Alphen (NB),
Netherlands, 17 January.
Netherlands, 17 January.
Dear Mr Cameron,
Tomorrow you will make
the most important speech of your premiership on Britain’s relationship with
Europe here in the Netherlands.
Yesterday in Parliament you gave me some encouragement that you have
finally grasped the huge strategic significance of what is happening here on
the Continent. It is precisely these
strategic factors you must focus on in your speech. Indeed, at this critical moment in Europe’s
history you must endeavour to communicate two vital messages not just to
Britons, but all Europeans. First, the
drift of the EU towards bureaucratic tyranny represents a danger to democracy. Second, Europeans must again look outwards to
the world and become competitive across all economic and strategic domains. Euro-Realism must be your theme tomorrow, Mr
Cameron, not euro-scepticism.
Living here in the Netherlands
with my Dutch wife as I have done for many years there is much frustration with
Britain. On the one side there are the
Euro-fanatics who will go to almost any lengths in pursuit of the ‘Grand Europe’
they seek. Joseph Goebbels once said, “If
you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to
believe it”. Now, I am not for the
moment equating European federalists with the Nazis, but be it here or in
Britain the use by the pro-Europe lobby of fear is disgraceful.
On the other side there
are millions of ordinary Europeans looking to Britain to offer some alternative
to the ‘ever more Europe at any cost’ creed.
All they want is for their nation-state to remain the centre of Europe’s
political gravity with national governments and parliaments firmly in control
of their interests and their futures.
And yet all they hear from Britain is an incessant and self-defeating “we
want our money/laws back” whinge. There
is no sense of a Britain willing to fight on the bigger, principled questions of balance,
liberty and democracy.
We both know that the
Eurozone will soon commit a terrible error and cross a dangerous political
Rubicon. Once crossed too much power will
be placed in the hands of an elite few with the unelected and unaccountable
strengthened at the expense of liberty.
Democracy itself may well be at risk if all people can elect in future
is hollowed out politicians in hollowed-out states.
Britain must therefore do
what it has always done; prevent the emergence of an unholy alliance and
over-mighty power on the Continent.
However, Britain can only do that if London takes a strategic and historical
view of Europe rather than the narrow, short-term, parochial view so far
offered. What is happening is far more
than a simple issue of cost. Be it
Phillip II of Spain, Louis XIV, Napoleon, the Kaiser or
indeed Hitler, Britain’s job has always been to prevent the hegemony of any one
single power over Europe in whatever form it casts itself. The rhetoric might have changed but behind
all the Euro-speak the same old European geopolitics are at work and Britain
as ever must lead the resistance. That
is the kind of leadership for which millions of concerned Europeans are looking
to Britain. It is something past British
leaders would have immediately understood, but which hitherto has been utterly
absent from your own leadership.
Britain must also fight
for a Europe that again looks up and out to the world. The killing of two European citizens
yesterday by Islamists and the kidnapping of forty others is but one example of
a European strategic neighbourhood replete with dangers. You were right to support France’s efforts to
stabilise Mali, although Paris deserves far more. Sadly, the flip-side of the Eurozone crisis
is a Europe that is fast becoming neo-isolationist and neo-pacifist as evinced
by the effective scrapping of credible armed forces in many European states.
In that light Britain’s
agenda must be twofold. First, to make pragmatic,
common cause with all those who want to repatriate powers from Brussels, and
that includes Germans, Dutch and many others.
Second, with France start to lead Europe back to strategic seriousness
in what will be a dangerous instable European neighbourhood in a dangerous
world.
Yesterday I watched
with interest your Fresh Start group of MPs present you with what a long and
frankly not unreasonable list of ‘competences’ you wish to see returned to
London from Brussels. In essence they
were asking for the return of many of the same powers that will be integrated
in the coming EU treaty changes that will emerge after the September German
elections. However, unless such demands
are embedded in the broader Euro-realist agenda I have outlined they will have
no chance of being agreed. Win the
argument over principle and you may have some chance of winning the argument
over particulars.
Winston Churchill once
said, “every time Britain has to decide
between Europe and the open sea, it is always the open sea that we shall choose”
Were life that easy. Remember,
Mr Cameron, Euro-Realism, not euro-scepticism tomorrow. Good luck!
Yours sincerely,
Julian Lindley-French
