Europe

Where Is The Serious Christian Case For Remaining In The European Union?

Samuel Hooper9 Comments

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Friendship, cooperation and overblown claims about the EU keeping the peace in Europe do not amount to robust Christian arguments for staying shackled to the European Union

When the Church of England-sponsored Reimagining Europe blog launched last year, I was vaguely hopeful that it might lead to some fruitful discussion about the real Christian case for or against Brexit. Not just the kind of woolly left-wing platitudes which many bishops excel at delivering, but a real granular theological case for why Britain should either remain in the European Union or vote Leave to regain our independence.

Fast forward seven months and the promise of Reimagining Europe remains largely unfulfilled. The only really decent arguments have been those guest posts from Adrian Hilton of the Archbishop Cranmer blog, which have effectively demolished the laziest of the Christian cases for staying in the EU. There have been a few other decent commentaries and a large number of hand-wringing prevarications, but as far as I can tell not one unambiguously argued Christian case for Remain.

This recent blog entry by Guy Brandon is typical of the output in this regard:

At the same time, placing national identity above our identity in Christ should raise a warning flag. Our own legal system might be underpinned by biblical foundations and Christian heritage, but it is not God-given. Sovereignty should not be absolutised, whether the issue is approached from a practical or spiritual direction.

The question mirrors, on the national scale, our view of our own personal autonomy. To what extent do we see ourselves as the architects of our own destiny? We all make personal compromises in the interests of living together. As Freud remarked, ‘civilisation is built on the renunciation of instinct’. For the Christian, there is the added dimension that we have been purchased by Christ’s death (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) and are free – not to do anything we choose, but to ‘serve one another in love’ (Galatians 5:13-15)

So, should we give up a degree of national autonomy in the interests of the common good? As ever, the question is not cut-and-dried. There may be benefits we enjoy, such as guarantees around freedom of religion, which we would no longer have if we withdrew from the EU. Christians might contemplate the risks of withdrawing from such protections, as well as the attractions of being masters of our own destiny.

Immediately there are red flags that this is not a serious analysis, or even reflection.

For a start, the author takes it as a given that the European Union is the “common good”, against which national autonomy is perpetually placed in opposition. But why the European Union (with its dogmatic insistence on representing 28 countries with a single voice of compromise) is in the common good is never explained – and not just in this piece. Over and over again in Christian ruminations on the European Union, the most fundamental europhile assumptions are accepted as Gospel. Of course the European Union represents the common good.

Then we get the old workhorse about the EU guaranteeing freedom of religion, which is problematic in a number of ways. Firstly, it is profoundly antidemocratic in claiming that the British people should have rights imposed on them by others. Of course we should all have freedom of (and from) religion, but we the British people should establish and maintain this right for ourselves – ideally through a written constitution.

The same goes for workers’ rights, which are forever held up by the Remain camp as a scaremongering warning that if we leave the EU, it will be back to seven day working weeks and young children going up the chimneys to earn their keep. Why are so many self-professed Christians so happy for our most fundamental rights to be imposed on us from above, rather than arising organically as the democratic expression of our own hearts and minds?

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The Catholic Herald’s recent review of church attitudes toward the EU also reveals an excess of woolly thinking at the top:

Cardinal Nichols is also fervently pro-EU, but his support for it has a less Roman flavour. He is, as I remember from his days as general secretary of the Bishops’ Conference, a man who works through committees and relishes bureaucratic procedure.

His politics bear the stamp of his Liverpudlian upbringing. He favours public expenditure over private enterprise; his speeches employ the vocabulary of the state sector. It’s hard to think of a bishop less in sympathy with Eton-educated Catholic Tory Brexiteers such as Charles Moore and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

The Nichols philosophy embraces the dirigism of Brussels; in this he is typical of the moderate British Left, which changed its mind about the Common Market after Jacques Delors persuaded it that Europe was an indispensable ally against “free-market fundamentalism”.

One suspects that Cardinal Nichols would admire the modus operandi of the European Union even if it had no association with the Church. The same could be said of many bishops of England and Wales.

This instinct to remain in the EU is borne out of fear of change and bureaucratic preference, which are understandable human emotions but about as far as one can get from being sound justification for continuing with the current mode of supranational European government.

As this blog recently concluded:

As a Catholic eurosceptic, it is frustrating to witness so many fellow Christians accepting the pro-EU, pro-Remain position almost by default, without actually engaging their brains or making considered reference to their faith. I’m no theologian myself, but I’ve read my Bible and I know that the New Testament offers little by way of clear instruction or even guidance as to how any entities larger than individuals and faith groups should organise or govern themselves, while much of the Old Testament reads as a “how not to do statecraft” manual.

