Could Brexit break Britain?

Ahead of the government’s Brexit repeal bill being debated at the House of Commons on Thursday, former Scottish First Minister Henry McLeish tells Michael Alexander why he believes Scotland – and the United Kingdom – is at a crossroads

He is the former professional football player who became the First Minister of Scotland. Before he rose to the top job, Henry McLeish was leader of Fife Regional Council and spent 16 years as either MP or MSP for Central Fife – including a spell as Scottish Labour leader.

But in his 47 years as a member of the Labour Party, the Methil-raised Mr McLeish can remember no time that comes close to matching the public disillusionment currently engulfing traditional politics.

A passionate believer in the European Union, he was “totally dismayed” by the “catastrophic” Brexit decision on June 23 last year and describes the election of Donald Trump as US President in November as “feeling like two bereavements in the one period”.

Now, in a new book, Citizens United: Taking Back Control in Turbulent Times, Mr McLeish makes the case for a radical U-turn on Brexit and points the way to the “political maturity” that he believes will sustain democracy.

He proposes a federalist solution for Britain – ideally in the context of continued full membership of the EU. But he warns that if the “public anger, mistrust and fear” that led to Brexit and Trump is ignored by the political classes and if the threat to democracy posed by the rise of extremism and populism is not addressed, then nations in the West could be engulfed in a time of dark authoritarianism.

He also claims the very future of Britain is at stake and warns Scotland would be within its rights to “seek a different future” outside of the UK if its majority pro-European views are not being represented when the time comes for Britain to leave the EU.

In an interview with The Courier at his home in Fife, Mr McLeish, 69, said: “There’s no doubt the Brexit vote was a huge statement about politics, democracy and government and a shattering of the idea which I hold today: that Europe is our future. But as far as I am concerned, it’s a battle for Britain that’s now currently under way.

“Brexit, to me, was a collective act of self-harm. It was a catastrophic decision from which will flow no benefits. But, equally importantly, we have to understand why 17.4 million people voted to leave and so therefore, for me, that takes you from anything to do with the European Union to it being a bigger statement about Britain at the present time, where the EU was just a backdrop to many of the issues, concerns, fears and anxieties that people had about Britain in 2017.”

Despite the rhetoric about better trade deals or “getting our country back”, Mr McLeish says he has yet to hear a single benefit of leaving the EU.

He describes the EU negotiations as “shambolic” and fears the next 20 or 30 years could be spent trying to “unravel” membership with no obvious practical benefits to the people in Scotland or in Britain as a whole.

He says Europe has been a “running sore” within the Conservative Party for 30 years, which successive Tory leaders have failed to address. This, he said, had “backfired” on the party and the “mess” facing Britain now is the result.

Mr McLeish added: “If you look at post-war Europe, post-war America, post-war Britain, there was a general feeling that social democracy, socialism, liberalism was a kind of inevitable future. What we have seen in recent times is that is not the case; and if you use the word populism, it’s the idea that a lot of the public are disillusioned. Politicians are offering a great deal but delivering very little.

“What concerns me is that a lot of people voted for Brexit on the basis of this idea that Britain once ruled the waves, this idea that Britain was once a great power – the nostalgia and the sentiment of all that, whether it was true or not.

“But the danger is – and this was reflected in pre-war Europe – is that populism is not a new idea. Populism is an old idea in new garb and the worry, for me, is that at a time when people have real fears, real anxieties, real issues about globalisation, about employment, about climate change, we are actually being distracted by populism.”

Mr McLeish said the serious challenge for progressive political parties – whether that be Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens or the SNP – is to “re-think” politics in such a way that citizens’ views are listened to and represented.

He said progressive parties should unite to block Brexit in the Commons, adding that, in Scotland, they should unite to “make sure that the Scottish people, the Scottish government, the Scottish Parliament remain opposed to what is happening”.

Brexit, to me, was a collective act of self harm

Picture: Steven Brown. Mr McLeish at his home in Fife.