I find it really amusing just how different our perspectives on the EU are.

You accuse the EU of being neo-liberal, I accuse it of being a micromanaging bureaucratic behemoth heaping endless new regulations on everything including wrapping paper (this is our current outrage of the day), endlessly distrustful towards people who what just to take care of themselves and be left alone.

It is hard to believe that we are both describing the same entity. Reminds me of the fable of an elephant and three blind men.

Also, when it comes to borders, you probably know that if they were guarded as much as the European population wants, the situation would have been a lot stricter than it is. The EU is more left-wing in this regard than the median European voter.

I think this speaks volumes about how far right the Overton window has shifted in Europe, if my run-of-the-mill leftist critique of the EU sounds so novel.

I actually blame Brexit for this. Before Brexit being anti-EU for anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist reason was kind of a litmus test for a left wing political candidate.

Note this is also true of Iceland. The debate was mostly about nationalism and economy, and the left wing case against the EU was hardly ever mentioned.

I also think asking your average European voter is bad faith (and is done by the media all the time). When asked about specific policies, the answers skew left. But when asked about ideology the answers will skew right. And the European media (including national broadcasters) totally abuse this, asking (or rather hiring private polling firms to ask) ”do you like capitalism?“ where the answer will probably be “yes” instead of “Do you want workers or shareholder to have more share of the wealth?”

I'd say that your critique of the EU would have been quite run-of-the-mill in the early 2000s, but nowadays, this corner of the left has mostly shrunk away and became somewhat marginal.

As for the voters and their questioning: yeah, people will give inconsistent answers quite often, especially when you pry into the details. But the majority sentiment has been against more immigration for some time now, and that majority tends to become a supermajority when immigration specifically from the Islamic world and Subsaharan Africa is discussed. I don't think there is any way back from that, not in our lifetimes.

Note that questions about immigration tend to be quite general and ideology based as well. People are usually asked, “do you support immigration from...” but if you ask them “do you want people from ... to be disproportionately deported” I am pretty sure you‘ll get different support numbers.

That aside, the public opinion about immigration are severely tainted, partially because of systemic racism at a government level inside Europe. There is a lot of room for cognitive dissonance if the cops keep arresting black people or Muslims and you know from experience cops have been nothing but kind and never wrong.

"Another problem is border fascism. Europe has open borders internally, but very closed borders externally. The external borders are being militarized and increasingly hostile towards immigrants and asylum seekers. European politicians are showing increasingly fascistic behavior towards the borders. It is bad, and inhumane, and it is braking Europe apart."

What planet are you living on? Border fascism? What?

70,000 'migrants' crossed into Cueta a short while back and the place is in turmoil now.

"European politicians are showing increasingly fascistic behavior towards the borders"

Where do people like you come from? I'm always interested in this utterly surreal take on enforcing the border of your own country, like that's now fascist. What's going on here?

There's not many positions that leave me utterly perplexed. I'm sincerely asking, how you hold your position on this? What have you experienced in life to end up with these opinions? What benefit is flooding Europe with literally anyone from all the backward cultured shit holes from around the world?

What I have experienced is being in an international relationship and having to have to go through the (legal) immigration process twice. First by my married spouse immigrating to Iceland, and then again by me, and Icelandic citizen moving to the USA.

What I have heard are people being deported from Europe, immigrants unable to move to the place they want to seek better life, asylum seekers sent back to the dangerous situations they were fleeing, or worse to third countries they have no relations with, exile being used as punishment against some criminals based on their country of origin, etc. etc.

Europe is increasingly becoming a surveillance hellhole, personal rights are being stripped away, privacy is being abolished under the guise of “protecting our borders”. This is border fascism, and Europe is better off without it. Immigrants, no matter how many millions, can never cause the same harm to a fellow working European as a politician who stripes away your human rights.

"Immigrants, no matter how many millions, can never cause the same harm to a fellow working European as a politician who stripes away your human rights."

See this is the point where you're so out of touch with reality it's truely perplexing.

Both things are horrifically damaging to a country and it's residents. Thanks for outlining the things you've 'heard'. I see my country tearing itself apart at the seams and there's people like you say there with a shrug of the shoulders telling us we're all fascists.

Immigrants are not bad for your country, and claiming they are is racist.

If your country is bad it is because of the people in charge (i.e. the rich and the powerful; i.e. politicians and billionaires). If your job sucks, you blame your boss, not your most recent hires. And if you don‘t get paid enough, you blame your shareholders, not your customers.