If we restrict ourselves then to the teachings of Jesus, from where do Christian EU apologists draw their inspiration? The EU is not a democratic entity, nor is it likely to become one any time soon. What is so Christian about defending an organisation which insulates a continent’s leaders from the practical and political consequences of their rule? What is so Christian about sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears and loudly repeating the mantra “the EU is about peace and cooperation, the EU is about peace and cooperation”, while ignoring the known history of European political union and disregarding the fact that fruitful inter-governmental cooperation could take place just as well outside the EU’s supra-national structure?

[..]

Regrettably, I have come to the conclusion that much of the Christian case for Remain rests either on a lazy “agree with the Left by default” mindset, or the desire to virtue-signal generally “progressive” values across the board. I will be happy to be proven wrong, and to be presented with a serious Christian case for the EU based on the argument that staying part of a supranational political union unreplicated in any other part of the world is 1) what Jesus would do, or 2) what is best for Christians in Europe. But I’m not holding out much hope.

And if that’s what this is really about – cheering on the EU because it signals that one holds the “correct” progressive opinions in other areas – then they picked a really lousy time to do it. Our politics is suffering a crisis of legitimacy, and yet many in the Church have taken the decision to cheer on the one entity which best represents the interests of a narrow European elite overriding the interests of ordinary people.

In short, I have yet to see a Christian case for Remain that consists of anything other than woolly, tenuous and unsubstantiated assertions that the EU equals being friendly and co-operating with our neighbours (which, unlike the countries of every other continent in the world, can for some reason only be accomplished in Europe through a supra-national government), and that if we vote to Leave we will essentially be voting for war and the stripping away of religious freedom.

Well I’m sorry, but that facile level of argument is not good enough. I’m still waiting for serious theologians or senior figures in the Church hierarchy to put forward one good reason why Jesus would favour Britain’s participation in a remote and antidemocratic-by-design government of Europe.

If staying in the EU is so goshdarn godly, let’s hear why, without recourse to the fluffy, prevaricating jargon about ecumenism and friendship which Christian EU apologists tend to deploy like chaff to distract us from the paucity of their argument. And let them explain too why they are so desperate for continued political union in Europe, yet utterly blasé about the fact that Asia, Australasia and the Americas get by just fine without such a union.

There is a fight for self-determination and democracy underway right now, and far too many voices within the church are coming down on entirely the wrong side. Those who stay silent or openly advocate for Remain will justifiably find themselves on the hook and personally implicated in every future crisis which befalls the EU, and will bear some responsibility for each incremental unit of economic and political suffering experienced by Britain as a continent glued together by unwanted, inflexible political union slowly begins to rip itself apart.

The clock is ticking, and there is little time left for Christian Remainers to defend or amend their position before they go on to face the judgement of history.

 

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Remain Supporters Are In Denial About The Nature And Purpose Of The EU

Samuel Hooper17 Comments

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I’m voting Remain because Puppies For Everyone!!! The denialism and wishful thinking about the European Union’s true purpose and direction of travel exhibited by pro-EU left-wingers is off the charts

The Great Disappointment of the eurosceptic Left, Owen Jones, has popped up with a new contribution to the EU referendum debate in the form of the picture shown above, being widely shared on social media (albeit sometimes in cheekily photoshopped format with the message changed).

While this blog does not usually bother commenting on internet memes, this one is noteworthy because it simultaneously

  1. Sums up the entire basis of left-wing EU apologetics, and
  2. Reveals just how flimsy is that argument

The sign held up by Owen Jones proclaims:

“I’M VOTING REMAIN BECAUSE… I want to unite with people across the continent to build a democratic, workers Europe”

And I want to own a unicorn that shoots fruit based candy out of its ass and grants me three wishes a day, but sadly that is not on offer from the EU, just like the “workers’ paradise” lusted after by Owen Jones isn’t on the menu from Brussels either.

This referendum is serious business. So can Remainers please stop projecting whatever they desperately wish the EU to be onto an organisation which has never really been about friendly trade and cooperation, but is actually all about slowly and inexorably becoming a supranational government of Europe. And which is not going to abandon that long-held goal just because the British are now expressing a few doubts.

I’ve read the history of the EU. I strongly advise others to do the same. And if they still want to Remain, having understood the true nature of the grand projet, they should at least have the decency to admit out loud precisely what it is that they know they are committing us to.

