(UKIP boy is an associate of mine back in the fair city of Birmingham, a fellow geologist, and an industrious commentor on this very blog. Naturally it is only fair than he appears above the line for once - Comrade Nash)
As people who know me will know, I am a huge Star Wars fan. I would also go as far to call myself a Star Wars geek, but lets not bandy the G word around please. I have watched each movie countless times and enjoyed them. I also read the books that come out that continue on the story past the films. Another thing about me that people will know less is that I am a eurosceptic (a Tory one at that and not a member of UKIP as Chris would think). So in this blog I’m going to try and combine the two, creating a sort of picture of the similarities between the current political situation in the Star Wars galaxy and the similarities that can be drawn between it and the UK’s relationship with the EU.
I suppose I should give a brief history of the Star Wars galaxy and where we are. The current time is around 40 years are the events of Star Wars A New Hope. In this time Han and Leia have married and had 3 kids; 2 sons and 1 daughter. Both sons are now dead – one killed during a big galactic invasion and the other one killed by his twin sister after he went to the dark side (actually I lie a bit in 40 ABY when I’m basing these ramblings he hadn’t been killed yet). Luke has become a Jedi Master and married and had a son and the galaxy came through a massive invasion by a species from another galaxy.
The galaxy is ruled by the Galactic Alliance. This was formed at the end of the above mentioned war between the major galactic powers especially the Empire and the New Republic. Here we get the first similarity between Star Wars and the EU. Both were formed at the end of the most destructive war in history and the key members had until recently been deadly enemies. The EU was founded by France and Germany, which of course during WWII had been enemies.
Now as of the time being tensions are building in the GA and Corellia, Han Solo’s home planet. It is chaffing under the rules made on the GA capital world Coruscant by the Chief of State (Much like a president) and the senate. The main problem is that fact that Corellia has a space navy, which the GA wants to integrate into the GA’s defence force to have a unified force. Understandably Corellian’s don’t like this and see it as them having their navy stolen and independence taken away. They are also one of the richest systems in the galaxy and find that the GA is putting restrictions on their trading. Anyway to cut a long story short this eventually leads to civil war and another war.
So how does this relate to the EU and the UK? Well let’s see. As mentioned above the Corellian’s are very independent minded. I see similarities with us British people in this. While our European neighbours over the last 1000 years or so have had many people controlling them depending on who was conquering who, we a small island nation have remained unconquered allowing us to see our self as a more independent nation which has more in common with our Anglo-Saxon ancestors then with the Spanish, Italians or Greeks.
The next point is that the EU is a multinational organisation which likes to make rules, indeed it is reckoned that up to 80% of all new laws in the UK originate in Brussels and of course the laws of the EU are more important then a nations laws. This is a similar situation to the Star wars galaxy where the rules are made by a few people on a far away planet diminishing the role of the people who rule individual planets and sectors.
If we take the defence force issue it is known that the EU wishes to have its own defence force, which will be made up of individual nations defence forces and would then be under EU command to do what the EU want to do even if it was against national interest. Though thankfully at the moment this still a pipedream as the country that would actually provide the fighting troops doesn’t really want to join one. And that country, the UK.
Galactic Alliance Symbol
We are also one of the richest countries in the EU. However we are restricted to which trade partners we can have. For example our bananas have to come from old French Caribbean colonies instead of ours. Also went we joined the EU the Australian and New Zealand economies collapsed as they relied on exporting their beef and lamb to us however once we join the EU it became to expensive to have meat from those countries as EU meat was a lot cheaper due to the CAP and trade barriers.
So in my opinion we the people of the UK face many of the same problems that threaten one of the most famous planets in the Star Wars world and while we shall not for a long time go to war over this (I can see a time when these issues could lead to a country declaring war on the EU) I do think that we have a lot to complain about with out relationship with Europe and need to think about how to improve it for ourselves.
(Author’s note: Please note I would not want us to ever really totally leave the EU just only be with them as part of a free trade group leave the politics that comes with the EU to the French and the Germans to like that sort of stuff)
Anyway thank you for listening to these ramblings and hope you enjoyed them and if you didn’t then tuff.
