Would it not make sense to perhaps invite the UK to be an associate member first? We’re right on the doorstep.

You don‘t want to have any level of association with us, as you‘ve made clear repeatedly over many years, involving many insults.

Don‘t expect the EU to actively offer anything again. Do the first step (after getting a clear view what proportion of your population actually wants that).

The United Kingdom would be a great member, as you had been. But that ship has politically sailed.

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gizajob 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The way you paint it sounds like the EU is a hardline communist state where dissent and even insult must be punished.

Why does Canada get a free pass to pleasantries just because the Canadians haven’t had a chance to insult the EU and its federalist technocrats yet?

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hardbass 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You seem extremely confused. Why do you want your ex partner to treat you nicely when you yourself stated you hate them? Do you want to force a relationship again despite the other party not wanting you or even you yourself wanting it? You seem completely incoherent and absurd. Make up your mind whether you want to join a voluntary membership organization or not.

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gizajob 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The main confusion here is your use of unsuitable metaphor - people choosing that a political bloc is not behaving in a way that they believe represents their interests is in no way analogous to an abusive partner beating his/her significant other, and it is pretty addled to even make that comparison. Yet paradoxically sensible, because it demonstrates why the political process stalled as that framing really is what is in the minds of the EU bureaucrats towards the UK now. You’re also overlooking that 49% of the voters in the UK voted to stay in the EU.

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hardbass an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Elsewhere you are saying you disagree with the way the EU is structured, which makes it even more absurd why you want to join it. Don't like it, leave it. Like it, put a vote to join. Like some aspects, dislike others, then state specifics and come to a discussion.

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gizajob an hour ago | parent [-]

Some of the benefits of being in the EU are very nice but the way it is now structured politically and financially and even ideologically mean that it is not an entity which any sensible country with anything to lose could willingly join. And the main thing lost is the right to have any impact on its decision making process. Hence why Switzerland, Norway and more recently Iceland aren’t members, and it lost the UK.

	▲	hardbass an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Then why are you complaining they didn't invite your country?

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hardbass an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Your country chose to divorce of its own will, the EU didn't kick you out. It is not a forcible organization like being a citizen in a country, its completely voluntary. So why the hell are you whining about the EU ignoring you when you yourself divorced from it. Nobody is stopping you from insulting or hating anyone you want. What is absurd to then also want to force them to interact with you and then this absurd heisen stuff of leaving them and then complaining they don't want you in when there is nothing stopping you from making the request to be let in. You should make up your mind, why should the EU have to give you an invite when you were the one who left it and now you want to join/not-join. I think if the EU sent a request and the mood in your populace was anti eu then it would worsen not improve relations for example. The homework is on the UK to measure if it's population wants to join the EU or not before making any requests. If you want to join, say it clearly and put a vote in the UK, or if you don't want to join then make it clear, otherwise it doesn't make sense t be complaining about the EU not wishing to entertain your unstated requests.

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user43928 an hour ago | parent [-]

I find your tone inappropriate for this website.

I suggest you don't participate if you cannot discuss calmly the opinion that the EU should be more inviting towards the UK, even if you consider the opinion absurd.

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hardbass an hour ago | parent [-]

How can EU be the one expected to be inviting when they didn't kick the UK out in the first place? The UK is the one that left on its own. The EU doesn't have to do anything, I think they are quite open to the UK or anyone else in the continent joining. I just find it absurd a British person is complaining without the UK first doing the homework and showing joining EU is something tenable from their side via an internal vote about joining.

If you want a disclaimer, I am neither european nor british if that matters. From outside the situation seems very clear to me.

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gizajob 19 minutes ago | parent [-]

I could go into exhaustive details, but the EU made absolutely no case to the British people why they should be part of the EU, and that case is still unmade. Brexit was an EU political issue happening inside the EU yet it and the British people were treated with ignorance and condescension, like it was a wholly British minor political issue and the very thought of leaving was laughable (openly laughable because Nigel Farage got laughed at in the EU parliament when he put it to them that he was going to make Britain leave, which he succeeded in doing). That case for the benefits of joining has still never been made, rather assumed as self-evident. There has been no publicity at all towards the British people that they could rejoin and it would be beneficial, which is the step the EU would reasonably take yet refuses to do. Hence the British people similarly have no interest in begging to be part of this organisation, the mechanics and political organisation of which is very poorly understood.

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hardbass 11 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Whats wrong in laughing at farage? You left, if you eant to rejoin then you have to make the case and prove you are ready for it. The EU can't read your brain, why should it invite when you left. It should not even invite unlesss you did a poll and proved you want to join.

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ginko 13 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

The EU didn't participate in the Brexit campaign because that would have rightfully been seen as undue meddling in internal politics of the UK.

In any case I don't understand what you want us to do? Should the EU grovel before the UK and beg it to return? That won't happen. You guys voted to leave. You can come back if you want but don't expect any red carpets.

It's telling that ten years on it's mainly you Brits still kvetching about this.

	▲	hardbass 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I really don't understand this heisenberg nonsense at all. If he wants to join he should say (and prove) that, if he doesn't want to join then directly say that.

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ben_w an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The UK will likely be welcome back right after everyone's confident Leave (be that Tory, Farage, or whoever the even worse party that Musk now supports are) definitely won't win a general election for at least another generation.

	▲	gizajob an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Well the issue there then is that Farage’s Reform party seem likely to win that election. The current ostensibly-left-wing Labour government also have absolutely no appetite for rejoining either. Even the coalition of anti-growth eco-warriors and islamists which is the contemporary Green Party don’t say much which is a real surprise because it seems like such an easy vote-winner for them. Finally, it seems strange that the EU should pretty-well require the governments of its potential members to be left-wing or centrist, especially as this demand is now causing constituents of the EU to start to swing to the hard right too.

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hardbass 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If your country initiated a divorce, it makes no sense for the other party to invite you again. You should have to request first and show to them eg with a vote you won't again flake out in a few years.