12
reasons why Cameron will lose on Brexit
The
pundits have got it wrong: The Brits will vote themselves out of
Europe.
By DENIS MACSHANE
11/3/15,
Commentators on
British affairs spend much of their time dwelling on Brexit these
days; and while acknowledging the passion and verve of the Out camp,
their consensus appears to be that the British are too pragmatic a
people to tear down the European status quo. Here’s why the pundits
are wrong, and why Britain will vote to leave the European Union in
the forthcoming referendum called by Prime Minister David Cameron.
1) British history
is different
Britain has not been
invaded or occupied, or lost sovereignty to any foreign power, in
centuries. When people like Alexander Stubb, Finland’s finance
minister, tell the BBC that the EU has brought “peace, prosperity
and security and there’s no price tag on that,” such soaring
rhetoric may play well in countries that once were taken over by the
Nazis or Soviets, but it sounds much too far-fetched and continental
for the average Brit.
2) No-growth
eurozone
Britain was
pro-European from the 1950s to the 1980s when continental Europe had
growth rates double or triple those of the U.K. Since the launch of
the euro, however, the EU has been the slow coach of the global
economy, comfortable but out-performed by North America and the
BRICs, with all the exciting economic energy coming from Silicon
Valley, Singapore, Apple, Samsung, and anything made-in-China. U.S.
universities add economic value. European universities give us cause
for philosophical introspection.
3) Britain’s
off-shore media owners
Britain is unique in
allowing its major newspapers to be owned by men who pay no tax in
Britain and who dislike the EU. That’s their right, but as a
result, the news coverage of Europe over 25 years has been skewed to
crude misreporting and propaganda. Even the Guardian regularly runs
pro-Brexit columns from its stars like Simon Jenkins or Owen Jones,
the rising young-left writer. The BBC has turned Nigel Farage into a
national hero by giving him unimpeded access to all major political
discussion programs.
4) Tony Blair
The former Labour
prime minister was pro-European, but he dodged all difficult European
decisions. He offered a referendum on joining the euro, which meant
the pound would never fold into the single currency. He offered a
referendum on the EU constitutional treaty, which forced Jacques
Chirac to do the same, and thus, with the help of a divided French
Socialist Party, brought European integration to a full stop in 2005.
Cameron has copied Blair by offering a referendum on Brexit. At least
Blair was smarter. He bought time with referendum pledges but never
actually held one.
5) The Tory party
From Churchill’s
United States of Europe speech in 1946 through Edward Heath’s
joining Europe in 1973 to Margaret Thatcher adopting majority voting
and thus sharing sovereignty in the European Single Act of 1985 —
initiatives all opposed by Labour — the Conservatives were the
European party in Britain. Today, all top Tories proclaim themselves
Euroskeptic. It has been impossible to be selected to be a Tory MP
without swearing an oath of Euroskepticism to party militants.
6) Pro-EU campaign
muddles
A dismissive
Napoleon said England was a nation of shopkeepers, so the U.K. has
found one: Stuart Rose. He began selling underwear in Marks and
Spencer and rose to become Britain’s Number One shopkeeper and thus
was seen as a natural choice to head the anti-Brexit campaign. But a
few months before he featured as a star in the pro-Brexit “Business
for Britain” organization, so the double-messaging is confusing.
7) Money
The Vote Leave
campaign is drowning in cash, with £20 million raised already. Rich
City types, Mayfair hedgies, online betting billionaires, and others
sitting on cash piles who like access to top political personalities
have funded endless Euroskeptic campaigns since the 1990s, ranging
from Sir James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party to Lord Rodney Leach’s
Open Europe think tank. By contrast the Remain or In campaigners are
badly underfunded. Under the law on political donations, FTSE 100
firms that oppose Brexit cannot give money to political campaigns
without a special shareholders’ meeting which CEOs do not want to
call for fear of infiltration by UKIP and other anti-EU fanatics.
8) Brussels and
Strasbourg
It’s not their
fault, but the bigwigs of Brussels and orators of Strasbourg cut no
ice in Britain. They are seen as over-bossy, over-greedy, and over
there. Nigel Farage boasted on TV in 2009 that he had collected £2
million in expenses as an MEP, and ever since, MEPs have been seen as
being on a rolling gravy train. At every meeting on Brexit someone
asks why the U.K. should belong to an organization that cannot even
audit its books properly. Most top EU leaders speak fluent
“EU-nglish.” It is perfectly understandable. But in a nation that
is taught by Shakespeare to mock foreign accents, being told to love
Europe by non-natives doesn’t work.
9) Brits can have
two votes
The most seductive
line from the Out campaigners is that nothing much will change. The
ambitious mayor of London, Boris Johnson, constantly tells anyone who
will listen that the U.K. will “flourish” outside the EU. Others
say that a Brexit vote will have a catalytic impact on a sclerotic EU
that will finally accept British demands for reforms which return
Europe to its earlier condition of sovereign nation-states. And then
when Britain is offered a Europe it likes, a second referendum can
take it back in.
10) Business
Employer outfits
like the Confederation of British Industry, the British Chambers of
Commerce, or the Institute of Directors have produced report after
report in recent years criticizing the EU for red tape and supporting
dialogue with trade unions. Business has told the prime minister he
must get concessions from Brussels to weaken social Europe or special
protectionist measures for the City. The sound of the CBI, BCC or IOD
on Europe this century has been one long moan. Now they are panicking
as they realize that their non-stop complaints about what Cameron
calls the “bossy and bureaucratic” EU have been absorbed by their
members, who may decide to vote down an outfit that British business
has been so hostile to.
11) The liberal Left
It’s not just
classic little Englander xenophobes who find fault with Europe. The
Labour Party in Scotland last weekend voted to oppose TTIP, and for
many of the leftish intelligentsia Europe is a wicked conspiracy to
promote globalized capitalism with all power flowing to
multinationals at the expense of workers. The Guardian recently gave
a page to a leading TV economics reporter, Paul Mason, to denounce
the treatment of Greece by Europe. Another totemic veteran of British
leftism, Tariq Ali, gravely informed his readers that he would vote
Out in Cameron’s plebiscite to show solidarity with the Greeks and
their Syriza government. He did not seem to know that in the July
referendum and September election, the Greeks voted Yes to Europe and
then Yes to staying in the euro — so for British lefties to vote
the U.K. out of Europe is solipsistic self-indulgence even by British
leftie standards.
12) Europeans
The Brits, over the
years, have been shaped by foreigners arriving from persecution or
poverty — Protestants from France, Jews from Tsarist Russia and
Nazi Germany, Poles and Hungarians from Communist tyranny, peasant
laborers from Ireland and black, Muslim and Hindu citizens from the
Commonwealth. But the enlargement of the EU to poor east and
south-east European nations has seen a massive influx of 3 million
new inhabitants in little more than a decade. They work hard, pay
taxes, pay rent and fill churches. But for the average Brit, too many
have arrived too fast, and so the cry to “regain control of our
frontiers” resonates.
Denis MacShane is a
former minister of Europe in Tony Blair’s Labour Government. He is
the author of “Brexit: How Britain Will Leave Europe” (IB Tauris,
2015) and works as an adviser on European politics and policy in
London and Brussels.
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