Laughland explains how his own thinking has evolved since the first edition — particularly after experiencing the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia first-hand — and why he no longer defends the liberalism he once associated with the British conservative tradition.
Key themes explored in this discussion include:
• The functionalist “softly-softly” method of Jean Monnet and why it proved more effective (and more dishonest) than open federalism
• The surprising ideological overlaps between interwar fascist and Nazi concepts of a “New Europe” and modern EU hostility to the nation-state
• Managerialism versus politics — and why progressive liberalism and globalism share the same impersonal, interchangeable view of humanity
• The geopolitical role of a reunited Germany, the single currency, and the Cold War origins of the earliest European institutions
• Currency as an instrument of control rather than freedom
• Yugoslavia as a dress rehearsal for later Western policy toward Russia, and the striking parallels with Ukraine
• Why many British “sovereigntists” have a blind spot on NATO that French Gaullists do not share
• The current resilience of the European and globalist system despite Brexit, mass immigration, cancelled elections (Romania), and rising national movements
https://youtu.be/KGWMEc4CNdk
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