“Oh
what tangled webs we weave when at first we seek to deceive”.
Alphen, Netherlands. 24
June. Why did Brexit happen? Peering
through the grey drape of fatigue in which I am cloaked having spent the night
watching history being made (or is that unmade) the decision the British people
have taken last night is quite simply momentous. To be honest I felt something
like this might happen the moment I saw people in a working men’s club in my
native Yorkshire declare for leave to a man and woman. I know these people.
Part of me is hewn from their stock. This was the English, and I stress the
English, at their stubborn best and bloody-minded worst. An Agincourt-beckoning
two fingers (the English don’t do one finger) to distant Establishments from
people who have for too long felt ignored, bypassed, and don’t give a damn who
tells them what they must do however exalted.
It would be easy to blame
a lot of people for Britain’s decision. And yes there are many who should be
looking hard at themselves this morning. French and German leaders who for
years excluded Britain from the leadership of the several European projects
always implicit in what eventually became the EU. A Brussels Establishment
impervious to all and any argument that did not fit into their ‘one size fits
all’ idea of ever closer political union. A kommentariat
of which I am in some ways a minor part who simply could not believe the
peasants would ever revolt.
In reality none of the
above were really the cause of Brexit. Britain’s departure began the day
Britain joined the then European Economic Community back in 1973. Ticking away
deep in the heart of Britain’s accession was a political time-bomb with a
delayed fuse that last night exploded. To convince the British people to accept
a new idea of ‘sovereignty’ then Prime Minister Edward Heath and his ministers simply
lied. They knew that the EEC was far more than a ‘common market’. Indeed, one
had only to read the preamble of the 1957 Treaty of Rome to realise that
Britain was joining a political project.
As the ambition of that
project grew over the years stepping, sometimes stumbling, forward from treaty
to treaty successive British leaders wriggled and struggled to maintain that original
lie. An opt-out here, a special ‘deal’ there, all to defend a political space
that over years steadily shrank. Finally, the idea that Britain could be in the
EU but outside the European Project could no longer be hidden and began to look
like the absurdity it was. In the end the original lie came to be seen even by some
members of the British Establishment, as an original political sin.
The problem with the lie
was that it eroded one vital conversation and replaced it with another. Since
at least the English civil war British democracy has been established on what
Abraham Lincoln would describe in his magisterial Gettysburg Address as government
of the people, for the people, by the people. However, as British politicians
danced ever more clumsily on the head of a hot political pin to maintain the original
lie the conversation with the British people itself became a lie.
Rather, for the British
Establishment the traditional conversation between power and people was
replaced by a more ‘important ‘conversation with Brussels and the leaders of
other EU member-states. And, as the gulf in importance between the two
conversations became ever wider it become ever clearer the European elite conversation
was far more important than the British political conversation. Worse, too much
of that elite conversation took place behind closed doors in a secrecy-obsessed
Brussels. This exacerbated a gnawing, growing sense in the political instincts
of millions that Europe was not for the people but against the people. That democracy was being eroded with the Mother of Parliaments reduced to little
more than a political reality show.
The die is now cast. My
arguments against Brexit have been confounded. This is a moment for calm
reflection. Given the dangerous world into which Britain and states and peoples
that this morning remain friends and allies are moving, it is vital a new
relationship between a post-Brexit Britain and the EU is quickly established. The
British people cannot be punished for democracy. Britain must also sail towards
new horizons with countries with which it shares old visions.
The bottom line is that
with respect Britain is not Norway or Switzerland. Britain is a major power, the
world’s fifth biggest economy and fourth biggest defence spender. Turbulence is
of course inevitable. However, it is surely in the interest of all Europeans
and indeed the world-wide West to re-embed Britain in new relationships, not
least with what will soon inevitably be a new Europe. The British people have
exercised their democratic right. Other Europeans will exercise their own right
as they see it. That, after all, is why Britain fought and helped win two world
wars this century past. Britain has not suddenly become an ‘enemy’. There are plenty
of those elsewhere.
That Agincourt-beckoning
two fingers has in the past saved Europe from slavery. It maybe that last night
the English helped break the Europe that could not have been built without
Britain. I hope not. But, for better or worse, for good and ill Brexit is now fact
and I am very, very tired, and very, very sad. And, I now need some sleep. As
clearly does David Cameron for he has just resigned.
Julian Lindley-French
