Authoritarian EU is facing deep divisions
One of the biggest delusions among militant Remainers is that the EU is so enlightened, so morally superior to Britain that once the prospect of leaving it becomes more concrete, the British people will want to jump back in. Yet everything that has happened in Europe since the referendum has vindicated the vote for Brexit. The EU leadership has come out for an ever-closer union: Emmanuel Macron talks of a continental army and single asylum agency; Jean-Claude Juncker wants budgetary and tax integration. At the same time – and this is no coincidence – Europe has witnessed a number of national and regional revolts that reject the designs and values of the EU elite.
The elite backs Madrid in its fight with Spain’s Catalan separatists, a confrontation that exposes the anti-democratic authoritarianism that still lies at the heart of many European states – and which is reflected in the EU’s obsession with centralisation and its terror of popular democracy. Mr Juncker, for instance, has said that he hopes Catalonia will not break away because it would encourage other regions to do the same and make governing more complicated. Like an old colonialist drawing lines on a map, he’s only interested in what makes life easier for the bureaucrats in Brussels. But many Europeans are moving in a different direction. Two Italian regions are holding referendums today seeking greater autonomy.
A worrying populism of both Left and Right is on the march. An anti-EU communist is now the effective leader of the opposition in France. Angela Merkel probably wants to give full support to Mr Macron’s integration plan, but she has already been pressurised to back an undoubtedly useless migration cap. Austria has elected a young leader who may ally with a frighteningly resurgent far Right. The Czech elections were complicated by a business leader likened to Donald Trump. The EU cannot possibly reconcile such divisions over immigration and self-government, and as the continent splits and slips to the extremes, so Britain’s decision to walk away looks less like a risk and more like an act of self-preservation by a pragmatic, tolerant and truly democratic country.