Airstrip One

Edward VII is to blame

Occasionally, the Guardian will print an article that sits at odds with its post-modern take on our world, where all history is invented and all culture is a construct. Hywel Williams, writing in the shadows of D-Day's anniversary, ignores this theoretical scaffolding and plunges into millennia of cultural conditioning - of the type beloved by Anglospherical anthropologists.

His excursion starts with "where did it all go wrong" and concludes, correctly, that 1940 was the year that Britain became a European country:

The collapse of France in the spring of 1940 turned Britain into an European country within a matter of days. Much against its will, Britain was forced into being a truly continental power. Had it remained such a power in the four years that followed, Britain and its empire would have followed the French and theirs.

However, the unique experiences of the war divided Britain from the Continent and set the stage for Britain to cement its role as the junior partner of the United States, a role that the elite grips as a comfort blanket to shield them from the need to act independently.

Williams meanders across a thousand years of European history and argues that the Anglo-American invasion is a revisitation from the Norsemen, whose historical role French identity ignores in its 'turn to the south' and identification as a Latin country. Whilst Anglo-American soldiers may have shown some Viking tendencies (given the revisionist "European" coverage in newspapers that emphasizes French hostility and plays up the 'civilised role' of the Germans), it is doubtful that the liberation can be cast in such terms.

The use of such cultural explanations are always troublesome and panders to cultural conservatives who identify a Herderesque essentialism within the way we live that the rest of us are blinded to by deracination, cosmopolitanism, mongrelism, rationalism or some other mote.

Williams other paragraph of note argues that the Entente Cordiale is a mistake:

Resentment at the French for having got us into this mess in the first place has been a powerful current in postwar British life and politics. Historically, British foreign policy had been based on the existence of a strong and independent France. Britain had always used the European states' fear of French might as a convenient justification for its own juggling system of alliances.

A strong France, standing in an adversarial relationship to the British, had therefore been to Britain's competitive advantage. And that system of strength and security through rivalry had only broken down when the two countries were foolish enough to sign the entente cordiale of 1904.

That disastrous alliance had issued from Edward VII's boulevardier enjoyment of chorus girls and French food. But its more concrete consequence was the accentuation of the German neurotic fear that the two powers were out to get them; 1904 led directly to 1914.

Whilst there is a case to be made for viewing the Entente Cordiale as a disastrous entanglement, the blame must be laid at the destabilising consequences of German unification, and the attempts of an enfeebled France in relative demographic decline to counteract this through alliances with Britain and Russia. Even the European Union is the latest incarnation of the struggle by continental powers to cope with a strong German power at the centre of Europe.

Does Britain require intervention in Europe to prevent the rise of a unified continent, the siren call that led to the disastrous alliances and entanglements of the twentieth century. Or do weapons of mass destruction change the terms of power and allow Britain to coexist peacefully with a unified Europe, secure in the knowledge that we should remain divorced from post-modern polities?

(23.26, 3rd June 2004)

Free Life Commentary,
an independent journal of comment
published on the Internet
Editor: Sean Gabb
Issue Number 123
1st June 2004
Hear this article read by Sean Gabb


Vote UKIP for a Better Tory Government
by Sean Gabb

That Michael Howard is the best Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher is an undeniable if also unflattering proposition. That this country would become a better place were to be become Prime Minister is more arguable. However, I believe that it would; and so, were there to be a general election this 10th June, I should almost certainly vote Conservative. But the next general election is at least several months away. Next week, we shall be sending representatives not to sit in our Parliament but in the European Parliament. And so I shall, next week, vote for the United Kingdom Independence Party.

My reason is that, while I admire him, I do not trust Mr Howard to do in office all that is needed. It is possible to see in the past six months the beginning of a great reaction that will so far as possible undo great evils. It is also possible to see those months as a return to the politics of the Quisling Right.

I have written at length elsewhere about the Quisling Right. Here, I will simply define the term as the tendency of Conservative politicians to imply more than they promise, and to seem to promise less than really is promised - and, once elected to office, to do far less than was promised. Is this now happening? If we look behind the image that Mr Howard projects, is there the same lack of substance? Perhaps there is.

Some years ago, I wrote that, to be successful, a party needs a mission. This legitimises the often ruthless methods used to keep the party together. It allows otherwise fatal differences of personality and emphasis to be reconciled. It means that a clear distinction can be drawn between matters that can and matters that cannot be compromised. It gives activists a reason to go out knocking on doors and more passive supporters to continue voting during times of disappointment. The Labour Mission of the 1940s was to build Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land. The Conservative mission of the 1980s was to smash the unions and generally reform economic management. The Conservative mission now must be to withdraw the country from the European Union, and perhaps to begin the work of reforming dying and replacing dead institutions. This is not a mission the Conservatives have themselves defined. It has been given them by events. If they take it up, they will win as they did after 1974. If they take it up only to drop it again after a successful election, they will be destroyed.

Are the Conservatives intelligent to understand the mission that events have shaped for them? I hope that they are, and Christina Speight believes that they are. Her repeated line is that the Conservatives do not need to alienate support by promising to leave the European Union. It is enough for them to reject the European Constitution. Hardly anyone would see this rejection as unreasonable; and if it is attended by our somehow leaving the European Union, there would be limited grounds for objecting. But there is much to separate hope and belief. Christina may be right - or she may be projecting her own clear apprehension of what needs to be done onto men who would sell their own mothers into whoredom just to sit again in those shiny black cars surrounded by the red boxes of office.

