Sovereign State Let's talk of independence

J. Enoch Powell, MP

The word "sovereignty" has an old-fashioned, imperialistic sort of sound which for many people is repellent and to most is not conducive to clear thinking. It would probably be more enlightening if words such as Independent" or "self-governing" were used instead.

One very simple but widespread misunderstanding needs to be cleared out of the way, once for all, at the outset of any discussion of political independence. Independence is not the same as omnipotence. There is no nation in the world, not even Soviet Russia or the United States, which can do whatever it chooses to do: the policy of Soviet Russia has been blocked in the Middle East, and that of America frustrated in South-East Asia. Yet nobody would dream of denying that Russia and the United States are independent, self-governing states. Every nation in the world depends both for its defence and for its livelihood upon some degree of intercourse and co-operation with others. This is so, and always has been so, but nobody has ever thought that the fact was inconsistent with the reality of political independence and self-government. This is as true of the pygmies as of the giants.

It is often said that nations have become more interdependent economically than they were in the past. This is probably true, though it is not self-evident; but however true it is, the fact has no relevance to political independence and self-government. When a score of independent nations in Africa were being carried out of the European colonial Empires, nobody got up and said that this was nonsense and would have to stop, because the new states would depend on world trade, international investment and maybe mutual defence. It was taken for granted that they would have the wish and the right to govern themselves and to live under their own laws and policies, as separate and independent nations: it occurred to no one to argue that this would be inconsistent with the satisfaction of their needs for trade, investment and defence.

Having established then that economic interdependence and the constraints which the facts of the outside world impose upon any nation's freedom of action have nothing to do with political independence and self-government, it is time to define what independence and self-government are. They are easiest to define in the negative. An independent nation is a nation whose laws are made by no one but itself, whose citizens are governed by no government but their own. The existence of self-government does not depend on the form of government. Opinions may differ as to whether the Soviet Union or the Republic of Uganda are democracies, and indeed about what democracy is; but they are both indubitably no less self-governed than Switzerland or the USA, because no external authority makes the laws or exercises the government within their territory. However, the principle of democratic government has far-reaching consequences for the extent and limits of the territories and populations that can form a self-governing independent nation.

Before coming to these, I must clear out of the way another prevalent and widely quoted fallacy. This is to assert that whenever a nation enters into a treaty, under which it undertakes to do certain things or abstain from certain other things, it loses to that extent its independence and self-government, its "sovereignty"; and that therefore, by implicaholt there is no absolute difference between dependence and independence and a nation which has signed a treaty may, as well, so far as the principle goes, sign away its independence altogether.

This is patently absurd. A man who has made a contract to deliver a sack of coals is still a freeman and not a slave. Because he has bound himself, under penalty, to do a specific thing, known in advance, he has not agreed that the man to whom he delivers the coals may order him to do any blessed thing, whatever that may be, lawful or unlawful, whether he likes it or not. A nation which, in its own discretion, promises not to impose tariffs on the goods of another nation remains independent. Not so the nation which relinquishes permanently to another authority the power to take all decisions, whatever they may be, respecting its trade. The essence of the loss of independence is to bind oneself in advance to do whatever others may decide. The latter is the nature of the Treaties of Rome and Brussels, which require of the parties not specific performance but compliance "for an indefinite period" with decisions of the Community which will be binding upon the members. There is no parallel to such a contract in any other sort of treaty. The contract is incompatible with independence and self-government, and it is intended to be so.

It is therefore irrelevant to appeal to the analogy of defence treaties, such as the North Atlantic Treaty, which are not only expressly terminable but are implemented by the sovereign contracting parties, or to Charters, such as that of the United Nations, or Agreements, such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, to which effect can only be given by the domestic legislatures or the respective governments.

I have referred to decisions by "others" to being obliged in advance to comply with decisions taken by others. This raises the fundamental questions: who are "we"? and therefore who, in relation to "us," are "others?"

There has been much use of the metaphor of "pooling" sovereignty, in aid of the proposition that when sovereignty is "pooled," it is not lost but enhanced. Partly this is the same fallacy as confusing independence with power. No doubt the Roman Empire was more powerful, in defence or aggression, than the states and nations which were absorbed into it; but this did not alter the fact that those states and nations no longer existed as such their peoples were none the less for that no longer self-governed, or independent, or sovereign.

