The quote above is one from Jerzy Buzek, who himself was quoting from another European statesman, when he gave a talk about the democratic deficit in Europe last Wednesday at King’s College London. It’s a powerful quote, and perfectly frames the whole argument from Unionists and pro-Europeans like myself, who ultimately recognise what lies at the core of European integration, and what we cannot risk losing on an angry tantrum because things aren’t perfect.

Britain is ultimately and undoubtedly stronger as a part of the Union. Yes, we’ve heard this all before, and you can read the related arguments by politicians from the left and the right, David Cameron and Tim Farron to name two. However Alan Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon and Ken Clarke have all also made these arguments as well. About how our security is at risk if we leave the EU, about how trade could well be reduced, employment, investment, international clout and influence in the affairs of our part of the world and others. You’ve heard all these arguments. And regardless of who is arguing them, and whether in normal times you believe those people or not, they are telling the truth. Because, friends, these are not ‘normal’ times. Britain needs the EU right now more than ever. All European nations do. Refugees of unprecedented numbers arriving on our continent, transnational corporations becoming so big they think they can start setting the rules of the game, unbridled financial capitalism which sends destabilising forces across the global economy, terrorism that is utterly borderless. These are all issues that the small European nation-state, which has survived so long as the bastion of legitimate and effective democracy, cannot now tackle on its own. Just as the Greek city-state one day submitted to the fact that it was unable to shape the events that it was inevitably a part of, the nation-state, especially the small ones of Europe, has to realise, truly, that it is totally outmatched in a race for global influence.

What the eurosceptics fail to see

This article was initially prompted by Boris Johnson’s explanation in The Telegraph as to why he had ultimately opted to campaign for Brexit, when, as Gideon Rachman astutely pointed out in the FT on Monday, the would-be Churchill should have done the exact opposite, and campaigned from a position of international cooperation and ultimately intelligent political insight. To briefly digress, Rachman argued that, based on Johnson’s own writing, the London Mayor had through his own logic done what he believed Churchill would have done, and placed himself on “the right side of history” – basically, he bet that euroscepticism would win, just as Churchill bet that Hitler would lose. Rachman then argued that in fact, to truly keep in tune with his political hero, Johnson really should have chosen to bet on the EU, because not only is this in keeping with Churchill’s international outlook, but also his just as important understanding of the tide of international affairs. Instead, in Johnson’s piece, we get a reiterating of the arguments used by eurosceptics with two major flaws in their reasoning – they are trying to avoid the immigrant question (despite the fact the largest group of eurosceptics in Britain are motivated by this issue) and therefore concoct a series of arguments based on the idea that Britain can succeed much better in all areas if we go it alone, and, directly linked to this, is their intense and painful struggle with the fact that Britain was once a great power and is now not. Just like all Europe’s nation-states, our influence has waned in the world, to the point where individually, if it weren’t for our large part in history, we would very much enter the book of insignificance with regards to global affairs. Two lines from the Mayor’s article will demonstrate the difficult struggle eurosceptics have who don’t want to look small-minded and xenophobic (yet do).

First, “We are the European, if not the world, leaders in so many sectors of the 21st-century economy…Now is the time to spearhead the success of those products and services not just in Europe, but in growth markets beyond”. Now, as has been pointed out by many pro-Europeans, Britain’s strengths in several sectors, whilst undeniable perhaps, are not independent of our place in the EU. First of all, the EU has provided a much larger market for British companies to grow in, both in demand for their products and supply of workers and resources. Second of all, investment, key to successful market economics, relies on the likely pay off of that investment, and the EU has been crucial to both British and foreign investors in their perception that British companies will be successful – because of our connections to Europe, and everything that means. The financial sector in particular, Britain’s token symbol of independence from the continent and economic power, is linked to this argument. Britain’s financial sector has been described by many economists as an effective gateway for financial capital – for American money coming into Europe, and European money going to America. What facilitates this position as the internationally understood leading European financial centre? The fact the City has complete access to European markets, whether they trade in sterling, dollars or euros.

