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WHAT SEPARATES US
In our cover article on page nine, Timothy Garton Ash sets out the reality of Britain's isolation in the EEC. Since mak- ing her speech in Bruges two weeks ago, the Prime Minister has been attacked (though not usually by name) by most of the leading figures in the Community; and these attacks, as Mr Garton Ash points out, have come chiefly from Christian Democrats whom she might have regarded as allies, rather than from the Continental Left. All of the Continental powers, with the possible exception of Denmark, favour a degree of European integration which Britain has rejected. All of them expect to go far beyond the establishment of a genuinely common market. They seek a political union which, whether or not it is ever called the United States of Europe, will be much closer to such a thing than to the free association of independent nation states for which Mrs Thatcher has called. However great are various disagreements between Continental member states, they are as nothing beside the 'unplumbed, salt, estranging sea' which cuts off Britain from the mainland of Europe.
Nor is this division a new development, the temporary result of some political realignment within the EEC. Timothy Garton Ash shows that the latest split is essentially the same as that which caused De Gaulle to veto Britain's entry to the EEC, the same which led Giscard d'Es- taing and Helmut Schmidt to form a close bond from which Britain was excluded. Even Winston Churchill's romantic devo- tion to a united Europe did not lead him to contemplate anything like the sacrifice of British sovereignty which European in- tegration would demand. His European- ism, insofar as it had any firm political shape, would have been more like a restoration of the Concert of Europe than the invention of a European super-state. No important British politician except Ed- ward Heath has called for integration as it is commonplace to call for it on the Continent.
It is important to recognise the strength and depth of this division. The Continen- tals have some reason to complain about Mrs Thatcher in this respect. Shy of discussing constitutional principles, she has preferred to present her differences with the EEC as ones concerned only with particular policies. Throughout the early years of her administration, she called for `our money', while at the same time claiming to be an enthusiastic European. She signed the Single European Act with- out demur, confidently pressing towards the advent of the single market throughout the EEC. Only now, at the eleventh hour, does she choose to raise difficulties which go to the heart of the Community. But better late than never, and much better Mrs Thatcher being difficult in the interests of Britain than the Foreign Office being easy in the interests of everybody else. For there is no room for compromise between her view from Bruges and M. Delors' view from Brussels (or even Dr Kohl's view from Bonn). There has to be a contest between the two, and one of them has to prevail.
The argument should not be a pseudo- abstract one between those who believe that the nation-state is right and those who think that mankind can only be saved through international institutions. Nor should it be between those who support romantic nationalist isolation (and hate foreigners) and those who believe in the brotherhood of man. It should be an argument about European history and where that history is leading the nations which compose Europe. From the Franco- German point Of view, the case for some form of European integration is over- whelming. Two world wars, on top of the disputes and invasions of the 19th century, proved that the national aspirations of the two powers, particularly Germany, were not to be trusted. They had to find ways of linking each with the other so that war became impossible. This meant pooling the production of iron and steel, pooling sovereignty, pooling political identity in something larger they could both trust.
Britain's case was quite different. Her interest in avoiding another war was almost equally great, but what this interest de- manded of her was not what it demanded of France and Germany. By good luck, and some good management, by the strength of her political institutions and the happy accident of being an island, Britain had no crisis of legitimacy. She had no collabor- ators to deal with, no defeat from which to rebuild. She certainly had a diminished role in the world, but she never began to experience the most serious form of politic- al crisis — the belief that the thing which calls itself the Government has no right to be the Government at all. In 1945, Britain had political institutions which comman- ded legitimacy: she still has them in 1988. What possible motive could Britain have for sacrificing them in the hope of building something else? It would be like getting rid of your own loving, if stuffy, parents because you had been told you could join a giant new commune of unfamiliar parents with new ideas about child development.
Britain's interest in Europe is clear enough. There is the geographical fact of being part of the place (although the 22 miles of sea are remarkably important). There is the plain self-interest of a huge, sophisticated market. There is the natural sympathy of one member of old, Christian civilisation for its other constituent parts, added to the new sympathy of nations committed to freedom and parliamentary government. There is the consequent com- mon fear of the totalitarian East and the accompanying interest in common de- fence. All these are vital components in Britain's future prosperity and peace. All of them are assisted by international treaties and co-operation. None of them demands the loss of this country's painstak- ing political achievement of the past 900 years. Yet that is what is being asked of us, and that is what so many seem so terri- fyingly ready to concede.
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