Russian forces enter the Crimea

[-:Undertaker:-]

If you define rule as follow some legislation then sure. Ukraine would undeniably be better off moving towards the EU, you only need to look at the graph i posted on your profile the other day about employment rates to see that.

Ukraine should be aiming for independence and be neither pro-EU or pro-Russian. That would be the only way for Ukraine to be a sovereign nation that gets the best of both worlds. A balanced foreign policy.

As for EU membership, well of course EU membership is good for all these tinpot countries - i'd be tempted to sign up too if I was an Eastern European country or somebody living in one. You get wads of cash thrown at you (from the stupid British, Dutch and German taxpayers), you get new roads built for you, infrastructure and you get free movement so you can leave: as so many do. But again, I am not concerned about the interests of Ukraine. I am interested in British interests - if Russia manages to pull Ukraine away from joining the EU then that will be a good thing for the United Kingdom and I would be happy with such an outcome.

[Okeanos]

The areas in the East where there is a majority of Russian people then, you'd force them to remain a part of the Ukraine even if they wish not to be? Aaaaahhh democracy western style, aslong as the people are siding with the west then that's okay then. You keep claiming that the majority in the East do not want seperation, yet where is your evidence for this? No polls have been taken so there's no way of knowing for sure other than looking at the situation on the ground which is that government buildings are hoisting up the Russian tricolour.

Do you agree with the notion of a referendum being held on whether the East should remain with the Ukraine?

You are assuming that all ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers think alike and want the same thing. Most people in the east do not want to separate, if you want evidence then I suggest you ask them. Read their tweets, read what they're posting on blogs and on various news websites. I have no problem with the eastern regions having a referendum, but only after Ukraine has been given a chance to form a unity government which means waiting until after elections in May.

That is some of the biggest bullcrap ever told about Britain and i'm sick of it. I didn't mention ethnic background but that's certainly one characteristic of a nation - and Britain has experienced, until the 1950s, very little immigration apart from an invasion or two in a thousand years. Britain is actually ethnically one of the most untouched nations in history owing to it's status as an island nation much like Japan. This kind of garbage you have spouted is routinely repeated in support of mass immigration and it's simply not true. You can see a debunking of this argument in this video from 2:25 to 3:40......



In terms of culture, yes the United Kingdom is a monoculture. Sure there are different sub regional cultures from Yorkshire to Wales, but broadly enough people believe in Britishness enough for it to remain under the same political and legal system. That is why it works, it survives by consent. There are signs of this breaking down mind you with Scottish independence, but broadly speaking it remains a monocultural state for the time being.



The countries I mentioned which are proper nation states contain a people within that consider themselves a part of one another, culturally similar enough to operate within the same political & legal system. This is very strong in France and the same in Germany (which unified late on) as well as the others I mentioned. Those which I said could not be considered proper countries are not proper countries for the reason that most of their borders were imposed by politicians and are purely artificial to mark long gone spheres of influence. The badly drawn borders between Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are a key example of this whereby the British and French drew invented borders across the map. Iraq and Syria are the worst, being drawn directly across the dividing line between Shia Islam and Sunni Islam. With the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the weakening of the Assad family in Syria, what I am saying is coming into fruitation: they are disintegrating states.

Follow any of the political crisises in these countries and you'll come to see what I am saying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2...litical_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2...abian_protests
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...us-region.html
http://www.smh.com.au/world/as-viole...215-32slz.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...tegration.html

Yugoslavia is the key example of how throwing people together in false countries can go horribly wrong, as after WWI politicians threw the diverse states of the Balkans together in a new 'Kingdom of Yugoslavia' (totally invented) and left them to get along with it..... with disasterous consquences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia It's often said that Yugoslavia is a prototype of a federal Europe, and I agree. Belgium is another example of a fake state that was created after a war, and although it's survived for a couple of hundred years it is on it's last legs as even with a federal system it's at breaking point.

Borders and countries are not simply invented as many on the left may think in line with their internationalism, they [borders] are there to reflect dividing lines between differing cultures as if one if rational you can see that a parliament drawn from both the UK and Saudi Arabia wouldn't work as we are complete opposites. Of course though, when borders are invented it turns out to be a disaster rather than the utopia that was intended.

Britain has always been a land of immigrants. Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Norwegians, Normans, Huguenots, Jews and Romani people have all made their home here. That video is just another uninformed bigot taking a selective view of history to prop up his own beliefs, not proof of anything. I don't think you understand what 'culture' is, you're talking about politics and the legal system - that is not culture. Scotland and Ireland have developed quite different legal and political systems to England and Wales, the UK is clearly not a 'monoculture'.

Nation states are not the only type of country, and for your information Britain, America, France, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway are NOT nation states - do you even understand what a nation state is? All borders are artificial and imposed by politicians at sometime or other, to suggest otherwise is ridiculous.

Yugoslavia was not an invented concept, since before the time of the Ottoman Empire there were pan-Slav nationalist ideas of uniting the region. You do realise that the people of the former Yugoslavia are ethnically and linguistically the same - their identity issues are the result of religious and minor cultural differences.

