The Europe Debate

Union Jack flying over a fisherman's hut, Rock-a-Nore, Hastings

 

I have witnessed the growth in Euro-scepticism with increasing alarm.  The apparent spokesman of the Tory right wing, Liam Fox, is MP for North Somerset - a constituency not known for its industrial or trading base, and far distanced from any contact with the other side of the Channel.  He personifies the Little England mentality that would have us back to Morris dancing, Gilbert and Sullivan and "the good old days" of unregulated business.  One of his allies is the more worrying Philip Davies, the 40-year-old MP for Shipley in West Yorkshire, whose record is more murky: see his Wikipedia entry.  There is a slightly scary alliance of traditional Tory fantasists from the rural areas combined with a more sinister xenophobia.

 

A matter of equal concern is the lamentable lack of hard information to enable the population to make an informed judgment on whether it is sensible for the UK to be within or outside the European Community.  If any referendum is to take place there will have to be a campaign to educate the population.  I see little prospect of this happening.

 

Leaving the issue of personalities and emotion aside, however, there is a fundamental issue that is emerging.  The European Treaty has always contained the words "ever closer union" as an objective to be achieved by its signatories.  It is difficult to interpret this as other than progress to a federal Europe.  In this context, the move to a single currency was an entirely logical step - as are, now, the moves to fiscal union and harmonised banking regulation.

 

A debate on how far the UK is prepared to go with "ever closer union" is worth having.  The eurosceptics, however, don't want any truck with Europe at all - the baby is to be thrown out with the bathwater.  Behind an apparent concern that legislation initiated by Brussels  is restrictive for business and employment there is a shadow of xenophobia and lack of respect for human rights,  Unravelling the strands in the European argument may be a task too great for a Prime Minister intent on satisfying the fundamentalists in his increasingly unattractive party.

 

Antony Mair