Simon Jenkins in The Guardian
In 532AD the city of Constantinople was torn between two parties, the blues and greens. Everyone, aristocrat or slave, belonged to one or other. In January a chariot race between the two erupted into riots. Destruction was appalling. Half the city was gutted by fire, including the great church of Hagia Sophia. A green emperor was chosen to replace Justinian, who backed the blues and butchered 30,000 greens in response. That decided it.
Britain’s EU referendum is looking much the same. At first the pros and antis argued over tariffs and sheep meat premiums. Then they argued over top tables and “influence in Europe”. Now they pit salvation against damnation, national glory against famines, locusts, boils and immigrant hordes. The nation examines the entrails of heirs to the throne, actors and London mayors. Prince William,Emma Thompson and Boris Johnson claim meta-wisdom. On Friday the chariot race starts, and all hell breaks loose.
On Europe there is clearly no compromise between black and white, between yes and no. Yet the shallowness of the argument is shown in the antis’ neo-nationalism and the pros’ “Project Fear”. The antis are in denial over how to reconstruct a workable framework for a free-trade area after a no vote. The pros, notably the business community, have nothing to offer but “remaining in a reformed EU”.
David Cameron has laboured valiantly to deliver that reformed EU, but it was never in his gift. Nor has he done what he promised, which is materially to alter Britain’s relationship with Europe. He has probably won all that the EU could plausibly offer. But given the terms of the debate, I do not see how the reformed-EU party can honestly vote yes. The EU is unreformed. If politics were about truth, Cameron would stun the nation tomorrow by backing no.
To me the referendum as such is not the issue. The issue is the aftermath. I suspect the long-term outcome of the vote will be much the same either way. Two adjacent modern economies cannot co-exist without mutual accommodation, reflecting political and economic reality, not ideology.
During Scotland’s 2014 referendum, “independence-lite” drew ever closer in argument to “devo max”. However Scotland voted, there had to be a new deal between London and Edinburgh. The British government, threatened with losing the union, conceded half a deal, and won.
The EU cannot negotiate nimble-footed, as London did in 2014. It is too big and cumbersome, with too many national insecurities and battling lobbies. It cannot even control its borders. Already split by the eurozone, the EU could not stand more exceptionalism. Programmed to ever greater union, it has no gear-shift to “ever less”. Like Britain’s NHS, it has a dinosaur in its DNA.
Certainly a yes vote would change nothing. All that would result is that any future British government, seeking to resist Brussels power, will be hogtied by the result. The threat of Brexit, which Cameron has struggled to mobilise this past six months, will evaporate.
Instead a furious Conservative party would make the government behave ever worse towards Europe. Britain would continue to fend off immigrants, fawn on China and flog everything to east Asia. It would side with America in foreign and defence policy. Irrespective of Europe, its banks would launder money and evade tax with abandon. Britain would stay semi-detached.
On the other hand, a no vote would certainly be traumatic. It would send Britain’s pro-EU establishment into the mother of all huddles with a panic-stricken Brussels. Half of Europe’s democracies know they could lose an EU vote just now. No one really wants Britain to depart.
The dreaded article 50 of the Lisbon treaty on renegotiation would be activated. Fat-cat thinktanks would argue the Norwegian, Swiss, Australian, American and rest-of-world options. Euro-panic would morph into Euro-conspiracy. Power hates rebellion. Deals would be done.
My reading of lobbyist literature from both sides suggests that Britain would probably emerge from all this with a diluted version of associate EU membership. To ensure trade continuity – which is in everyone’s interest – it would accept much of the present EU regulation. It might even contribute to the EU budget. The UK would gain some discretion in picking and choosing. In return it would lose its present much-cited (though never specified) “influence”, through losing its vote in the council and parliament. The balance of advantage is here too opaque for anyone sensibly to call.
But if the outcome does not matter that much, what does? The answer is disruption versus inertia. Here the argument defaults to tribe. The yes tribe is composed of the insiders, the metro-progressives, the established order averse to change. The no tribe consists of the outsiders, the provincials, the instinctive radicals. On the left this is a divide between the old-style statist socialism and the new left of perpetual dissent. On the right it separates the “natural party of government” and the professional class from the grassroots, the insecure and the dispossessed.
Neither tribe is happy with the present EU, as it fails in its core purpose of holding together a disparate continent in the cause of liberal democracy. It made one mistake, the eurozone, and now faces another problem, the growth of rightwing separatism across south and east Europe. It has humiliated a British prime minister into traipsing round the capitals of Europe, pleading for help in a domestic election. It is a mess. This is the EU that would sigh with relief at a British yes vote.
A no vote would not “isolate” Britain from mainland Europe, whatever the howls of “Project Fear”. But it would traumatise EU complacency. It would press the reset button. A no vote would force the EU, or at least countries outside the eurozone, to seek a new balance between supranational regulation and free trade. However arrogant it might seem to others, Britain would have precipitated reform. That is surely what everyone wants.
There would have to be a new treaty between the EU and Britain, on whatever suite of options would emerge from negotiations. It would be tough. But since such a treaty would probably qualify the decision to withdraw, it would merit a new referendum. That is the referendum that really would matter.
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