Apart from this confusion over independence and power, there is an inherent contradiction in the idea of "pooling" sovereignty. The

Spectator

March 9n, e 75 self-government of X is lost, if it s d by XY or by XYZ. The only exception is if X? or XYZ are so constituted that X always prevails agrocve2r19 over Y and Z, in which case, of course, X is still governed by X, i.e. is still self-governed. It is no objection to say that X may sometimes or often persuade Y and Z to agree with it. So, in a single state such as Britain, may the representatives of a part, such as London or Cornwall, persuade the rest to take their point of view. This does not make London or Cornwall independent or self-governing. Those who admit this, sometimes argue that nevertheless X, by agreeing to accept in advance the decisions of XYZ, may be better treated by Y and Z than it otherwise would have been. This may or may not be the case; but it has as little to do with the issue of independence and self-government as the fact that servants or slaves are often well treated has to do with individual freedom. Though XYZ may be formed from a combination of and Y and Z, it is not the same as any of those, three and none of them enjoys independence or possesses sovereignty if it accepts the overriding authority of XYZ; they are governed not by themselves but by "others." So we come back to "we" and "they," to the question who is the "self" about whose self-government we speak, or the "we" wh° will fight to the death for "our" freedom. The simplest answer is that "we" are those who all accept one government and no other authority external or additional to it. This is a tautology, an answer in a circle, because there is no a priori indication, no objective criteria, of a self-governing people: a visitor from Mars,.' presented with all the data he might reclues.! about the population of Europe, Asia, 14,Iort1 America or South America except their political boundaries, would not be able to tell you whether each of these continents contained one self-governing people or ten or firtY. However the definition is by no means s° empty as at first sight appears. I have used the word "accept" "accept one government" and that verb covers a wide range of meanings' mentioned the Roman Empire just now. The is no doubt that all its inhabitants accepted Rome's imperium, some more willingly, scare less so; but no one would consider the Roman Empire a self-governing, independent people. Charles V was the undoubted sovereign of the Netherlands, Burgundy, Austria and Spain; hilt that did not make the Spaniards and the Austrians into one "we." The alchemy lies in different order of consent from that by whici` the myriads of the Roman Empire accepted the Eternal City or the subjects of Charles v acknowledged him as duke, king, emperor or whatever. Self-government and independence externally are the counterparts of self-government and free consent internally. Whenever that free consent is expressed, as we can eione imagine it, through representative institutions, and responsible government, the outer limits 11 "we" are the boundaries of those who WI,: freely accept the decisions of a representative majority. at This is the key to all the discussions abo „ "nations" which are "states" and "nations which are not "states"; the essence consists in the nature of the consent and the means 133/ which it is secured. The Roman Empire was a state but not a nation. The United Kingdom is !, nation, but so long and only to the extent tha_L all significant parts of it consent to thet authority of a representative majority. If th,"ae consent is withdrawn, for whatever cause, t boundary of the nation is correspondinglYf redrawn, and sooner or later the boundary the state must conform. So we arrive at anothe ,,r but more significant tautology; "we" are tilos,: who accept one and the same majority r112! through a representative institution and tile_ things about us which make us accept that rules and neantaiobnlehuos odto. accept it are what const

o itute The importance of all this applied 1 ed to 9F, European Community, is crucial. Nine "we do not become one "we" by dint of the

