The EU is the new empire - it doesn't deserve our support

As many of those terms you used cancel one another out, which one is it: Imperialism, capitalism, Capitalism, liberalism, Liberalism, neo-liberalism, Liberals. These are entirely different and contradictory ideas. African Liberation? Go be an openly gay man in Mali and then talk about liberalism so negatively. Better yet, read a book once in a while that opposes your anti-capitalist viewpoints. Back to my French breakfast. Au revoir.

Which is the greater impediment to Welsh sovereignty: the EU or UK? If the EU can support the rebirth of a free and democratic Wales, who (other than Brit nats) would not support the EU?

Russian-backed troll using selected points to undermine EU. Ignore. The best chance we had for autonomy - or even full independence - was within the EU and we threw it away on the false promises of English (some ultra-English, even those born in Wales) Westminster politicians (who may yet be proved to be in the pay of enemy states).

There are numerous problems with what you write, but let's address the last and most salient point. Destroying the EU will not lead to world revolution, an overthrow of capitalism and an international brotherhood of workers and peasants, it will lead to fascism. That's already where we are heading with Brexit which is driven by a fascistic hatred of foreigners. By supporting it you are doing just what the left did in the '30s failing to differentiate between social democrats, conservatives and the Nazis. Do not make that mistake again, please.

There's really interesting in not hard to digest stuff in this landscaping of capitalism in the context of the EU. It reminds me of the firework I used to light as a child called a Jackie Jumper. You never knew where it was going to land but heck it was scary but lots of fun. The thinking is dominated by the excesses of global profits extorted from those who deserve better. No disagreement. If you really think this is going to change if we leave the EU which has been a significant source of much needed grants amounting to countless millions of pounds, ( Above the % of what we pay in ) then sweet dreams. The EU is the biggest agent towards peace in Europe that we have. It's not perfect but what is. It's approach to minority languages is about preservation. It's approach to the environment is above anything that is likely to happen if we withdraw. You must think of the damage that will be inflicted on Wales and its position as part of a failed Union. I say an independent Wales within Europe will be a far better prospect to advance the causes of the third world than as part of an isolated UK.

Well there's nothing like a rich slice of 'lexit' hogwash to get the juices flowing in the morning. For the uninitiated 'lexit' being the term coined for those ultra leftists - like 'Sawel ap Harri' - who while professing to be international socialists and excoriating the EU as a 'bosses club' lined up with the hard right of the british tory party, the bigots of ukip and assorted british neo fascists to campaign for a leave vote in the 2016 eu referendum. The rationale for this bizarre stance being that a vote to leave the eu would usher in a 'british socialist utopia'. I say 'british' because the Lexiters of the british ultra left of course have no interest in independence for wales (indeed it's telling he barely mentions wales in his hysterical rant). And so it is no surprise that the vanguard of the british ultra left - the tankies of the morning star - lined up with the british ruling class and campaigned against scottish indy in 2014. Must say it's a strange breed of class warriors who work to preserve the existence of the historically reactionary and nakedly imperialist british state. Thankfully there are saner voices around on the left - among them the greek socialist economist and former syriza minister Yanis Varoufakis - who recognize that while the eu might not be perfect the alternative we in wales and the uk now face is far far worse. That alternative we now face being a low tax, deregulated economy with the many rights workers have gained through membership of the EU being stripped away (numerous leaks from hard right groups in the british tory party have already confirmed this). Indeed it was no accident that the day after the referendum vote nigel lawson greeted the result by exclaiming 'now we can finish what thatcher started'. And while utopians like Sawel ap Harri enjoy the luxury of polemicizing against the eu with reaganesque references to 'the evil empire' in the real world and the real wales in which we presently live welsh industries, businesses and tens of thousands of welsh workers face the grim prospect of economic immolation because of the tariffs that will be imposed on welsh exports to the single market as a result of the hard brexit people like Sawel ap Harri champion (over two thirds of welsh exports are to the eu single market). And thousands of EU nationals living in Wales and who play a vital role in sectors like health and social care face huge uncertainty over their right to remain in Wales as a result of the UK government's plans to leave the single market and the customs union - a xenophobic decision ultra leftist lexiters like Sawel ap Harri support :(

