3 ms·
The question is whether the UK can continue to justify its substantial spending on military and foreign-policy influence. When the UK maintained a global empir
by matthewdgreen 4y ago
The question is whether the UK can continue to justify its substantial spending on military and foreign-policy influence.
When the UK maintained a global empire, the answer was "obviously yes." When the UK held a dominant position in European governance (along with the various benefits that came with that), the answer was still "yes." But now the UK has given both of those things. So it's reasonable to ask if these are expensive luxuries from another era.
- fidgewidge 4y agoThe UK never held anything close to a dominant position in European governance.
- matthewdgreen 4y agoThe UK was one of the top 3-4 nations by voting power (depending on the time) in the 27-member EU and a very important player in EU politics. Their negotiating power is evidenced by the fact that they were able to secure opt-outs from a number of treaty obligations.
- fidgewidge 4y agoIn the past! Over time less and less was decided by voting and we saw what the UK's influence was worth when Cameron took voters concerns to the other leaders. Answer: shut up and do as you are told. The EU hasn't been interested in votes for a long time and will certainly be even less interested in future.
- orwin 4y agoIt was dominant though. Top2 or top3 in research orientation. I don't think a single project was ever done without major UK participants and researchers. Granted, we mostly excluded 'public schools' in favor of UK universities, at least for research and engineering projects, but Edinburgh had more power than Hamburg and Hannover, and I think only Paris-Lyon had more projects than them. Mostly because we had space projects.
- fidgewidge 4y agoThat's only one tiny aspect which hardly matters to anyone outside of academia.