“Now we must be clear about this, it does mean, if this is the idea, the end of Britain as an independent nation-state. I make no apology for repeating it, the end of a thousand years of history. You may say: “All right let it end.” But, my goodness, it’s a decision that needs a little care and thought.”
On reading the title those with even a little political education will have expected the above phrase, or some bastardisation of it, to appear somewhere in this piece. I thought I might as well get it in early. These are the words of Hugh Gaitskell, in 1962, at the Labour Party’s Annual Conference.
He spoke in his time about the Liberal Party. They still exist as a blot, a stain, a liberal chattering classes smear, on our politics in the form of the Liberal Democrats today.
God knows, many of us thought they could be useful idiots back in the 1990s after we had spent two decades in opposition. Some of us, my callow self included, even thought that they were intrinsically, progressively, charmingly, Good News. A happy adjunct to the New, new Labour, Era. Anyone can be Icarus, and in more ways than one at once.
Gaitskell, a true giant of our party – the greatest Prime Minister this country never had; a man who foreshadowed new Labour and gave us many of the tools of thought and method that we use today – spoke against the Liberal Party’s policy in favour of membership of the European Communities in that quote.
He was wrong, on the principle.
And right, on outlook.
The Conservative Party was right to take us into the European Economic Community in 1973. Labour was right to hold a referendum on membership in 1975. It should have been held two years earlier by the Tory Party before we joined, but the Tory Party has never been a great fan of popular political participation, in constitutional or other matters. So, naturally, it was left to us to remedy the matter.
Membership of what in 1993 became the European Community, and now the European Union, has always been a trade-off. A trade-off between economic and political influence and access on the one hand, and a reduction in national sovereignty on the other. The best trade-offs are made with the clearest of minds and in a dispassionate manner, not with the zealotry of elitist liberal pro-European ideology in strident foreground.
The European Single Market, opposed by Euro-sceptics, was probably the greatest economic achievement in the entire history of Europe. It was achieved via the Single European Act, which was itself the subject of fraught negotiation, national parliament vetoes and eventual agreement. It was implemented by the singular force of will of 12 European countries who were attempting something never attempted before. We should thank the efforts of those national Parliamentarians, the Commission and the governments of the time for achieving something unprecedented in the history of our continent, and indeed the history of the world. Their achievements are written in our history, and we live them.
Over time, and as a result of the Treaty of Rome and its Maastricht and Lisbon revisions, we have come to live in a Europe defined by a customs union, a single market for goods, and the free movement of labour. These are largely governed by the European Parliament, the Commission and the Court of Justice. But, also, a more inter-governmental level of co-operation in respect of foreign policy and home affairs as introduced by Maastricht and solidified by Lisbon. The economic, foreign and home pillars, with the first being more “federal” with influence for the European institutions, and the latter two more “inter-governmental”.
The idea of inter-governmental co-operation in respect of foreign and home affairs/justice policy is not intrinsically offensive where agreement may be freely made.
So what is the problem? Europe is a good thing, right? Essentially technocratic. Well, the starry-eyed pro-Europeans cannot have it both ways. Either “Europe” is an essentially technocratic venture designed to make the single market work and encourage co-operation between nations, or it is an effort to create a European state. This latter desire has always been at the heart of the aim of the European elites.
The proposals for a new Treaty that David Cameron turned down would have likely resulted in an extension of the role of the European institutions – particularly the Commission – into broader economic matters that are historically the role of the nation states.
Ask yourself these questions:
• Is a British budget submitted for approval to the European Commission and subject to veto emblematic of a free nation?
• If a public sector deficit of more than 3% of GDP is subject to “automatic sanction” by the European institutions, is that an unfettered decision of our elected government?
If your answer is “no” to either of these questions then you believe that the vetoing of a new European Treaty was in our national interest.
So Cameron exercised his veto ostensibly on the basis of defending the City from European regulation. He was right to do that. In fact, he defended the right of the British government to impose higher capital adequacy requirements on UK banks than those that would be imposed as a maximum on a Europe-wide basis – prudent. He also defended the right of the British government to oppose addition taxation on financial transactions and entities. This is currently the only thing we have a comparative advantage at. If he had agreed, it would have been like the French agreeing to an additional tax on agriculture or wine. The reality, sadly, of us against all will make the likelihood of regulations designed to hurt our economy much more likely. But the alternative was much worse.
