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E-book A Tale of Two Unions : The British Union and the European Union After Brexit

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Penilaian

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nhisautobiographyInterestingTimes,theeconomichistorianEricHobsbawmused an unforgettable image when he spoke of writing books. He referred to‘the desert island on which we usually sat, writing messages for unknown re-cipients in unknown destinations to be launched across the oceans in bottlesshapedlikebooks.’1IthasbeensohardtogetATaleofTwoUnionspublished,thatIfeellikesomeonewhosebottleislaunchedonlytobewashedbacktotheshorebyaperpetuallyincomingtide,howeverhardItrytothrowit.Perhapsitwouldhave been easier if I had been prepared to see Brexit as a tale of one union,theEuropeanUnion,butasthemoreinsightfulcommentatorshaverecognised,itis not.It is as much a tale of the British Union as of the European Union.SomesevenyearsagoIpublishedabookentitledTheEU:AnIntroduction.Itwaswritten just before the referendum on whether Scotland would stay inside theUKandtwoyearsbeforethereferenduminwhichtheUKvotedtoleavetheEU.If I can be forgiven for quoting myself,I wrote as follows in 2014.Like the proverbial Pushmi-pullyu of Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle stories,Westminster feels itself pulled in two directions at once by two different‘heads’. One minute it worries about losing powers to Brussels. The nextminute it worries about losing powers to Edinburgh. One minute it talksabout a referendum on whether the UK stays in the EU. The next minute itagrees to a referendum on whether Scotland should stay in the UK. Caughtbetween the two centres of power it sometimes seems to be paralysed.When the Scots claim that they can stay in the EU after leaving the UK, thePrime Minister is the first to warn them that this may not be so. But whenthey hear his stern lectures to the EU and about a possible ‘Brexit’ (Britishexit), they may well feel that leaving the UK is actually the only way of ensuring that they stay in the EU. Paradoxically, the more UKIP (the UnitedKingdom Independence Party) calls for the UK to leave the EU, the moreScots may feel that their safest bet is to leave the UK, leaving UKIP pre-sumably to campaign as the Former United Kingdom Independence Party, asituation which at the very least will give it an unfortunate acronym.2Itseemedtomethen,andseemsevenclearernow,thatthestoryoftheUKandthe European Union is the story of two unions, not one, and that both are putat some risk by the events of the last decade. In the immediate aftermath ofthevotetoleavetheEUin2016,theemphasiswaslargelyuponwhethertheEUwould survive.Would‘Brexit’have a domino effect? Would the Netherlands bethenexttogo(Nexit?)Orperhaps,forverydifferentreasons,Hungary(Hexit?).Itwashardlyasurprisewhen2016sawtherespectedwriteronEuropeanInte-gration John Gillingham produce a book entitledTheEU:AnObituary.Six years on, Gillingham’s work seems rather out-of-date. For one thing,hishostilitytowardstheEUwasalwaysunderpinnedbyafree-marketideologywhichismuchlesspersuasivethanitoncewas.IntheEU:AnObituaryhewrote:The US and China, followed by others, have adapted successfully to the newconditions of a neo-liberal global economy. Europe has not: command andcontrol methods have remained a constant in a world of dynamic change.3In 2023, that ‘neo-liberal global economy’ seems less like a world of ‘dynamicchange’ than one lurching from pillar to post. The ‘command and control’ (notquite so absent as Gillingham appears to think from the Chinese economy)mechanisms in Europe seem more like sane management. For Gillingham,Brexit was a chance for the UK to become more like the United States, andthere has always been a substantial body of opinion in the UK wanting todo that. But much has changed in the last six years, not least the Trumppresidency, the challenge of Covid and Russian expansionism. Institutional arrangements that might have seemed cumbersome and bureaucratic in 2016 seem defensible in the more uncertain and dangerous environment of the 2020s.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

327 COR a

Penerbit

Germany : transcript Verlag., 2023

Deskripsi Fisik

345 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783839464823

Klasifikasi

327

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

International Relations

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

-

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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