BoJo was backed by a fellow
Old Etonian, Somerset MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who told the media that “Philip II
of Spain, Louis XIV of France, Napoleon and Hitler all wanted to create a
single European power. What Boris has
said is the EU is following the footsteps of these historic figures but using
different means." Not so fast,
Jacob: an Oxford
history graduate should be rather more precise.
Philip wanted a more powerful Spain, headed by himself. Louis and Napoleon each wanted a more
powerful France,
headed by himself. Hitler wanted a more
powerful Germany,
headed by himself. Not one of these rulers
wanted a powerful Europe, an association in which all countries are regarded as
equals, a Europe designed to clip the wings of
imperial ambition on the part of unfettered autocrats. In fact, the most appropriate equal of all of
them could be none other than BoJo, who wants a more powerful Britain, headed
by himself and up to who knows what mischief in the world. Those advocating a united Europe have done so
chiefly with the aim of ending centuries of internal strife through challenging
or breaking up the great powers: the Duc de Sully’s Grand Design (1630),
William Penn’s European Diet (1693), Auguste Comte’s Occidental Republic (1852)
and Mikhail Bakunin’s United States of Europe (1867) were all schemes with this
end in mind.
The fawning media remind us
that BoJo is a ‘classical scholar’, as if knowledge of the Roman
Empire is really that much help.
The entity most consciously modelled on it was the British
Empire, the Pax Britannica, greatly admired by Hitler, largely for
that reason. BoJo was quite right to say
that pan-European thinking does sometimes draw on the Imperium Romanum as a model. Does he think that re-creating the Roman province of Britannia out of its post-Roman nations was
something different? Perhaps drawing on
the legacy of Rome
is OK if we do it? BoJo is also quite right that there’s little deep
loyalty to a common European identity.
Nor will there be if he and other nation-state grandstanders succeed in
blocking its emergence. The question is
whether Europe in 2050 will be better off if
Europeans stop working together, as Europeans.
The EU referendum debate ought
to matter but instead it’s been reduced to a willy-waving contest among overgrown
schoolboys over who gets to lead the Conservative Party. What should be a debate about an uncertain
future has been reduced to which unpleasant bit of history is judged most
likely to repeat itself, in altogether different circumstances. Jonathan Freedland, writing in the Guardian (the ex-Manchester London newspaper) on Friday,
highlighted the alternate reality of ‘post-truth politicians’, buffoons who
aren’t. These are the folk who form the
Government. If we voted for them then the
bigger fools are us.
As usual, what’s never
injected into the debate is any criticism of the UK and how it’s governed. From a regionalist perspective, the European issue
comes down to whether ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain’ is more likely to deliver regional
parliaments in England powerful
enough to end London
dominance forever. None of the big
players will be asked that question by the media and so we won’t get an
answer. We’d just like to point out that
if the EU is undemocratic, unaccountable, bureaucratic and corrupt, what's the
UK? How is a multi-national structure alleged to
have been put together by banks and big business worse than a union that well
suited investors in the Bank of England, the Honourable East India Company and
Lloyds of London? Who will defend, with
any sincerity, the further entrenching of a subsidiarity-free constitution
involving huge over-centralisation of power, wealth and talent in one small
corner of the country, an electoral system in which the vast majority of votes
are thrown away as worthless, and a Parliament that since 1571 has been firmly
under the City of London’s
thumb? The frying-pan, however hot, is still
a safer place than the fire.
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