Re: [A-List] UK state: strategic dilemma

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Anne writes:

I can not accept your characterization of John Laughland's position on
sovereignty as one of "dishonesty."  John
has never advocated the special relationship, and - if anything - is deeply
troubled by the many bad consequences for the UK.  Being in support of the
special relationship does not follow from being anti-EU.  In fact, if a
europhobe is honest - as you point out - on the issue of sovereignty, then
the special relationship must be  questioned too.  And John has done that,
and paid - and is paying - a price for it. -A.

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John Laughland's "fundamental dishonesty" is rather different from that of
the europhobes who reject Brussels supposedly on the basis of lost
sovereignty whilst lying prostrate before Washington DC. Apart from viewing
the EU as a German conspiracy to finally win the second world war, his work,
like that of radical economist Brian Burkitt, involves collaboration with
these very same types, and that is dishonesty of a different sort.
Considering the racism that lies at the bottom of the europhobes distaste
for the EU (what could be more humiliating than taking orders from Germans?
or even the French?), to speak on their platforms and to assist in their
efforts at disinformation -- as Laughland does, via the Rees-Mogg backed
European Intelligence Digest forwarded here occasionally by Chris Black --
is fundamental dishonesty, albeit of a different sort. It's more forgivable
when Laughland's other fine and courageous work is taken into account, but,
at the very least, it still amounts to very bad judgment.

My own views are very much coloured by an overwhelming desire to see the
British state dismantled in its entirety -- a great service to
anti-imperialism at the best of times, but utterly necessary if we are to
weaken the imperialist chain and put brakes on the advance of US
imperialism. For it is US imperialism, ultimately, that props up the British
state as it is, and, delusions of sovereignty notwithstanding, it cannot be
otherwise.

Michael