When freedom of movement occurs people move .. abandoning the socialist prison states, and failed corrupt states en masse from Cuba to E Germany. One cuban had to fell his garden mango tree as the state forced him to give a fixed amount .. almost all.. each year for free, he would normally have given excess away to neighbours, who had already felled theirs. It was the UK-US which has systematically destroyed the three Arab Socialist states of Libya, Iraq and Syria. It is the EU, Turkey and Lebanon that have taken the burden of refugees. The EU is a business enterprise for coordinated economics... it is flawed but the best that’s on offer. Europe is still seeing the largest migration since the end of the second world war .. it can do more but it is far from fortress europe. The hungarians? Are reasserting their borders due to the EU rule on “first country” registration for for refugees. This rule is great for fortress UK (no land borders) and the UK accepts none of the new influx directly. Merkels million from 2016 will settle permanently in Germany and have rights to bring in close family. The door is far from closed. The idea of Wales as a Scandi-social-democracy is not a bad thing but the ideas set out in this article are from another, much darker, century.

And yet, Neoliberalism and Liberalism before it has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system ever conceived. In fact it's the only system at any time to have been effective at lifting people out of poverty. (not the USSR, Maosit China, Mugabe's Zimbabwe, Venuzuela). A skilled Welsh metal worker in 1780 was richer than any working man had ever been thanks to free markets and free trade. A benefit claimant in Ogmore is better off now than he was then thanks to the same system. Inequality has risen because there is more to be unequal with. Hunter gathers didn't have the capacity for great inequality.

I mean - you have to laugh don't you? it's as if the writer has never visited Calais (which he probably hasn't given his obvious extreme xenophobia) and seen the fence that separates the mainland Channel Ports from the rest of mainland Europe so that the refugees can't access the ferries and trains to the UK, and seen what happens to them when they try to climb the fence. That's not an EXTERNAL EU border, that's an internal border between the UK (British passport control is at the entrances to pass beyond the wire) and the rest of Europe, built at the insistence of the British. And will the British dismantle it when little england leaves the EU? Of course it won't if it can possibly avoid it. So how -and why - does the writer blame this on the EU? And where does he mention Trump's wall in Mexico, or the wall in Occupied Palestine, or even the wall that the East Germans did to keep out the EU? And he talks - at nauseous and boring length - about the nasty EU's trade tactics. As if no other nation or trading group does the same. He complains about the advantages given to unprocessed food over processed food, for example, and conveniently forgets about the pollution and global warming caused by the processing that took place in the undeveloped countries with their lack of environmental controls and how 10 years ago he and his like were campaigning about the environmental catastrophes in these countries caused by irregular processing. He ought to stick his head out of his cave every now and again and try to keep in touch - even if only fleetingly - with the real world. This is nothing but scaremongering "journalism" of the worst kind of the Daily Fail written by a man with a huge chip on his shoulder, and five stomach ulcers all working away at once. Nation Cymru ought to be ashamed of itself publishing garbage like this.

You know a writer, idealist or not.....raises some good controversial points when you see such a backlash in the comments. Nation.Cymru is a great platform for different ideas. Diolch

Ridiculous over-reaction by some on here to an interesting and thought-provoking article. I wouldn't necessarily agree completely with such a heavily weighted class-conscious argument, but it's good to hear and consider such arguments. Surely? For the life of me, I can't understand why the undemocratic, corrupt and empire-building European Union is such an emotive rallying point for so many Welsh nationalists? It's as if all logic, historical awareness and rational thought goes out of the window immediately, once the name itself is mentioned, to be replace by emotion and feeling and a sense that anything 'European'must be good and virtuous. There's a world of difference between feeling "European" and a blind attachment to this failing project. Sometimes as nationalists, it's important to sense the tide of history and position ourselves accordingly. Brexit, Catalunya, the continuing electoral impasse in Germany and the growing rebellion of the Visegrad nations( Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia) are clear signs that the EU is falling apart at the seams. Welsh nationalists need to prepare for Brexit. A Celtic Federation between Wales, Scotland and Ireland to counter-weigh a resurgent England should now be a key consideration in our thinking.

