Mr Johnson’s decision last week to bring in a bill which will contravene a critical portion of the Withdrawal Agreement has at least had the merit of clarifying the real nature of Brexit and thus of the proper path by which it must be opposed.
Former Prime Ministers John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David
Cameron were all at the time of the referendum in 2016 supporters of
the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union and all have now
unequivocally condemned the Government’s strategy for leaving it. But
they have at the same time affirmed their “acceptance” of Brexit,
insisting only that it needs to be “got done” with a deal of some kind.
This equivocation should remind us of the long-standing weakness of
their commitment to Britain’s place in the EU, and the illusions about
it which they harboured and husbanded in office. Weakness and illusions
which are the reasons they must bear an important part of the political
responsibility for Brexit and all it entails.
Their weakness was their fear of making the case to the British
people for a full engagement in European integration, on precisely the
same basis as other great European nations, like Germany or France, or
Italy or Spain. Their illusion, fermented by this fear, was to imagine
there was a viable “half-way-house” policy of Britain indefinitely
maintaining a semi-detached stance towards European integration,
preventing progress when possible, endeavouring to evade the provisions
of such progress when not. The architects of Brexit rode to their
victory in 2016 essentially on the absurdity and unsustainability of
this illusion. And in doing so, they were always determined not to
repeat the same error themselves. A clean break, one where the cut is so
cruel and complete as to maximize the difficulty of ever returning to
the EU, has always been the intrinsic logic of their position.
Of course, as this development has also revealed, there are a few
opponents of the UK’s membership of the EU, who certainly fancied
themselves as architects of Brexit, but apparently believed too readily
the tactical, reassuring rhetoric deployed by their co-campaigners to
persuade the British people of their cause and to secure their strategic
objective. Lords Howard and Lamont, and Mr Cox, for example, are now
assiduously advertising their gullibility in this regard. Most, however
continue successfully to seamlessly adapt their positions to each turn
of the screw towards the most crushingly ruthless and radical of
resolutions.
Unfortunately, the politicians carrying the responsibility of
opposing the Government, Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Ed Davey, both
erstwhile staunch supporters of the UK’s membership of the EU, appear
set on sharing such gullibility. They thereby demonstrate an even
greater reluctance to make the case for any sort of European engagement
than the hapless ex-premiers, and promote an even more absurd and
unsustainable policy than that which caused Brexit. The revelation of
the starkness of real Brexit is also the revelation of the starkness of
the real alternative to Brexit: which is to return to the EU as a fully
committed member, embracing the complete integrative aspiration, and its
current key manifestations of shared sovereignty: Monetary Union,
Schengen Free Movement and geostrategic co-ordination.
Sir Keir and Sir Ed are today so anxious to assert their “acceptance”
of Brexit by publicly supporting the Withdrawal Agreement they had
previously in different ways opposed as to align themselves with Lords
Howard and Lamont, and with Mr Cox. Privately, however, they are praying
Brexit will deliver the destruction of Mr Johnson’s Conservatism
without their having to reveal what their own strategy for Britain’s
future would be (or even, indeed, really mentioning Europe at all).
In this, they provide a curious mirror to the position of Mr Johnson,
who whilst becoming increasingly coherent on the nature of the UK’s
departure from the European Union, is dumb about what should come
afterwards. For the Brexiteers are deeply divided about that. Some are
seeking a very much closer, though unspecified, relationship with the
US, some a revival of Joe Chamberlain’s federal Empire via a union with
Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and some a purist, semi-isolationist,
English nationalist state whose closest contemporary model appears to
be Japan or Turkey. (Although without the former’s industrial capacity
or the latter’s self-sufficiency in food, and so could rather end up
resembling a revival of Franco’s Spain without either the sunshine or
the spirituality). It is these divisions, as much as the economic and
constitutional challenges created by Brexit, which will doom the
project, and with it the Conservative Party. Pro-Europeans, by contrast,
should have one clear, concise, concrete proposition to put to the
Nation: to rejoin the EU as a full member.
Many pro-Europeans fear it is too soon to make this case. That
promoting the prospect of accepting the euro is far too big an ask for a
British public still conditioned to comprehensively condemn European
co-operation. That immigration, in a time of rising unemployment, makes
free movement as unpalatable to British opinion as ever. That the
referendum result requires a period during which it should be respected
on democratic grounds, regardless of the basis upon which that result
was achieved. That Leavers will not now accept the notion they have made
a massive mistake.
But the referendum result has been honoured. We are now living with
its consequences. And in normal life the sooner one corrects a massive
mistake the better. Let us see how the coming economic crisis, with
rising unemployment and sustained sterling weakness, effects attitudes
to Schengen Free Movement and Monetary Union. Employment opportunities
on the Continent for British citizens could become as welcome as they
were in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. A devaluation that requires
some sort of international support (from the ECB as well as the IMF),
could make adopting the euro an attractive, even a necessary
proposition. And only a full and prompt return to the EU has the
remotest prospect of saving the British Union.
We have now seen the true and only face of the Brexiteers’ cause. The
actual delivery of their dream is now imminent. The recklessness of
their project, which has given them such campaigning strength, will
shortly impact upon the Nation with full force, even to the extent of
putting its very survival as a state at risk. Time surely for
pro-Europeans to recognise, at last, the great motivational strength of
our project. The practical and emotional power of fully joining in a
deep union with those countries which are geographically, culturally and
historically closest to us, to preserve and promote our common
interests in a dangerous world. Time surely for pro-Europeans to show
the true and only face of our cause. If we do so, we can still not just
avert the more dreadful aspects of the disaster that now looms: we may
yet deliver our aspirations for our national destiny.
Federal Trust
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