Bob Cowan is an exceptional journalist. We worked together at The Daily Telegraph and in Abu Dhabi. He proves my own point that not all Brexiters are essentially dim, foreigner-hating Little Englanders oblivious to the economic and social damage they're inflicting.This is a powerful defence of Leave. I cannot challenge his specific examples of supposed EU malfaisance but certainly feel Bob takes an implausibly optimistic view of the coming turmoil, the UK's alternative trade prospects and Brexit's appalling social impact. He does not defend or even mention the Government's shameful willingness to break international law.But that is neither here nor there; I invited replies from Leavers to a Facebook comment I posted and this is Bob's well-argued response, accompanied by delicious references to the French side of Bob's family and its understanding of the De Gaulle outlook on Britain and Europe.The beers will be on him if lockdown allows once I am back in Brexit-blighted Blighty and done with the Boris quarantine ...
I saw your Facebook post about Leavers staying mute and was more than a little provoked (and didn’t think it fair for your legions of followers to have to read an overlengthy diatribe on your pages).
So… my reasons for twice voting Leave. They fall into two distinct arguments, neither of which has anything to do with immigration. Most people – and certainly every Brexiteer I have spoken to in London – understand that in the era of international flights costing so little, the mass movement of people is now a fact of everyday life. All Brexit will do is change the nationalities of the immigrants not alter their numbers.
Before explaining my reasoning for believing we should never have joined the EEC, as it was, a little personal history.
One of my uncles was a senior French general and member of De Gaulle’s war cabinet. He was sacked for granting the Americans two airbases in Equatorial French Africa, despite the fact that this “treachery” had been an attempt to persuade Roosevelt to back De Gaulle rather than Giraud, whom the Yanks preferred.
The General must have felt some post-war remorse because on his return to power with the Fifth republic he appointed another of the family to his cabinet (minister for mines, if I remember rightly).
The point of all this is that I earwigged a conversation between my father and my cousin shortly after De Gaulle’s infamous Non. He explained that while ostensibly it was to do with the Common Agricultural Policy (De Gaulle could see that Britain’s joining would threaten not only French agriculture but its highly subsidised rural economy), the more fundamental reason was to do with national outlook.
France and Germany had created a mutually beneficial alliance that allowed each to dominate its own preferred spheres inside a 20th century version of Napoleon’s Fortress Europe: Germany industrial and economic; France cultural and diplomatic.
Britain not only threatened those spheres, De Gaulle thought, but had historically always been opposed to all notions of Fortress Europe. In short, we looked outwards to the world. The Six looked inwards. Britain and Europe, in De Gaulle’s view, were completely incompatible. And he couldn’t stand Anglo-Saxons anyway!
Even as a kid, I thought his reasoning was probably right. Continental countries necessarily must closely watch their borders and their neighbours. Island Britain, by contrast, has always been looking to the horizon for trading opportunities. So a fundamental group of reasons for opposing the EEC and its successors has been their trade policies.
I believe in free trade, Europe does not. I don’t accept that because Brazil grows coffee beans for a fraction of the price that they can be grown in Britain (or anywhere else in Europe, come to that) they should have tariffs slapped on them. But they do.
I think it verging on the criminal that Europe should apply both subsidies and tariffs on items such as sugar-beet. The consequence has been that tens of thousands of small farmers across Africa and the Third World who once grew cane for the export market have had any opportunity for betterment taken from them.
And not just sugar. It’s almost impossible to tour East Africa without seeing broken down mills and factories on the fringes of every town. All closed as a consequence of European tariffs. And to rub salt into their wounds, they then find themselves receiving as “food aid” the stuff they used to grow and sell.
It’s the same for pretty well every commodity, whether agricultural, industrial or commercial. Hardly surprising, then, that the EU has so few trade agreements with our competitors on the world markets. I could bang on endlessly about the iniquitous trade policies of Europe. But the absolutely fundamental reason for my desire to be free of the EU is its wretchedly undemocratic constitution.
As you know, it is the only governmental system on the planet that has four main branches.
There is the European Council, which is supposedly the supreme executive authority. However as it is composed of the heads of government of the member states, the amount of time they give to running the EU is limited to the extent of being virtually non-existent. Then there is the European Parliament. The only actual democratic bit of the whole set up. But its powers of scrutiny, of veto, of even formulating and implementing legislation are highly restricted. There is the judiciary, the European Court, consisting of one judge from every member state. OK, I guess, when it comes to sorting out administrative disputes but hardly conducive to establishing a corpus, an identity or a unique tradition of jurisprudence.
And then the European Commission. An executive and a civil service combined into one. It formulates policy and implements it. It is the only body that can propose legislation. Not only that, it also polices itself (or rather doesn’t: the accounts haven’t been signed off since 1994). With one exception it is entirely unelected and recruits its officials largely from its own educational institutions. The only “election” is of the President, who is nominated by the Council and approved by ballot of the Parliament. Its one abiding philosophy is the perpetuation of the EU and its government system leading (it hopes) ultimately to a United States of Europe, despite the fact that the people of Europe when polled have consistently said they don’t want such a thing. If such a constitution had ever been attempted here, or in the US, or any other of the anglosphere nations, it would have led ultimately to civil war. We don’t like being told what to do by unelected officials. We like to hold governments to account. We loathe secret agendas.
Enough of the negative (though if you wanted more, I could go on… and on… and on).
What about the positives of the EU? What are we giving up? Well, there’s the freedom to live and work in any member state. Which, to my mind, is about the only real benefit we shall have tjo forgo. Once we are properly out, Brits wanting to live and work abroad will probably have to get work permits and, depending on the country, residential visas too. A pain in the bum, I admit, but we’ve all done it. And you certainly – and quickly – learn how a country works by dealing with its internal bureaucracy.
What else? I can’t see travel being affected much. I visited France, Germany and Italy before we joined, and again afterwards. I don’t recall there being any difference at arrival. The only time I can remember crossing a border and not having to show a passport was driving from Ostend to Amsterdam.
Are we suddenly going to lose all our rights built up over the centuries? No. Are our courts going to disappear? No. What are we going to lose? I don’t know. Maybe the EU at some future date will implement a piece of legislation that makes its citizens’ lives that bit easier or more pleasant. What’s to stop us following suit? Absolutely nothing. And vice-versa, of course.
Obviously there is going to be a degree of turmoil over trade next year, and there are bound to be hand-wringing headlines, but how much impact and for how long? I wouldn’t have thought a great deal. With so much depending on moving commodities between nations, it’s in everyone’s interests – particularly big business's – to smooth it out as quickly and efficiently as possible.
I guess there’s a good chance that Ulster might be persuaded that it’s really part of the island of Ireland after all and form some kind of Irish federation with the south. But would that really be such a bad thing? It would solve a lot of problems...
The greatest risk, I would have thought, would be to the EU itself. If we thrive and demonstrate that to be successful in a globally-connected world you don’t need all the restrictions that are the hallmark of the EU, that could be quite a lure for the less-committed nations. Who knows, it might even force a re-think of how a European Union should be constituted and run. Maybe we could even be asked to re-join the reformed Europe!
- Bob Cowan is a former Evening Standard, Times and Telegraph journalist now retired and living in East London, where he was born and brought up.
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