Five - Whatever you do, don’t mention the war

Fights between countries and cultures are like fights between married couples: you are never fighting over only what you are driven to dispute. While good communication can avert a blow-out, when one does occur, a simple lapse in communication cannot account for the vehemence of the emotions involved. There is a primal gulf between what the parties are willing to say, and what is at the bottom of it all.

Either these fights continue, until you reach a deeper appreciation of the factors involved, which may prompt reconciliation, or you realise that your paths are diverging, so you bite the bullet and file for divorce. The irony of divorce is that it is something you have to agree on, not only in principle, but in terms of shared finances, savings, living expenses, custody, and logistics.

Currently, the U.K. does not allow no-fault divorce, which accounts for the anguish of such couples as Charles and Diana, as well as many others who remain anonymous. (The Economist: “Divorce reform: The case for no-fault divorce” – Mar 4th 2017). It is very hard to agree to split, civilly, when one party must assume blame. Couple this brief insight into English culture with one of the most endearing qualities the English possess. It can be traced back to a bit of admonishment that a former colleague used to receive from her mum: “I want, never get!”

You seem loathe to articulate your priorities, your actual preferences, until pushed to the point of total frustration, at which point, any remark you make is apt to sound like petulant carping. In the meantime, you reek of passive aggression and tend to seethe, whilst labouring under the delusion that you are the only one playing by the rules, and everyone else is cheating. No other country suffers from a wound so thoroughly self-inflicted. This pattern of poor communication and dubious assumptions is not only apt to poison the well in negotiations, it is embarrassing. You’ve been behaving – for decades – as though the EU were lucky to have you. Now, they’d be lucky to see you go.

The roots of the current crisis over British-EU relations clearly go back to the war. It would be silly to pretend it never happened. The war was the rationale for the EU’s inception. The U.K. has a unique place in this club, as it was the only country that was not occupied during the course of the conflict. The taboo on sovereignty that still obtains in England, where the invocation of the word suggests some mystical catechism, was broken on the continent.

Of course, we read a great deal about the occupation of France, not least in ‘Allo, ‘Allo, but by the end of the war, Germany was occupied too, by Britain, France, the U.S., and Russia. The way that France and Germany set out to orchestrate the EU’s expansion, reflected this shared experience. France and Germany have, since 1945, been living in a post-sovereign era. This was not always a disadvantage economically, culturally, or politically, which is not to say that it was straightforward. What has enabled them to thrive, is that they have not been naive, about addressing the costs and benefits of this scenario.

An occupying power could bestow largesse, bring badly-needed supplies, and spur investment to promote recovery, and yet, could choose to leave, with no guarantee of continuity, accountability, or any interest to anchor it. Having allies that are over-mighty, is not an unmixed blessing: they spit, you drown. The EU was a bulwark against the erosion of relative sovereignty. Like any allies joining forces to face down a larger rival, the founding members pooled their resources to accomplish their goals.

According to The Economist, “The French regarded the ceding of sovereignty as a means of reinforcing, not undermining, their nation state.” (“Fractured France – An unprecedented election, with unprecedented risks” – Mar 4th 2017).

The proof that occupation does not rob a country of its moral fibre, is de Gaulle’s dedication to the EU, which he saw as a vehicle to counter American dominance of Europe. Reading the general’s observations at a distance of several decades feels eerie, like hearing the voice of a prophet recorded on tape.

