EUROPE

The nature of Britain's dilemma

ROBERT SKIDELSKY

Britain is part of Europe and can no more ignore what happens there than we could in the past. No doubt had we been in a posi- tion, since the war, to make our will effec- tive, there would have been no Common Market, no movement for political unifica- tion. British European diplomacy since 1945 has been largely designed to prevent these things from happening. But they have hap- pened, and face us with a new historical situation.

In the past our power to influence con- tinental politics has depended on being able to create and maintain a 'balance of power.' Since the war, with America behind us, we have pursued a policy of 'divide and rule', even though this meant in practice that, although we did the dividing, America did the ruling. Today the union of the major Western European powers has destroyed the old basis of England's continental position. Not even in the limits set by the division of Europe and the nuclear stalemate is the game of 'divide and rule' any longer on. Hence England's European influence will depend in the future on working inside the developing European institutions; its influence on the world, in using those institutions for furthering the aims of a European policy. If we remain outside, we will rightly, and increasingly, be ignored, both in Europe and in the world, as the European Community begins to play the political role to which its wealth, population, traditions, and resources entitle it.

What are the alternatives? What would be the political future of Britain outside Europe? This is what has to be weighed against the so-called political disadvantages of signing the Treaty of Rome.

Since the war the cardinal principle of our foreign policy has been the maintenance of the Anglo-American alliance, sometimes dignified by the title of 'the special relation- ship.' We have come to accept this alliance as an unshakable historical fact. It is salutary to remind ourselves how recent, and how essentially temporary, it really is. It arose, of course, out of the wartime partnership of Churchill and Roosevelt. Before this, despite the earlier colonial experience and the undoubted ties of language and culture, there was no alliance, for the simple reason that America stood largely aloof from England's main concerns.

If any 'special relationship' existed it was with France—the Entente Cordiale. The Anglo-American alliance, in short, was created by the war against Germany, solidi- fied by the cold war against Russia, and reinforced by the habit of official consulta- tion built up thereby, as well as by a general bureaucratic inertia.

As the special relationship sprang out of the us involvement in Europe the question of its future cannot be considered apart from the future of the us involvement in Europe. Here there are two possible hypo- theses, both damaging to the survival of an Anglo-American alliance. If America 'disengages' from Europe, for whatever reason, it will to that extent disengage from Britain as well, for although Britain might regard itself as a special ally of America. Washington increasingly regards Britain as merely part of the general European com- plex, without any special claims on American protection or generosity. Thus a Britain in this situation outside Europe would face a double chill: from a United States gradually withdrawing from a Euro- pean, and hence a British, involvement; and from a Europe constructing its own defence and foreign policy with increasingly little reference to England.

On the unlikely assumption of America retaining its present level of European involvement, a Britain outside Europe would be of little use to an America which will find it increasingly expedient to deal directly with the European community. In this eventuality. England's best hope of maintaining its special position in the American alliance would be for it to represent the American viewpoint inside the Community, reinforcing its 'Atlantic' wing.

So much, then, for the 'American' option: what about the Commonwealth? The Com- monwealth as a political force in its own right was revived briefly by the Labour party in 1962. In fact, it has never been as important in British history as common- wealth apologists make out. Britain's period as a self-conscious imperial power (that. is. when imperial ties were deemed more Im- portant than others) lasted only for twenty or thirty years round the turn of the last century. Nothing can dispel the ties of sentiment that bind Britain to many of her erstwhile

dominions: but the occasions for their tangible expression are likely to recur increasingly rarely. What we are left with then is a meeting-place for many divergent races and viewpoints. But in any other sense the Commonwealth 'option' is completely meaningless.

There are two other possibilities for Britain. The first, to which Mr Enoch Powell seems inclined, is that Britain should 'go it alone', fortified by a floating exchange rate. The economic arguments against this course have been frequently stated; the political objections have not been given sufficient airing. They rest primarily on a certain view of political evolution. What we seem to be living through, particularly in the indus- trialised world, is a process of regional aggregation, both political and economic, based not on domination, but on coopera- tion. (This is becoming as true of the Soviet bloc as it is of Western Europe, Scandinavia and America.) The pattern in the developing world is uncertain, but even here (in Latin America, in South-East Asia) the tendency towards regionalism is marked. In this situa- tion, for a medium-sized power like England to cut itself off from the integrative process is to cut itself off from history itself. And as to the pre-imperial 'little England' past, to which Mr Powell, in certain moods, beckons us, it should not be forgotten that this was a time of constant involvement in continental affairs. The truth is that there has never been a 'little England': only little Englanders.

The same objections apply to the much more idealistic version of the 'going it alone' thesis: the view that England belongs to no one and to everyone; that it is the only truly international power and as such ought to be the catalyst for the impulse to a single, democratic, world community. This was, if you like, the liberal vision projected onto the world stage. England's qualifications for the job seemed sufficiently impressive. What other country has had such an impact on the world in the last 200 years? What continent has not felt the profound influence of Eng- lish ideas, language, commerce and institu- tions? For England to allow itself to become boxed into a purely continental system would seem a betrayal of its past.

To this the only reply is that the best is often the enemy of the good. Regionalism, not internationalism, seems to be the dominant trend of the twentieth century; and the best way of ensuring the survival of the liberal vision is not to stand aside from the great developments of our age, but to enter into them, and infuse them with a larger purpose.

