Obama admin warns UK not to reduce EU participation

[regexcellent]

Uh, pardon me, but how is this any of our ****ing business?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/world/europe/state-dept-official-suggests-britain-keep-european-union-ties-strong.html?_r=0

The United States entered Britain’s debate over its relationship with the European Union on Wednesday, when a senior diplomat implicitly warned the British government not to do anything that might endanger its membership in the 27-nation union.
The comments, made in London by Philip Gordon, the assistant secretary of state for Europe, echo sentiments expressed by a number of European officials. But they are likely to have a bigger impact in Britain because of the closeness of its ties to Washington, a point of pride in London.
The timing of the rare public intervention is also significant, coming shortly before a long-awaited speech by Prime Minister David Cameron in which he intends to lay out plans for a redefinition of Britain’s relationship with the European Union.

I don't know whether Britain's EU participation is more or less than what it should be; my gut feeling would be less, but it's not the sort of thing I'm really well-versed on. The UK is not a member of the Eurozone, wisely, so there's that. But really, what our government thinks Britain's should do is really neither here nor there. Unless the State Department really gets off on a United States of Europe fantasy.

Seriously, why do they give half a **** what Britain does?

[Aeson]

How can we tell if they are still our friends or not if we dont give them orders to follow?

[regexcellent]

How can we tell if they are still our friends or not if we dont give them orders to follow?

Shouldn't those orders at least be tangibly related to our interests then?

e: I don't actually think we should be giving the UK orders and I'm thinking Aeson doesn't either.

[DaShi]

They are. UK leaving the EU will have global economic consequences.

[Kidlicious]

Unless the State Department really gets off on a United States of Europe fantasy.

It's just diplomacy. The less influence Britain has in the EU the less we have.

This stuff makes a big difference for multinational corporations.

[Hauldren Collider]

I'm not sure what the UK gets from being in the EU. Seems to be a pretty bad deal for the British. If I were them, I'd leave.

[Snotty]

I'm not sure what the UK gets from being in the EU. Seems to be a pretty bad deal for the British. If I were them, I'd leave.

Off the top of my head, half of British trade is with the EU, and leaving the EU would result in no longer having a say in the policy of our biggest trading partners

In pains me to think I probably got that line from Cameron or conservative propaganda

[kentonio]

The United States entered Britain’s debate over its relationship with the European Union on Wednesday, when a senior diplomat implicitly warned the British government not to do anything that might endanger its membership in the 27-nation union.
The comments, made in London by Philip Gordon, the assistant secretary of state for Europe, echo sentiments expressed by a number of European officials. But they are likely to have a bigger impact in Britain because of the closeness of its ties to Washington, a point of pride in London.
The timing of the rare public intervention is also significant, coming shortly before a long-awaited speech by Prime Minister David Cameron in which he intends to lay out plans for a redefinition of Britain’s relationship with the European Union.

Wow, that was really, really stupid of him. Britains EU membership is an odd thing, it's extremely important to the country yet is incredibly unpopular due to decades of government lying about it, and a resulting lack of understanding among people as to what it actually means. You know what else is recently incredibly unpopular? Yeah, that would be the idea of America pressuring the UK into doing things that aren't in Britain's interests. Obama being elected helped heal some wounds, but there is still a deep seated resentment over Iraq and the perception of Blair acting like Bush's poodle.

If there is one thing that would be absolutely guaranteed to piss people off here, make people dislike America even more, and make UKIP win more votes, it's something like this.

[MikeH]

I dunno, Obama is probably more popular here than most of our politicians. *I have no evidence for this*

[dannubis]

HC, Check the trade balance of the UK and see who the main trading partners are you moronic person.

[Aeson]

Shouldn't those orders at least be tangibly related to our interests then?

Sometimes there just isn't a useful cause to order them to fall in line behind against. But if we stop ordering them around they'll no doubt start to think they can do what they want. This is why Cesar Millan will never go longer than 30 seconds without "ppsssshhhht"

Obama has gone with keeping the EU together ... Bush needed a Coalition of the Willing ... no doubt some future president will be invading Angola to stop spice smugglers or whatever else is threatening humanity after it turns out Iran really doesn't want to have nukes, or already has nukes.

I myself would just order them to rotate their flag 180 degrees once a fortnight, but to each their own ...

[kentonio]

I dunno, Obama is probably more popular here than most of our politicians. *I have no evidence for this*

Just because Obama is popular doesn't mean that the insults of the Bush years are forgiven. Any sign of America trying to tell us what to do is going to go down especially badly.

[MikeH]

From my perspective, when I heard it it didn't come across like him telling us what to do. I took it as a sign of our good relationship with the US that he thought it was valuable for us to stay part of the EU.

(Even if it's just so we can tell the EU to do what the Yanks want).

[kentonio]

Cue Daily Mail rant article in 3.2....

[MikeH]

If the Daily Mail is against something you know it's worth campaigning for.