The only explanation for the UK government's behaviour in late 2016 and early 2017 is that it must have been convinced that the collapse of the EU was imminent. And even now cabinet ministers and Brexiter MPs hover around predicting doom over every major European election.
UK political leaders and pundits still seem so ill-prepared for dealing with resilient European institutions because they believe that since the EU must fail it will inevitably fail.
Why prepare a plan for compromise if you think the EU is about to collapse?
Why prepare a plan for compromise if you think the EU is about to collapse?
So every major European event, be it an SPD membership vote, an Italian election or a Catalan secession crisis is described by US and UK media in near apocalyptic terms, ignoring the structural factors that push towards less spectacular outcomes.
This belief in inevitability of European collapse permeates UK debate on all EU issues, but is at its most egregious when it comes to how UK politicians and pundits describe Italy. A state with a mix of structural problems and strategic strengths reduced to xenophobic caricature
Yet every time a EU state refuses to follow the UK on its long march to strategic irrelevance instead of reassessing their assumptions, UK pundits and politicians seek out the next European state or issue where they declare the inevitable EUpocalypse must happen.
And this conviction in EU collapse isn't just a Brexiter attitude. So many Remainers praise the EU in the abstract before sweepingly dismissing the Euro, Schengen and defence integration with talking points that are difficult to differentiate from standard Brexiter rhetoric
There is much debate as to why the UK is unable to face up to the realities of the crisis it is drifting into.
But after two decades of UK pundits and politicians predicting imminent EU collapse it shouldn't be a surprise that they still struggle with the realities of EU power
But after two decades of UK pundits and politicians predicting imminent EU collapse it shouldn't be a surprise that they still struggle with the realities of EU power
Just as an epilogue to this thread, George Galloway's description of Italian politics at the start of this segment embodies the vulture-like hope for European calamity shared by many more mainstream UK figures:
And of course there is this from November 2017 by a senior BBC news presenter who also has a long track record in print journalism. A mindset you'll find right across the UK media and political landscape