Here is a selection:

“La politique la plus coûteuse, la plus ruineuse, c’est d’être petit… La plus grande dévotion ne saurait empêcher que les affaires soient les affaires… La proportion rompue entre le but et les moyens, les combinaisons du génie sont vaines… Alors il faut prendre les choses comme elles sont, car on ne fait pas de politique autrement que sur des réalités… Se rallier à la conception anglaise, c’était faire du libéralisme marchand, mais sans aucun profit politique. D’une certaine façon, c’était ouvrir les portes de l’Europe aux Etats-Unis; alors que, si la construction européenne avait un sens, c’était dans une marche vers l’indépendance… L’essentiel, pour jouer un rôle international, c’est d’exister par soi-même, chez soi. Il n’y a pas de réalité internationale qui ne soit d’abord une réalité nationale… C’est ainsi que notre volonté de ne point risquer cette absorption atlantique est l’une des raisons pour lesquelles, à notre grand regret, nous avons jusqu’à présent différé l’entrée de la Grande-Bretagne dans l’actuelle Communauté… Nous avons procédé à la première décolonisation jusqu’à l’an dernier. Nous allons passer maintenant à la seconde. Après avoir donné l’indépendance à nos colonies, nous allons prendre la nôtre… L’Europe occidentale est devenue, sans même s’en apercevoir, un protectorat des Américains. Il s’agit maintenant de nous débarrasser de leur domination… Mais la difficulté, dans ce cas, c’est que les colonisés ne cherchent pas vraiment à s’émanciper. Depuis la fin de la guerre, les Américains nous ont assujettis sans douleur et sans guère de résistance… En même temps, ils essaient de nous remplacer dans nos anciennes colonies d’Afrique et d’Asie, persuadés qu’ils sauront faire mieux que nous. Je leur souhaite bien du plaisir… Les capitaux américains pénètrent de plus en plus dans les entreprises françaises. Elles passent l’une après l’autre sous leur contrôle… Il devient urgent de secouer l’apathie générale, pour monter des mécanismes de défense… Les Américains sont en train d’acheter la biscuiterie française. Leurs progrès dans l’électronique française sont foudroyants. Qu’est-ce qui empêchera IBM de dire un jour: ‘Nous fermons nos usines de France, parce que l’intérêt de notre firme le commande’ …Les décisions se prennent de plus en plus aux États-Unis. Il y a un véritable transfert de souveraineté… Les Américains ne se souciaient pas plus de libérer la France que les Russes de libérer la Pologne.”

This is the epiphany that has provided the rhetorical ballast of the Brexit campaign. Leavers fear being absorbed, assimilated, and broken down into component parts for the greater good of the EU. They have missed the point of the EU entirely, which is to establish an independent sphere of influence from that of the United States.

In this respect, the economic power of the EU – and its willingness to tax American corporations that dodge HM Treasury – translates directly into political power that is global in nature, rather than provincial, as the Brexit NIMBYs would have it.

This anxiety played out in a perversely revealing way, in an episode of SS-GB, a series that premiered recently, the premise being that England has been invaded, surrendered, and occupied. In one scene, a Nazi SS officer advises his British subordinate, a detective at Scotland Yard, “We will bring jobs, employment… Siemens, Bosch. You will be valued again,” to which his quisling responds, “As what?”

This is to encapsulate the way that Britons perceive their dilemma. To set the record straight, England was offered a choice, by the EU nations, between continuing to profit as a member a union, or risking its economy to preserve a form of sovereignty that is symbolic, even antiquated.

One might observe that this is a false choice.

Sovereignty can have no meaning in a country that cannot pay its bills, which is why this particular article struck me as astute: “Three Good Reasons Why You Should Leave Brexit Britain.”

It is accessible online at: https://medium.com/leave-brexit-britain/three-good-reasons-why-you-should-leave-brexit-britain-71a4a802d61b.

The author observes, with the lucid perspective of an economist:

“There is a very simple formula for a country looking to ‘take back control’ of its economy from foreign influence: balance your books. Because the U.K. has been unwilling and unable to eliminate its government deficit and balance its trade, the country has always needed to rely on foreign money to make up the gap. [Mind the gap, as they say on the trains, which occasionally leave a half-metre between the platform and the carriage doors, a design flaw that would, in America, invite class action lawsuits.] The U.K. has been able to mask its huge underlying weaknesses in terms of debt and trade – not to mention its poor productivity – by virtue of being perceived as very open and politically stable by the outside world… The pre-referendum Conservative government had committed to eliminating the U.K. budget deficit by 2020. Since the Brexit vote, however, this objective has been formally abandoned. The assurance on which investors relied is now falling apart and the U.K.’s soft economic underbelly is exposed.”