 

For those interested in that history, here is a good starting point.

 

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Brexit For Grown Ups

Samuel Hooper5 Comments

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Eurosceptic but tempted to vote Remain because of the Boris Johnson / Faragist circus that is the official Leave campaign? There is a better Brexit campaign out there, and they have a comprehensive plan for safely leaving the European Union which does not rely on trumped up statistics or school playground insults

Are you a eurosceptic or undecided voter who is instinctively sceptical of the European Union, but put off by the bombast and rank amateurism of the official Leave campaign?

Perhaps you sense that there must be a better campaign out there somewhere, that the well worn record of Nigel Farage and the ranting of Boris Johnson – a man who had not even decided which side he was on until a couple of months ago – cannot possibly make then the best ambassadors for Brexit.

Perhaps you appreciate that most of us already know and understand the reasons why the EU is bad, and that what matters now is convincing a majority of our fellow citizens that there is a safe and non-disruptive way to leave the political construct of the EU while maintaining, even enhancing, our status as a global trading nation.

If this describes you, then you may get value out of this excellent TED-style talk by Dr. Richard North of the eureferendum.com blog. The video comes from a recent meeting of The Leave Alliance at the Royal Overseas League in London, and is a great visual exposition of the comprehensive plan for leaving the European Union known as Flexcit or the Market Solution.

Read The Market Solution pamphlet here.

Read Flexcit (the full-length plan) here.

It is vital for people to understand that the coming EU referendum is not like a general election, or even a by-election. We are not voting to elect the Vote Leave Party – thank heavens. That means that although Vote Leave often say some fantastical and frustrating things, and continue to spout statistics which don’t withstand the slightest scrutiny and end up helping the other side, fortunately it doesn’t matter because Vote Leave will not be in charge of the secession negotiations with the EU.

The idiots in Vote Leave do not speak for the whole Brexit movement, and their half baked plans for leaving (such as they exist) do not represent the political realities. In reality – when you take into account the inherent caution of the civil service and the composition of the Westminster parliament which would have to deal with a Brexit vote (more than 50% Remainers) – Britain would inevitably take the path of least resistance and exit to an off-the-shelf EFTA/EEA model (or a shadow version of the same) as a stepping stone, maintaining single market access but giving Britain the right of reservation, an emergency brake on immigration (like the one David Cameron failed to win) and a full seat on all world bodies once again.

This is why Remainers are desperate to falsely discount the EFTA/EEA model as something that Brexiteers either do not want or which would mysteriously be denied us – for it annihilates at a stroke every last one of their doom-laden warnings about economic apocalypse in the event of Brexit, while freeing us from the explicitly political union which they seem to love but dare not publicly say so. Adopting Flexcit (the Market Solution) leaves the Remain campaign with literally nothing besides their fear of change and love of having a supranational government increasingly do the hard work of governing.

For in truth, there is no cooperation between European countries which cannot flourish just as well – and often much better – outside the EU’s explicitly political, integrationist structure. Be it defence, international aid or the environment, inter-governmental cooperation can be far more effective than running everything through a set of institutions in Brussels which were designed not to foster effective governance, but to gradually sideline and undermine the various member states, creating immense resistance and resentment along the way.

If one reads the history of the EU, one quickly realises that the founding fathers never troubled to hide their intent, or the fact that two world wars made them see the nation state as the root of all evil, and the EU’s supranational government as the “cure”. This is not a conspiracy theory – you can read it in their own words. To think that Britain can stay in the club and not be swept along to the final destination is denialist fantasy.

As for staying “globally relevant”, this blog and my fellow writers in arms ceaselessly point out that most EU trade rules are actually set by global bodies like UNECE, Codex Alimentarius, the IMO and other organisations. The EU often does not come up with these rules and regulations, but merely passes them along to the member states, sometimes with unwelcome EU gold plating and tweaks which actually act as an impediment to global trade. The EU is certainly no longer the “top table,” as Remainers love to claim.

That is the future of trade and globalisation – global regulation. Being in the EU means that Britain surrenders our seat or vote on these bodies, must fight to be just one of 28 countries contributing to a common EU position, and has no right of reservation to say no to those regulations which could harm key industries or our national interest. Perversely, sometimes the EU, claiming competency and controlling the British vote, wields that vote against us in these global bodies. Brexit means we can rejoin the global regulatory environment as a full and active player, while remaining in the EU is quite literally giving up and conceding that Britain no longer has the ability or the will to govern ourselves.

