Coherence

Empire

November 29 2020, New York, United States

On different sorts of British messiness – Richard J. Evans in TLS:

(…)

‘“Splendid isolation” – a phrase invented by a Canadian not a British politician – was far from being the watchword of British governments through the nineteenth century, when the United Kingdom was a participant in a long series of major international congresses and conferences known as the “Concert of Europe” to resolve problems and disputes. Nor did Britain “stand alone” in 1940; quite apart from anything else, eighty-seven Czech and 145 Polish pilots fought in the Battle of Britain, and seven governments-in-exile had been formed in London by the end of the year to represent countries occupied by the Nazis.
Beyond this, the myth of “Britain alone” edits out the contribution of troops and material aid from the British Empire. Winston Churchill was also clear from the outset that the war could not be won without the help of the United States, which began assisting Britain with supplies as early as 1940. Bogdanor also overdraws the contrast with Continental nations: after all, the French global Empire covered nearly four-and-a-half million square miles in the mid-1930s, including metropolitan France – less than a third of the size of the British, but hardly “land-based” – and the overseas colonial possessions of Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands were also extensive. Only Russia could in reality be said to have possessed a land-based empire.’

(…)

‘The postwar drive to European unity was designed to limit the destructive power of nationalism. Britain did not feel the same need. When Churchill, in his Zurich speech of September 19, 1946, proclaimed the need to “build a kind of United States of Europe”, based on a partnership between France and Germany, he added that Britain must be “among the friends and sponsors of the new Europe”. The reason for Britain not joining the new Europe was his fear that “it would weaken the connection with the Commonwealth – or, as he preferred to call it, the Empire”.’

(…)

‘In the humiliating debacle of Suez, in 1956, Britain was deserted by the US and isolated on the global stage, and was forced to abandon its attempt to regain control of the Suez canal after it had been nationalized by the Egyptian government. Former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson accurately described the situation in 1962, when he observed that “Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role”. So the British government, led by Harold Macmillan, decided to enter the European Community, not because it was in any way enthusiastic about the European project, but because, as Bogdanor observes, it had run out of alternatives.
After two vetoes by the French President Charles de Gaulle, in 1963 and 1967, largely on the grounds that the continuation of preferential terms for the Commonwealth would destroy the rationale of the Common Agricultural Policy, the United Kingdom, led by the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, finally joined what was then known in Britain as the “Common Market” in 1973. A referendum on membership was held in 1975, called by Wilson to placate Labour’s National Executive Committee, which was strongly against membership. It produced a 67 per cent to 33 per cent popular vote in favour of remaining. All the Party leaders campaigned for Remain, while the leading Leave campaigners were politicians of the hard right, like Enoch Powell, or hard left, like Michael Foot, who, as both Wall and Bogdanor point out, were not trusted by the electorate. In the midst of an economic crisis, too, voters heeded warnings that trying to go it alone would only make things worse. The terms of entry were not entirely favourable, but once Britain was in, they could be changed. And changed they were, above all at the insistence of Margaret Thatcher in 1984, when Britain’s large net contribution to the European budget was substantially reduced by a negotiated annual rebate. Thatcher scored another success two years later with the creation of the Single Market in goods and services among the member states, the most significant of all the British contributions to European integration over the decades, but one which the present Conservative Party has long been determined to abandon.’

(…)