England’s experience of the war and the aftermath made undertaking EU treaty obligations more fraught. The magnanimity that England showed in victory did not reflect its actual latitude for generosity, which was straitened in the extreme. Rationing did not end until 1954. An entire generation grew up without easy access to sugar, petrol, meat, or coffee. Victory also implied new responsibilities, which were not incumbent on the continental countries. In effect, the U.S. expected England to imitate its own attitude to the European survivors, which was predicated on largesse.

This did not leave scope for domestic commercial investment at home, whereas Germany and France had no particular mission but to build up their economies. It was more important to have a bulwark against the Soviets, than to replay the Treaty of Versailles. Considerately, they shored up our side of the Cold War with Mercedes Benz, Bosch and Siemens, while the British cannibalized their domestic industries to pay their armed forces overseas, and their war debts, all while dismantling their Empire.

As Harold Macmillan observed, “If we succeeded in losing two world wars, wrote off all our debts – instead of having nearly £30 million in debts — got rid of all our foreign obligations, and kept no force overseas, then we might be as rich as the Germans.” (Judt, Postwar, p. 354).

Thomas Piketty has noted the irony in Germany’s stance on Eurozone debts and the austerity incumbent on member countries, insofar as Germany provides a textbook case for the benefits of debt forgiveness. No such forgiveness was shown to the U.K. by the U.S. after the war.

The burdens placed on England’s economy were insuperable, and faced with a hopeless task, it began to shudder. To quote Tony Judt, who emigrated to the U.S.:

“A striking feature of the history of postwar western Europe was the contrast between the economic performances of western Germany and Great Britain… by the early 1960s the Federal Republic was the booming, prosperous powerhouse of Europe, while Great Britain was an underperforming laggard, its growth rate far behind that of the rest of western Europe …in the eyes of may observers, the U.K. was well on its way to becoming the sick man of Europe. In 1960, the German economy grew at a rate of 9.0% per year, the British economy by 2.6%, the slowest rate in the developed world except for Ireland – which at this time was far from ‘developed.’” (Judt, Postwar, p. 354).

If you want to blame anyone for your current predicament, don’t blame Europe: blame the United States.

No less a fan of the Anglosphere than Christopher Hitchens, a British leftie turned neoconservative who emigrated to the U.S., called England’s failure to join the EEC at the outset, “Churchill’s biggest mistake.” (p. 105, Arguably, “An Anglosphere Future.”)

The most unintentionally astute observation about Brexit that I’ve read, was a remark by Sir Michael Caine, who opined, “I’d rather be a poor master, than a rich servant.” Surely, these are not economic categories.

There is no intrinsic reason why the British economy should lag so painfully behind the continent. Here are some facts to counter the assumption that its decline was inevitable: in 1940, according to Robert Lacey, a popular historian:

“Aircraft manufacture was already running smoothly – 163 new Spitfires came out of the factories that August, along with 251 Hurricanes. But in three short months Beaverbrook dramatically stepped up the maintenance and repair of existing aircraft: 35% of all planes issued to pilots in the Battle of Britain were repaired rather than new; 61% of all damaged planes were returned to active service, and the remaining 39% were ‘cannibalised’ for spare parts. The Germans could not match this turn-around rate – as they could not match the planes themselves. They proved more than equal to Germany’s best fighter, the Messerschmitt 109, that was handicapped by low fuel capacity: if a Messerschmitt got to London, it could fight for only ten minutes before having to turn tail and head back to base. …on November 9, 1940, Neville Chamberlain died, a victim of bowel cancer that spared him long enough to see the results of a far-sighted policy. As Chancellor of the Exchequer through the rocky years of the early 1930s, Chamberlain had insisted that the bulk of defence spending be allocated to aerial rearmament, and had raised income tax to five shillings (25p) in the £ to pay for it. So behind the famous Few and anonymous Many, as organised in the complex back-up system devised by ‘stuffy’ Dowding, was the unlikely and unwarlike figure of Neville Chamberlain.” (Lacey, Great Tales from English History, p. 444 in the Kindle edition).