I have spent too much of my life looking at Conservative politicians to think well either of their morality or their intelligence. I hope that this time it is different. But I look at the public blandness of their faces and hear their convoluted answers to common questions, and I can easily imagine their private complacency. At last, they have acquired a leader as nearly first rate as can be imagined in our current politics, and bleeding to death in front of them - and from self-inflicted wounds - is a Prime Minister who could once depress all their hopes with a curl of his lip. I can almost see them rubbing their hands and waiting for the votes to roll in.

That is why the European elections next week are so important. We shall not be electing a government, nor sending representatives to a body that is of any real significance. We shall instead be taking part in an extended opinion poll. We need Labour to lose, but we also need the Conservatives not to win. The ideal result must be for Labour to be put on firm notice of dismissal, but for the Conservatives to remain on probation. No doubt must be left in their minds that they must try harder.

That is the value of UKIP. It contains many patriots. I am on terms of personal friendship with several of its candidates. But this is not a party that I could ever wish to see with a solid presence in the House of Commons. Its unity is too fragile, many of its leading personnel so privately compromised. It is too infiltrated and too controlled by the security services. It must not be seen as a party of government. But it is a way of making clear to the political establishment of this country that withdrawal from the European Union is not the obsession of a minority. The function of small parties in our system is to force the larger parties to shift position. The Commonwealth Party went nowhere after 1943 - few today even know about it. But its bye-election successes brought a general leftward shift in British politics. That is what we must hope of a UKIP success next week.

In a speech made earlier today in Southampton, Mr Howard attacked UKIP with his usual bluntness. I would not read too much into this speech. He is competing for votes, and he cannot be sure that the UKIP message really is popular. But a large UKIP vote next week will reveal the true nature of his leadership. His response might be to start speculating on the circumstances in which he would take us out of the European Union - or he might stand by in silent relief as Downing Street sends in the security services to complete the disruption begun after the 1999 election. Clear answers are seldom to be found in British politics. Much against his will, Mr Howard - and the Conservative Party as a whole - may be about to give one.

What Howard did not say

Howard's speech in Southampton is finally up on the web. Quite hard hitting, although if you've paid any attention to the campaign there are few overt surprises.

There are the attacks on UKIP, now seen as a significant opponent:

At one extreme there are the candidates from the UK Independence Party. They represent a party that wants to pull out of the European Union altogether. They have frequently failed to vote in the European Parliament on issues that are vital to Britain.

..........

But the fringes at both ends of the European debate are united in one thing. Both give the British people the defeatist message that we cannot have a flexible Europe. They argue that we have to put up with what we are given or leave altogether. Both sides peddle this myth for their own political ends. And they are both wrong.

Some say "that sort of Europe is not on offer". I reject that defeatism. It is on offer from the Conservative Party. And it makes sense - not only for countries like Britain who do not want to transfer any more power to the EU. But also for those countries who want to integrate more closely but feel held back by other member states.

...............

And let me make this clear. Only the Conservative Party can deliver this Europe. Not the Labour Party. Not the Lib-Dems. No other party.

There is the affirmation (or admissions) of the Conservative's pro-EU past:

We have always supported Britain's membership of the European Union. But we have also always been prepared to stand up for Britain's interests in Europe.



And there is the future - probably unattainable - view of a flexible Europe which the Tories want to remain a part of - just like most voters do:

I want to build a Europe of nation states. I do not want to build a nation called Europe.

......

Saying ‘no' doesn't mean we must leave the EU – just as we can say ‘no' to the Euro without leaving the EU.

......

We want to create a more flexible Europe. Individual countries should be free to integrate more closely if they want to, so long as they do not force other countries to follow them. And, in the light of experience, we should look at taking back powers from Europe that would be better exercised at a national level here in Britain – and in other countries too.

......

Britain's interests are best served by staying in Europe - but by using our influence to make the EU confront its failings and become more tolerant. That is what the mainstream majority in Britain want - and that is what a Conservative Government will give them.


.............

So what was missing? In the whole speech there's not one mention of Britain remaining in Europe for ever under any circumstances. There's no mention of the idea that a Conservative government would "never" contemplate withdrawal. Howard, it seems, has untied his hands.

The ball is now in UKIP's court. This election gives them the golden opportunity to ask the Conservatives if they still would "never" leave the European Union, under any circumstances. An evasion of the question would be one of the most significant steps to withdrawal that Britain has ever made.

Less Irrelevant than you think

Thomas Fuller in the International Herald Tribune writes an informative article on the growing power of the European Parliament. This power has been clouded by the low turnout in elections across Europe; this will be seen again in the forthcoming elections on June 10th, including the new Member States of East-Central Europe.

The European Parliament's main powers set laws on the single market. Yet, if one analyzes their role in this area, the centralised power of European institutions is clarified:

The paradox for the European Union, analysts say, is that in recent years the European Parliament has become increasingly powerful, in some cases surpassing the lawmaking powers of national Parliaments.

Experts estimate that the majority of laws passed in Parliaments in Paris, Berlin or other capitals in the EU originate in Brussels, suggesting that Europe is more centralized than most voters think.

Yet, according to Fuller, the Parliament is only one of eighteen ways in which the European institutions can pass laws. In the last five year term, as one of the European methods of legislating (leaving out the Commission), it has managed to pass 400 laws.

Whilst the national electorates will continue to vote on the performance of their national governments, these MEPs, elected on a minority of a minority, will continue reinforce the work of the Commission and structure our lives in ways that favour harmonisation across the Continent.

(23.04, 1st June 2004)

Where is Howard's Speech?

Michael Howard made a well trailed speech but there is no sign of it in the list of speeches from Conservative Central Office, only this rather lame news release, the BBC is no better. Anyone got a full copy of the speech on line?