Make
England Great Again
It’s
not the British who want to leave the EU — it’s the historically
successful and newly nationalistic English.
BY ROBERT
TOMBSFEBRUARY 22, 2016
No one, surely, will
be too surprised if the English bring about the decline and fall of
the European Union.
If a sizeable
majority of English voters support Brexit in the forthcoming
referendum on membership in the EU, the tottering European project of
“ever closer union” will have lost its momentum. The EU would
stagger on, attempting to weather a refugee crisis, a dysfunctional
financial system, a sluggish economy, and threats on its borders, but
who would bet on its permanence, let alone on its effectiveness? Many
would look back to the prescience of French President Charles de
Gaulle when he vetoed Britain’s first application to enter the
European Economic Community in 1963: “England is an island,” he
said, “sea-going, bound up, by its trade, its markets, its food
supplies, with the most varied and often the most distant countries”
— marked, in other words, by its difference from the rest of the
Continent.
It is the gut
feelings of the people of England that will be decisive. I stress
England because feelings here are very different from those in
Scotland, Wales, and perhaps Northern Ireland. England is at the core
of British euroskepticism: The largest overtly euroskeptical
political movement in Britain, the U.K. Independence Party, despite
its name, is a largely English party. The largest semi-euroskeptical
party, the Conservatives, are also predominantly English. In a recent
front-page pro-Brexit editorial, Britain’s Daily Mail roared, bold
and in all caps: ‘Who Will Speak for England?’ Without
specifically English support, Brexit would be a nonstarter.
Campaign on the
Line, Jeb Bush Brings Out the Big Gun
Jeb Bush has long
struggled with the legacy of his brother George W. Bush, whose
handling of the Iraq War has left the former president a
controversial figure among the Republican electorate. Now, with his
candidacy on the line, Jeb is betting that his brother still has the
political muscle in South Carolina to help deliver a crucial primary
win against a frontrunner who routinely rails against the war.
This has not always
been the case. When Britain joined the common market in 1973, most
hostility was found in Scotland and Northern Ireland, while the most
pro-European region was rich and conservative England, including one
of its members of parliament — a certain Margaret Thatcher. Now, it
is Scottish Nationalists who are the most enthusiastically pro-EU,
while the most articulate euroskeptics are English Tories.
What has changed?
One straightforward answer is the politics of the EU itself. In the
1970s, left-wing politicians and poorer voters in less prosperous
areas were suspicious of “Europe” as a capitalist conspiracy set
up to serve the interests of big business, international banks, and
the political elite. And as prime minister in the 1980s, Thatcher
indeed promoted free trade and deregulation with her plan for a
single European market. But French Socialist Jacques Delors,
president of the European Commission, responded with a raft of social
and environmental protection measures designed to restrain
Thatcherite neo-liberalism, flipping the politics of the EU on their
head. The British left was converted to Europeanism — Delors was
given a standing ovation by the 1988 English Trade Union Congress —
while British Tories took umbrage. Part of the division over EU
membership in Britain today, then, is between neo-liberals —
strongest in England — who see EU regulations as a dangerous
handicap to trading success in a globalized world, and their
opponents — strongest in Scotland — who see EU regulations as a
defense against predatory global capitalism.
But economics don’t
fully explain the depth of the resistance to more Europe that many
English voters see as a fundamental part of their national identity.
For that, we must turn to history.
It is only in recent
years that a distinctly English national identity has resurfaced. As
the core of a United Kingdom of four nations, and previously the
center of a multinational empire, the English had been happy to be
“British.” They had no national anthem other than “God Save the
Queen”; the old red St. George’s Cross flag rarely made an
appearance. As long as the United Kingdom seemed both united and
effective, “England” was a matter of poetry, not politics.
But Englishness as a
political identity has accelerated as a response to two novelties.
First, the rise, since the 1980s, of Scottish and Welsh nationalism,
which came up in opposition to the free-market policies imposed on
the outer regions, from England, by the governments of Thatcher and
Tony Blair. In the hope of calming nationalist demands, Scotland,
Wales, and Northern Ireland — but not England — were given
semi-federal governments, creating a new sense of distinction and
difference. People in England began to complain of unfair treatment —
about English taxes subsidizing Scottish welfare policies and the
like. The second stimulus has been the ambition of European idealists
to make “Europe,” and not the nation-state, the ultimate source
of sovereignty and focus of citizens’ loyalty. At first this seemed
just a matter of rhetoric. But the rhetoric, combined with the legal
right it has given to large numbers of EU citizens to live, work, and
draw welfare benefits in Britain — but mostly, in fact, in England
— has fueled a growing sense that England’s parliament,
government, and voters no longer have control over their own borders,
laws, or population. It was these growing English grievances that
helped propel David Cameron’s Tory Party to an unexpected majority
in last May’s general elections; the major themes of his campaign
were the Labour Party’s supposed dependence on Scottish nationalist
support, and Cameron’s promise to renegotiate the terms of
Britain’s EU membership.
Impatience with the
workings of the EU is fueling left- and right-wing populism across
Europe — often in forms far more angry and extreme than in England.
