As Europe ruptures, Britain looks inwards
The real issue is whether being part of the EU is the best option for Britain to cope with the economic and security
challenges of an increasingly uncertain world
Alan Philps
Europe is facing multiple crises of such gravity that some of its diehard defenders are concerned that the project is about to leave the rails. Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, has pointed to the migration crisis as a potential death sentence for Europe. While the numbers of migrants coming from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan may not be impossible to cope with, the inability to share out the new arrivals among the 28 member states has fractured the EU between north and south and east and west.
At the same time, Angela Merkel, the dominant politician in Europe, is losing authority at home after declaring Germanys borders open to all migrants from Syria, causing a rush that threatens to overwhelm the countrys capacity to absorb. She is already criticised in southern Europe, as the foremost creditor nation, for insisting on a policy of austerity.
To the east, nationalist governments in Poland and Hungary have taken an authoritarian turn at odds with the European liberal tradition. Across central Europe walls are being built to stop the migrants going north.
While all these signs of rupture concern the voters of continental Europe, Britain has more inward-looking concerns. Can state-provided child benefits be cut to Polish workers if their children are back home in Wroclaw? Will Brussels allow Britain to refuse Romanians access to in-work benefits and thus discourage them from coming to Britain to work?
These are sideshows the governments plans to raise the minimum wage is likely to have a greater effect on attracting workers from abroad than any tinkering with the benefits system.
But on such minutiae hangs the vote in the forthcoming referendum on Britain leaving the European Union. The campaign began this week after the publication of a proposed set of reforms by the Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, aimed at mollifying Britains concerns at the encroaching European super-state.
Over the next two weeks the British prime minister, David Cameron, has to persuade his counterparts in the rest of the EU to accept these changes as the price for keeping Britain in the bloc. If that goes ahead, then he has to persuade the British voters but most importantly members of his own Conservative Party, which is broadly Eurosceptic that it is in the countrys interest to remain in the bloc.
There is an extraordinary level of dissonance between the topics under discussion effectively how to curb the migration of workers from the poorer parts of the EU who tend to drive down wages for the lower paid and what is at stake at the vote. If Britain votes to leave when the referendum is held, most probably in June, the repercussions would be huge.
It would probably destroy the union between Scotland and England which is the foundation of the United Kingdom.
If England is broadly conservative and Eurosceptic, Scotland is pro-European and avowedly progressive. If Britain as a whole votes to leave, then Scotland would no doubt demand an independence referendum, and would be likely to quit the United Kingdom in favour of the EU.
As for the ruling Conservative party, its divisions between pro- and anti-Europeans have pulled it apart for decades. Whichever way the referendum goes, it is likely that the two wings of the party will not be on speaking terms.
As for wider Europe, if the vote was happening three years ago, the resentment felt at Britains constant demands for opt-outs would have produced a shrug: let the Brits go off into their splendid isolation and leave us in peace.
But times have changed. A resurgent Russia eager to flex its muscles on Europes eastern flank and the collapse of the state system in the Arab world mean that the EU needs a military capable power, however diminished.
With the leadership of s Merkel now increasingly contested, and nationalist and populist parties all over Europe challenging their elites faith in the European dream, it is not the time for one of the major powers to quit.
While Brussels may be caricatured by the Eurosceptics as a monster devouring the liberty of Europes nations, its integration project has been faltering since 2004 when it expanded to the east. Its headline project, the euro single currency, is in permanent recovery mode after the 2008 financial crisis, and will go back into intensive care when the next crisis hits.
When Cameron promised in 2013 to hold a referendum on EU membership, it seemed unthinkable that Britain would vote to leave. But as the migration crisis has deepened, and the EU has proved incapable of securing its southern borders, the bloc has seemed less attractive to its supporters, while still appearing as a threat to its critics. Polls have occasionally shown the leave vote on top.
To judge by the headlines in the popular press lampooning the slim achievements of Camerons attempts to redefine the relationship with Europe, he faces a tough struggle. This will be a defining battle for the newspapers: their Euroscepticism has a solid foundation in that they can bring down British governments or think they can but their influence over the EU is slim. They are perhaps Camerons biggest enemy.
So can Cameron win his referendum gamble? My guess is that the darkening security outlook for Europe will force the rest of the EU to throw him some political crumbs which, while not really changing the relationship with Brussels, will allow him to get the pro-European vote over the finishing line.
This will be a political show. The real issue is whether being part of the EU is the best option for Britain to cope with the economic and security challenges of an increasingly uncertain world. The answer to that is yes for the moment. But whether it continues to be yes depends on the EU proving to be less of a dream and more of an effective force in the world.
The writer is a commentator on global affairs