governments undertaking the obligations of the Treaty of Rome or the Treaty of Brussels. The facile theory, so often heard earlier, that this would happen by force of habit from working together," is now rarely voiced. The Juxtaposition of nine nations under a common authority does not create a new "we," any more than those dynastic inheritances which made Charles master of half the world. In the absence of a new "we," self-government, independence, sovereignty are surrendered without anything to take their place except bureaucracy or the esponsibility of national governments exercising collective authority. In this quandary a spurious solution is' Propounded. Since the active consent of self-governing nations is expressed through representative institutions, the idea is proposed that if the Community were provided with a Parliament directly elected by the population of the entire Community, the self-government Which the member nations have lost would be restored at the higher level. It is of course a fallacy. A representative assembly does not create a self-governing nation. Self-government through a representative assembly depends upon the will of all the component Parts to accept majority rule through that a„ssembly; but that is the very essence of the we" which is missing. It is the essential starting-point, not the end-product. Those who seek or offer reassurance by asserting that the countries of the original have Market, like France or Germany, "ave not lost, and have no intention of losing, their national identity, are not, as they suppose, Community that a nation can be part of the ,`-ommunity without forfeiting its indepenuence. They are pointing to a very different consequence. If the component peoples in fact do not and will not so identify themselves as cme that they are ready to accept self-government through the majority in a representative assembly, that does not mean that they will remain independent: already they are governed nd legislated for by the institutions of the !-°mmunity and on a scale which continually increases. It means that the institutions of the cannot be representative or — if term is preferred — democratic. It is elf-government that is forfeited as well as InclePendence. This is the sense in which it is true to say that 'Be other countries can be reconciled to Membership of the Community with less reluctance and loss than Britain; namely, Decause in Britain self-government and "hidePendence are uniquely identified with the untrammelled authority of a representative assembly Parliament. , An understanding of the relationship between independence self-government and ,aelf-identification ("we"-ness) is the antidote to he prevalent but unfounded belief that there is s°Me sort of irresistible trend to the amalgaIllation of nations into larger and larger units, "rid th'at we had better resign ourselves Eerefore to our own share in this trend by surrendering independence tind self-governMentin the European Economic Community. its ts crudest this belief is an example of the 13on sequitur which Bentley once attributed to t,_°Yle: "because Milo could carry an ox, ,sf erefOre he could carry a brace of elephants!" because the United Kingdom has been formed 1„'Y_ merging under one sovereignty the cornPubent peoples of the British Isles, English, rs, Welsh, Irish, not to mention the __otgdorns a the Saxon heptarchy, therefore a Liew nation not only can but ought to be formed ;nouldand it is in the natural course of things that it Itself With — by merging the United Kingdom ',.!:rf with the other nation states of Western t rope. So runs the fallacy. It is not so much ahliat its historical substructure is defective: of the components of Britain, Scotland at most lb any way be placed in the category of a '10.n state. The assertion is just a plain non 7qultur. There is no reason to suppose that cause the inhabitants of the British Isles can

— or could? — combine to form a self-governing independent nation, therefore the peoples of Western Europe can combine to form one.

Below the mere logical error of such ideas lies the deeper misconception of what that "we"ness is which makes self-governing independence possible — of how it comes into being and grows, of what are its natural limits, none the less real for not being precise. It cannot be blown up like a balloon, nor extended like a meccano set, nor does it grow and grow like an amoeba. As Malthus observed, no cabbage is so large that a larger could not be produced, but we all know a cabbage cannot be as big as a. house. Nation states are not artifacts, though, significantly, of all the original member states of the Common Market, France alone is not of comparatively recent and enforced creation.

There is, however, no correspondence between the observed facts of the real world and the theory of a general and irreversible trend towards giant states. On the contrary there is a marked divergence. The salient feature of this century both in Europe and in the world at large has been the break-up of former giant states and imperial structures into smaller and sometimes very small self-governing and independent units. Modern Europe itself is the product of this process.

Paradoxically, everywhere except in Western Europe, and in relation to almost every state except Britain itself, the urge to assert or maintain national self-government and independence is viewed not merely with toleration but approval. Scotland and Ireland in the British Isles can count on widespread, if ignorant sympathy for such aspirations. It was not the mere desire to see the Warsaw Pact dented which imprinted Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956 and 1968 upon Western consciences. As for Africa and Asia, I have observed already that there is no limit to the fissiparous states that are sure of a welcome to the ever-widening ranks of the United Nations. By a cruel irony the people of one of the oldest nation states in the world, who themselves have played the liberators to so many other nations, are berated for the anachronism of desiring to retain their parliamentary self-governing independence.

In the end, the issue of sovereignty is not -a matter of argument. Misunderstanding and fallacies can be disposed of, but finally it is the will and determination of a people to be independent and self-governed which, now as ever, is the only proof that they ought to be so or that they deserve to be so. That is the reason why, in this matter, the instinct and judgement of one citizen is worth as much as that of another.

The above is an extract from an article prepared by Mr Powell for the Open Seas Forum