Alphen, Netherlands, 24
July. “Having the UK in the EU gives us much greater confidence about the
strength of the transatlantic union”.
The British media, particularly the slavishly pro-EU BBC, is full of
President Obama’s call yesterday for Britain to remain within the EU. The slant the story has been given suggests
Obama is telling Britain to remain within the EU if it wants to retain
influence in Europe, the wider world, and more critically Washington. In fact, in the interview Obama is far more
circumspect and far from interfering in British internal affairs he merely
expresses the US national interest. Equally,
Obama again highlights three questions central to the Brexit debate. Can Britain retain its wider influence via its
EU membership if Britain has little or no influence in the EU? Could Britain’s influence survive a Brexit? Is
a fair deal for Britain in the coming post-Eurozone crisis EU possible?
Can Britain retain its wider
influence via its EU membership if Britain has little or no influence in the
EU? The answer is a clear no. Not surprisingly the EU warts and all lobby
are going ballistic this morning. The central argument of this lobby, which is
routinely trotted out at gatherings of the ‘great and good’, is that ‘given’ Britain’s
future is in ‘Europe’ the EU must be accepted for what it is warts and all and
at whatever cost to the British taxpayer. The failure of the EU warts and all
lobby is their supine refusal to accept that the status quo is indefensible. It is change within the Eurozone that is
shifting the relationship towards costs and and away from benefits and that consequently
Britain occupies a political position in and on the EU that is fast
disappearing. Consequently, there is a very real danger that the 2017 Brexit
referendum (or whenever it takes place) will settle nothing with none of the
fundamental issues now at stake properly addressed.
Could Britain’s
influence survive a Brexit? Yes, although no member of the EU warts and all
lobby have ever answered or wanted to answer this question. With political will Britain the world’s fifth
biggest economy and a top five military power, with the world’s most extensive and
possibly most experienced diplomatic representation, free to make its own
agreements and alliances. could and would prosper as an independent country. Period.
Is a fair deal for
Britain in the coming post-Eurozone crisis EU possible? Possibly, but much
would need to change in Britain’s relationship with the EU. Indeed, this is the
key ‘fairness’ question and goes to the heart of Cameron’s attempts to
renegotiate Britain’s membership of a changing EU. For all the obfuscation of the Foreign Office’s
every which way but loose Balance of Competences review the simple fact is that
the EU is not fair to Britain.
Membership costs Britain roughly £20bn per annum whilst Britain suffers
a trade deficit with the rest of the EU worth some £52bn, partly due to blocks
placed by Germany and others on the Services Directive and by extension the
fulfilment of a really single, Single Market.
Worse, Britain finds
itself in a permanent minority with its interests routinely and increasingly trodden
into the ground by an unholy alliance of Eurozone members and the European Commission. Last week the Commission arbitrarily, simply
and unilaterally rewrote a binding 2010 agreement preventing the use of British
taxpayer’s money to fund the latest Greek bailout. Late last year Britain was slapped with a
huge additional bill by the Commission following a ‘reassessment’ of the size
of the British economy to include the proceeds of crime. Naturally, France and
Germany received reduced bills from the Commission.
Therefore, if President
Obama believes it an imperative American interest for Britain to remain in the
EU then he needs to swing the full weight of US diplomacy behind Cameron’s
efforts to get a fair deal for Britain in the EU. First and foremost that means supporting
Cameron openly to end the dangerous political fantasy of ‘ever closer union’
and support the idea of the EU as a super-alliance of free and independent
nation-states (which I support) rather than super-state. As the eternal Eurozone crisis demonstrates
political adventurism that is not grounded in political and economic reality is
fast leading Europe and indeed the wider “transatlantic union” towards ruin.
Thereafter, the
Americans must support Cameron in his pursuit of the objectives laid out in his
January 2013 Bloomsberg speech; the creation of a competitive EU via a Single
Market that is really ‘single’, a flexible EU that scraps the ‘one size fits
all’ philosophy that traps Europeans between a federal ‘Europe’ and a Europe of
nation-states; an EU that respects national parliamentary sovereignty and which
only acts when collective action is agreed and necessary; an EU that respects
democracy and is open and accountable to the people, which today is not the
case; and a new political relationship between Eurozone and non-Eurozone
members that if not agreed would effectively condemn the latter to taxation
without representation. Remember that
Yanks?
Above all, President
Obama must also face the contradictions inherent in his own position. First, that a Britain forced to accept
membership at any cost of an EU that is fast moving away from London’s long-held
idea of ‘Europe’ as a trading bloc far from reinforcing British clout will
simply destroy it. Second, that the EU
will a) evolve into a United States of Europe not unlike the United States of
America; and b) that a ‘US of E’ would be pro-American. As the Greek debt crisis has shown the former
is extremely unlikely and the latter by no means assured.
President Obama might
also wish to avoid the charge of hypocrisy by insisting in his support for the British
people the same principles that underpin American liberty – government by the
people, of the people and for the people.
Finally, President Obama may also wish to ask himself one other question
this morning; is he happy to impose a political settlement on the British
people that he would never dream of imposing on the American people. If he is then he is no democrat.
Failure by the US to
support Britain’s search for fairness WITHIN the EU could well accelerate
Britain’s departure from it.
Julian Lindley-French
