My son this morning asked me: "Who is the queen of Europe?"
I thought for a moment. I thought about this thread and what people say in it, and elsewhere. That British MPs have no jurisdiction in this country anymore, that all our laws our made in Bloody Brussels; that we have no say in how our country is run anymore, and that Europe is barely a democracy at all, and is sliding, inevitably, towards a dictatorship; that our own PM is merely a puppet, with those shadowy, faceless Bloody Bureaucrats pulling his strings.
And so I replied: "There is no queen of Europe. Or king. But the closest thing we have is Donald Tusk."
And then I smiled to myself at the absurdity of it. Because, let's be serious: Donald Tusk is no monarch. He is no more powerful than Cameron inside the UK, or outside it for that matter. The real power in Europe lies with the governments of its members, who we elect.
I should have answered Merkel, she actually is the closest thing to a monarch, or an absolute leader, in Europe, but that is because she is the leader of its largest country, and its strongest economy. But Germany is always going to dominate Europe, we fought two World Wars because of it. And then we decided, actually, rather than fighting wars, maybe we could find a way to cooperate: accept that the Germans will always be the most influential voice in the region, but create institutions where others could also have their say, and allow matters to be negotiated and settled peacefully. It didnt happen overnight but that principle led to a series of decisions that has led us to where we are today.
And I think its done a pretty good job, as imperfect as it is, and as much as it undeniably needs reform. Of course, the voters in one country do not always get to decide their own fate in a vacuum, but that is because no country exists in isolation. If the UK leaves and does whatever it wants, and if others, equally, start acting in their own self interest, with beggar-thy-neighbour policies (no we arent taking any more refugees, they are your problem, not ours / we are going to do this deal with Russia because it is in our interests, regardless of the impact it has on your relations with Russia, etc etc) it is not outside the realms of possibility that the sentiment in Europe is going to turn from the relatively cordial one we see today to a rather more adversarial one. I am not suggesting war in Europe will follow, but it could. More likely would be trade wars and belligerence, ever more of those beggar thy neighbour policies and a worsening economic outlook across the region.
I think people who want full sovereignty back for the UK are chasing an illusion. Of course we can repatriate certain powers for our (gimptard) politicians, but the real power lies with multinational corporations and one or two superpowers - the US and to an increasing extent, China. But mostly the corporations, or the market. Globalisation has done that, but the genie is out of the bottle and there is no stuffing it back in now. It isnt just the free movement of capital and labour, it is Twitter, it is kids going on gap years and travelling around the world. You cant look at things from a purely national perspective anymore because it misses the big picture, it is a cliche but no less true for it: the problems the world faces today are global, not national, be it climate change, terrorism or immigration. Pooled sovereignty makes sense when facing those challenges.
So yes, we should be putting pressure on Europe to reform itself, and maybe there is an argument to be made that there has been some overreach and some powers should be repatriated, but but we should be making that case that from the inside. Overall I am satisfied that we have done better inside Europe than we would have done outside it, though of course that is unprovable and others will feel the opposite is true. And I certainly feel that we need to keep working together with our neighbours - and hopefully more effectively than we have managed in the past. Because as I said, even if we stop working with them, we still wont be masters of our own destiny, the real power will still reside with the corporations, and its going to take more than a referendum to wrestle it back from them.