Secondly, I had comment on the next line, for its sheer ridiculousness and inevitability. He had to go there – there’s no way the man could resist: “We used to run the biggest empire the world has ever seen”. Now, granted, Mr Johnson has couched this line in his assertion that Britain knows how to make trade deals and is capable of operating on its own, without EU oversight (though this argument isn’t being made by those who want to Remain, but, never mind I suppose). No, he could have made this point without referring to the British Empire. Isn’t it amazing how we Europeans (or is it just us British?) are still living the the historical shadow of Imperialism; in some strange nostalgia for the apparent glory days, the London Mayor has missed the point once again – we don’t live in those days anymore, where Britain could survive as a major world power independently, living off of its plunder of the third world. Like many Tories, they seem to not realise that once we leave the EU, the Empire won’t be sitting there waiting, preserved as we left it, ready for Britain to assume the helm again. No, Britain, like every other European nation-state, has lost the significance and great power status that it once had. The result is something far more pleasant and productive – we work together now, to maintain our influence in global affairs, and our quality of life as the most developed part of the world. We cannot have achieved this without the cooperation and shared vision to maintain our pre-eminence on the world stage – which now is becoming more and more important – without the shared strength that we have in the European Union. The old world is gone, and there’s no sense in trying to dream it back into life; instead we have common rules and standards that are implemented across our continent, we have nations which have to work together to achieve our aims, and we have the acceptance of diversity.

And this links to my comment about a “major world power”. Because of course the argument could be made that Britain doesn’t need to be at the forefront of global affairs and we can truly all become the “Little England” that eurosceptics really dream of. I mention it because for Britain to have true sovereignty, as all these people constantly demand, we must be able to influence international affairs and make other major powers listen to our demands. To quote the Prime Minister “You have an illusion of sovereignty, but you don’t have power”. Now of course eurosceptics make the argument that Britain doesn’t exactly have influence now, but not only would I attribute that more to Britain’s actions and willingness to step away from European politics, but also would say that they are misguided in their reasoning. Because this is not just about Britain, and certainly not about the British government. Ultimately, the sovereignty of British politicians isn’t what we are fighting for here, it’s the sovereignty of the British people, and the peoples of Europe as a whole. And whilst the EU hasn’t perfectly taken on the burden of making its people sovereign yet, that sovereignty is not under long term threat, whereas our current leaders’ and politicians’ powers are. That’s their real fear – those in power realise that the further along we go, the less they themselves might matter (though this is not guaranteed if they cooperate with others across Europe, as is the point). However, when it comes to the British people’s sovereignty to decide their future, the further we go, the more our voice will have a say in global affairs, deciding the rules and protecting our rights, because together, Europeans still have weight in the world.

This argument applies across the continent, and of course every country has politicians who also miss the point in their short-sightedness. Whether it’s Marine Le Pen in France, who believes the victories of the French Revolution can carry France to a permanent place among the world’s great powers, or Jarosław Kaczyński who thinks that Poland’s current significance can be maintained by turning their back on those European nations and ideas which have helped their country to prosper, or the followers of Lega Nord in Italy, FPÖ in Austria, AfD in Germany and the countless other far-right parties across Europe, and those misguided far-left parties who forget the international spirit of the Labour movement’s origins. They all fail to see the way the world is today. They all assume that what went before is purely independent of the role played by our neighbours, European brothers and sisters, who are now deeply intertwined with the futures of our own nations. Germany today would be likely a ruin, a European backwater if it weren’t for the cooperation fostered by the Treaties of Paris and Rome. Who knows whether Spain, Portugal or Greece’s democracies would have survived were it not for the solidarity fostered by inclusion in the EU. To go back to Britain, there’s a reason Britain tried 3 times to join the EU – because our country was in decline before we joined the EU, and yes, joining did not immediately correct that, but staying on the outside would have made Britain’s slide into insignificance a certainty.