Germans do not understand the anguish over Europe, or the attempt to paint a distinction between political and economic integration. To the British eye, political power is power in its purest form, which, to a German eye, might seem a hollow observation: this sort of “power,” without any economic ballast behind it, is cheap rhetoric and propaganda.

To Europeans, politics and economics are two dimensions of the same phenomenon, which is national, and collective, survival. The British insistence on the putative distinction between an economic union and a political one, is a self-serving delusion, evidence of financial illiteracy or bad faith, a muddying of the waters.

Politics and economics are not fields that remain compartmentalised outside an academic course of study. Even Oxford has coupled them in the degree it offers in PPE: politics, philosophy, and economics. At bottom, as Gore Vidal remarked, more prosaically, “Politics is simply the art of collecting money, and spending it.”

Moreover, no country that has veered from Attlee’s militant socialism, to Thatcher’s militant capitalism, can have failed to grasp that politics is intimately intertwined with an economic programme. A political campaign or party platform, is not much more than a set of macroeconomic strategies coupled to a fiscal policy, all harnessed to a political goal.

These are the means and the ends of politics: economics, and more economics, just phrased in a different language from that of academic study, so as to attract voters, in a way that appeals to their own self-interest. As long as politicians undertake this exercise in good faith, all is well; as soon as they start promising voters that they can have their cake and eat it, while ducking the bill and losing weight, we are in trouble.

As far as the EU is concerned, the goal of the union, has always been to establish a sufficient degree of political coordination to allow the member countries to undertake the structural economic reforms mandated by union membership. This is the only way that the union as a whole can thrive: if all of its member states move in lockstep, they generate economies of scale.

In order for a customs union / single market to achieve economic coordination, it needs to ensure that product safety standards, labour laws, and investor protections are uniform across borders. Otherwise, there is absolutely no point in establishing the single market in the first place.

Moreover, if the single market is to promote trade efficiently, it is optimal for member states to use a single currency, which radically reduces the transaction costs of cross-border trade. But sharing a currency mandates a high degree of political coordination between member countries, because the treasury bonds issued by the states that use that currency are effectively I.O.U.s for which the union, as a whole, is liable. Therefore, Greek debts are a German problem.

There is no questioning England’s moral fibre. Its tragedy, as any American can tell you, is that moral fibre isn’t worth much in a proper economy. It’s not that capitalism doesn’t value ethical behaviour; but the rules of work are not ethical as such, any more than the body’s biology is. Physical exercise isn’t an ethical category of human endeavour. Neither is generating national prosperity, unless you happen to be doing it by exploiting people.

In making the argument that the U.K. would like to be a member of the single market, without undertaking any of the political reforms linked to the goals of the member countries, Brexiteers are asking to have their cake and eat it, all while contributing nothing to the shopping list of ingredients, the cooking itself, or the clean-up; losing five pounds; and paying with I.O.U.s. Effectively, their policy amounts to a raid on the local bakery, because they imagine – somehow – that the bakery owes them treats.

Here’s another metaphor: you’ve taken a beautiful house that the EU built, to shelter people whose homes were long neglected by bad landlords, sprayed it with graffiti, then asked if you can crash on the lawn. But you’ve brought your own blankets and tents, so all will be well. You’re not asking for anything. You’ve brought your own food, too; you just need to store some in their fridge. Is that cool? And you’ll need the bathroom. You’ll be squatting, as a dozen or so young “activists” did, in the home of an absent oligarch in Mayfair.