‘ The result of the British referendum vote on membership of the European Union, held on June 23, 2016, came as a shock to almost everyone. The polls had predicted a victory for Remain in the final days before the vote, and only a tiny shift of opinion would have delivered a different outcome. Although both of these books trace the history of Britain’s relationship with the EU from start to finish, situating Brexit in its historical context, the impression they give that it was, in effect, inevitable, is not borne out by the facts.
Vernon Bogdanor, a distinguished authority on the British Constitution and former Professor of Government at Oxford, provides a model of clear and informed analysis in a relatively brief compass, arguing that the British have been “ambivalent” in their attitude to Europe all along, never quite accepting a European orientation. Sir Stephen Wall, a retired diplomat, gives a lengthier, more detailed and more personal account, based on his many years of service in the Foreign Office, as a participant in the negotiation of no fewer than five European treaties, and as former UK Permanent Representative to the EU. Bogdanor is an outsider, Wall very much an insider.
Wall and Bogdanor both begin by sketching the relationship between Britain and Europe over the centuries. Wall’s narrative doesn’t really add anything much to the personal reminiscences that make up the bulk of his book. Despite being a self-confessed Remainer, he regurgitates tired Brexiteer clichés about “our island story”, although under the Plantagenets England was part of a larger empire extending across a substantial portion of France. He writes about “a thousand years of British history”, but Welsh history was quite separate from English history until the late thirteenth century, and Scottish even longer, right up to the early seventeenth. Ireland scarcely features at all. He refers to Wellington’s army of “English troops” at Waterloo in 1815 although most of his soldiers were not English but German and Dutch. He thinks England was never successfully invaded after 1066 but in fact there were successful invasions during the “anarchy” of the twelfth century, and in 1216, 1326, 1399, 1471, 1485 and 1688. All in all, he would have been better advised to have dropped his whistle-stop tour of British and European history altogether.
Bogdanor starts later, but he also emphasizes the uniqueness of Britain, which, he argues, lay above all in its possession, up to the middle of the twentieth century, of a maritime empire, covering a fifth of the habitable surface of the Earth and numbering a quarter of the world’s population. This contrasted with “the land empires of the Continent” and led to a policy of “splendid isolation” from its affairs. When Neville Chamberlain exclaimed during a radio broadcast to the British nation during the Munich crisis in 1938, “how horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing”, he was referring to Czechs and Germans in a part of Europe located less than 800 miles to the east of London; he would not have said the same about Sydney, over 10,000 miles distant. The British Empire, Bogdanor argues, kept the United Kingdom apart from the Continent over the centuries. “The main events which have stamped British consciousness are events that occurred when Britain was alone confronting a hostile Continent – during the Napoleonic wars and of course in 1940”.
But far from being alone in the struggle against Napoleon, Britain always acted as part of a wider coalition of European states. “Splendid isolation” – a phrase invented by a Canadian not a British politician – was far from being the watchword of British governments through the nineteenth century, when the United Kingdom was a participant in a long series of major international congresses and conferences known as the “Concert of Europe” to resolve problems and disputes. Nor did Britain “stand alone” in 1940; quite apart from anything else, eighty-seven Czech and 145 Polish pilots fought in the Battle of Britain, and seven governments-in-exile had been formed in London by the end of the year to represent countries occupied by the Nazis.
Beyond this, the myth of “Britain alone” edits out the contribution of troops and material aid from the British Empire. Winston Churchill was also clear from the outset that the war could not be won without the help of the United States, which began assisting Britain with supplies as early as 1940. Bogdanor also overdraws the contrast with Continental nations: after all, the French global Empire covered nearly four-and-a-half million square miles in the mid-1930s, including metropolitan France – less than a third of the size of the British, but hardly “land-based” – and the overseas colonial possessions of Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands were also extensive. Only Russia could in reality be said to have possessed a land-based empire.
Far more important, as Bogdanor rightly points out, was the impact of the Second World War. “Britain was the only one of the European combatants which had neither been ruled by a Fascist or Nazi government nor been invaded and occupied by the Nazi or Fascist powers. In consequence, it was the only one of the European powers whose institutions had remained intact through the war. The other countries had to start again.” The postwar drive to European unity was designed to limit the destructive power of nationalism. Britain did not feel the same need. When Churchill, in his Zurich speech of September 19, 1946, proclaimed the need to “build a kind of United States of Europe”, based on a partnership between France and Germany, he added that Britain must be “among the friends and sponsors of the new Europe”. The reason for Britain not joining the new Europe was his fear that “it would weaken the connection with the Commonwealth – or, as he preferred to call it, the Empire”. By the time of Churchill’s death in 1965, however, the sun was clearly setting on the Empire. The Commonwealth, nominal successor of the Empire, “was just as likely”, as Bogdanor observes, “to oppose Britain as to offer support”. Moreover, despite the continuing practice of “imperial preference”, whereby countries like Australia and New Zealand traded with the UK on advantageous terms, whatever economic coherence the Commonwealth had possessed was fast disintegrating.
