Who will protect Nato from the EU Army now?
TRIBALISM has triumphed. The referendum result has split the country in many more ways than one. Indeed, how are we to define the country that the Leave campaign said that it wanted back? What will be left of it, once the consequences of this shattering vote become clear?
Scotland and Northern Ireland have made clear that they wish to remain within the European Union, and in the new mood of self-determination that could leave just England and Wales out in the cold.
How reliable a partner will Wales be? It voted Leave despite being the greatest recipient of EU money in the whole of the UK. What will happen to all the companies subsidised to move there?
Gibraltar has voted Remain, but with Britain voting Leave, the Spanish hope that their flag will replace the Union Jack on the Rock.
Nothing is more revealing than all the paradoxes which have emerged or are about to emerge. Will Nigel Farage have to change his party’s name when the United Kingdom ceases to exist? In this Trump-like revolt against Westminster and Brussels, the low-paid were encouraged to vote Leave, but they are going to be the ones who will suffer most. Trump himself is of course thrilled with the result.
The campaigns which led to the vote consisted mainly of competing slogans about the economy or immigration. (Nothing, by the way, was mentioned about the need to introduce ID cards if you are to control immigration.)
Yet a very dangerous world lies beyond the borders of the EU, whether in the Middle East or Africa, around the South China Sea and of course in the northern Eurasian landmass, dominated by a Russia now rejoicing in the way the vote went. I have already heard from friends in Kiev saying how shaken and alarmed Ukrainians are by the news of Britain’s departure.
Although the Leave campaign tried to invoke the idea of traditional British values, it completely ignored the reality of British history.
EVER since the late 17th Century, we have relied on continental coalitions to oppose the over-mighty oppressor threatening the peace of Europe. Britain alone was never strong enough in manpower to confront a major power alone on land. Our strategy always was to weaken the enemy at sea, through blockade and battle, and only then prepare a decisive battle on land.
This was the reason why Churchill persuaded the Americans to fight first in the Mediterranean before attempting the cross-Channel invasion of Northern Europe.
Ever-conscious of his ancestor, the great Duke of Marlborough, he was determined to build the Grand Alliance. And after the Second World War, Churchill famously observed that the only thing worse than fighting with allies was to fight without allies.
I have never argued that the European project of unification somehow saved the Continent from another world war. That is the EU’s self-indulgent fantasy. Peace depends on good governance. Healthy democracies do not fight each other.
Both peace and unity in Europe were possible, first because the Marshall Plan rescued a destroyed continent from misery, despair and thus Communism, and then a year later Nato began to bring the countries together in a common purpose to resist the Soviet threat. The European project, which developed just after, existed in a generally amicable parallel with Nato.
Nato, also based in Belgium, had a well-constructed chain of command, so few took calls for a European Army seriously.
A symbolic Franco-German brigade was formed in 1989, but recently reduced.
Yet last year, both the President of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and some prominent German politicians began to make heavy hints about the idea of a Euro-Army on the grounds that it would strengthen the EU’s voice over the Ukraine crisis. Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, only a few days before the vote, announced that he was switching sides to vote Leave because of the threat of a European Army. But that could only come about with a unanimous vote and Britain in any case had a veto.
The disastrous irony is that by having chosen to leave we will not be able to halt any attempt in that direction, which will in turn undermine Nato.
The whole situation is even more bizarre when one remembers that in Germany, which would almost certainly be the main contributor to a European Army, only 38 per cent of the population agree to the implementation of Nato’s Article Five to come to the aid of a member state under foreign attack. Presumably the German public would similarly object to the use of a European Army in such circumstances.
And what will happen to the British Army, when it is no longer British? Scottish nationalists have made noises about ‘repatriating’ Scottish regiments.
Whether Scotland can afford a separate military establishment is one question, but Edinburgh would still want a say in its employment and deployment, rather as different EU countries would want a say in any decision involving their forces.
The SNP are also passionately opposed to Trident, so closing Faslane and constructing a new base for the nuclear submarines south of the border could use up a good portion of the great saving we are supposed to receive from leaving the EU.
No British politician will ever again dare to say that we are punching above our weight.
It is not just Britain which has been fragmented. The European Union itself is split right at the top. Jean-Claude Juncker thinks that having Britain out of the way means that the EU can fast forward to a superstate. And German leaders, alarmed to find their country in an even more dominant position as a result, thinks that this is its only option.
On the other hand, the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, has been arguing that ‘naive Euro-enthusiastic visions of total integration’ had meant that the Commission’s leaders had ‘failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe, do not share our Euro-enthusiasm’.
Those from the Leave campaign who grin at the idea of EU disintegration do so at their peril. They should be careful of what they wish for, since any consequent crash of ruin across the Channel will do more than make us catch cold.
AND, as I have said before, we will be the most hated country just when we need to win friends and trade deals. The Pandora’s box of problems, so suddenly opened up, appears limitless. The European Union, doubly angry at the crisis, is in an unforgiving mood.
Brussels now demands the triggering of Article 50 even before anybody in Britain has any idea who will lead the government or the negotiations, let alone what our strategy should be.
Voltaire in Candide joked about the British executing Admiral Byng as an example – ‘ pour encourager les autres’.
This time it will be the French leaders and others desperately wanting to punish Britain as an example to discourage their own and other countries from attempting to follow the same route.