The UK will, within the next couple of years, hold a referendum on whether or not to continue its membership in the EU and will vote to get out – if they’re not booted out first. To understand Britain one must remember that they have never really been in…
Winston Churchill, in his famous 1946 speech in Zurich, is credited with kick starting the Common Market which morphed into the EU. UK supporters of the EU use the great man’s words to back their case. The trouble is, they overlook a key part of that speech.
Churchill, who felt he should have got the Nobel Peace Prize not the one for literature (I think his case was a good one) was indeed the father of the French-German Coal deal which led to the Treaty of Rome in 1957 did indeed talk about a United States of Europe. But supporters evidently did not read his entire speech and missed this part
The British Commonwealth of Nations, mighty America and I trust Soviet Russia – for: then indeed all would be well – must be the friends and sponsors of the new Europe and must champion its right to live and shine. (Emphasis mine)
Churchill didn’t see the UK in any «United States of Europe". In fact, his life belief was in the «English Speaking Peoples» and the «Special Relationship between Britain and America». He wrote, of course, History of The English Speaking Nations and because of his mother being American, considered himself ½ American.
President De Gaulle, President of France, recognized this when, in 1962 he first rejected «England‘s» special situation in thusly
«In short, the nature, the structure, the very situation (conjuncture) that are England’s differ profoundly from those of the continentals. What is to be done in order that England, as she lives, produces and trades, can be incorporated into the Common Market, as it has been conceived and as it functions? For example, the means by which the people of Great Britain are fed and which are in fact the importation of foodstuffs bought cheaply in the two Americas and in the former dominions, at the same time giving, granting considerable subsidies to English farmers? These means are obviously incompatible with the system which the Six have established quite naturally for themselves».
He gave Britain the finger again 12 1967 thusly
«Compared with the motives that led the Six to organize their unit, we understand for what reasons, why Britain – who is not continental, who remains, because of the Commonwealth and because she is an island, committed far beyond the seas, who is tied to the United States by all kinds of special agreements – did not merge into a Community with set dimensions and strict rules».
In 1973 Britain, under Prime Minister Edward Heath, joined the EU and confirmed this with a national referendum, in 1975.
The beauty of hindsight is that one can see the reasons for current events.
Hindsight shows us that the UK has never had the sort of national consensus that France and Germany – and other founding members – had about the entire notion,
Farmers and fishermen saw their economic future hostage to spoon-fed French agriculture and fishing rights now extended to «foreigners». For these and many other reasons, Britons have seen relations with the EU as government to government not an institution with equality of all. It was a «business deal» not in any way an emotional one.
With the arrival of the «Iron Lady», Margaret Thatcher and her successor John Major, British foot dragging stared in earnest. Thatcher observed «To try to suppress nationhood and concentrate power at the centre of a European conglomerate would be highly dangerous and would jeopardize the objectives we seek to achieve»
Scarcely the words of an enthusiastic and loyal European!
John Major signed the Maastricht agreement only after opting out of the common currency and the social and economic union.
Let’s use that hindsight again.
Here we had, in 1993, the formal creation of the EU with Britain not accepting the economic and social union and emphatically rejecting the replacement of the comfy old pound by a euro. In other words Britain really wants divorce with bedroom privileges – in for the good stuff but not for the troublesome bits.
Where in the other major nations in the union there had been an acceptance not only of the EU as a «nation « but one, which will become more and more centralized in time, Britain wishes to remain British both in a sentimental and practical way.
As always, in any sort of partnership, money becomes a problem and the UK sees the monetary crises in member nations as something they want no part of. The UK is not obliged to get involved saving other member states from fiscal catastrophe and, to be blunt, to do so would bring down the government that agreed to.
The question is how long other nations will stand for Britain’s uncooperative and stubborn stance?
I’m scarcely a fan of hers; but Margaret Thatcher probably captured the reality of Britain’s position. In saying that, it must be remembered that there are plenty of Britons – especially amongst the «chattering classes», who firmly want Britain to stay. I just think they’re in the minority.
The EU in many ways is to blame when, then president Jacques Delors, started down the path to complete absorption of nations, he continually pretended that there was an end game in mind when any damned fool, including this one, could see the inevitability of the process. As nation after nation joined, it became sort of a Ponzi scheme which as such schemes always do, began to unravel.
Now countries like Turkey, once so eager to get involved and being faced by EU lack of enthusiasm, now can’t back peddle fast enough.
The exit of the UK is, insofar as anything can be, a certainty. There will be a referendum and Britain will opt out. And, to be fair to the EU in its various incarnations was clearly moving to full integration, Britain preferred to muddle on rather than face the words of Thatcher and fish or cut bait. By trying to do both, she has placed the EU in a very difficult spot.
Both the EU and the UK will survive, probably better apart than together.
