Here, it means a nation-state.

I don't doubt they will try to make rhetorical use of it. But there was a referendum less than two years ago and it will be hard for them to show that there needs to be another one. It will take, after all, Westminster's allowance for another referendum. Unless they get a lot of popular support such a campaign, there won't be another referendum over it.

 ​Of course, there's other issues with the remain campaigns use of the threat about the Scots, such as why would those claiming to be Scottish nationalists want to leave Britain to become a province in a fledgling superstate (although the true nature of the EU, which can be seen by anyone who acquaints themselves with its history from Monnet's Action Committee for a United States of Europe and even before, is not usually talked about in Britain); and why the English should have our continued existence as a nation-state held hostage to the Scots. Personally, I think the nations of Britain are better off in some arrangement, but if the Scots really want to leave Britain, that is there business and there is only so far I would go to try and keep Britain together.

iwpoe wrote:

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

Here, it means a nation-state.

The point is that defending the decision as a merely national independence decision is beside the point (especially on the refugee issue). It's not that the EU is excessive in its authority over some internal body in some merely technical way, but that membership in the EU is hostile to the way of life as lived in the UK. So it might not be a bad idea, but casting it as a matter of institutional arrangment makes is look like a trivial burecratic issue or even some matter of say temporary financial benifit for some arbitrary group of people.

We have a similar argument in the US that is at this point merely formal that goes under the heading "state's rights". The rhetoric usually says something along the following lines: 'The federal government should not supercede the laws of the various states beyond X-bounds (whatever those may be in the context of the argument).'

The problem with the way the argument is articulated is that I don't see why I am inherently any better served by a legislature located in my state capital than I am by one located in the nation's capital. The argument better not be merely instrumental or provincial in some narrow sense. 

I take it that the tacit argument is that there is some set of local units in the smaller states which are better protected or which are only properly represented in their character by the smaller state-legislature and it is the integrity of these that needs to be defended. It's just that the usual organic units by which Europeans might traditionally distinguish themselves are not very plausible in the US- the difference between a Tennesseean and a New Yoker culturally (especially a New Yorker outside manhattan) is not half as strong as the sense of distinction the Irish have from the Britions, never ming the English generally from the Germans or Greeks.)

I tend to think that a lot of the programs that get lanched nationally tend to not always make a lot of sense as national policy.

Take, for instance, a hike in the national minimum wage. Because different states and areas of the country have vastly different costs of living, a minimum wage that might make sense in somewhere like LA makes no sense in rural Arkansas; whatever number you choose at a national level is practically guareenteed to be too low or too high for somebody. We've already seen these sorts of problems come into fruition in New York, where they passed a new raise in the minimum wage mostly geared towards helping people in New York City, but has been a bit of a disaster for the already hurting job market in rural New York.

A similar thing might be said for a national welfare system; a stipend sufficient to support a large family in rural Montana probably won't even support a single man living in NYC.

Ultimately, subsidiarity ought to be respected because it maximizes the amount of power a citizen might be able to excercise of over his government; it is much easier to get into contact with a representative that lives in the same general area as you do, where you could a least in principle walk right up to their office, than trying to contact somebody living in Washington.

Plus, more local representatives are much more likely to be somebody you know in your grapevine and sympathetic to your concerns; they're much more dependent on you for them to be elected and reelected as well.

iwpoe wrote:

The point is that defending the decision as a merely national independence decision is beside the point (especially on the refugee issue). It's not that the EU is excessive in its authority over some internal body in some merely technical way, but that membership in the EU is hostile to the way of life as lived in the UK. So it might not be a bad idea, but casting it as a matter of institutional arrangment makes is look like a trivial burecratic issue or even some matter of say temporary financial benifit for some arbitrary group of people.

We have a similar argument in the US that is at this point merely formal that goes under the heading "state's rights". The rhetoric usually says something along the following lines: 'The federal government should not supercede the laws of the various states beyond X-bounds (whatever those may be in the context of the argument).'

The problem with the way the argument is articulated is that I don't see why I am inherently any better served by a legislature located in my state capital than I am by one located in the nation's capital. The argument better not be merely instrumental or provincial in some narrow sense. 

I take it that the tacit argument is that there is some set of local units in the smaller states which are better protected or which are only properly represented in their character by the smaller state-legislature and it is the integrity of these that needs to be defended. It's just that the usual organic units by which Europeans might traditionally distinguish themselves are not very plausible in the US- the difference between a Tennesseean and a New Yoker culturally (especially a New Yorker outside manhattan) is not half as strong as the sense of distinction the Irish have from the Britions, never ming the English generally from the Germans or Greeks.)

The support of the continued importance of the nation and the nation-state is implied.

I think there are good arguments both for general decentralism and for the nation-state, at least in England's case, but I didn't post the OP with the immediate intent of jumping into a long argument on these issues (except on the off chance there are Europhiles here). It really was just a post meant to draw attention to an interesting event.