Nor was the “special relationship” of Britain with the United States, much treasured by Churchill, particularly relevant after the war, when the interests of the two countries diverged. In the humiliating debacle of Suez, in 1956, Britain was deserted by the US and isolated on the global stage, and was forced to abandon its attempt to regain control of the Suez canal after it had been nationalized by the Egyptian government. Former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson accurately described the situation in 1962, when he observed that “Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role”. So the British government, led by Harold Macmillan, decided to enter the European Community, not because it was in any way enthusiastic about the European project, but because, as Bogdanor observes, it had run out of alternatives.
After two vetoes by the French President Charles de Gaulle, in 1963 and 1967, largely on the grounds that the continuation of preferential terms for the Commonwealth would destroy the rationale of the Common Agricultural Policy, the United Kingdom, led by the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, finally joined what was then known in Britain as the “Common Market” in 1973. A referendum on membership was held in 1975, called by Wilson to placate Labour’s National Executive Committee, which was strongly against membership. It produced a 67 per cent to 33 per cent popular vote in favour of remaining. All the Party leaders campaigned for Remain, while the leading Leave campaigners were politicians of the hard right, like Enoch Powell, or hard left, like Michael Foot, who, as both Wall and Bogdanor point out, were not trusted by the electorate. In the midst of an economic crisis, too, voters heeded warnings that trying to go it alone would only make things worse. The terms of entry were not entirely favourable, but once Britain was in, they could be changed. And changed they were, above all at the insistence of Margaret Thatcher in 1984, when Britain’s large net contribution to the European budget was substantially reduced by a negotiated annual rebate. Thatcher scored another success two years later with the creation of the Single Market in goods and services among the member states, the most significant of all the British contributions to European integration over the decades, but one which the present Conservative Party has long been determined to abandon.
As Wall points out, Thatcher was strongly committed to Europe during her years as Prime Minister. In her famous Bruges speech, delivered in September 1988, she emphasized “nearly 2000 years of British involvement in Europe, co-operation with Europe, and contribution to Europe”. “Britain”, she went on, “does not dream of some cosy, isolated existence on the fringes of Europe. Our destiny is in Europe.” Britons over the centuries, she said, had fought and died for Europe’s freedom. But Thatcher also declared her opposition to further centralization within the European Community, in what she called “a European super state exercising a new dominance from Brussels. Certainly”, she conceded, “we want to see Europe more united and with a greater sense of purpose. But it must be in a way which preserves traditions, parliamentary powers and a sense of national pride in one’s own country.” Although these reservations aroused hostility, even outrage, in the European Community itself, and became the central rallying-point for Conservative Eurosceptics, the Bruges speech, Wall observes, today “represents a view of the European Union to which probably all its Member States could subscribe”. After she had been ousted as Tory leader, Thatcher became more hostile to the European Community, but at the height of her power she was fully committed to it.
Virtually canonized by the Conservative Party after her death in 2013, Margaret Thatcher seems to have been consigned to the dustbin of history by her Europhobic successors, her European policy, as Wall observes, “now largely lost to view”. At the time, however, her emphasis on the economic benefits to Britain from membership was widely supported by the electorate. Bogdanor is right to point to a significant shift in public opinion in the 1990s, when the previous long-term majority in favour of membership dwindled to almost nothing. This, he argues, was above all brought about by the end of the Cold War, the all-important context for the creation of the European Community in the first place. The removal, for the time being at least, of the threat of Russia brought back the spectre of the threat of Germany, the subject of the notorious Chequers seminar in 1990, at which a group of historians tried, and failed, to persuade Thatcher that a reunited Germany would not be a threat to world peace. The emerging Europhobic right wing of the Tory Party, encouraged by a large part of the popular press, portrayed the European Union as a front for German domination. And then, in 1992, the fiasco of “Black Wednesday”, which brought to an end the short-lived and unsustainable British membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, intended as a step towards monetary union, was, according to one senior Tory backbencher, “the biggest humiliation for Britain since Suez”. It was, Wall observes, “game-changing”. In the same year, John Major, Thatcher’s successor, negotiated significant British opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty, an agreement that created the European Union and accelerated the process of integration, but he could only force it through Parliament by the narrowest of majorities against a major rebellion by MPs from his own party. “Euroscepticism” had arrived.’

