I will never forget the moment I realised that the United Kingdom would vote for Brexit. It was in Newcastle upon Tyne, where I was speaking at a public meeting organised for the Irish community. An attendee opened up his contribution by saying that he had left Northern Ireland after a bomb was discovered under his car. He went on to praise the peace process. I assumed that this would alert him to the risks of Brexit for Northern Ireland, and would lead to a Remain vote.
How wrong I was.
The European Union had assumed too big a role, removing powers from Westminster. The speaker liked the single market but did not have much time for anything else associated with Europe. Britain should leave the EU and regain national freedom.
I heard this view again and again during a day of public engagements and returned to Dublin both informed and concerned. During years of working in Britain I had always experienced negativity towards European integration, but my expectation was of a narrow Remain vote.
That fateful vote has led to a Brexit publishing boom, with competing titles offering insights into how and why the result happened and the consequences for the UK and Europe.
The slimness of this book could result in it being crowded out by larger and brasher publications. That would be a pity, as Britain and Europe in a Troubled World is an elegant exposition of the conflicted relationship between a country and a continent. Vernon Bogdanor is a constitutional expert – his decades of learning inform a series of lectures that were delivered in Yale University in 2019. They are reprinted in this volume.
The opening chapter describes the attitude of successive British administrations to the early phases of European integration. The then Labour government decided not to participate in the Coal and Steel Community. The deputy prime minister, Herbert Morrison, said of this plan: “It’s no good. We cannot do it. The Durham Miners won’t wear it.”
The prioritising of the Commonwealth, the focus on the relationship with the United States and a sense of national optimism after the second World War all contributed to antipathy to the Treaty of Rome in 1957.
These lectures excel in noting the great ironies at the centre of British membership of the EU and of their exit <br/>
This was the foundational moment for the ensuing relationship. The author wisely concludes that: “The British attitude towards European integration did not fundamentally alter during more than forty-six years of membership of the European Community and European Union. Britain was always uncertain – half in, half out, generally opposed to further integration, but unable to suggest an alternative which commanded real enthusiasm on the Continent.”
The repercussions of this are succinctly identified in the ensuing chapters. Bogdanor argues that the Suez crisis of 1956 and increasing economic challenges changed the context for this antipathy. Motives were changing as “Britain was seeking to enter the Communities, however, not because it had come to a positive belief in the virtues of integration . . . but because they had run out of alternatives.”
This is a harsh judgment on the motives of Macmillan, Wilson and Heath, who all worked to diplomatically reposition their country, often in the face of national antipathy. However, their efforts did have a common theme of overestimating the willingness of European leaders to change the existing rules of membership.
These lectures excel in noting the great ironies at the centre of British membership of the EU and of their exit.
First, the deepening of a single market – where goods and services could move with greater ease across Europe – was driven by Mar,garet Thatcher and leading Conservative politicians of her era. This accelerated the speed of economic integration and led to the strengthening of European institutions. The decision making process on some important issues was changed allowing ministers to be outvoted by their colleagues from other countries.
The most ardent Brexiteers are looking for stronger markets and a smaller state
These very changes deepened the animus of Conservatives toward the European Union, ultimately leading to their leaving a huge market that they helped create.
Second, the author is justified in concluding that Leave voters “sought protection against market forces which, so they believed, were costing them their jobs and holding down their wages. The referendum vote for Brexit was a popular protest against globalisation.”
However, the most ardent Brexiteers are looking for stronger markets and a smaller state. It is difficult to reconcile such an outcome with the desire for protection from market forces. How many disenfranchised Leave voters are hoping for more free trade?
The book concludes with the weakest chapter. In asserting that “a strong Europe cannot be built without Britain”, the author might be repeating the judgment that he criticises in not appreciating the ability of the European Union to strengthen its own institutions.
Likewise to describe the EU as “primarily an intergovernmental institution” is to significantly underestimate the power of bodies such as the European Commission. Similarly, to conclude that the current level of European integration needs to be diluted does not recognise how this integration is now the foundation for responding to the consequences of Covid-19 and the challenge of climate change.
Regrettably, but all too predictably, Ireland does not even get a mention. However, the author deftly summarises the motivations and issues that defined our shared past and concludes with the call for Britain and the EU to forge a new relationship to protect liberalism and ensure that stability is never taken for granted.
Ernest Bevin, the extraordinary foreign secretary for the postwar Labour government, was once asked whether Britain should join the Council of Europe. He responded: “If you open that Pandora’s box, you never know what Trojan horses will fly out.”
That box is now well open. This book is a wise guide to why this happened, and to what insights the past has to offer to help deal with the challenges of today.
Paschal Donohoe is the Minister for Finance