Cameron vetoed a Treaty which would have resulted in budgetary restrictions which would essentially have made Keynesian economic stimulus illegal. Think on that. Think on its profound democratic implications.
Let us escape the arid technocratic and legal specificities behind which the liberal elite seek to hide. Behind which they must hide, if they are achieve their desire, ultimately, for the subordination of our nation to an undemocratic and bureaucratic European elite.
The reality is that we as a nation had a choice: to submit to the death of our economic independence, the destruction of the United Kingdom as a free state and the subordination of our national will to the dictates of foreign civil servants and foreign central bankers, or to turn down a new Treaty.
A new Treaty amongst the remaining 17 Euro countries plus however many join them (and it is to be hoped that some other sceptical countries will stay out with us) may well be necessary as a result of them joining a flawed currency union which would only ever work given the relinquishing of national sovereignty over the whole range of fiscal, debt and monetary policy, but we need be no party to that.
Why would we saddle ourselves with undemocratic straight-jackets in respect of our entire national economic policy, especially when we decided not to join the single currency in the first place? What is being expected of us by the Euro nations is simply, well, outrageous.
Those of us who are progressives and social democrats must affirm our patriotism and our support for the national interest. The fact that the leadership of the Labour Party can say at once that a) austerity is not the way; take longer to cut the deficit and b) that Cameron is wrong not to have agreed an EU Treaty change resulting in automatic penalties for any member state with a deficit exceeding 3% of GDP, is utterly illogical.
Fundamentally, our party is a party of the people and of British workers. It is utterly dumbfounding to see a party communications machine that appears to be attacking Cameron for failing to sign up to a 27-nation agreement. Such can only come from a mindset of short-termism, opportunism and a deep, deep divide from the settled constitutional will of our peoples in respect of the European Union.
Yes, let us attack Cameron for isolating himself, for failing to cultivate friends and allies, for leaving the centre-right moderate grouping in the Parliament, for being incompetent, but let us not attack the eventual decision. It is only to be hoped that our leader would have had the bravery and spine to stand against a destruction of our national economic independence and interest in the same manner.
Instead, we hear the liberal press and commentariat as represented by the Guardian attacking Cameron for failing to sign up to a right wing attack on Keynesian economics, and an attack on our national sovereignty. I have never been soft on deficit deniers, but I do believe that there is space for a slower pace to deficit reduction. The liberal comentariat and the Liberal Democrats seem to believe that this decision should be taken from the British people and their elected government and given instead to unelected European central bankers and civil servants. What utterly bestial stupidity does the party leadership show by supporting this unpopular unpatriotic nonsense?
Our party should treat the EU entirely instrumentally with respect to whether particular initiatives are in our national interest, neither being intrinsically opposed to integration nor starry-eyed zealots for the political project of “Europe”, whatever that is. Gordon Brown was pretty good at that, to be fair to him. Our current leadership is danger of ceding this, and other, vital ground to the Conservative Party.
We live in an age in which identity and security are key to political victory. If the Labour Party cannot free itself from the shackles of moddish 1990s liberalism and create a progressive narrative that encompasses both historic identity and national security, then it will destroy itself in the wave of popular reaction against centre-left parties across the continent. The question of the European Union is merely one facet of an extraordinary overhaul that the Party must undertake. We could do worse than begin by following the rhyme, if not the reason, of our social democratic forbears’ antipathy to soft-thinking liberalism:
“Now we must be clear about this, it does mean, if this is the idea, the end of Britain as an independent nation-state. I make no apology for repeating it, the end of a thousand years of history. You may say: “All right let it end.” But, my goodness, it’s a decision that needs a little care and thought.”
Sense the passion, the patriotism, the commitment, in those words. We must re-create a thinking space for our movement and party outside the arid elitist dictates of metropolitan liberalism. If we cannot do this, if the party is too full of liberals (and there are many that inhabit its intellectual and decision-making cortexes), then we will die. And we will die because the people wish us to die. Gaitskell slew dragons. He was the Kinnock and Blair of his times, rolled into one. We must follow – it is our vital task if we wish to see progressive politics triumph in an age of fear.
