17 March 2016
A Vote For Brexit Is A Vote For Europe
It is possible to be pro-Europe but anti-EU.
by Neil Tidmarsh
Nobody in late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century Europe wanted to break away from Rome and the Papacy. The renaissance humanist scholars who criticised the church as corrupt, tyrannical and inefficient didn’t want to abolish it or rebel against it; they simply wanted it to reform itself. It was only when it became clear that the church would not and could not reform itself that renaissance humanists became Protestors, the Reformation became a rebellion and England and half of Germany broke away from the Roman Catholic Church to sort things out for themselves.
And then, of course, something very interesting happened; the shock of losing England and half of Germany at last made the Papacy realise that it had to do something about the shortcomings its critics had been shouting about for the last century. It recognised that if it didn’t do something about them, the rising tide of Protestantism might sweep it away altogether. So Pope Peter II convened the Council of Trent in 1544 to that end, and nine years and two popes later the Roman Catholic Church emerged from it, reorganised and refreshed, with a coherent doctrine and a disciplined priesthood, led by the outward-looking, dedicated, worldly force of Ignatius Loyola’s new Jesuit order. The Roman Church had addressed its shortcomings. It had saved itself. The Counter-Reformation was underway.
Many commentators, most notably Mathew Paris in The Times, have argued recently that the United Kingdom should stay in the EU for Europe’s sake: that we should keep things as they are and with everyone else continue to try and reform the EU from within; that we should remain with the other nations who share the common values of democracy, freedom, enlightenment and the rule of law, particularly as these values are increasingly under threat in other parts of the world; and that Europe will collapse without us. From some angles, these three arguments seem sound. From others, however, they seem fallacious and even bizarre. In fact, it would be more sound to argue that it would be better for our European neighbours if we did leave. We’d be doing them a very big favour indeed. Let’s consider each of the three points in turn.
First, the notion that the EU could be reformed from within as things stand at the present is naïve to say the least. Everyone in Europe agrees that the EU needs to be reformed, that its democratic shortfall, its lack of transparency, its financial irresponsibility all need to be addressed. And yet nothing happens. Europeans of goodwill have been calling in vain for reform for the last decade at least. The EU has proved itself incapable of reformation under the present circumstances. Short of an almighty shock, an existential threat, it will continue to remain incapable of doing so. However, the departure of the United Kingdom might provide that shock, just as the departure of England and half of Germany from the Roman church in the sixteenth century shocked the Papacy into the Council of Trent and the changes it had been resisting for a hundred years. But if the UK votes to stay in, Brussels will heave a sigh of relief, sink back into its complacent inertia, and all hope for reform will disappear.
Second, when Matthew Paris says that Europe is the continent of democracy, freedom, enlightenment and the rule of law, he is showing us only half the picture. The other half of the picture is that Europe has also been the continent of top-down political systems, experiments in political engineering imposed across the continent, reactionary and oppressive systems resistant to calls for reform from below and hostile to liberal and progressive ideas; the Roman Empire (think of the edicts of Diocletian), the Papacy (think of Galileo, forced to deny that the earth goes round the sun), the Austro-Hungarian empire (held together by secret police), the Napoleonic Empire, National Socialism, Communism, etc. Such values as democracy, freedom, enlightenment and the rule of law have frequently had to struggle against such systems, and have survived in spite of them, not because of them. And not least among the reasons why they did survive is that Britain remained apart from such systems or broke away from them. That is why Charles de Gaulle himself insisted that Britain should remain outside the Continental political system; he recognised that only thus could Britain provide the kind of refuge which had enabled him to keep those values alive for France in the dark days of the 1940’s.
Many would argue that the EU is the latest in this very Continental European tradition of political experiments founded on abstract ideals rather than pragmatic realities, and artificially engineered and imposed top down by a political elite. The EU’s ideals may be sound (so was Liberty, Fraternity and Equality, and Communism is a beautiful idea), but something always gets lost in the execution, something is always sacrificed to the reality of the project. Its democratic deficit is driving many of its citizens into political extremes out of sheer frustration. Its economic disasters have impoverished Greece, Spain and Italy, and France is stagnating. Europe’s share of world trade is in sharp decline. The EU’s financial unaccountability feeds suspicions of widespread corruption and epic waste. It has appeared ineffectual in the face of Russian assertion, Middle Eastern turmoil and unprecedented immigration. The hostility in Brussels towards the efforts of a member state to hold a referendum – the ultimate exercise in grass-roots freedom, democracy, enlightenment and the rule of law – is worrying, to say the least; and this isn’t the first time Brussels has revealed its horrified opposition to this method of mobilising the sovereignty of the people. Perhaps the Europe of freedom, democracy, enlightenment and the rule of law would best be served by a European nation voting against the political experiment which is the EU.
Third, the notion that a union with a French-German partnership at its core couldn’t survive without the United Kingdom is over-anxious and panic-stricken at best, and the height of arrogance at worst.
But the most compelling argument that Brexit would be good for Europe is that at the moment the UK is the dog in the European manger, that it is preventing the EU from evolving into one thing or another, and that it is precisely because it is neither one thing or another that the EU is its present ineffectual, inefficient and inflexible self. The UK doesn’t want a federal United States of Europe; well, let’s leave so that the rest of Europe can get on with that project if that is what they want. On the other hand, if the rest of Europe wants a looser union, let’s set the tone for them by breaking loose. If some countries want out, let’s set an example and a precedent for them, leaving the remainder to get on with the ever closer union they want. But by staying in, we will simply be reinforcing the status quo, which will suit no one, except perhaps ourselves for a short while before more friction and conflict between our wishes and theirs inevitably arises.
It is possible to be pro-Europe but anti-EU. It isn’t difficult to argue that the EU is bad for Europe. Europe and the EU are not the same thing at all. The EU is just a political system. This is something worth bearing in mind between now and June. We are being asked whether we want to leave the EU, not whether we want to leave Europe. We are a European nation, physically and culturally; we will remain European even if we leave the EU. We cannot leave Europe. The British Isles cannot be physically relocated elsewhere on the globe. We cannot purge our language of its Germanic or Latinate elements; we wouldn’t have any words left if we did. Shakespeare’s sonnets have their roots in Petrarch; the stories of his plays have their roots in the tales of Bandello and other Italians. Our cathedral dioceses – what could be more English? – were created in the seventh century by a Greek, Theodore of Tarsus. Our great nineteenth-century statesmen were educated in the Classics and nothing but. And that’s before we even start speaking about wine, pasta, French fries and Mediterranean sunshine.
We are European and it is something we should acknowledge, celebrate and enjoy. And the EU vote, whatever it turns out to be, won’t change that one way or another. Europe existed before the EU and will continue to exist in the future even if the EU doesn’t. And whatever that future may be, Shakespeare’s work will still have its roots in Italy, and the British will still be drinking wine and conversing in a mixture of German and Latin.
However, the idea of Matthew Paris and others that we should vote according to what is best for the other European countries rather than what is best for our own is a somewhat perverse one. The UK should, of course, vote primarily for what is good for itself. So, next week, “A vote for Brexit is a vote for Britain as well as a vote for Europe…”
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