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It means the Germans and the French successfully incentivized Orban to wreck the EU from the inside rather than leave it in a parting way of vision.
The 'you could always tank your economy and leave the EU if you wanted to' links two competing interests- not-tanking the EU, and leaving the EU. If not-tanking the economy trumps, it doesn't mean you like the EU, it just means you dislike it less than tanking your economy. You can absolutely recognize that you are dependent on something you don't like- it's not some paradox, and is a common point when you can't change circumstances you would have avoided or changed if you could have without
What this means in practical terms, however, is that if you can't leave the current environment you don't like- and the French and Germans made a very deliberate policy choice of making Brexit, and implicitly any other exit, as painful as possible- then you have no reason not to reshape it from the inside. The EU ceased to be credibly based on a common commitment to liberal values after Brexit, when a country significantly more liberal than much of Europe left, and the primary objections to it's departer- and examples made of it- were economic in nature.
Well, besides refusing to consider ultimately-accepted Irish border inspection measures for several years, selective laxening of migrant enforcement across the channel, coordinated media campaigns, grouping in various European projects the British were already paying members of that don't require EU membership to renegotiation as part of the broader trade deal negotiations, immediate objection on safety grounds of standards that were still in alignment at arbitrary cutoff dates, and deliberate demands for politically unviable demands that led to the collapse of the entire pro-EU British establishment when they tried to actually deliver a Brexit-in-name-only but which were dropped afterwards.
As a project to actually keep Britain in the European orbit, as was initially attempted by trying to offer an exceptional number of 'you can change your mind' avenues and the May BINO terms while heightening the prospects of departure with numerous techhniques, the EU position was a bumbling failure of trying to not-lose one of their most significant strategic-relevance contributors, and ended up in the impressive result of starting with a Parliamentary practical-majority of Remainers to negotiate with at the start changing to a hard-Brexit wave. As a secondary effort to try and keep the EU together, it was a decent success, albeit missing the obvious third order effects for how Euroskeptical states would adjust policy on the expectation of staying in the EU.
That there were options the EU could have done and didn't does not mean that they weren't also options that the Europeans didn't have to do, but did.
Of course not. It was just formal policy by various European leaders to show that exiting the EU would hurt anyone more than staying in, while taking multiple efforts to undermine confidence in the departed member's business environment, maintaining various European Union media campaigns continuing cultivate Brexit messaging themes years after macro-economic trends surpassed it, and post-Brexit attempts by the German and French governments to try to centralize power in European institutions they collectively dominated in the absence of British obstruction.
Things do not need to be shadowy plots to be confluence of interests between parties. 'Soft Brexit' was never going to be an option due to interests, not technical impossiblity.
That is because it is not a condemnation, and suggests to me that you are mis-interpreting the position.
As @Harlequin5942 stated, I am not condemning. I maintain the EU made Brexit more painful than it had to be. Making things more painful than necessary is only a condemnation if you believe the point of geopolitics and diplomatic negotiations with allies is to minimize harm to all parties involved.
In so much as I condemn the EU's handling of Brexit, it is on grounds of competence in pursuit of what I view was their desired results of the negotiation strategy.
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Britain gets hurt leaving the EU simply by trade distance. They really never had a choice about being in the EU. Replacing more trade with America was never possible. The distances are too far. And I don’t mean actual physical trade. Like a merchant banker in the UK would never be financing a factory at the same ability in North Carolina as he would in Southern France.
Geography binds them to Europe. And while certain things on a lot fronts need standardized to reduce all sorts of trade frictions there’s also a desire to not have to take on all European cultural demands.
And part of Brexxit was not just cultural but a realization EU had bad policy. Monetary was far too tight leading to bad growth and then Syria happened because we fucked up Syria and a bunch of poor brown people invaded Europe that no one really wanted.
Who is attributing malice? The initial topic of your debate was whether EU actions had made Brexit more or less painful than it had to be.
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