UKIP boy
comradenash
/ July 1, 2010“a Tory one at that and not a member of UKIP as Chris would think”
- Ah, see always knew you were a Tory, was just the blog persona what confused me. Mind you, UKIP always do rather well in our neck of the woods. Somerset in the EU elections of 2005 (or was it 2001?) had UKIP posters all over the shot, far exceeding the total of Conservative + Liberals combined. There has to be a reason for this. My hunch has always been that while the metropolitan elites overwhelmingly benefit from our affiliation, rural communities lose often lose out on balance – for the economic reasons you’ve outlined.
Of course there is the possible benefit of not sending our sons off to kill each other every generation like we used to – though how much of that is down to NATO or other factors is, like all else in the realm of alt-history, impossible to know for certain. Uncontrolled economic nationalism and protectionism is as dangerous as unregulated free markets, but both are ultimately needed in balance to secure Europe-wide economic growth AND full employment.
A common opinion I’ve heard from germans here in NZ, a people far more EU-integrated than us, is that the EU has expanded far too swiftly in the last 10 years. That and a complaint that, despite their best efforts, other Europeans aren’t german enough.
(also, LOL at the randomly generated ‘possibly related posts’)
ukipboy
/ July 1, 2010I do agree with your german friend on the rapidly expanding EU it now cvers essentailly the entire continent and is planning on expanding to countries which used to be considered asian countries e.g. Turkey and the caucus countries.
I had a small smile on my face during the election debates when the issue of immigration was raises especially EU imigration which cant be controled. With cameron saying that in the last 13 years EU migration has increased 10 fold (or whatever figure it is) from the john major years. Im surprised that brown didnt point out that this was because of an enlarged EU so of course there was always going to be more migrants especially when the new countries unlike the old 15 were much poorer countries then us.
But then im sure dave would have mentioned about was it nesseccary to expand.
I dont know what the situation is with the other rich euro[ean cuntries like germany and france but im sure they have experienced an increase in migrant numbers because of the expansion. A way to control future migration might be do do a very controversal thing and say until these eu countries get themselves up to a certain economic level any outmigration should either be banned which probably cant happen or be strictly controled
comradenash
/ July 1, 2010Stronger restrictions on expansion need to be called for. Some will call it “exclusive” or a “rich elitist club” or whatever, but so what? Bottom line is it *is* our club and we can’t let the rest of the world drag us down to their level.
Am pleased to see Ed Balls tackling immigration now in opposition (one of the reasons I’m backing him for leader). Unfortunate that Cameron should now brand him “the new Alf Garnett of politics” or thereabouts because of it. In the old days I guess one could at least trust the Tories to be strongly anti-immigration (albeit often for rather unsavory reasons), now I’m not so sure. Mass immigration (especially from the EU with free movement of both people and capital) is in the interests of the wealthy elite in that it depresses wages. Thank flip for the minimum wage, otherwise we’d be buggered. The snide retort is always “Not taking your jobs, but *doing* them”, the “-for less than a living wage” part is easily forgotten. Far easier to label people fascists, racists, etc.
Anyhow, back OT – yeah, the germans weren’t very happy with Greece these past 6 months. I diplomatically never mentioned the suddent disappearence of the Greeks national gold reserves way back in ’41, but there you are. Do you reckon the writers of the SW franchise/spin off novels are conciously inspired by the real world EU? I always used to find the deliberate Empire = bad guys, Republic = good guys dictonomy rather indicative of Yank insecurities over their own mythologised history.
ukipboy
/ July 1, 2010I dont think it is something they do on purpuse if just that most of the authors are americans and I am not sure how much they know about the EU. And interesting thing to note i that currently the GA (the new name for the republic) is at the moment ruled by an ex imperial admiral who was once in charge of developing the death star and other even more powerful super weapons and at one point was going to crash a star destroyer on to a planet. At the same time the empire is ruled by someone who is generally pro jedi and can been seen as a good guy.
To make everything more intriging the current plot sees the head of the GA being anti jedi for many reasons and essentially laying seige to the temple. However in one of the future books to come out next year the jedi are going to do a coup against the government according to spoilers.
Back on the empire front many authors have also mentioned how much they prefer writing about the empire as it is much easier politically to write about e.g one supremme hea of state with a small collection of helpers. Compared to the republic with a cheif of state and other major roles and then senators by the thousand