But worst of all, voting to Remain because of understandable disillusionment with the mainstream Vote Leave campaign will doom us – quite unnecessarily – to a dismal future lived cowering behind the EU’s skirts while the opportunity to build a genuinely global trading and regulatory framework passes us by.

And for what? Nothing more than the pointless pursuit of a dusty, mid 20th century blueprint for a united Europe, dreamed up by old men scarred by the memory of two world wars and already out of date, long before it is fully realised.

Europe has moved on since VE day. And euroscepticism has moved on since the 1990s. Wanting Britain to leave the EU does not mean throwing your lot in with Nigel Farage, UKIP, Boris Johnson or anyone else, if you do not wish to do so. There is another way. There is a better Brexit campaign out there.

Take 30 minutes of your time to be an engaged citizen, and watch the video.

Then come join us.

 

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Stronger Together? The Mighty European Union Is Dancing To The Tune Of A Petty, Minor League Tyrant

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Greeting between Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on the left, and Jean-Claude Juncker

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The unedifying sight of European leaders falling over themselves to flatter and persuade the two-bit despot of Turkey to help solve a problem largely of their own making is damning proof that EU member states are definitively NOT stronger together

The most common refrain heard from Remainers and assorted EU apologists is that by pooling (read: surrendering) sovereignty with 27 other nations, we are “stronger together” and mysteriously greater than the sum of our collective parts – that something magical happens when Ireland, Britain, Slovakia and Croatia act through a supranational government based in Brussels which (for reasons they never explain) could not be achieved through friendly inter-governmental cooperation between sovereign countries.

This tiresome and unsupported claim is fatuous beyond words, and usually uttered by people who don’t understand the first thing about either the history of the European Union or how it operates, but who nonetheless cheer on the idea of European political integration in order to virtue-signal the fact that they hold the “correct” progressive  opinions to their equally vapid friends and peers.

And if you want proof that being part of a remorselessly politically integrating club of 28 diverse countries actually makes us the very opposite of “stronger together”, one need only look at how the European Union is being hoodwinked and bullied by that beady-eyed, egotistical, embryonic dictator from Turkey, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Douglas Murray writes in the Spectator:

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, has persuaded the EU to grant visa-free travel to his 75 million countrymen inside Europe’s passport-free Schengen area. In so doing, he has made more progress than any of his predecessors. Using a combination of intimidation, threats and blackmail, he has succeeded in opening wide the doors of Europe.

Erdogan’s success matters, because it says much about the EU — and the idea that it exerts ‘soft power’. This was the theory in 1999 when the EU declared Turkey to be ‘a candidate State, destined to join the Union’ so long as it fulfilled the standard criteria for membership. Its state should have ‘achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities’.

And it was all going so swimmingly. Oh, wait:

As Erdogan has worked out, however much Turkey fails to live up to the EU’s expectations, the EU’s attitude to Turkey is ‘ever onwards’. Its 2013 ‘Visa Liberalisation Dialogue’ set out 72 conditions on security, migration, public order, fundamental rights and readmission of irregular migrants that Turkey needed to achieve. Despite failing them, in November last year the EU and Turkey agreed that visa-free travel should start this October. All the time Turkey demanded more and faster.

As well they could. Because last year — after the German Chancellor opened the borders of Europe to anyone who could get here — the tables turned. Persuaded that every problem in the Middle East, Far East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa was Europe’s fault and Europe’s responsibility, millions duly came. And will again. Today, even the European Commission and Frau Merkel realise that in order to avert political catastrophe in Europe, they must bring the number of entrants down. Suddenly, as Erdogan himself said, ‘The European Union needs Turkey more than Turkey needs the European Union.’

So this is the European Union’s much-vaunted “soft power”. This is how forcing 28 separate countries – incidentally, countries which often lavish money on social programmes but completely neglect their own security and defence – to act through a single supranational government actually works in practice. How other nations must tremble when Europe speaks.

The supposed soft power of Brussels is supposed to be European political union’s chief advantage and a key foundation of the Remain campaign’s case for staying in the EU, yet on the most important of issues it is virtually non-existent, a paper tiger. Turkey’s president openly mocks and belittles EU leaders to their faces, even as they roll out the red carpet and treat him “like a prince” (in the word’s of the European Commission’s own pandering  President Juncker).