Thus the concentration of the British debate, to the exclusion of almost everything else, on the economic costs and benefits of joining, reveals, in the eyes of many Euro- peans, a fundamental misconception of the purpose of the Common Market. The British, it is felt, still hanker for a free trade area, offering all the benefits of that parti- cular system, with none of the political costs of concrete cessions of sovereignty. Hence their desire that the Common Market should perpetually expand 'outwards' until it is completely dissolved into some huge free trade area, embracing not only America but Japan as well. For the dedicated Europeans, however, the Common Market is a nation- state in embryo. A nation in the making, however indirectly, cannot afford to be too 'outward-looking' for that would hopelessly dilute any political will or cohesion that it might be trying to build up. Indeed, it is the profound conviction of many Europeans, backed by considerable evidence, that Britain seeks entry precisely to divest the European community of any political or national content that has up till now made the so-called Eurocrats among the strongest opponents of British entry.

It is therefore a mistake to think of Britain's attitude to the European movement since the war as one of indifference. Lord Boothby's phrase that 'we missed the Euro- pean bus' gives the wrong impression. What actually happened was that time and time again we tried to divert the European bus off the main road into some side turning first from the outside and then finally, when that seemed to have failed, by attempting to get on it and take over the driving. From the European perspective it was a very reasonable supposition that Macmillan's entry bid in 1961 was but a continuation of the policy of hostility to Europe by different means. And indeed in the pers- pective of history I believe Britain's inter- action with Europe over the last twenty years will be seen as a grand diplomatic duel in which she succeeded in fighting the European movement to a standstill.

All the evidence suggests that the frustra- tion of de Gaulle's objective of a European third force was a major, if not the major, motive for Britain's application in 1961. For the anti-Gaullists in the Common Market, especially the Dutch, were able to use the pending negotiations for Britain's entry as an excuse to delay consideration of de Gaulle's scheme. And by the time the British negotiations had failed, the moment for its adoption, if any such moment existed, had passed. To frustrate a federal, or even a confederal Europe, as well as to gain certain advantages in the European market, the Conservative government was prepared to pay the price of limited concessions on agri- culture and Commonwealeth prefereneAs. For it not only feared the dangers to world peace from an active European diplomacy; but also feared that a 'strong' Europe with itself outside, would rob Britain of its poli- tical importance; would reduce us, in Mac- millan's words, to a backwater. If de Gaulle could not be frustrated from the outside, then the effort must be made to frustrate him from the inside, in alliance with those

'Well, I'm a "don't know," but I don't think it's fair as they never give me anyone to

vote for', in the Common Market opposed to him.

The application to join, then, was not so much a change of strategy as of tactics. The new factor was that the Common Market was in existence, was thriving, and seemed on the point of realising its political potential. To that extent the European move- ment had overcome Britain's efforts at thwarting it.

The strategy of British governments is easy to understand, if not to forgive. Britain had emerged from the war as a victorious, but enfeebled power. In its weakness, it was still saddled with the world-wide respon- sibilities and attitudes of its period of supremacy. Hence it lacked both the com- pelling motive, and the freedom from in- herited obligations, to take part in the con- struction of a new political system. At the same time it realised that continental developments threatened it with accelerated decline and loss of political and economic leverage. So it bent every effort of diplo- macy to sabotaging the European move- ment. It is often said that Britain seeks to join the Common Market to take advantage of the opportunities it offers. This has always been true economically; but politically the motive has always been not to lead a Euro- pean bloc, but to prevent one from developing.

It is true that, for the purposes of the argument, I have given the European move- ment a coherence of aim which it did not in fact possess. Within the Six there are many representatives of the TIriikh st:indnn;nt. Equally there have been big differences between the federalists and the Gaullists. What has united both the latter two against the British, however, has been their joint belief, however differently expressed, in a European 'viewpoint' distinct from the wider international concerns in which the British have sought to dissolve it. In Britain, by contrast, there are hardly any representa- tives of the Gaullist or federalist idea. The accession of Britain to the Common Market would be an unequivocal gain to the least European-minded in the European move- ment. Hence for the dedicated Europeans on the continent the question of Britain's entry is relatively simple: are the economic advantages which European industry is likely to gain from access to the British market, to British technology, and to British finance, sufficient to compensate them for the obstacles Britain is 'likely to create to further political integration, with its corollary of a distinctive European position on the main issues of the day?

For Britain the dilemma is equally acute. Though its political motive for entering the Common Market is a negative one, it has to keep on trying in order to prevent the very political developments it fears and which the ardent Europeans desire. It seems that Britain is bound to keep on knocking at the European door; and the Europeans are almost bound to keep refusing it admittance.

There is no easy escape from this impasse. Things might have been different had there existed in this country a real European movement—a movement of the spirit, not just a businessman's committee, Had poli- ticians of the calibre of Enoch Powell and Jo Grimond been prepared to throw them- selves into the European cause with the fervour of a Joe Chamberlain instead of fiddling round with immigrant birth-rates and Scottish nationalists then the possibility would have existed of a great political reconciliation. As it is I doubt whether our economic offerings are great enough to out- weigh our political anathemas.