Heinson's Northern Alliance proposal

http://www.city-journal.org/html/northern-alliance-14647.html

In the above article Gunnar Heinsohn of Bremen, is proposing a northern alliance of the U.K., Ireland, Flanders, the Netherlands, Denmark, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia, along with the German states of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg.  I much more idly thought of the U.K. in a looser alliance with the U.S. Canada, Australia and New Zealand.   But Heinsohn's proposal has the advantage of proximity.  Also, if the UK were in an alliance with the U.S. it would be the (relatively) poor relation, but in Heinsohn's Northern Alliance the UK would be the strongest member. 


I was also interested in Heinsohn's comment, ". . . no one would accuse Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein’s 4.5 million Germans of heading back into a dark and dangerous past. With independence from Germany, they would be a minority within a larger federation, with no nationalist ambitions. They could pursue their dreams of economic success and prosperity without being shamed or slandered by the nomenklatura who rule in Brussels. Though historical comparisons have their limits, one can’t help but think of the ethnically German Baltic cities of Danzig, Elbing, and Thorn that, in 1454—and for nearly 350 years thereafter—took shelter under the crown of the Polish-Lithuanian Rzeczpospolita to escape the exploitation and violence of  their compatriots, the Teutonic Knights."

I've been reading Steven Ozment's A Mighty Fortress, A New History of the German People.  Ozment remarks in his introduction, ". . . there is a popular opinion, even within Germany, which appears to believe that Germans have always been cryptofascists, if only the surface of their history is scratched deeply enough."


In another article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/14/i-wish-it-was-a-joke-european-leaders-furious-at-boris-johnsons/?WT.mc_id=e_DM140020&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FPM_New_AEM_Recipient&utm_source=email&utm_medium=Edi_FPM_New_AEM_Recipient_2016_07_14&utm_campaign=DM140020 Boris Johnson was criticized for, among other things, saying "the EU was an attempt by other means to unify Europe in a manner attempted by Adolf Hitler."