‘Liberals’ must learn the lesson of freedom
The great paradox of political discourse since our referendum on June 23 – and one of which we are more sharply aware since Americans had the effrontery to elect Donald Trump – is that, we are told, both events offend against “liberalism” – for which, of course, we should be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves. Yet two things we associate with being “liberal” – democracy and freedom of speech – are under direct assault from selfdefined “liberals” outraged that their world view has been challenged and supplanted by electorates in Britain and America.
Insufficiently noted is that many leading this charge either draw EU pensions, whose continued payment is dependent upon their supporting the corrupt and anti-democratic institution, or have jobs and lifestyles threatened by this change in the old order. It is all reminiscent of the whining of the apparat at the end of the Soviet Union.
Some “liberals” believe in democracy so deeply that they call for a second referendum to overturn Brexit: their cheerleader is Tony Blair, whose stunning lack of popularity will serve his cause well. Also questioning the decision is another former prime minister, Sir John Major, whose grasp of political reality was such that he led his party to landslide defeat, ensuring it was 18 years before it could form another majority government. The constant sneering by “liberals” that everyone who voted for Brexit or Mr Trump was uneducated, racist or in need of psychiatric help intimidates those exercising freedom of speech. It provides plenty of evidence to those struggling to see the smug, selfinterested and patronising attitudes that caused these two peasants’ revolts. I forbear to deploy cliché, but the “liberals” just don’t get it.
Mrs May must hold her nerve. The derision that Guy Verhofstadt, an EU negotiator and former Belgian prime minister, and Manfred Weber, who leads the centre-Right EPP group in the European parliament, directed at David Davis, the Brexit minister, in Brussels last week was a blatant attempt at intimidation. Mr Davis did not respond, quite rightly. He knows the EU is in an existentialist crisis – one that will become worse without further help from Britain – and must bully a country trying to leave, to deter others from emulating them. As a profoundly anti-democratic institution, the EU’s determination to ignore Britain’s democratic decision is no surprise. What perhaps should be is that many “liberals” condone this Soviet-style behaviour.
On one point of conduct, however, the EU is right. It is important for our national reputation that we handle these negotiations with civility and diplomatic propriety, as Mr Davis is doing. The sarcasm of Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, about how, for example, the Italians will want a deal with us so we can still buy their prosecco, is unfortunate. It is precisely because there is much truth in his remark that the point should be made rationally, not as a jibe. Poking our hypocritical or bullying partners in the ribs is a job for journalists, not cabinet ministers. Taunts damage our credibility in a context where we hold a strong hand.
At home, however, the Government faces another problem. Its desire to execute the will of the people is becoming subject to widespread obstruction by civil servants, who with certain distinguished exceptions are as a caste entirely opposed to Brexit – partly a consequence of the way in which Mr Blair ruthlessly politicised this once-great institution. The anti-democratic blathering of failed former politicians can be safely ignored: but if officials are committed to finding ways to exercise their contorted idea of “liberalism” by looking for reasons to block the exit process, then the Government will have to take firm and swift measures.
The main obstruction put up by the Civil Service is that untangling ourselves from 43 years of EU laws and regulations will be a nearimpossible task, and could take years. It won’t. As a former minister pointed out to me last week, we simply need to follow the example of India, when it achieved independence in 1947. India incorporated all British imperial statutes into law and then proceeded, at its leisure, to remove measures it either didn’t need or didn’t like. Such a programme has already been discussed at Westminster and it is eminently sensible: choosing our laws is the whole point of Britain’s independence from the EU, just as India’s ability to shape its own destiny was the point of its long campaign to become independent from Britain.
The main focus of EU obstruction and bullying is about access to the internal market, which it makes conditional on free movement of people. Here, especially, Mr Davis and Mrs May must not be browbeaten. The British people voted for Brexit not least because they wished to control immigration. We are not antiimmigrant: we just, like other “liberal” countries including Barack Obama’s America, want to be able to choose whom we allow in. If the price of exercising that right is losing access to the internal market, so be it. We remain a nation committed to free trade; the rest of the world, including vast markets in America, India and China, appear to be very happy to trade; we must take our chances, and without cause for pessimism.
On Friday Joseph Muscat, the Maltese prime minister, joined in the bullying by saying the EU was not bluffing in insisting there would be no access to the internal market without freedom of movement. I wonder how that went down in the boardrooms of the car factories of Munich and Stuttgart, or even, as the Foreign Secretary would have it, the prosecco vineyards of Treviso? Our strongest hand is our £70 billion trade deficit with the EU. Perhaps when the hysterical “liberals” calm down there can be a rational discussion. Brexit may be the end of the world for a few of them, but for millions of others it remains a new beginning.
The will of the people is being obstructed by a Civil Service politicised by Blair