But as Tom Slater correctly points out in Spiked, the real fault is not with Turkey and Erdogan, thin-skinned, authoritarian despot though he is. The problem is with Europe and its profound crisis of values:

As for the migrant deal, it was EU incompetence that ceded Erdogan all of his leverage in the first place. Having chosen to ignore the fact that it had long lost control of its southern borders – not least because of some of its members’ cack-handed crusades in the Middle East and North Africa – the EU’s response to the refugee crisis was chaotic and can-kicking. The EU elite’s attempt to enforce migrant quotas on member states was a typically anti-democratic move. But it couldn’t even pull that off. The EU is as inept as it is tyrannical, meaning cutting a deal with Turkey became the only option.

The ground-shaking power of Turkey is the fantasy of a continent that doesn’t know what it is anymore. The more Europe drifts from its founding values, the more EU elites struggle to execute anything other than a photo-op, the more Erdogan, the ‘tall man’ of Ankara, grows in stature. Bashing Turkey can only distract us from this profound crisis.

But how can this be? How did this “profound crisis” come about? Forcing 28 separate countries under the suffocating umbrella of one supranational government with one collective presence on the world stage was supposed to amplify our voice. Hell, the EU’s most starry-eyed lovers even dream of Brussels rivalling and eventually supplanting the United States as the most consequential actor in world affairs. And yet here we are, failing in our negotiations with a pathetic little tin-pot dictator, throwing away billions of taxpayer euros in the hope of the slightest concession from Turkey, while the eurocrats are bested and humiliated at every turn.

This is what happens when the EU tries to prance around on the world stage as though it were a legitimate country, despite not having the one thing most fundamental to any nation state – a cohesive demos, a people with a shared European identity, let alone common interests. This is what happens when the conflicting priorities, fears, red lines and neuroses of 28 separate countries are forcibly mashed together – the result is a laughable compromise backed with the weakest of wills, easily picked apart by a half-competent negotiator.

Erdogan isn’t stupid. He knows that having eliminated internal borders, the EU’s Schengen area countries are desperate to stop the immigration crisis at (or at least near) source, and that consequently he holds all of the cards. Erdogan knows that the EU is hopelessly divided, with German chancellor Angela Merkel having made the grandiose and criminally irresponsible gesture of welcoming anybody with the means to enter Europe – seeking to expunge Germany’s past national guilt in a single stroke, knowing that hundreds of thousands more would be encouraged to come while other countries would end up footing much of the bill.

A Europe that was not intent on forcing itself against common sense and natural law to become a single political entity might be able to deal with the Syrian (and broader) refugee and economic migration crisis in a rational, productive way. A Europe based on inter-governmental cooperation rather than supra-national control might be able to hammer out a deal to accept more genuine refugees, share them equitably, take only the brightest and best of the economic migrants, and offer real assistance and solidarity to countries like Greece and Italy which bear the brunt of the crisis. But this is not the Europe we have. Once again, the stubborn desire for European political union is actively killing people.

So let’s hear it again from the Remainers and desperate EU apologists. Let them continue to lecture us about how the European Union “amplifies our voice” and enables us to “punch above our weight“. Let them tell us how Europe’s representative on the world stage, former Young Communist Federica Mogherini, is universally feared and respected, the modern day hybrid of Charlemagne and Henry Kissinger.

Let them continue to peddle the preposterous myth that little old France, Germany and Britain – two of them nuclear powers, and the other the world’s fourth largest economy – are helpless on their own and only worthy of sitting across the table from the mighty President Erdogan to seek his favour because they cower behind the EU’s skirts.

Let them tell us again how being in the European Union gives us the diplomatic clout that countries like Australia, Canada, Japan, India and Russia so effortlessly wield every day, but which pathetic little Britain would struggle to replicate on our own.

Go on. Tell us. Read the latest account of hundreds of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean Sea and tell us again just how star-spangled awesome the European Union is, and how successfully it helps us grapple with the most pressing challenges in today’s world.

Seriously. I’m all ears.

 

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Gibraltar Brexit Fears Are False, But Remainers Are Right: Our Foreign Policy Clout Has Atrophied Within The EU

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

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The government’s case for remaining in the European Union is based on an unedifying, unpatriotic and false misrepresentation of Britain’s supposed weakness and vulnerability as an independent country. But there is a small, disturbing element of truth to the Foreign Office’s scaremongering claims

One theme which has emerged consistently throughout the EU referendum debate is the degree to which the British government’s ability to conduct an independent economic, trade and foreign policy has atrophied through over-reliance on the European Union to manage our affairs.

