The EU is in an even worse state than Britain, but Rejoiners couldn’t care less

The strange desire to return to Brussels’ embrace isn't rational. It’s based on a wilful ignorance of Europe

I’ve been in France, Germany, Italy and Portugal in recent months, and in talking to people, reading the media and just keeping one’s eyes open, there is a palpable kinship of discontent. Nothing seems to be working. There is rubbish in the streets, vandalism, petty crime, trains that don’t run on time, businesses that can’t get workers, huge illegal immigration, and no-go areas in many towns. In France, a sharp sense of déjà vu: long medical waiting lists, a friend unattended and in pain in a hospital corridor, overcrowded public transport, and non-stop grumbling. We may have left the EU, but we’re still at the heart of Europe.

But the EU has extra problems that we have so far avoided. The revolt of European farmers has been hard to miss. Journalists have disclosed that a quarter of the total membership of the European parliament has been involved in legal proceedings or other scandals. The EU, especially its usual suspects France and Italy, bear an unprecedented burden of debt, and the Germans may not be able to prop them up for ever. Donald Tusk is taking rather illiberal measures in Poland, but as he is staunchly pro-brussels, this is deemed fine.

There are the usual divisions on financial policy, and more recent ones on foreign policy. The latest novelty is that Ireland and Spain are increasing contributions to the controversial UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) whereas France, Germany and the Netherlands have suspended theirs. There is unconcealed disagreement over the Ukraine war, and over policy towards China. The EU economies (like ours and the Japanese) are in the doldrums, as they have been since 2008, and for some countries ever since the introduction of the euro in 1999. Extremist parties, containing some very nasty elements, are on the rise from Ireland to Greece. Britain’s likely move to the centre-left under Keir Starmer would be swimming against the European tide.

In the circumstances, I find it hard to understand why anyone of independent mind should think that the EU – whether we rejoin it at insane cost or align with it as a captive market – can provide the solution to any of our manifold national problems. In those far-off days when we voted to leave, I was naively optimistic. I thought that, when Brexit turned out not to bring the catastrophe promised in the Project Fear litany (mass unemployment, international marginalisation, financial collapse), emotions would ebb and Brexit seem a natural consequence of our political and economic divergence. Instead, it remains a painful source of division. This puzzles me, though some readers of this column may well be eager to explain.

There are wealthy interests eager to blow on the embers. Big international corporations didn’t like Brexit and still don’t. Goldman Sachs has recently produced a report claiming that the British economy is 4 per cent smaller than it should be, though they manage this (a distinguished economist friend tells me) by doing “some extreme economic backflips” to reach the required answer, overlooking the boom in service exports, assuming that non-white immigrants make negligible economic contributions, and saying nothing about net zero and energy costs.

Just as negative are most of our official establishment, including those now-notorious weeping diplomats. The philosopher John Gray suggested unkindly that Brexit required “hard work and new thinking, a prospect our ruling elites would rather avoid”. A large part of the public, who were scared by Project Fear in 2016, are having their fears kept alive by the stream of pessimism produced by think tanks (often EU funded) and corporations, and eagerly propagated by parts of the media and politicians.

Add to that disillusioned Brexit voters. This group is eagerly highlighted by Rejoiners. To be frank, I am part of it. This is not because I (and I believe many others) think that leaving the EU was a bad idea, but because we are very unhappy with what has happened since. I hoped that freedom from the EU consensus would permit a proper infrastructure policy, with serious support for modular nuclear power. Instead, we wasted billions on HS2 and have some of the dearest energy in the world.

I hoped that reducing free movement from the EU would lead to a re-valuing of workers, an intense effort to improve education and training, and consequently a rise in productivity and wages. Instead, we have large parts of the workforce who have dropped out of the labour market, ceaseless importation of cheap labour, and British students crowded out by fee-paying Chinese. Excessive immigration boosts anaemic GDP figures, but it can lower wealth per head, making us on average poorer, as well as creating pressure on public services, housing and – as we have realised with a shock in recent months – undermining national unity.

Nevertheless, nothing of this is a consequence of Brexit, and would not be remedied by being in the EU. And this is where I remain puzzled. Even back in the days when we still debated Brexit rationally – when it seemed to be about trade flows, financial policy and sovereignty – some of us Brexiteers were surprised by how little Remainers seemed to know about the EU. Perhaps many Europhiles view Europe essentially as an agreeable holiday destination. As the former Conservative home secretary Amber Rudd has told us, “Some of my fellow passengers, in this hot slow queue, have convinced me that the sovereignty prize is underwhelming.” What price democracy when pina colada beckons!

A recent academic monograph provides a clue. Adam Fagan and Stijn van Kessel find that Remainers were anti-brexit rather than pro-eu. They had no future vision of the EU, and no response to criticisms of its economic problems or lack of democratic accountability. “Remain” is essentially dislike of Boris and Nigel and all Brexit is supposed to stand for – above all the independent nation state (“nostalgic”, “colonialist” and so on). The economist Sir Paul Collier observes that all across the EU “well educated metropolitans … have gradually peeled off from shared national identity” and the obligations that brings towards less well-off fellow citizens.

So Brexit has become another front in our culture wars, another dialogue of the deaf, another dispute about the kind of country and people we are and wish to be. The question is ever clearer. The answer is still uncertain.

Brexit required hard work and new thinking – a prospect our ruling elites would rather avoid