It’s a month to R Day. The most momentous
date in the British political calendar since 1975. The date that will decide
whether Boris Johnson’s all-in gamble pays off and we get a different Old
Etonian as Prime Minister. The date that will decide whether there will be
another vote for Scotland to leave the UK. The date that will bring out the very
worst in modern journalism. And we might just decide whether to leave the
European Union or stay in for another forty years.
I was 18 in 1975. The referendum that year
was the second time I had voted in a national ballot – the first being the autumn
re-run of the previous year’s general election. I voted for staying in, along with
two thirds of the people who cast their ballots that day and the rest is
history. At that time I had “been abroad” only four times, twice to Spain and
twice to West Germany. All of them on school trips. My actual experience of the
rest of the Common Market, as we knew it then, was minimal but already I knew
that I liked the idea of having a wider horizon than these off-shore islands
could offer.
The intervening forty years have been
interesting to say the least. I grew up in the days of the cold war and the Iron
Curtain. Fifteen years after that referendum the Iron Curtain rusted away. A
world order that seemed set in stone proved to be as ephemeral as any that had
gone before and the European Community, as it was by then, found that its scope
had been more or less doubled. Expansion duly happened and to nobody’s surprise
the countries joining from the east were somewhat less developed than those
that had received Marshall Plan aid in the post-war period. This led to
imbalances in both financial and human capital within the expanded community. The
rebalancing, which is still going on, has led to a certain amount of tension
and opened the door for countries like the UK to rethink their commitment to
the European Union. Which brings us to the forthcoming referendum, and the
shouting match that passes for debate which is dominating the airwaves and
press today.
When I look at the antics of both the Leave
and Remain campaigns I am immediately put in mind of the dying Mercutio in Romeo
and Juliet as he calls down “A plague on both your houses!”. It appears that
there is no possibility whatsoever of rational debate and the political
heavy-hitters on both sides have resorted to appeals to base emotion and fear -
not to augment their arguments, but in place of having any. On the one hand
Johnson, Farrage, Duncan-Smith and the rest are pandering to the worst ugly, myopic,
little-Englander mind set exemplified by the Daily Mail and other elements of
the gutter press. Sadly the so-called opposing arguments are nothing of the
kind. Cameron and Osborne are basically making the same points but claiming
that their vision is better because we aren’t really full members of this
odious institution. We can still keep Johnny Foreigner out because we didn’t
sign up to Schengen and we don’t need to offer solidarity to our southern
European partners because we never joined the Euro.
The economic arguments proposed are more or
less vacuous. Will house prices rise or fall as a result of a vote this way or
that? Will jobs be created or destroyed? Will the currency fall? Frankly the case
on both sides is weak. Economic theory is barely better than examining entrails
as a means of predicting the future, and when the models in use are predicated
on pre-existing beliefs it is probably worse. For what it is worth I am
unconvinced that there will be any substantial economic difference to the lives
of most British people whatever decision is taken next month.
So, if the economic arguments are at best
suspect and the leaders of both campaigns somewhat (or extremely, take your
pick) odious how then to decide which way to vote?
For me it is simple. The question is
whether my horizon is large or small. Whether I want to belong to a small
community living in fear behind its secured borders or be part of something
bigger and broader with a richer culture. Whether I am content to see
Westminster and Whitehall govern every aspect of my life or whether I want to
see decisions taken at an appropriate level. We don’t need Whitehall Mandarins
to decide how much my local authority can spend on children’s services or
street lighting, but equally no national government on its own can take
meaningful action on climate change, the refugee crisis or the framework for
global trade. Above all the seventy years since the end of World War Two have
seen the longest period without a war between European nations since the nation
state was invented in the Treaty of Westphalia. The European Union as currently
constituted is far from perfect (really, really far from perfect) but in my
view it offers a more positive and hopeful path to the future than a collection
of 28 squabbling, and occasionally warring, nation states. The simple fact of
its people having the freedom to live, work and contribute to society anywhere
from Galway Bay to the Black Sea seems to me to be most important political achievement
of the last hundred years.
So, just as in 1975, I am going to vote to
Remain on June 23rd. I hope that my fellow citizens will decide to
do the same. Not because their own economic prospects will be better or worse
as a result but because they are able to see beyond the fear mongering and lies
and take a view of how the world might yet be a better place for our children
than it was for our parents.