This is primarily seen in the debate on trade – the future lies with the slowly emerging and hugely promising global single market, but on this most critical of issues, Britain has simply outsourced our own decision-making ability by vesting it in the EU.

To prosper in this globalised world, Britain should be exercising our full influence on key global bodies such as UNECE, Codex Alimentarius, the ILO, IMO and others, but since we allow the European Union to speak for us and interpret rules made by these bodies on our behalf, Britain’s ability to argue our own national interest has gradually withered through lack of practice.

We see the same corrosive forces at work in foreign policy. Nearly every pro-Remain intervention made by the hapless Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, has served to reveal not only his own incompetence in the role, but also the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s growing inability to robustly defend British interests outside the context of being an EU member state.

The latest example:

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has angered Brexit campaigners by claiming a vote to leave the European Union would put British sovereignty over Gibraltar at risk.

His shocking comments came in a joint warning with Gibraltar’s chief minister today, which has led to accusations of scaremongering from the out campaign.

The Rock’s Fabian Picardo even said the prospect of Spain wrestling back at least partial control of the Mediterranean island would be “back on the table” if the UK opts to leave the Brussels union next month.

His stark warning risks being seen as another example of the pro-EU camp’s Project Fear and comes as Mr Hammond visits Gibraltar to discuss security threats to the British Overseas Territory.

On his first official visit to the Rock since taking up the post in 2014, the Foreign Secretary said: “I genuinely believe that the threat of leaving the European Union is as big a threat to Gibraltar’s future security and Gibraltar’s future sovereignty as the more traditional threats that we routinely talk about.”

As is always the case with those on the Remain side, Hammond speaks as though Britain is entirely without agency, a passive blob to be moulded and shaped by outside forces rather than a powerful global player in our own right.

And yet there is some truth in Hammond’s pessimism. Having acted primarily through the European Union for so long, and with the EU’s Federica Mogherini a better known voice on the world stage than our own Foreign Secretary, it could almost be the case that Britain’s ability to wield our clout and influence on the world stage has atrophied to such an extent that the FCO is genuinely no longer capable of preventing foreign interference with a British Overseas Territory.

This is what the EU does. This is the modus operandi of Brussels – gradually assuming more and more of the day-to-day governing from national governments, until one day, quite unexpectedly, the national layer of government finds that it no longer has the technical capability or willpower to function on its own. But the answer is not to throw our hands up in acceptance of this state of affairs, or play the hopeless part of an insect stuck in a Venus flytrap. The answer is to extricate ourselves, and re-learn those skills and competencies which we shamefully allowed to lapse during our failed flirtation with supra-national government.

Pete North puts it best:

George Osborne has said of Brexit re-negotiations: “If we leave EU, the House of Commons is going to be doing nothing else for many, many years”. He’s right. The government will have to govern. It’s going to take years to undo the damage. We are going to take years rebuilding our domestic expertise and design new policy. The whole Whitehall establishment will have to be re-ordered and redesigned. The Foreign Office will have to get busy doing what they should have been doing for the last forty years.

We are going to have to have serious debates about fisheries management. We are going to have to rethink our rural policy. We are going to have to take a very close look at our energy policy. We will need a serious debate about foreign aid, immigration and trade. We are going to have to rethink the way we do nearly everything. Leaving the EU means rebuilding our capacity for self-government and we will have to muddle through that process, kicking out the failures as we go.

What it does mean is that we are not bound by EU directives and targets which means we are free to innovate in policy making – which means we may actually see some change because ministers are then responsible. The buck stops with them rather than idly shrugging their shoulders and saying “the EU made me do it”.

And furthermore, as this blog pointed out the last time our Foreign Secretary decided to be a spokesperson for Brussels instead of his own country:

If Hammond’s words are to be taken seriously, it means that he has presided over the worst diplomatic failure in recent British history – namely the failure of a declared nuclear power, as well as a leading military, economic and cultural power, to command such respect on the world stage as might survive us leaving a supranational arrangement which we no longer believe works in our favour. Is that really what the Foreign Secretary wants to tell the British people?

Europhiles and Remainers can’t decide whether Brussels is friend or frenemy; whether the other EU member states are dear friends who would be sorry to see us go, or bitter rivals who would seek to punish Britain for rejecting their vision of a politically unified Europe.

Is the European Union a cuddly, benign club of countries coming together to trade peaceably, or a snarling mob waiting to inflict “punishment beatings” and infringe on our sovereign territory if we cross them?

It’s about time that Remainers made up their minds.

 

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