Scribblings

Days of Future Past

I was away for the past two weeks, first in Sitges, Barcelona, for a business conference, and then in Provence, France. In both places, the heat was intolerable. I am glad to be back north, where, as I write this, the temperature is a pleasant 22 degrees. But even here in the north, you can see the change in the climate in little things like plants flowering earlier, extra days of warmth, and Belgians beginning to plant vines and make wine instead of beer. The next thing you know, they will be eating pasta instead of frites. And it was the Belgians who invented frites, not the French. And starting to eat at 15:00 in the afternoon, like the Spanish, instead of at 12:00. Climate change changes everything.

While you are away, you tend to fall out of your daily routine, and the actualité can pass you by. Once I picked things up again last Friday, I read a story in the Financial Times which headlined: Brussels rebuffs UK request for ‘decision-shaping’ role in EU.

The opening lines of the story ran:

Brussels has rebuffed a British request to participate in decision-making in the EU, further delaying a deal to reset post-Brexit relations with the bloc. London wants a “decision-shaping” role in the rules and regulations that Britain has agreed to follow as part of its push for closer economic ties with the EU, according to people briefed on the matter.

On reading the FT article, what came to mind were the words from the Bible:

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Now, as those who know me will affirm, I am not an avid Bible reader, but I do know the odd quote, and this one seems to me to sum up precisely the history of the UK’s relationship with the European Union. “Please, sir, can we be both in and out at the same time? Can we have all of the bits we like and none of the bits we don’t like? And now that we are out, can we please have a say on decisions that might affect us?”

It was forever like this between the UK and the EU, economic necessity driving UK involvement in the European market, the imperial British heart crying No, we are exceptional, we are special, we are different.

Not surprisingly, the EU said no, you can’t have a role in decision-making. You decided to leave, and that means you can’t be involved in our internal processes. We might consult you about what we are considering and ask for your opinion, but you can’t have a seat at the table.

Those of us who wrote about the “Brexit Wars” as they were happening well remember speeches by Michael Gove, then a government minister, and David Frost, then the UK’s Brexit negotiator, predicting that when Brexit came to pass the EU would break up as other countries saw the golden future that lay ahead of the UK freed of the “shackles” of Brussels and would follow the UK out. The UK would then take the lead in shaping a new European order of free-trading nations. It did not happen. In fact, Eurosceptics saw the train wreck that was Brexit and decided to hang on to the European Union for fear of finding something worse. Today, Gove is the editor of a small, right-wing London magazine, while Frost is an obscure backbencher in the House of Lords. No leadership role in a new Europe for either of them.

During the Brexit negotiations, a former Prime Minister of Luxembourg commented that once upon a time, the UK was in with lots of opt-outs; now it wanted to be out with lots of opt-ins. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

I am reminded of Einstein’s comment: ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Since the Brexit saga began, the UK has kept seeking EU benefits without obligations, and the EU has repeatedly said no. Why would the UK think the EU was going to change its answer because it is Labour that is asking and not the Tories? “We’re nicer people” does not get you a different answer.

Would the EU want members of a possible future Farage UK government involved in its decision-making?

If Brexit did not lead to the break-up of the EU, which today is stronger than previously with a queue of countries looking to join, then the same cannot be said of the UK. Let me come back to potential developments in the UK.

First, something that really annoys me. Journalists and commentators who constantly complain that the EU is not doing this, that or the other, and is moving too slowly.

The EU was founded in 1958. That, in historical terms, is the blink of an eye. Of course, the EU isn’t perfect. No political system is. But what we have is better than a continent of individual national states constantly at one another's throats that has been the way of things for centuries. Like all political systems, the EU is built on shabby compromises, dirty deals, and political intrigue. If you want perfection, go and join a monastery and take a vow of silence. You will find peace there. Otherwise, accept the fact that the political world is deeply compromised and always will be. Politics has more sinners than saints.

Back to the UK.

The genie of English nationalism is out of the bottle and won’t be going back in again anytime soon, if indeed ever. Brexit has let loose breakup forces in the UK, and hardcore English nationalists would probably be more than happy to see the back of Scotland and Northern Ireland, whatever about Wales.

I’ll leave Scotland for now, but the more nationalism grows in England, the more Scotland will want to cut itself free and become an independent nation within the EU.

Northern Ireland is more complex. It lives on a separate island from the rest of the UK. In its last regional election, a party, Sinn Féin, that wants to lead Northern Ireland away from the UK and unite with Ireland, came out top. Demographic trends would seem to push in the same direction.

Northern Ireland depends for its existence on UK subsidies, at a minimum of £6bn a year, maybe stretching to as much as £20bn. For a Farageist government, cutting Northern Ireland loose might look like a juicy cost-saving. If that were to happen, what options would the unionists in Northern Ireland have? They would have neither the support nor the wherewithal to run a little, independent statelet. They are no longer the majority. Their yesterday is dead and gone.

Were the Farage English nationalists to form a government and cut Northern Ireland loose for economic reasons, then the only realistic option for Northern Ireland would be to turn south to the Republic. And it would not be in a strong bargaining position as it would have nowhere else to go. Better to start thinking about the unthinkable now than when it slaps you in the face.

We can never know the future. But we can identify potential pathways and options. Best to map them out when you have time to do so. Because when the future creeps up on you, time vanishes. And then it is too late. The future of Northern Ireland may be decided in London and not in Northern Ireland, or Ireland, if a Farage government decides it no longer wants the troublesome child that is Northern Ireland. Never say never when it comes to politics.

Were Farage to become Prime Minister, he may get his wish. A little England cut loose from Europe. Maybe a border between England and Scotland, maybe a border between England and Wales, if both are back in the European Union. Definitely a border with Ireland.

But England will have its sovereignty.