Voices of concern are increasingly being raised on the wrong side of the Channel - on the continent - over the decision Britain might take in the referendum on 23 June. “Were the United Kingdom to leave the EU, the risk of disintegration would become real and the lasting effect would be to weaken all of Europe”, opined French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron in an interview with the Magazine Le Vif-L'Express. Even though this committed Europhile is right to say that it is time to “move away from the strategy of the referendum, where each state says to the others: give me what I want or else!” is he is right to be fearful of the UK's leaving Europe? A number of points and arguments may persuade him of the opposite.
Firstly, should the majority of British citizens want to cast off and set sail, they would de facto demonstrate to the world that the European Union is not a prison. They would make clear that, no matter what some in the political circles of Central Europe may believe (or, rather, feign to believe) “Brussels” is certainly not the new “Moscow”. No - the European Union is, as Jacques Delors very aptly said, an “unidentified political object” where states agree to pool some aspects of their sovereignty to make it stronger and more effective in the service of their people. If any of these states - or at least, those politicians who claim the right to speak for them nationally - cannot accept the rules of communal life that prevail in this club, then they are free to set sail for the wide blue yonder.
In this context, a UK “no” vote could provide a further positive outcome. Belgian essayist Jean Cornil has argued that the “current dearth of values is reigniting a tribal instinct, a turning in on closed identities, a re-feudalisation towards land and family”. This is without a doubt, today, the ground on which thrive the likes of Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage and Geert Wilders, not to mention other political leaders who have come to power elsewhere in Europe. All of these, clearly, will see a Brexit as merely a prelude to the withdrawal of their own countries. More than ever, it will be pointless trying to persuade them of the opposite by rational argument. On the other hand, will not the huge majority of national political leaders be forced by the British invitation to jump our joint ship to acknowledge what the real cost would be to their countries if they, too, left the Union? Will not those political leaders who seek to present themselves as responsible finally be forced to speak the truth about what it is to belong to the EU and put an end to the oh-so-convenient excuse of blaming “Brussels”? Could this not be the way that the citizens of many - in fact, of all - member states might discover exactly what membership of the EU brings them, political parties no longer being quite as able to hoodwink them by playing the national, or indeed the unashamedly nationalistic, card dressed up as defence of sovereignty? When it becomes clear that that will no longer do, when national politicians are forced to admit that the machinations around the European project were often detrimental to people's real interests, then many will look differently on the EU. Ultimately, we could have the delicious paradox of a British “no” vote paving the way for a European Union more in tune with the real expectations of its citizens.
No doubt some will argue that, without the United Kingdom, the EU will be seriously diminished. And they would not be wrong. However, we have to keep a sense of proportion, and this for several reasons. First of all because who knows whether a Brexit resulting principally from English votes could lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom before that of the EU? Who would dare, in such an eventuality, rule out Scotland's coming knocking at the EU door and finding it open? No one, clearly. Then, the British, with all their many opt-outs and other exemptions, are merely bit players on the European stage. In reality, anyone who is prepared to look can see they already have one foot out the door. Still partly inside, they labour with the persistence that is one of their defining characteristics to turn the Burgundy drinkers' club that they finally felt they had to join in 1973 into a simple tea room! (Coincidentally, the first - and perhaps only - UK president of the Commission, Roy Jenkins, was a great lover of that particular wine.) Everyone must also acknowledge that the British are very effective. It would be foolish, therefore, to claim that, through the efforts of Margaret Thatcher and her successors, London has not been successful in ever increasingly transforming the European project into a sort of supermarket where all tend to help themselves to what they want. The final advantage of a British “no” vote would be to force all the states hypocritically hiding behind London's lack of ambition to finally reveal their game.
Michel Theys