(…)

‘The most significant development of the 2000s was the eastward extension of the EU to include a large number of former Communist states, from Poland (2004) to Croatia (2013), which brought the total membership up to twenty-eight. As Prime Minister, Tony Blair, like the leaders of other existing governments, had the option of imposing a seven-year restriction on citizens of the new member states having the right to work, but, unlike other national leaders, foolishly chose not to exercise it. The number of Polish-born residents in the UK increased from 66,000 in 2001 to 911,000 in 2016, and Romanians (on whom the restrictions were imposed) from 14,000 in 2004 to 310,000 in 2016 (three years after they were lifted). As a result, the importance of immigration as a political issue, negligible in the 1990s, rose dramatically. Both Labour and Conservatives now took steps to try and limit immigration, but without convincing the electorate; the issue played a significant role in persuading many voters to back leaving the EU in 2016, in the belief that this would open the way to a sharp reduction in net immigration not just from the EU but more generally.
Added to the question of immigration as an impulse behind the growing support for Brexit was the economic crisis in 2008, which, Bogdanor argues, had its most significant impact on “the disadvantaged and insecure, the victims of social and economic change, who were alienated from the banking and financial establishment”. This provoked a “grass-roots insurgency in provincial England which led to Brexit”. The vote for Brexit was a vote against the elites by people who felt ignored by them. But this diagnosis, though not wholly wrong, is a considerable oversimplification.’

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‘But as Wall points out, the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, was no more than “lukewarm” in his support for Remain. This is an understatement. While recognizing that almost two-thirds of Labour voters were Remainers and so paying lip-service to the idea of staying in the EU, Corbyn did what he could behind the scenes to sabotage the campaign. The titular but entirely ineffectual head of “Labour In for Britain”, Alan Johnson, complained that at times it seemed that Corbyn’s office was “working against the rest of the party”. Corbyn had a long record of Euroscepticism. In opposing the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 he described the EU as a capitalist club led by “an unelected set of bankers”. He opposed the Lisbon Treaty in 2008 and the following year claimed that the European project had “always been to create a huge free-market Europe”, a policy he clearly regarded as favourable mainly to capitalists.
It wasn’t just Corbyn who undermined the Remain cause, however, for none of the major party leaders actually showed any real enthusiasm for Europe. In the two decades leading up to the referendum, Wall says, “the message conveyed by British politicians was that the EU was a problem but that they could fix it”. Despite having a Labour Party behind them that was largely pro-European, both Blair and Brown “failed to make a persuasive case for the European Union”, a political and economic project committed to ever-closer union. When the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition with the Conservatives in 2010, ten out of the eleven undertakings they made on EU policy were negative.
As Wall points out, David Cameron’s pre-referendum renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership was more successful than has often been realized, but if put into practice, it would, he says, have destroyed “the intent, and much of the content, of the original Treaties to which a Conservative government under Edward Heath had subscribed”. The official Remain campaign was feeble and poorly led. It made no attempt to counter the scaremongering of the Leave campaign and UKIP on immigration. By constantly stressing the formula “remain and reform”, the Remain campaign conveyed a negative image of the EU, without saying anything much about its positive aspects. All it could do was to stress the costs of leaving. The Leave campaign called this “Project Fear”, and the Remainers had no arguments with which to counter this contemptuous description because ever since the 1970s successive governments had offered only negative reasons for staying in. In 2016, both sides were campaigning against the EU as it existed in reality. In the circumstances, it was perhaps surprising that the vote was as close as it was.
Claims that “the British people” had voted to leave the EU were, however, a serious exaggeration. When abstentions or failure to vote are taken into account, the proportion of the electorate who voted Leave was only a little over 37 per cent. What the referendum actually revealed was the sheer depth of the division of opinion to be found in the British electorate.’

