A Very Short Reading Group discussion

Any opinions on this little discussed topic?

A blast from the past. Author Simon Usherwood discusses the idea of a referendum on membership of the EU in 2013:

"In the (still unlikely) event that there is a referendum, I would doubt that there will be much informed discussion. Instead we will have some headline facts and figures, together with some celebrity endorsements and a couple of half-hearted TV debates, watched by few and cared about by fewer still. Whatever the result, it would not solve any of the long-term questions about Britain’s relationship with the rest of the Continent, nor offer a constructive agenda for the future."

https://blog.oup.com/2013/06/european...

Sooooo:- About the book, I read this some time ago. I don't want to re-read it at the moment as I'm very close to a milestone of 200 VSIs read, and have a bit of a push going on. The book is a very useful introduction to the EU. I just wish more people had read it a while back.
About you know what, I'm not going to engage with that. I think I've heard about every argument. I went to get my hair cut this morning. There was a sign on the door requesting that customers don't discuss you know what, as it has led to so many arguments the staff have had enough. See you next month.

A civilised debate about the EU last night, who’d have thought….

It may have been that the people attending the group had a similar view on certain ongoing events and anyone with a stronger view on either side might have made for a more challenging evening. But the consensus was that the book emphasised what a dry and somewhat boring topic the EU can be. 50 years of treaties and trade negotiations have somehow divided the nation and aroused passionate engagement. Or merely acted as a catalyst while the actual issues are lost in traditional cultural antagonisms. Rarely in the media or on social media are the relative merits or otherwise of the Lisbon Treaty, Maastricht, the European Council, European Commission etc etc discussed in an informed manner. What the book did a good job of was removing emotion and emphasising fact and detail. An approach which has been rather lacking for the past three years.

I've just finished the VSI on International Law. A really interesting one. It talks about how arbitrary, and fragile the concepts of both the sovereign nation state, and law, really are. In the end, it's all down to who has the biggest stick. "Imagine there's no countries" as a clever chap once sang.