POLITICS
On Europe, Tories ought to be prejudiced and patriotic; but what do those words mean?
BRUCE ANDERSON
There is one point to be made in favour of the Tory Party's current approach to Europe. Unlike their Labour opponents, the Tories are prepared to discuss the most important issue in British politics. The problem is that most of them are doing it in the wrong way.
Traditionally, it was the political Left which behaved as if every complex problem had a slogan solution (which is at least morally superior to a soundbite evasion). Tories, per contra, knew that they lived in a world of uncertainty and paradox in which difficulties were constant, solutions elusive and transitory. Tories believe that human affairs are best approached via the four Ps: prejudice, patriotism, pragmatism and (his- torical) perspective. Tory wisdom is often expressed in wiseacre aphorisms, whose apparent simple-mindedness conceals end- less subtlety: 'As soon as you try to take a trick in diamonds, you find that hearts are now trumps'; 'this pig doesn't weigh as much as I thought it did, but then I never thought it would'.
Subtlety and wisdom alike have been largely absent from the debates on Europe. There would appear to have been a great deal of patriotism and prejudice, but we have to define our terms. To a Tory, patrio- tism in politics means far more than flag- waving: it means a tough-minded assess- ment of the national interest. Equally, no Tory should ever confuse prejudice with raucous ignorance: that is a leftie's libel. Each individual's prejudices are his stake in ancestral wisdom, and therefore in the gen- erality of cases his most important intellec- tual asset; most people's postjudices are less valuable than their prejudices.
But the European debate has been disfig- ured by scoundrel patriotism, ignorant prej- udice and bad history. In his Daily Tele- graph leader attacking the Government, Charles Moore informed us that Britain has lost control over its beef and fish during the past five and a half years. Not so: we lost control via the Single Act and the arrange- ments for Spain's accession; both consule Thatcher. The Dai6,, Telegraph has also told us that the issue of Europe can be reduced to a single question: is Britain to be ruled from London or from Brussels? If it were that easy, it would not be causing all these diffi- culties.
The issue of Europe is one of unending complexity, and it is no use prating on about sovereignty. There is something repugnant about the Europhiles' enthusi- asm for undermining their fellow-country- men's belief in sovereignty; Britain's power- lessness ought to arouse bitter regret, not gloating. Nor illusions: the Europhiles have a point. If we left the EU, we would recover the legislative sovereignty which we have abnegated, but would we be more powerful: and what use is sovereignty without power?
Certainly, we would then be able to keep foreign fishing boats out of British waters — while they were keeping British-made, Japanese-designed motor-cars out of their markets. Certainly, the EU would not be able to impose a worldwide ban on our beef exports, but if it had closed its own borders to them on health grounds, the net effect would have been much the same. In or out of the EU, we would still be in a world of deals and trade-offs, with one difference: we would lose most of our influence over events in Brussels. All right, we have far too little say at the moment, and far too many decisions go against us. But it is pos- sible to make a bad situation worse. The solution to weakness is not impotence.
It was inevitable that joining Europe would prove a fraught affair for Britain. The very language proves the point: the others did not have to join Europe; they merely had to ratify geography with institu- tions. For us, however, Europe begins at Calais. As geography, so history. Ireland and Sweden apart, every other EU state has either invaded its neighbours, or been invaded, or had a coup — in some cases, all three — within the past 70 years. So it is natural that they should mistrust the nation state and look to supranationality for pro- tection. To them, the nation state means Hitler. To us, it is the superstate which means Hitler, plus Napoleon, Louis XIV and Philip II: Britain has fought most of its wars to keep Europe disunited. Outside the paranoia of the millennarian Left and the posturings of Charter 88, no one regards the British nation state as a threat. This fundamentally divergent historical experi- ence made it certain that there would be conflict between us and the rest.
Matters might have been easier if we had joined at Messina. Such was our prestige in those days that we might have been able to stop the French from turning the Commis- sion into an Enarques' ramp and then try- ing to treat Europe as a French jockey on a German horse. But there would always have been basic disagreements. We would have regarded free trade as paramount, and tried to confine political union to after- dinner inspirational rhetoric. Most of them would have taken the opposite view: that free trade was only acceptable on the vul- gar Marxist grounds that it was a necessary consequence of political union.
So should we have joined in 1972, or not? I have never been able to make up my mind. The nearest I can come to a conclusion is to argue that while we should, perhaps, never have joined, we certainly cannot leave now.
Far too many Tory MPs and activists refuse to bother with these complicated arguments. They want to think only with their viscera; they know only one thing about Europe: that its power has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. It is easy to understand why they react in this way. So much that happens in the EU is repulsive; its squalid, cowardly and self- serving behaviour on beef is only the latest example. I remember Chris Patten — no Europhobe he — saying that he defied any- one to involve themselves in the EEC's oper- ations without becoming disillusioned. I also found that every visit to the Commission's HQ induced strong visceral Europhobia.
But Europe cannot be dealt with solely at the level of visceral reactions. At times, Mrs Thatcher tried to do so, but she always brought her brains into play at the end of the proceedings; however much she protested, however hard she fought, she always finished up by doing a deal.
John Major is also a deal-maker, and has never let his viscera take the lead. If he had, it might have helped him with his Party; there is no reason to suppose that the country would have benefited. The Goldsmiths, Duncan-Smiths and others who refuse to acknowledge this are playing the Left's game in a double sense. First, they are doing what leftists have always done: inventing fantasy solutions while refusing to grapple with practical realities. Second, they are making the election of a Europhile Labour government more likely. It is curious that those who pride them- selves on defending Britain's interests should try to do so by adopting a French tactic, that of politique du pire. The danger is that the outcome will be the same as it gen- erally was for the French practitioners: all pire and no politique.
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