When Europe rejected the nation state it also rejected democracy

Events of the 20th century imperilled one of the most progressive developments in human history

Last week, Theresa May travelled to France and Belgium to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of one of Europe’s greatest tragedies. This week, she will try to help bury one of its greatest achievements. The two events are directly connected. The First World War and its sequel, the Second, are now unquestioningly accepted as the inevitable consequence of nationalism: the nation state, with all its attendant patriotic fervour and delusional grandeur, had become a monstrous force which demanded to be put to rest. The only acceptable political institutions in the post-war era of reconciliation and regret would be international – the deadly contaminations of national pride and historic identity had to be shamed and robbed of their power to inflame the populace. And that volatile populace would be held in check by an enlightened elite who would never, ever permit the passion of the ignorant mob to run amok again.

This is where we are. The democratic nation state with an elected government directly accountable to its own population

– one of the most progressive developments in human history

– has been deemed so dangerous and so discredited by the terrible events of the 20th century, that it must be abolished or, at the very least, rendered powerless. The great 250-year-old experiment in mass enfranchisement was doomed from the moment the Germans, who had believed themselves to be the most cultured and civilised people in the modern world, elected Hitler, and France – founder of the Enlightenment – chose complicity. This is the story of modern Europe which its leaders now tell to its children. So Mrs May will return from the Armistice ceremony with all its horrific memories, and persuade first her Cabinet, and then her party, that there is no viable future outside of the pact that effectively gives up – for the indefinite future – Britain’s independent selfgovernance. And they will, for all their conscientious misgivings, almost certainly accept this because the immediate political consequences of not doing so would be unacceptable to almost any prudent politician. As many of us have suspected for a while, the game is over.

In all the mind-numbing detail about trade and regulation, almost nobody is asking the larger questions. One of the fundamental principles of the 18th-century concept of democracy which we all still pretend to revere was that the legitimacy of the law derived from the consent of the people. In practice, this remains true – which is why all those resolutions passed by the UN Security Council amount to so little. International law, it turns out, is largely metaphorical. It is virtually unenforceable unless it has the willing support of nation states whose laws are genuinely supported by the will of their enfranchised populations. In truth, no one actually believes that a ruling made by appointed, not elected, officials counts for much of anything. The acceptance of all those EU Commission diktats is still dependent on the acquiescence of European state governments who can – as Italy is doing at the moment – decide to create havoc by disobeying them.

It is significant that when it comes down to the wire and things get really ugly – as they did with Greece – the muscle of German economic might must move in to call the shots. In the post-Enlightenment world, law that is not passed by consent has no moral force: it is just the exercise of power. At the last count, there were six EU member states which had suspended the Schengen rule, thus actively defying the sacred edict on “free movement of people”. So far as I can tell, nothing very terrible has been done to them because the EU commissars have judged it to be unwise to move against them. In fact, nobody seems to have decided precisely what to do when a member state government collides head-on with EU authority – except to make economic threats which might risk the viability of the entire eurozone.

This is where it ends when you abolish the democratic basis for the enforcement of law: in the raw capacity for dominance, and very careful judgment on its tactical use. Is this how Europe, in its conscientious post-war posturing, wishes to see itself? Is this what all the nonsensical blather about “pooled sovereignty” really means?

Of course there is no military power-mongering any longer. That is well and truly discredited. Now it is the omnipotence of global economic force that is in the ascendancy. The anti-democrats of the EU who would shudder at the idea of honouring militarism appear to have no shame in promoting the kind of fiscal and monetary coercion that paves the way for global domination by a club of Monopoly players. The dismantling of competitive national tax regimes (like Ireland’s low corporation tax) and internal protections is a gift to global multinationals who can run their empires with no accountability to state governments. The new nationalist fervour promoted by populist rabblerousers is ready to exploit the anxieties of local populations over this sense of helplessness: an alliance between Big Corporates and Big Labour looks a lot like a conspiracy to marginalise the individual worker and the ordinary citizen.

So is there any hope for our side of this argument? Frankly, I doubt it, even if a few more ministers join Jo Johnson at the exit. Europe had an existential breakdown after the terrible crimes of the last century. In its desperation, it officially decided to blame the nation state (which is to say, the people) instead of the corrupt governing class.

But even if we have lost, we should be proud. This has been one hell of a fight. We have been privileged to hear some of the greatest speeches and the most eloquent arguments in living memory. The fundamental precepts of our historical institutions have been openly venerated and cherished. After the bitterness and anger have died down, we will look back on this as a golden age of popular political engagement. Strangely enough, even in the midst of the agony and the turmoil, it was glorious.

Those who would shudder at the idea of honouring militarism appear to have no shame in promoting fiscal and monetary coercion