A week ago, I asked you what you think Britain’s position on the EU should be.
With the referendum on the horizon, it comes down to a simple choice. Should we stay or should we go?
I’ve had close to 500 replies already. A handful are for staying. The vast majority – probably more than 95% – are for leaving.
It’s been interesting to read through some of the reasons people have for leaving. They stretch from the corruption of the Brussels ‘Gravy Train’ to immigration to the EU’s spending habits (many people mentioned the fact that the EU’s own budget hasn’t been signed off by its auditors for 19 years in a row).
There’s a common thread I’ve picked up on though. It has nothing to do with the processes, policies or people of the EU.
It’s about principles
I think – and this is backed up in almost every message I get – most people here in Britain understand that the single most important factor in Britain’s history as a wealthy, powerful and successful nation is the FREEDOM to determine our own future.
The freedom to choose and make our own laws for ourselves, openly and democratically, is for many people the very foundation of what made and makes Britain as a nation great.
Part of this goes all the way back to the foundation of Britain as a modern state. Take the Magna Carta. We still revere and celebrate it today. And one of its key components is people should be free to do as they please and no one – not even the King – is above the law of the land.
I think what upsets people about the EU is they feel that it seems to fundamentally oppose this principle.
People see it as undemocratic… authoritarian… elitist… and therefore “anti-British”.
I can see why
Consider, for instance, that despite the fact that no one has ever asked or voted for the current make-up of the EU. It began rather inauspiciously as the European Coal and Steel Union. Today it is one of the biggest and most influential organisations in the world. How did that happen?
As Oliver Hartwich wrote in Why Europe Failed:
The peoples of Europe did not one day realise they wanted to be integrated and bound together by a supra-national organisation.
The French, Italians or Dutch did not suddenly demand to be European henceforth. The Germans did not plead with their government to give up the Deutsche Mark and introduce the euro.
There has never been a popular movement for any kind of European integration.
That European integration happened regardless is entirely due to the agenda of its political and economic elites.
They convinced their people of the benefits of an integrated Europe – and if that was not enough, they were (and still are) prepared to go ahead with their agenda notwithstanding lack of popular support.
How did the EU grow so large and powerful despite the fact that it has never had a popular and democratic mandate to do so?
There’s a lot of debate about that. Over the past few days I’ve given it some thought. I think it all comes down to control. Control the right levers of power and you have no need for democracy. There are three specific ways this is relevant to the EU.
Control the language
The ability to control and shape the language of the EU gives ‘pro-EU’ politicians an immense advantage.
I don’t mean dictate whether the people of Europe speak French or German or Italian or anything like that.
I mean the language used to lay out the very terms of the union.
Take the Treaty of Rome. If you’re unfamiliar with this, it’s generally seen as the official beginning of the EU in 1957 (or the European Economic Community as it was known back then).
It was the first time the founding nations of the EU – France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and Luxemburg – committed to the famous “four freedoms”. They committed to the free movement of people, services, goods and capital.
But it was the language used in the preamble that I want to focus on. The Treaty also committed the states to “ever closer union among peoples”.
Sounds innocuous. Maybe it was, at the time. But controlling the language used to define the project in such a way gave generations of European elites the weapon they needed to keep pushing for more Europe, closer ties and more centralisation of power.
Control the lawmaking
For most people, it’s a given that parliament should have the ultimate power to make laws in Britain.
That’s the whole point of being a democracy. We have the right to choose our leaders. Our choice matters; we give the people we vote for the right to define the laws of the land.
Except the EU has turned that rule on its head. The European Court of Justice asserts its own supremacy over and above the role of national parliaments.
From the European Communities Act of 1972:
All such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and restrictions from time to time created or arising by or under the Treaties, and all such remedies and procedures from time to time provided for by or under the Treaties, as in accordance with the Treaties are without further enactment to be given legal effect or used in the United Kingdom shall be recognised and available in law, and be enforced, allowed and followed accordingly.
If you’re confused by exactly what that means, the UK’s parliamentary website explains it pretty concisely:
Section 2(1) means that provisions of EU law that are directly applicable or have direct effect, such as EU Regulations or certain articles of the EU Treaties, are automatically “without further enactment” incorporated and binding in national law without the need for a further Act of Parliament.
This idea has been challenged in court in several nations across Europe. But the EU still asserts its own law making supremacy above that of national member state parliaments.
Again, it did this without the people of the EU ever having the choice.
Control the language, control the lawmaking. What’s next?
Control the money
The creation of the European Central Bank – and ultimately the Euro – has been another way in which the EU has been controlled and brought into “ever closer union”.
Obviously Britain isn’t a direct part of this. But the foundation of ECB/Euro helped centralise monetary policy, allowed periphery nations to borrow money cheaply (and get up to their eyeballs in debt) – a further force for centralisation.
If you were being really cynical you could say that allowing nation states to binge on debt has been the ultimate way of bringing them into line. Debt is the enemy of freedom. It forces nations to do things they’d never freely choose to do otherwise.
Margaret Thatcher knew and warned of this. From an exchange in parliament before the ECB was founded:
If I were [in charge], there would be no European central bank accountable to no one, least of all national Parliaments. The point of that kind of Europe with a central bank is no democracy, taking powers away from every single Parliament, and having a single currency, a monetary policy and interest rates which take all political power away from us.
We can talk about the national politics behind all this another time.
But to me, that’s how the EU has grown into such a powerful organisation without a democratic mandate. Control the language, control the lawmaking, control the money.
Who needs democracy then?
And that – for me – seems to be the real motivation behind why so many people want to leave the EU here in Britain.
It’s the principle that nothing is more important than protecting people’s freedom to choose their own future.
Category: Brexit