Yet only in England is there a real possibility of a majority
actually voting to leave. Why is England contemplating this bold
step, when other large and assertive nations such as the French are
not? In part, it’s because the idea of a united Europe fits much
better with the broad narrative of history in countries such as
France, Germany, or Italy, who naturally feel themselves to be
inherently continental. The French often present the whole project of
European integration as their own design, traced back not only to
Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman in the 1950s, but to Victor Hugo in
the 1860s, Napoleon in the 1800s, and the 18th-century Enlightenment.
England fits far less easily into this idea of a European destiny —
most obviously, as Gen. de Gaulle was aware, because its history is
far more global. It’s worth noting, too, that several key EU
nations, including France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Ireland, have
histories in which great national decisions have been taken by an
enlightened vanguard, with the mass of the people eventually
acquiescing — sometimes willingly, often not. Germany and Italy,
for example, were created in the 19th century by the decision of a
few politicians and intellectuals. As one of them put it, “We have
made Italy, now we have to make Italians.” Making Europe, and only
afterwards making Europeans, has been the blueprint for European
integration. Elites decide; the masses eventually obey. No such
episode is celebrated in English history. On the contrary, one of
England’s great cultural myths — celebrated last year with the
800th anniversary of Magna Carta — is that elites must be made to
accept the will of the people. The referendum on EU membership fits
this ideal: The people will decide the nation’s destiny, not a few
politicians, businessmen, and intellectuals.
Perhaps the greatest
difference of all is psychological. European integration is a project
based on fear. Fear of war, of foreign domination, of civil conflict,
of authoritarian government, of Communism.European integration is a
project based on fear. Fear of war, of foreign domination, of civil
conflict, of authoritarian government, of Communism. France and the
other pioneers in the 1950s feared Germany. Germany feared being
hated. Of the newer members who joined in the 1980s and ‘90s,
Spain, Portugal, and Greece feared a return to right-wing
dictatorship. The Eastern European countries feared Russia. “Europe”
offered a new beginning, an escape from the fears of the past. Some
of these fears have lessened, but not all. Most moderate people in
most Continental countries are genuinely scared of a breakdown of the
EU. England is very different: At least half the population is
willing to contemplate Brexit. The basic reason is obvious. England
suffered far less from Europe’s great 20th-century disasters. It
hasn’t lost a major war since 1783, and hasn’t been conquered
since 1066. The country’s take-it-or-leave-it attitude to the EU is
found in other lucky parts of Europe — Scandinavia and Switzerland.
If large nations
like France still fear the ghosts of their history too much to go it
alone, many small nations such as Catalonia, Flanders, and also
Scotland and Wales, continue to see the EU, whatever its failings, as
indispensable to their independence and self-esteem, their protection
against big neighbors — including England. In England, on the
contrary, many see the EU as such an impediment to political autonomy
that they would be willing to face a possible breakup of the United
Kingdom by supporting Brexit even as Scottish voters oppose it.
Britain had its own
fears once, in the postwar period, when it was knocking plaintively
at the door of the EEC. It was no longer the great imperial power.
Its politicians and diplomats were desperate to avoid becoming merely
“a greater Sweden” — isolated and irrelevant. Economically, it
seemed to be falling behind, with growth rates much lower than in
France, Italy, or Germany. Membership of “Europe” became the
official remedy for decline. Britain was sinking and Europe was the
only lifeboat.
But these fears have
mostly evaporated. Faster Continental growth rates were temporary
phenomena due to their postwar recovery and modernization of
agriculture. The fear of declining power in the world was a panicky
response to decolonization. Since the mid-1980s, Britain’s economic
performance has been better than that of most of Europe, and over the
last few years it has been markedly better than that of the eurozone.
As for its role in the world, this has become less of an issue. In a
multipolar world, people have gotten used to Britain being what it
has been for the last 300 years: one of the planet’s half-dozen or
so richest and most powerful states. The idea of the EU as the
lifeboat has been widely replaced with a vision of it as the Titanic,
subject to successive crises it is powerless to solve. Consequently,
an official Eurobarometer opinion poll in 2013 showed the United
Kingdom as the only place in Europe where a majority of people
believe that their country would face the modern world more
effectively outside the EU than inside it.
When the campaign
begins, the “Out” faction will appeal to history, to ancient
rights of self-government, to a brighter future as an autonomous
global nation. The “In” faction will revive fears of decline and
isolation, arguing that Britain will be more vulnerable, poorer, and
less influential should it leave. Much of the discussion will be
about bread-and-butter issues — jobs, investment, profits, prices,
immigration. But behind this will be the deeper question: Are English
voters confident about the ability of Britain — or, if necessary,
England, if Scotland goes its own way — to function and prosper
outside the EU? Or will they be persuaded that they are too small and
too weak? In an uncertain world, the advantage lies with the status
quo: Doing nothing seems safer. It may be that a majority of the
people of England are inclined to leave the EU, but their politicians
and bureaucrats mostly shrink from the task. That English nationalism
is on the rise is clear; the results of the coming referendum will
reveal whether it has yet to find an effective mouthpiece. If
effective leaders emerge during the coming days or weeks, then Brexit
is a real possibility.
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