THIS BLESSED PLOT

This blessed plot is a phrase that forms part of a famous speech by John of Gaunt in Shakespeare's Richard II, which eulogises his country. Starting "this royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle", it ends "this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England".

This Blessed Plot is also the title of a brilliant book by Hugo Young, the former political columnist of the U.K.'s Sunday Times and Guardian newspapers. First published in 1998, it charts the history of Britain's relationship with first the E.E.C. and then the E.U. Having just reread it, I firmly believe that it should be a standard text for anybody interested in that relationship; every British schoolchild, for example.

The U.K. ended the Second World War as the only European country apart from the former Soviet Union that was indisputably a winner. However, it had also been brought to its knees economically, and had only survived thanks to massive financial help from the U.S. Understandably, but wrongly, the governing classes, politicians, civil servants and others, chose to highlight the former and ignore the latter. So, for instance, Churchill's pre-war calls for greater solidarity amongst the European nations (meaning Europe, including Britain) had by the late 1940's metamorphosed into calls for greater solidarity amongst the European nations (meaning Europe, excluding Britain). The U.K. could not be part of any European solidarity that had as its main aim the goal of preventing the terrible events of 1914-18 and 1939-45, since unlike the continentals, it had overlapping spheres of interest; Europe was undoubtedly one, but so too were the "special relationship" with the U.S. and the need to maintain the Empire (which later became the Commonwealth).

There were pockets in the establishment who were clearer-sighted, but they were few and far between. One such was Sir Henry Tizard, chief scientific adviser at the Ministry of Defence, who wrote in 1949:

"We persist in regarding ourselves as a Great Power, capable of everything and only temporarily handicapped by economic difficulties. We are not a Great Power and never will be again. We are a great nation, but if we continue to behave like a Great Power, we shall soon cease to be a great nation".

This prescient memo did not go down well with the powers-that-be. And so began the country's long strategic dilemna, a dilemna which persists to the present day, in which the U.K. can't make up its collective mind whether it wants to be part of the European project or not. True, the rhetoric changes from time to time. But the usual pattern is of initial scepticism about any new inititiative, often accompanied by ridicule; followed by distance and non-engagement, if not active attempts at sabotage; a grudging acceptance later that things have changed; a belated request to be involved; and finally (the worst thing) a pretence by the relevant people that they had somehow got deceived into accepting it. It was true of the original coal and steel community; true of the E.E.C.; true of majority voting and the single market; true of economic and monetary union; and (I predict) will also be true of the euro itself. The pattern cuts across political parties, and across generations. In short, very few Brits are willing to take Sir Henry Tizard's advice.

Should they have? Young's thesis is that they should, and it is persuasive. Not least because of events in those two other spheres of interest. The history of the post-war British Empire is of a transition to independence, sometimes peaceful, often messy and bloody (eg the partition of India). Coupled with an obvious realisation that the markets of the former colonies, who often ran hopeless post-independence economic policies that kept them in poverty, could in no way make up for the fast-growing economies located just over the Channel. Even more importantly, the trauma of the Suez crisis in 1956 demonstrated that when push came to shove, the Americans did not view the special relationship as being more important than their strategic interests in the Middle East. That lesson was learned in respect of defence, and prompted a gradual slimming down of the U.K.'s military commitments, and an eventual withdrawal "east of Suez". Yet the lesson was not learned in respect of the economic and political fields; and the habitual - and ritual - regurgitation of the "special relationship" with the U.S. is something which every British Prime Minister has banged on about for the past 55 years, notwithstanding any evidence that contradicts it.

With two of the three spheres of interest gone or sagging, Britain should have turned to the third and made a clear, if belated, commitment to Europe. But it didn't. The one exception to the general rule was Ted Heath, a much maligned figure these days, yet the only postwar British Prime Minister to have engaged in the sort of statesmanship that puts one's country before one's party interest. Heath had been the point man on Harold MacMillan's doomed application to join the then 6-country arrangement in the early 1960's that was brutally vetoed by de Gaulle. The other countries all wanted Britain in, indeed had wanted Britain in from the start, not least as a counterweight to the imperious French President; de Gaulle, for exactly the opposite reason, wanted to keep Britain out, so that France could dominate. Only when de Gaulle had left the scene could Heath, now Prime Minister, do the necessary deal with Pompidou that led to Britain's joining on 1 January 1973. 

Yet even the europhile Ted Heath succombed to another British malaise that has affected, and continues to affect, British politicians when they talk about Europe, namely a tendency to pretend that they are not doing what they are in fact doing. It was already clear in 1972, for instance, that the treaties (and, notably, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice) represented a major transfer of sovereignty away from the U.K. and into something supranational. As Lord Denning, a famous judge, said in a 1974 case, the treaty was "like an incoming tide. It flows into the estuaries and up the rivers. It cannot be held back". Public opinion had consistently shown that the British people were willing to be led by their leaders on European matters; but their leaders chose not to do so. Heath presented entry as a purely economic/trading matter. His successor Margaret Thatcher signed the Single European Act into power, but then pretended that she had not known what she was doing. The result has been a ceding of the media stage to the anti's, some of whom have sensible things to say, but many of whom are complete nutcases who once argued for the exact opposite of what they argue today. Not surprisingly, after nearly 40 years as a Member State, the U.K. is perhaps the most Eurosceptic nation within the E.U.

Young's book ends in 1998, and he himself died in 2003. With the arrival of Tony Blair, he tries to be optimistic, believing the latter's publicly stated desire to be at the heart of Europe. But even then, there are clouds on the horizon. Britain held the rotating Presidency during the first half of 1998, less than a year after Labour's landslide election victory after eighteen years in the wilderness. At the summit on 3 May 1998, eleven of the then fifteen member states of the E.U. pledged to complete their economic and monetary union. Britain chaired the meeting, but did not sign the pledge.

And has stayed out since. Again, barriers have been put up to stop contamination. Before, it was the Commonwealth and the special relationship that were the hurdles, now it is the Treasury's five tests and protection for the City. Never mind that the Treasury's five tests do not include fixing what everybody now agrees are the euro's flaws, namely a lack of a central fiscal transfer mechanism and mutualisation of euro-debt; nor that any specific proposal that adversely affects the City can be vetoed as and when it arises. Other countries (Denmark, for instance) have opt-outs and prickly domestic electorates. Yet the most striking thing about David Cameron's E.U. veto late last year was that when Head Girl Angela Merkel demanded changes, nearly all of the countries outside the euro chose to go along with them rather than be outside the group. It seems that the only thing that Britain learns from European history is that it learns nothing.

That is not to say that everything in Euroland is wonderful. A very Eurosceptic, if not little Englander, friend of mind is fond of pointing out that the European Commission regularly fails to have its accounts approved by the Court of Auditors, and that if it were a company, it would be struck off or closed down. However, while true, that misses the point, in my view. The European project is real, and has come a long way in a relatively short period of time. The key question for Britain is, as it has always been, do we want to be part of this and make it work better, or don't we? Yet that is the very question that the country's political leaders, of all parties, continue to shirk.
 
Walter Blotscher