EU - empire? How come we are allowed to leave? Were it an empire, i assume Brussels would have sent in the storm troopers and arrested/assassinated that nasty ffaridge. All the EUkippers would now be sweating away in some forced labor camp. . . Actually, the eu isn't so keen on Hungary's right wing gov't - same goes for Poland's neo-fascist ruling partei. Whilst i voted 'Ia', i am a minor eurosceptic: {Ifan, please turn off the auto speller - it drives me mad}, i agree that mass uncontrolled immigration from mainland europe brought down wages for people like me. In the unlikely event that turkey ever did join the eu, would they be allowed to 'unleash' 5 to 10 million workers looking for better wages elsewhere? When the common market was formed from the ruins of hitler's caput empire, no-one envisaged that poland or hungary etc would be able to escape from the ussr's iron grip, so mass movements of workers, whilst a noble aim, was one that nobody in reality would have to deal with. It says more about the stale political structures in euroland that they didn't adjust to new realities. We should have stayed in and reformed from within. Talking about migration: why is it acceptable for economic migrants to come to Cymru (ac yn enwedig y Gogledd a'r Gorllewin) and for them to destroy one of the world's languages? Why is it acceptable to disgus immigration of bulgarians and such like to uk, but not Russians, or god forbid, englishmin to Cymru? Ffaridge is a populist tosser, but he has broken out of the orthodoxy concerning immigration.

Give this article some respect for goodness sake. It's not British nationalism, it's the proper Lexit case. Equally, I don't want to give the author the impression he is right! In my opinion Lexit is bad analysis. I don't have an ounce of disrespect for the writer. I just think it's completely incorrect and will say why. Migration into the EU from outside of it occurs to the tune of millions every year. Most of these people are not white. The power to make decisions on accomodating migrants or sending them back is devolved to each member state. Can I add that I'm in the 'let them in' camp? Life is too short for me to worry about foreigners. But if the EU wants to freeze people out, it isn't doing a very good job. Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo, far from being excluded from the EU on racial grounds, are actually courted by it for future membership. Bosnia is a "potential candidate country" in EU policy. The reasons for its slow progress are to do with conditions on co-operating with The Hague, and some deep institutional problems. The EU is giving Bosnia 800million Euros a year to fix these problems. Implying the exclusion of Bosnia is racial is wrong. It's utter nonsense actually. Likewise, Albania is a mess in several ways but is getting 1.2billion Euros up to 2020 and is an official candidate. The exploited Meditteranean economies, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, have all known a pre-EU life. Not one of them will go back. The EU represents the "best" form of captalism tried so far. Alternatives have not worked.

Very interesting to see the venom and ad hominem arguments in the comments here. It feels as if anyone raises a questioning view of the EU they are spreading heresy and need to be silenced. There are good reasons to question the future of the EU and to recognise that it needs radical revision. People might benefit from looking at DIEM25 ( https://diem25.org/what-is-diem25/ ) which recognises the same problems in the EU but feels that they can be fixed rather than feeling that countries (Greece in this case) need to withdraw. The Brexit referendum has caused such a polarization of views that it seems almost impossible to debate the future, and the EU , in terms that are not either infantile idolatry or demonization. Unfortunately we have no choice but to have this debate

Who gains by foretelling the demise of the EU? There will always be plenty of vultures (hedge funds, wealthy-powerful individuals or institutions and supposed trading partners perhaps) looking for rich pickings, but what exactly has that got to do with us here in Wales.

Is this a serious article? I think not. It's a piss-take to garner a reaction. I'm afraid to say, nation.cymru and responders, you've been trolled ;)

By the way, I don't know why my picture shows up on my comments. Must have done it myself somehow. I look too serious. (It was for a verification ID) I have to figure out how to change it :)

For simular reasons the Uk do not deserve our support.

"Some may have voted leave for the wrong reasons, but the inherent class character of the EU means that it must be destroyed." Oh dear. Are you holding our breath for the socialist, internationalist utopia now we're leaving the EU and all the rights that came with it?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-economy-corbyn-labour-lexit-dont-believe-the-myth-a8184836.html

Practically all of the content of the article could be applied to the UK pre membership of the EU, as a EU member and post Brexit. "The European Union is sold as a way of transcending nationalism, yet the reality is that it is a vehicle for the larger European capitalist states to pursue their interest." Becomes The United Kingdom is sold as a way of transcending nationalism, yet the reality is that it is a vehicle for the largest of the British capitalist states to pursue its interest.