Valdai Club

Once bereft of EU links with continental Europe, there would be nowhere else for the UK to go except towards America – a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.

With Britain going to the polls on 23 June to vote on whether to remain or to leave the European Union, the country faces a fundamental choice – whether to remain part of the ‘European’ project, or whether to set out once again on a path of its own. The question is certainly far from new. In the immediate post-war years Winston Churchill thought of the UK in terms of membership of three major communities: the British Empire (later Commonwealth), the Atlantic community based in particular on a ‘special relationship’ with the United States, and continental Europe. As far as Churchill was concerned, these were not exclusive choices but overlapping and mutually reinforcing interests. As for Europe, Churchill was all in favour of integration. In his famous speech in Zurich in 1946, Churchill talked of the ‘United States of Europe’, urging the newly-liberated nations on the mainland to turn their backs on the horrors of the past and to look to the future – but this was a future for the others and not for Britain.

Since joining what is now the EU in 1973, Britain has always been the ‘awkward’ partner. Its awkwardness is not something imagined but arises from substantive concerns, different histories and maritime context. The UK is one of the very few countries that enjoyed no immediate economic uplift as a result of accession – in fact, in the mid-1970s the British economy was sclerotic, and remained so for many years. Prices rose dramatically as the cheap food from the former dominions was cut off, and Britain adjusted to continental prices. There were also some deeper incompatibilities, including the British common law tradition as opposed to the Roman law and Napoleonic codes of the continent.

Over the years matters have evened out, and now about 50 per cent of UK trade is with the rest of the EU. Britain is a favoured destination for FDI from outside the EU, taking advantage of the UK’s flexible labour market as a base for exports to the EU. This is particularly striking in motor manufacturing. There is now an increasingly integrated educational, research and cultural community, and a mobile labour market which has brought enormous dynamism and talent to the UK.

Yet the issue of membership became neuralgic for the Conservative Party, and the rise of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) threatened to undermine the possibility of a majority Tory government. It is for this reason that David Cameron conceded a referendum in 2013, long a demand of UKIP and the Eurosceptics in his own party. But as Cameron has now learned, it is impossible, as the saying goes, to outkip the Kippers! The more concession that are made to the sceptics, the more they want.

Given all of this, it would appear to be absolutely crazy for the UK to contemplate departure. The EU, the Bremainers argue, may not be perfect, but it allows the UK to shape policies and to pursue reform from within. To leave would open up the prospect of years of uncertainty, and the probability of heavy economic losses. A border would have to be restored in Ireland, with incalculable consequences for the economies and societies of both sides, and may well endanger the peace process. Also, if the vote differential between England and Scotland was significant, a no vote could well trigger a second Scottish independence referendum. The pursuit of sovereignty in this interconnected age, the argument goes, is a chimera. Once bereft of EU links with continental Europe, there would be nowhere else for the UK to go except towards America – a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.

The partisans of Brexit counter with the argument that Britain’s £350 million sent weekly to Brussels could be better spent in the country, and the UK would be able to negotiate all the advantages of the single market without the burdens and obligations. Above all, the UK would be able to control immigration.

None of the Brexit arguments really stand up to scrutiny. If Britain really was to remain part of the single market, it would have to maintain the four freedoms enshrined in the Single European Act of 1986. If it tried to negotiate a free trade agreement alone, this could take years – and a Britain on the way out could expect no favours from the remaining EU members. Making it easy to leave could trigger a stampede for the door. A no vote would trigger the procedure envisaged in Article 50 of the EU Treaty, allowing two years for the exit negotiations to be completed. Given the myriad agreements that would have to be renegotiated, this timetable appears far too tight. Thus, from a purely British perspective, it would be bonkers to leave.

And yet, there are some deeper arguments in favour of Brexit. The advocates of the yes vote argue that a vote to leave would be a vote for Vladimir Putin. There is no evidence that Russia has been anything except strictly neutral in this campaign, and if anything, has warned against the disruptive consequences of a British departure. But the discussion demonstrates the primitive level of public discourse, and the failure to understand the way that the EU has evolved in recent years. The veteran left-wing activist, Tariq Ali, has argued that there are good socialist reasons to vote to leave. Instead of defending the social market, the EU from this perspective has become a neoliberal project sponsored by corporate capitalism. This is demonstrated by the secrecy with which negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – dubbed the ‘economic NATO – were conducted, representing in effect a race to the bottom in terms of regulatory standards.

There are also far deeper issues of sovereignty and political autonomy at stake. Not so much the sovereignty of the member states – although this is an issue – but of the EU as a whole. Many are worried about the way that the EU has become the junior partner of the Atlantic community, losing whatever residual autonomy it may have had in resolving the great geopolitical questions of our day. Although strong relations between the EU and its eastern neighbours are in the interests of all, without a mode of reconciliation with Russia, this becomes geopolitical adventurism.

One possible instrument for this reconciliation is the ‘greater Europe’ project advanced by Russia, but with deep roots in the Gaullist appreciation of Europe. The US in particular is keen for the UK to remain a member of the EU, so that it can continue to play the role so presciently warned of by de Gaulle – as a Trojan horse for American concerns (although he got his bestiary wrong – the UK in recent years has been rather more of a Trojan poodle).

In the absence of a mode of reconciliation, talk of the EU as a ‘peace project’ sounds increasingly hollow. The EU’s failure to take into account the power consequences of its actions precipitated the most terrible conflict of our times in Ukraine. For many of the new Eastern European member states, the EU is not a method to overcome historical grievances but an instrument for their amplification.

It is for this reason that citizens in the UK would like two votes in the referendum. The first vote would be resolutely cast to stay in. From the British perspective, it would be rash in the extreme to enter unknown and uncharted waters. However, from a geopolitical perspective, it would dangerous to stay in (that's why the second vote would be against). That’s the reason why even at this stage it is impossible to predict the outcome of the referendum. And that’s why I’m demanding two votes!