The current state of European politics

As I keep mentioning, European politics used to be very different; most of us had the luxury of a foreign empire to live off of and maintain our significance in world affairs. However, to say that we were separated completely would be a lie. Europeans did have to look to each other when conducting their politics. What was different was that without the atmosphere created by a Union legally binding us together, our divisions and tensions often erupted into violence and suffering. This is the governing idea behind our contemporary Union, that working together is and always will make us stronger, and that our differences, manipulated by nationalists, cannot be allowed to lead us into suffering. Couple with that the lack of empires to sustain our living standards and global significance, and you get the EU. This is how European politics works – by binding ourselves together, we now operate in the frame of treaties which allow us to focus our efforts on common threats and issues which trouble the modern world. Yes, that doesn’t always work out, the Refugee Crisis being a clear example, but its the best chance Europe has of not sliding into a place it has spent the past thousand years working against. Call it trapped in a superstate, it’s the structure in which the European nation-states do politics these days, to preserve their international influence, standards of living, civil rights and peace in Europe.

In the past I have been asked why exactly European nations cannot survive or what areas they cannot maintain on their own. Now, beyond the broad areas I referred to above, there are clear issues facing the modern world. 2008 showed us the economic instability generated by modern financial capitalism, and without an a power with the weight of the EU, taming these forces would be completely beyond our control, as the significant lack of financial regulations coming from the British House of Commons has demonstrated. With the EU, Europe has a common procedure for dealing with failing banks, and common limits on the bonuses bankers can receive. Now, these policies may not be the most effective in the long run, but they show that with the EU, these laws can be implemented Europe-wide, which national legislatures would have otherwise shied away from because of the fear that those companies might leave their countries. A company can afford to leave the Czech Republic; it can’t afford to leave Europe, with its 500 million potential customers. Now similar arguments go for the now enormous transnational companies, which if left to the nation-states, would be allowed to run roughshod over our rules protecting citizens’ and workers’ rights. The working-time directive, rights to maternity/paternity leave and equal rights in the work place are all guaranteed by the EU, laws protecting workers which not all European national parliaments would have stood up to these enormous corporations over (David Cameron has actively admitted that he would repeal the working-time directive if he could). If you want hard figures where membership of the EU has been beneficial, the Royal Economic Society calculated that EU states are likely to have had a 12% lower per capita income, had they not joined the EU, and annual growth rates are likely to have been 1.2% smaller.

The true meaning of united in diversity 

I just want to finish on one last article I saw recently, which sparked a few thoughts on this subject. Published by Another Europe is Possible, it provided a good running social argument as to why Europeans have integrated and why this has benefited us so well. The only area it faltered in for me was its brief mention of the state of politics between Scotland and the UK, which it depicted like this: “Once Scotland breaks away, as in every meaningful sense it already has, Britain no longer exists”.This misses the whole point which the article had been making from the very beginning. The fact is Britain still does exist, and it still should, for the same reasons that Europe should. Yes, Britain isn’t culturally united, and apparently in the politics of its citizens it also is struggling. But it is united in its common needs and interests in the world, namely, standards of living, civil rights, peace, international influence. Common goals that Britons all want to work for. This is what the EU stands for today as well. Hundreds of years of intermixing and border changes and still in Europe we are the most culturally diverse are of the world. And that’s of course because of barricades and borders, because of the nationalists and tyrants who spent decades trying to emphasise our differences. But that now lies at the heart of the EU, just as it does in the UK. We have to embrace that diversity that has lasted so long in Europe, which other people have rightly protected, and which can use today as our strength. The US is the melting pot; Europe is the salad bowl – each ingredient is clearly discernible but working together makes a whole far greater than the sum of its parts. That’s the true meaning of United in Diversity, that’s what a social Europe should stand for, and that’s why I am a Unionist as much for Britain as for the EU.

Sources: Another Europe is Possible, FT, The Telegraph