I've been told that you have a reputation for making things up in these types of debates, and I can see that reputation is well deserved. You are just another anti-European armchair politician, I have to wonder whether you believe what you're posting - I think you're trying to be controversial because you like the attention.

[-:Undertaker:-]

You are assuming that all ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers think alike and want the same thing. Most people in the east do not want to separate, if you want evidence then I suggest you ask them. Read their tweets, read what they're posting on blogs and on various news websites. I have no problem with the eastern regions having a referendum, but only after Ukraine has been given a chance to form a unity government which means waiting until after elections in May.

How can Ukraine form a unity government, or how can the eastern parts of the Ukraine go along with this when the central government in Kiev is refusing to play ball with the government in the autonomous Crimea?

Britain has always been a land of immigrants. Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Norwegians, Normans, Huguenots, Jews and Romani people have all made their home here. That video is just another uninformed bigot taking a selective view of history to prop up his own beliefs, not proof of anything. I don't think you understand what 'culture' is, you're talking about politics and the legal system - that is not culture. Scotland and Ireland have developed quite different legal and political systems to England and Wales, the UK is clearly not a 'monoculture'.

Oh yes, somebody is a bigot simply because you disagree with them, great debating there against the very intelligent Douglas Murray. In any case, yes that was many years ago - NOTHING has been seen on this scale in terms of mass immigration before, the the statistics prove it. Nobody argues against immigration, it's mass immigration that we 'bigots' like myself and Douglas Murray have a problem with. In any case, this is another debate.

As for the culture, I don't think you understand it my friend. Culture affects politics. Indeed, even with a monoculture, acts such as devolution can create seperate political cultures that can divide people: the people of Britain and Canada may be culturally similar for example, but our political culture is entirely different. You are confusing the political and legal system with what a culture is - culture influences the political and legal system, ie if you have an Islamic country you will have completely different ideas on what conservatism and liberalism mean compared to a western Christian country such as Britain.

Nation states are not the only type of country, and for your information Britain, America, France, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway are NOT nation states - do you even understand what a nation state is? All borders are artificial and imposed by politicians at sometime or other, to suggest otherwise is ridiculous.

Yes they are nation states, what are you even talking about? And borders are not artificial, sure politicians will have a say in exactly where they fall but often they are forced to place them (if they are sensible) along the correct cultural lines hence why a country such as Germany has had such a hard time defining what exactly constitutes a German (to what extent) that has caused so much bloodshed. It is also why the Netherlands refrained after the way from annexing huge swathes of German territory when they had the chance - because they knew that annexing territory with completely different people living there would cause future problems not just in relations with Germany but also domestically.

The German nation is a political reality as is the French nation as is the British nation as is the Swedish nation and as is the Kurdish nation - except the Kurds are being kept apart by artificial borders. In the Kurdish situation, the borders need to be corrected so they naturally go along cultural and ethnic lines just as Franco-German borders today reflect the dividing line between those two cultures/nations.

Yugoslavia was not an invented concept, since before the time of the Ottoman Empire there were pan-Slav nationalist ideas of uniting the region. You do realise that the people of the former Yugoslavia are ethnically and linguistically the same - their identity issues are the result of religious and minor cultural differences.

There are ideas of uniting Europe into one country and there have been for two hundred years. Simply because the ideas exist does not mean those ideas are widespread or that they mean that Yugoslavia was a real nation because it was not ... as you de facto admit concerning cultural and religious reasons. Yugoslavia was thrown together and was a disaster, as a federal or united Europe would be.

We have seen this in the disaster that is the Euro project, whereby the Germans are going to have to pay for the southern European countries much like they did with East Germany - except that they don't want to pay for southern Europe as they do not feel they are the same people as the people of Greece, whereas they did feel that reuniting Germany was reuniting two parts of the same people kept apart by false borders. You can see the same thing between northern and southern England the way the south subsidies the north... it works because we feel one of the same whereas it doesn't work between Germany and Greece because they do not.

I've been told that you have a reputation for making things up in these types of debates, and I can see that reputation is well deserved. You are just another anti-European armchair politician, I have to wonder whether you believe what you're posting - I think you're trying to be controversial because you like the attention.

I'm anti-EU, not anti-European. Europe isn't the European Union - that may come as a shock to you.

[Okeanos]

Not gonna argue with you, you're making things up and pretending to understand things which you evidently do not. Bigots will be bigots.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Not gonna argue with you, you're making things up and pretending to understand things which you evidently do not. Bigots will be bigots.

You are the bigot because like so many on your side of the debate you are so utterly intolerant of other opinions.

Shouting racist and bigot doesn't work anymore mate in 2014.

[The Don]

Yeh, removing Russian as an official language justifies invasion /S. Literally have nothing more to say on this topic.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Yeh, removing Russian as an official language justifies invasion /S. Literally have nothing more to say on this topic.

I'm not saying I believe it does, i'm giving the rationale behind it.

Above all this is about keeping NATO away from the Crimea.