Germany values its identity just as much as all the cars it exports
Mrs May is finally adapting to European sensitivities, and must use informal backchannels to aid Brexit
The worship of economics has always been seen as an ideological illness of the Left. Ever since Karl Marx, the Left has insisted that economic relations define everything, from tensions over immigration to cultural norms. Brexit has, however, brought to the fore another kind of economic idolatry, and now it is on the Right. Once upon a time, we thought that culture and religion drove international relations just as much as prosperity. In the age of secularism and the free market, we have convinced ourselves that only trade matters.
This was the argument of the Brexit campaign. We will get a deal, said the optimists, because trade trumps everything. Just wait till after the elections in Germany, they said, and we’ll see Berlin start to prioritise its carmakers, Paris its cheesemakers and vintners. The German and French elections have now happened. Angela Merkel was wounded but is heading back to office. The going is supposed to get easier now. In reality, the hard part is yet to come.
To understand why, don’t blame Brussels bureaucrats. Ultimately, Europe’s powerful capitals call the shots. Our problem is that many Europeans, and particularly Germans, are still deeply sad and angry about Brexit. Germany’s nationalists might have done unexpectedly well in yesterday’s vote, but even they didn’t dare argue in this campaign for leaving the euro or the EU. The vast majority of Germans still see the EU as a treasured part of their identity and Brexit as a direct attack on it.
This sounds strange to British ears. But Germany is a young nation with a guilty history. For its national glue, it cannot look back. Instead, it looks to the EU as the idealistic vehicle of its foreign policy. Germans might be reluctant to subsidise the euro, but they still do not see a tension between their strong, regional identities and their national or European selves.
Take national borders. In Britain, we associate borders with security. In Germany, with its nine neighbours, it is more complicated. One German who grew up close to the Netherlands recently described to me what the EU meant for her hometown. It went from being a backwater to a “real place”, she said. Instead of driving an hour to Cologne, residents started to visit nearby Maastricht. The local economy boomed. To such people, the idea of EU oppression or collapse is absurd.
When Theresa May stood in Florence and wished the EU well, when she called the four freedoms “indivisible”, she was recognising what the EU means to these Europeans. And for the first time, she tried to explain Brexit to them. Britain “has never totally felt at home” in the EU, she said, and its voters “want more direct control” of its government.
This was shockingly overdue. Just as we misunderstand German identity, many Europeans see Brexit purely as an act of aggressive, isolationist nationalism. Brexit, I was told recently by a Swiss national, means that Britain has voted to be “selfish”.
This conflation of sovereignty with selfishness stems from a failure to understand British democracy. Told that Britons think the EU is undemocratic, this same Swiss national said: “Your government is undemocratic. Look at the House of Lords.”
It is easy to explain legal limits on the Lords’ power. It is harder to explain the role of convention in British politics. The Queen doesn’t veto legislation. The Commons and Lords passed the Article 50 Bill, despite opposing Brexit. Why? Well, it’s instinctive to most British voters. We understand that, whatever the legal position, if the Lords veto Brexit, they risk abolition. Likewise, we understand that our ancient courts can be trusted to protect the rights of EU citizens even after Brexit. It is obvious to us that Brexit negotiations should focus on practical outcomes over technical procedures.
None of these things are obvious across the Channel, where procedure is very important. The EU and Germany will, of course, selectively interpret laws to suit their interests. But, operating in the Napoleonic legal tradition, they cannot publicly admit that procedure comes second to political priorities. After all, without legal niceties, Britain might still exist, but the EU wouldn’t.
That does not mean the EU has none of its own unwritten conventions. For example, ambitious officials seeking advancement do not just lobby people with formal, decision-making power. They also pay their respects to the “fathers” of the project. Figures such as Helmut Schmidt, the late German chancellor and an early supporter of the euro, had no formal role in EU governance in later life, but still expected to be seen by candidates seeking high office. Similarly, a London lawyer working in Paris soon learns that even small decisions might need to be passed through senior managers to avoid trampling on jurisdictional sensitivities.
That these norms feel so alien to us owes a lot to our habit of looking west, rather than east. Ambitious young Brits dream of passing a few years in New York. They do not study in Maastricht or seek internships in Brussels. Our elites holiday in British enclaves and rarely find themselves dining with their European counterparts after a day’s skiing. Exceptions to this rule have either marginalised themselves by refusing to accept Brexit or been neglected by the Government.
As a result, our Government does not know what informal backchannels or helpful dinner dates might unlock progress in the Brexit talks. Our politicians mock Jean-claude Juncker’s drinking, instead of finding out where he does it and sending a charming official to buy him a round.
This might sound like a dirty world, but it is how diplomacy works. It does not mean we should be weak in negotiations. But sitting in London comparing the EU to the Nazis stirs up a needlessly toxic mood among people whose support we want. Germany’s carmakers are not just businesspeople: they are also proud Germans and Europhiles.
With Mrs May’s Florence speech, the Government has finally started to realise that cultural cues matter. Economics do, too, of course. But, as conservative thinkers have always told us, ideas also drive history. It may be that Germany is so attached to its European ideals that it will risk tariffs by insisting on conditions that Britain cannot accept, such as the supremacy of EU law. I still think, in the end, that this won’t happen. But instead of continuing with its pointless infighting, our Government should be working out how to let Germany concede ground while keeping its pride intact.