2018, the great British photojournalist Sir Donald McCullin explains why he voted for Brexit.* The child of a poor family, born in London’s Finsbury Park, in March 2017 McCullin was awarded a knighthood. ‘We didn’t join Europe to be strangulated, to have our sovereignty destroyed… We joined the EU for economic reasons, and for defence and security, not to be told by Brussels what I’m allowed to put in my bin.’
This fear of having pedantic regulations imposed by Brussels, regarding environmental standards for example, is nothing new. Already in 1987, Gordon Cartwright, a character from the novel The Commissioner, gin and tonic in hand, proclaimed: ‘[W]e have to clip the wings of those bureaucrats in Brussels. Clip their wings, keep them under control, don’t you agree? Fair trade and competition is one thing, but bloody-minded interference is something else altogether.’
The author of this novel, published by Arrow, is a certain … Stanley Johnson, who worked at the European Commission during the 1980s, and expressed in his book the exasperation created at the time by regulatory zeal and the desire of certain Brussels technocrats to take everything in hand and fix it all perfectly.
I took the time to read Johnson’s book as part of my ‘research’ into the reasons that drove his son Boris, along with 17,410,742 other British citizens, to vote to leave the European Union.
So can we explain the vote as a rejection of a Europe that meddles in waste sorting and imposes too many environmental constraints ‘from above’?
Quite apart from the fact that the Europe of today is far more pragmatic and efficient than that of the 1980s, there are obviously other reasons, some of which are specific to the United Kingdom.
First of all, the feeling, to quote Sir Donald again, that ‘continental Europe is another world, of which England is not a part’. Europe is too different from the UK. This island country, facing out toward the ‘open sea’, draws from its glorious past the idea that it is better to stand alone.
And then there are other reasons related to the British political system, which is strongly bipartisan, preventing the concerns of many political groups and citizens from being properly represented in the capital. It is quite natural, then, that they should see a referendum or a European Election as an opportunity to express themselves.
Finally, the UK is home to a tabloid empire that makes it its daily business to denigrate the EU with simplistic arguments and false stories. The 2016 referendum campaign was fuelled by these caricatures and untruths. For example, as soon as the result was declared, the Leave campaign acknowledged that leaving the EU would not in fact enable £350 million a week to flow back into the NHS, the UK’s health system, as promised on their famous red bus. Similarly, the image of UKIP leader Nigel Farage posing in front of a billboard depicting crowds of migrants from Syria and elsewhere on the march deserves to be remembered as the apex of cynicism and a clouding of the issues, calling to mind the outrageous propaganda caricatures of another era.
But let’s face it, such shortcomings in the public debate on Europe are not the preserve of the British alone. There are also far too many EU politicians who keep a low profile, are ashamed of Europe, make no attempt to explain anything, and fail to take responsibility. I have long been convinced that it is the silence, the arrogance and the remoteness of European elites that fuels fear and encourages demagogy.
And then there is a final, even more serious reason, which is at work in all our countries, and certainly in many regions of France. It is the feeling that Europe, its governments and its institutions, are out of touch with the legitimate concerns of the people; discontent with a Europe that does nothing to protect against the excesses of globalization, a Europe that has for too long advocated deregulation and ultra-liberalism, with insufficient regard for the social and environmental consequences.
The financial crisis of 2008 very nearly brought it all down. The crisis was the result of a caricature of liberalism and a notion of ‘pure’ or ‘perfect’ competition to which first London, and then Europe, had ended up conforming. It wrenched open great fault lines of poverty, exclusion and despair, which also go some way towards explaining the anti-European sentiment found in the UK and elsewhere.
This anger is also being expressed against a Europe that has not been able to control its external borders or convincingly demonstrate its solidarity. A Europe that has not been able to protect its industry, nor anticipate the digital revolution that is now intruding upon all aspects of our lives. A Europe seen as overly complex and insufficiently democratic. And above all, to put it bluntly, a Europe that no longer offers any promise of progress or any hope of a better future for all.
What was, and remains, the raison d’être of the European project? Since the 1950s, Europe has above all stood for the choice to face up to the great changes afoot in the world and to come to terms with them rather than just passively suffering them. To be the actor of its own destiny rather than a spectator. To assert a shared sovereignty, in an era when the nation alone is no longer enough. And finally, to pool resources on a continental scale in order to yield common benefits and to pursue projects that are larger than any one country.
The ECSC, the European Coal and Steel Community, formally established in 1951 in the wake of a war that left our continent in ruins, initiated the industrial reconstruction of Europe and, through this ‘de facto solidarity’, promoted a lasting peace between our nations.
The CAP, the Common Agricultural Policy, launched in 1962, enabled us to regain our collective food sovereignty and to preserve the diversity of territories, traceability and product quality.
The cohesion policy, developed from 1988 onwards under the impetus of Jacques Delors, has enabled the most disadvantaged regions progressively to catch up as our Union has expanded.
The transition from a set of national markets to a single market, in 1993, promoted the development of our companies, in particular SMEs and MSBs, while offering consumers more choice.
And since 1999, the single currency has facilitated trade between the countries that adopted it and shielded us from exchange rate risk. As is too often forgotten, the euro is also an instrument of emancipation, protecting us from American monetary hegemony. During the recent crises – the sovereign debt crisis, and then the current health crisis – it is the euro and the European Central Bank’s monetary policy that have saved us from the precipice.
All these shared benefits are something to be proud of! And we can also be proud of the fact that we have reinforced and shared them over time, especially since 1 May 2004, when Poland and nine other countries joined the EU in that great moment of reunification of the European continent. In fifteen years, we have welcomed – and it was no easy task! – more than a hundred million new European citizens who left poverty and dictatorship for the promise of shared progress. What other group of nations, what other continent, has achieved so much collectively? None.
But, for the past fifteen years at least, Europe has failed to mobilize Europeans around collective projects that respond to the great transformations afoot in the world. Transformations in the face of which our nations, alone, can do little: climate change and pandemic, industrial and technological change, the challenges of migration and of the invisible powers of financial markets and terrorism, the unilateralist temptation in the US, the rise of China and the influence of Russia.
If we really want to take on these challenges, then we must rediscover the ambition that first led to the construction of Europe, and begin building new common goods for the twenty-seven member countries. To be fair, the Commission has embarked upon some valuable initiatives in recent years. For the protection of our environment via the European Green Deal, for an industrial policy fit for the challenges of digital technology, artificial intelligence and sustainable energy, for a genuine European defence force, and for control of our external borders.
