14/2 Geopolitical Order 2 | Anglosphere Hegemony.pdf
Conclusion
1. Anglosphere Hegemony was the UK 19th century and US 20th century Outer Crescent naval power containing a divided World Island
2. Circumstances now have surface vessels as sitting duck museum pieces and China and India are in their 21st century historical reversion
3. British Euroscepticism based on the Outer Crescent/Inner Crescent gap took refuge in the nostalgia for an imagined Victorian heroic past
4. While Brexit reduces the EU somewhat, it hobbles the UK substantially according to the uncertain wide range of ramifications eventuating
AR Research and Opinion
Discussion
There has been a heated polemic since the early 1990s on the slightly confused matter of the Anglosphere as a matter of both historical and current geopolitical fact. It was launched in the UK in the early 1990s and then travelled to the US and would appear to be supported by a nostalgia for things past and by neoliberal interests seeing false narrative and false consciousness opportunities in the confused hankering for such things past. The precise chronology indicates that it originated in reaction to the 1992 Maastricht Treaty establishing the EU out of the prior EEC etc and the EU momentum then proceeding in its ‘ever closer union’ to the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. The Lisbon Treaty, Article 3 (3), states ‘the Union shall establish an internal ‘single’ market based on a competitive social market economy with sustainability’, where ‘social market economy with sustainability’ in simple language means a mix of Ordoliberalism and Environmentalism. While the level of popular discussion is ill informed and unaware of such complexities as Ordoliberalism, nevertheless there is a clear dislike of whatever the EU may be as it does not smell right: ‘Johnny Foreigner’ somehow stepping out of line. The Anglosphere is a romantic illusion based on Victorian and Edwardian tropes and comfortable settler colonies without considering their complications for the aboriginal inhabitants. Its hegemonic status relates to the circumstances of the 19th century for the UK and the 20th century for the US: the former circumstances long gone and the latter circumstances under 21st century World Island threat. The Anglosphere consists of the Echelon members or CANZUKUS: a group of disparate Outer Crescent territories not making a viable whole with only English and Common Law as the glue. It is somehow presented as a viable alternative to the UK’s membership in the EU. The scale of the institutionally alien US means that any participation of the US would be uncomfortable for the UK and without US participation the scheme would not have the necessary economic scale. It led to the UK Brexit debate: strong on Brexit vague, inaccurate but effective claims 'Take Back Control' etc, but notably weak on understanding the EU benefits viz the pooled sovereignty 'Brussels Effect': analytically a panarchy emergent property.
AR Research and Opinion
Chronology
1905 |
Marshall publishes Our Island Story: a children’s history book from the Romans on as a stirring tale of heroism and triumph with however a degree of social progressiveness |
1918 |
Strachey publishes Eminent Victorians (Manning, Nightingale, Gordon and Arnold): attacking the Victorian Age’s belief in its successes arising from some moral superiority |
1973 |
UK accession to the EEC now the EU abandoned the Commonwealth and EFTA for the ‘Ever Closer Union’ claimed by the Treaty of Rome for its customs union project 1957 |
1992 (i) |
Congdon writes in The Spectator for the Anglosphere: ‘Home is where our language is’ with common law, private property, democracy, civil society, entrepreneurship etc |
1992 (ii) |
Garel-Jones asks in the parliamentary debate on ratifying the Maastricht Treaty, “Can the anti federalists, Eurosceptics and little Englanders offer a positive alternative?” |
2000 (i) |
Conquest vs Ignatieff debate in the New York Review of Books: anti US EU is divisive of the West vs EU has progressive achievements Anglosphere is a mere romantic illusion |
2000 (ii) |
Lloyd publishes The Anglosphere Project in the New Statesman: describing a transatlantic rightist cum Thatcherite group unhappy with the UK’s perceived misfit with the EU |
2016 |
Cohen publishes Euroscepticism and Anglosphere in the Spectator: terming it nostalgia for the ‘White Commonwealth’ of the UK + settler colonies re the Brexit Referendum |
2019 |
Rees-Mogg publishes The Victorians: a narrative to promote a revived Global Britain and a Eurosceptic argument justifying Brexit panned by the critics as a mere pamphlet |
2020 |
TCA agreed giving the EU its complex tiered regulatory liaison framework to protect the Single Market Acquis and the UK its quixotic sovereignty vis à vis the totemic ECJ |
AR Research and Opinion
Glossary
Brussels Effect |
Producers comply with the highest standards required |
Creating an EU extraterritorial regulatory sovereignty: an emergent property irritating US neoliberal vested interests |
Congdon |
Tim John 1951 – A monetarist economist |
The founder of Lombard Street Research and involved in public policy issues as a libertarian and a eurosceptic |
Conquest |
George Robert 1917 – 2015 An influential historian |
A dual UK US national he became a noted historian of the USSR, a eurosceptic and promoter of the Anglosphere |
ERG |
European Research Group Founded to oppose Maastricht |
Founded by Sir Michael Spicer in response to the Maastricht Treaty: it moved from ‘Eurosceptic’ to ‘Hard Brexit’ |
Hegemony |
The UK 19th century and the US 20th century situation |
The Outer Crescent Anglosphere received hegemony by default perceiving that to be by right of moral superiority |
Ignatieff |
Michael Grant 1947 – A nuanced critic of US |
US is a hegemon embellished by free markets, human rights and democracy themes enforced by military power |
Panarchy |
Hartzog’s Governance in the Network Age 2005 |
A systems theoretical non hierarchical flat governance for the networked complexity and connectivity of ecologies |
Rees-Mogg |
Jacob William 1969 – A curious Parliamentary eccentric |
Known as the ‘Honourable Member for the 18th century’, MP and ex Chairman of the Hard Brexit promoting ERG |
Strachey |
Lytton 1880 – 1932 A Bloomsbury Group member of note |
The Victorians were mouth bungled hypocrites promoting the evil system of settling international disputes by force |
TCA |
EU UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement |
Revealing the ecology arising from the Acquis Communautaire as a rule bound system having panarchic qualities |
AR Research and Opinion