(…)

‘Bogdanor claims that Eastern European states would be even less democratic than they are if they did not belong to the EU; Wall does not even recognize that there is a problem with these member states, but simply asserts that the EU is a union of “like-minded democracies”. In truth, however, the failure of the EU to take firm action against the extinguishing of democracy in Eastern European member states, notably Poland and Hungary, is a betrayal of the values for which it claims to stand. Nevertheless, one of the most impressive aspects of the Brexit negotiations has been the continuing cohesion of the twenty-seven remaining member nations. The EU “will be the poorer, economically and politically, for the UK’s absence”, says Wall. But it will survive.’

(…)

‘Neither author gives any serious consideration to the possibility that Brexit will lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. Parallel to the strengthening of English nationalism has been the rise of Scottish nationalism to a point where the Scottish Nationalist Party is poised to establish a virtual monopoly of power at next year’s Scottish elections. Since Scotland voted by a large majority (62 to 38 per cent) to stay in the EU, the pressure for a fresh referendum on independence is likely to be irresistible; and if the Johnson government does resist, and Holyrood responds by calling one anyway, the UK is likely to be plunged into the deepest constitutional crisis it has faced since its creation in 1801.
Even more serious, because it has in the very recent past led to acts of extreme violence, is the problem of Ireland, which neither author, again, considers sufficiently important to warrant discussion. Up to now, Northern Irish nationalists could be content because the fact of British and Irish membership of the EU removed any effective border with the Republic, while Northern Irish Unionists could be content because there is no effective border with the British mainland. Not surprisingly, Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU by 56 to 44 per cent.
The problem of the UK’s border with the EU cannot be solved to both sides’ satisfaction. Brexit means either the creation of a hard border down the Irish Sea, which will outrage Unionists, or a hard border, much more difficult to police, in Ireland itself. In either case, there is a very real possibility of the resumption of violence by paramilitaries who refuse to accept whatever deal is reached. Myopic Brexit-justifying talk of “our island story” and “splendid isolation” ignores – has always ignored – the fact that the United Kingdom has a land border with the EU, running across the island of Ireland. The increasingly desperate tergiversations of the UK government, now involving the repudiation of key provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement it signed with the EU only a few months ago, and in consequence an open breach of international law, reflect its dawning realization of the depth and intractability of the problems this basic geopolitical fact brings with it. Senior Tory politicians, including those who support Brexit, are aghast. Regardless of whether or not the amendment of the Withdrawal Agreement in this respect actually happens, simply for the UK government to propose it has already damaged Britain’s reputation as a reliable ally that respects the rule of law.’

(…)

‘Brexit has unleashed demons of anger and prejudice in English culture, with race-hate crimes soaring since 2016, and “culture wars” over statues, patriotic songs, freedom of expression in our universities, and the teaching of history in our schools replacing sensible and informed debate about the nature and identity of the United Kingdom and the countries that belong to it. Outright xenophobia and neo-fascism have made their appearance in public again. Brexit hasn’t just exposed the depths of the divisions within British society and politics, it has deepened them to a point where they are causing serious damage to the national culture, or what remains of it. Informative and intelligent though these two books are, neither in the end really helps us to come to terms with this dismaying fact.’

Read the article here.

It sounds as if British society somehow resembles American society, just with less international attention. Yes, the Empire is gone.

One of the biggest sins of Corbyn, as Mr. Evans rightly points out, is his reluctance bordering on sabotage to campaign effectively for Remain.

It’s quite possible that Scottish lust for independence and the unresolved issue of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland will do even more damage to ‘the national culture’.

A vote fore more sovereignty in this century, where sovereignty for most countries is mostly an illusion, turned out to be utterly destructive. Even more destructive than the pessimists back in 2016 could imagine.

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