless), but eventually it will fall apart (like we are seeing in Belgium on the nation scale? not sure), or needs to adapt not-so-democratic means as a glue (for exampling the way Spain keeps hold on Basque and Catalonia).
So yes, it is up to us to have a union with solidarity throughout, or retreat to smaller units where that solidarity still exists. I doubt you'd find many a, e.g.,  Frenchman who would seriously consider giving up on France as unified state in favour of splitting it up again into smaller regions, and this is because there is this mutual solidarity encompassing most French, who know that 'somehow' they belong together. This sense of solidarity has existed in the 80s and 90s in large parts of then-Europe (although maybe never so much in the UK), but appears entirely lost now. Most have long retracted to the nation level, when evaluating who they share an interest with.
So if there is no common ground for Europeans, leave it be. I really dislike that, but if its like that, well bye.

Another thing:
It would be better to build the union on a continuous strive for solidarity, instead of just allowing "i wanna be in but no play along" mentality that most countries display at the moment. It should be really easy to drop out of the EU, and very hard to (re-)enter. It should for example be enough to drop out by not showing enough positive engagement for furthering integration alone. Then the union would certainly be much smaller or not exist at all, but at least it would be certain that all members, if any, would actually be there out of shared interest.

Anyone else can form a free trade zone, if that's what they prefer.

[Loud Whispers]

There are about half a dozen people in the UK capable of largely influencing the UK-EU referendum. Nigel's got the southern pub crawlers and northern brawlers with his Welsh and Ireland civic nationalists, George Galloway has his taqiyyah Scot and cultural marxist banter audience, Osborne has his illuminati circle and the intfin connexions, and then there is the harbinger of Rhubarb.

THE HARBINGER OF RHUBARB HAS ARRIVED

BEWARE BOGO

[Sergarr]

THE HARBINGER OF RHUBARB HAS ARRIVED

BEWARE BOGO

BORIS HAS ARRIVED

[MonkeyHead]

Ah, the carer politician games have peaked early. Johnston wants to be PM. Johnston knows to be PM, Cameron must be dethroned. What better way to do this than to force him to fall on his sword following a referendum defeat. Worst case scenario is that he ends up a figurehead of those who do not support Cameron, and pushes other PM/Tory leader contenders into the background come leadership election time.

Oh for a debate between Corbyn and Big Bad Boris. That would be fucking hilarious. In fact, the out team of Gove, IDS, Farage-kip, Boris and Galloway is generally quite entertaining in its dysfunction. I suspect the Out campaign will be a badly co-ordinated mess of loud ego rather akin to trying to haul a bus full of squirrel moneys with a herd of kittens. Politics in the Uk will be very interesting over the next few months as on the record ideological differences are aired publicly with scant regard for party lines and personal loyalties. Bravo.

[Loud Whispers]

Ah, the carer politician games have peaked early. Johnston wants to be PM. Johnston knows to be PM, Cameron must be dethroned. What better way to do this than to force him to fall on his sword following a referendum defeat.

Nah if he wanted to do careerist moves he'd ally with Cameron, such an alliance would deal a heavy blow to any future Tory party leaders (Osborne, Duncan, May) who all backed the independence movement, force Cameron to make him his successor as his only ally with power to sway, and Cameron's already secured his own exit path no matter what the outcome of the referendum is (in his Andrew Marr interview he talked about how he campaigned on the promise of a referendum and cleverly said no matter the outcome he'll have delivered. So if he wins = successful leadership, if he loses = I totes gave you that win). The fact that happy beer man and taqiyyah scot are standing side by side despite disagreeing on almost everything else says it all. BATTLEBROOSER BORISATIONAL

Somewhat related is how Cameron has steadily been growing weaker anyways
Farage was ranked 58th in the 2010 list compiled by Iain Dale and Brian Brivati for The Daily Telegraph. In the 2012 list, Farage was ranked 17th, and in 2013 he was ranked second behind Prime Minister David Cameron. In 2014, he was ranked first, ahead of Cameron. I think Cameron would give up his career even if he won this referendum tbh, and take up consultancy or something

Oh for a debate between Corbyn and Big Bad Boris. That would be fucking hilarious.

Glory
And Cameron has to watch

Actually, one thing to watch is how London factors into this. Boris has mad Jewish cred with his Jewish roots and his defence of Israel as well as mad Russian cred because he was cloned from Putin cells (and has Russian roots), mad double English cred (and being highly charismatic and unstoppable). He's also got Murrican roots too, in fact one day he could run for American Presidency as he was born in Murrica and will make America great again (some day).
But there is an interesting battle being played out by the potential future mayor candidates. We have Zac Goldsmith who's an upper class Jew born to a multimillionare whilst his labour opposition Sadiq Khan is a middle-class Muslim who started from the bottom in a working-class Pakstani family. Zac Goldsmith is making the case for UK independence to stick to his principles, which is highly admirable, but he's doing it in the most Europhile area of the entire UK whilst Sadiq Khan is already using his stance to attack him - basically the first statement Goldsmith makes will make or break his career from here on out. This is going to be extremely tough for Zac to pull off as Sadiq is an excellent politician with all the ammunition he needs to sink Zac whereas Zac can only stand on his credentials, his policies and can't rely on his upper-class connections and qualities at a time where leftist populism is the only thing that unites the three main branches of London leftism. Politically he sticks to his principles and is more akin to a Libertarian from the States in that he believes in economic and social freedom, but it's a lot harder for him to convince Londoners that he wants to enfranchise them than it is for Labour to call him an Eton millionaire Tory. His help to the Leave campaign is invaluable, but I worry if he is not torpedoing himself here. Still, I'm glad the leave campaign is getting his help. Those who would be willing to sacrifice their own careers to save their country are exactly the people this country needs. GLORY GLORY GLORY GOLD

Somewhat poetically, Boris is one of the key figures in the past who managed to broaden Euroscepticism in the UK from being a left-wing green/ld phenomenon to a mainstream right-wing phenomenon (to the point where a referendum has been secured). Boris in the past, Boris in the present, Boris in the future, BORIS GOOOOOAL

[RedKing]

I'm genuinely not sure whose politics are more fucked up, the US or the UK.

[Loud Whispers]

I'm genuinely not sure whose politics are more fucked up, the US or the UK.

WE'RE ALL GOING DOWN HARDER THAN ATLANTIS GLORY GLORY BOGO

[RedKing]

I mean, I get why our politics is crazy -- we've got 300+ million people scattered across 10 million km² and we're basically seven or eight cultural regions forced to co-exist uneasily under the same roof.

You guys have about twice the population of California in about half as much space. Is it the compression factor? Too many people in too small a space, things heat up, people get kind of stir-crazy, that sort of thing? You still haven't elected a foreign-born bodybuilder and action film hero to be your leader though. So California has one up on y'all there.

[martinuzz]

WE'RE ALL GOING DOWN HARDER THAN ATLANTIS GLORY GLORY BOGO

You could always hire some Dutch water engineers. Discount prices for EU members!