Turning the key

There were always two types of empire. There were those like the British and the French that spread overseas. British and French people would move to Delhi or Saigon and pretend they were living at home only it was rather hotter. These empires were always fragile. The other type of empire spread from a small centre, but did not, for the most part, spread overseas. The Russian Empire and the Chinese Empire are still largely intact because where they spread was contiguous. The same, dare I say it, might be said for the American Empire moving from a coastal strip to embrace most of a continent by means of colonisation.

A feature of both the Russian/Soviet and the Chinese Empires under communism was that there was always a pretence that they were democratic and that their various parts were autonomous or even independent. Both the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic held seats in the UN in 1945. So too did the countries that would later make up the Warsaw Pact. But the Polish October and Hungarian Revolution in 1956 ably demonstrated that these places had neither sovereignty nor any real freedom. But this had already been made clear in 1953 when the German Democratic Republic, with the help of Soviet tanks crushing demonstrators, had shown its name to involve a contradiction.

The citizens of these empires could either pretend along with their rulers that they lived in free democratic societies, taking part in elections, campaigning for this or that or even trying themselves to become part of the ruling elite, or they could just ignore as best they could the whole thing.  Just as the various parts of the Soviet Empire pretended that they were free and democratic, so the people, for the most part, pretended to take part. This was the only sensible way to live. There was no point battering your head against a door that wouldn’t open. Rather the key to existence was to retreat into private life, say what needed to be said, play the game and keep your real thoughts to yourself.

Eventually patience was rewarded. While the Russian Empire did not completely collapse, it turned out that by some miracle it was possible for Warsaw Pact countries to once more become sovereign nation states and even more miraculously it was possible for parts of the Soviet Union to leave. It would have been utterly pointless for Latvians and Estonians to have attempted to leave the Soviet Union in 1971. To have even suggested it would have been unwise. My guess is that if the Soviet Union had been able to hold itself together until Mr Putin reached power then it would have been impossible for the Soviet Republics to have asserted their sovereignty. But there was a window of opportunity between 1991 and 2000 when the Russian Empire for the first time in its history was willing to lose territory without a fight.

It was something of a leap into the dark for the Soviet Republics. They had to give up their currency (the Soviet rouble) and the trading relationship they would have with the other members of the Soviet Union including Russia was suddenly very uncertain. There were also conflicts and border disputes some of which are still continuing. These have led to the deaths of nearly 200,000 people. But countries could leave the USSR. They were allowed to.

But while the Russian Empire reached its peak in1945 and went into decline in 1991 another empire has been rising out of the ashes of its threefold defeat in 1806, 1918 and 1945. While Russia since the fall of Constantinople has been the successor to the eastern half of the Roman Empire, the EU is its successor in the West.

While Latvia was able to leave the USSR in 1991 by 2004 it was already a part of the EU. It had so to speak voluntarily entered into a prison put its own key in the lock and then chucked it out of the window.

It must have seemed to the Latvians and all the other citizens of the EU Empire that they were free and that they had free and fair elections which might really change things, but just like in the Soviet Union these were all illusions.

We face momentous events, but it is becoming boring. If it turns out that we really can’t leave the EU, then it is a subject that is no more worth studying or writing about than Marxism/Leninism.

If politics in Britain is constrained within carefully defined limits, then it rapidly becomes clear that certain debates are pointless. If Britain can’t leave the EU then self-evidently Scotland cannot properly leave the UK. If the one can be prevented, so too can the other with rather more ease. I doubt very much that a radical Labour Government would be allowed to be quite as radical as it thinks it might be. So too I don’t think a truly conservative, low tax, low public spending, free market Conservative Party would be allowed. We are left then with the mush that extends from the Labour moderates to the Conservative moderates. They each believe more or less the same. It isn’t worth arguing about.

We may still break free. Nothing we would have to face would be anything like what the former members of the Soviet Union had to go through in order to gain their freedom. A few traffic jams must be a price worth paying for the cause that we are supposed to hold higher than any other: freedom and democracy. But has this cause always just been a pretence? An opium to get the masses to enlist.

Too much already has been written about the EU. Let us await events. If it turns out that we are trapped, take comfort from the fact that there will be other chances. There is no need to wear yellow vests. Our present politics will not survive the failure completely to leave the EU in 2019, nor indeed, I suspect, will the EU. If Britain can’t leave the EU, then no-one can. EU citizens will then retreat into private life just like Soviet citizens before them, but we will wait for the moment when the walls begin to crumble. I don’t think we will wait that long.

Binning the Vichy water

It is perfectly possible to imagine a mutually beneficial deal emerging from the UK’s negotiations with the EU over Brexit. We already trade freely with EU countries and meet whatever standards are required to do this. It should pretty much be a matter of saying let’s continue more or less as we have been doing. If the EU cannot negotiate a free trade deal with Brexit Britain, with whom everything is already in alignment, how does it expect to be able to negotiate one with the USA or China? But of course, obstacles can be overcome when there is a mutual desire to overcome them. After all Canada has a free trade deal with the EU. It is neither part of the EU’s Single Market, nor is it part of the Customs Union. It doesn’t pay the EU billions for the privilege of trading with them and there is no free movement agreement between Canada and the EU. But what is possible for Canada is apparently impossible for the UK.

We all know that divorces can become nasty. This is because human beings are involved. The EU is struggling again. Italy is rebelling as are the Visegrád Group of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia with perhaps Austria re-joining its former Empire in setting up a rival to rule from Berlin. The Brexit negotiations very ably demonstrate what would happen if Scotland voted to leave the UK. There would be zero goodwill, just mutual recriminations with endless debates about who gets custody of the CD collection.

The EU wants to discourage other countries from leaving and it wants to do this in two ways, firstly by punishing Britain and secondly by doing all it can to hinder us from making Brexit a success. If ten years from now the UK is trading freely not only with the EU but also with the rest of the world and doing just fine other EU members might wonder what the point of the EU was. Is it really just a prison held together with fear? A successful Brexit destroys the fear. 

The point, of course, is what it always has been. Since the Franco Prussian War France can no longer compete on its own with a unified Germany. The solution to the problem of Sedan (1871), Verdun (1916) and Sedan again (1940) is for Germany to be united with France. But Germany wins too. The 1914 Septemberprogramm German war aim of a united Europe dominated by Germany has been more than fulfilled and it can justly be said therefore that in fact Germany won the First World War. It just took them rather more than four years to do so.

So it becomes clear what we are up against. What if anything can be done?

The aim of the EU is for the UK to have all of the costs of EU membership with none of the benefits. They want us to have to continue following all of the EU’s rules and they want us to continue to have to pay pretty much the same for the privilege of doing so. In divorce terms it means that the husband has to pay the mortgage of a house where he no longer lives, he has to pay his wife’s living costs, but he no longer gets to sleep with her.

This is what the Remainer rearguard wants too. It wants to leave Britain in more or less the same situation as we are now. We would still pretty much be in the EU’s Single Market, still in the Custom’s Union, but we’d be without any representation in the EU whatsoever. We’d be told what to do by the EU and wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. There is a word for this. Vichy.

It is for this reason that I likened the Remain rearguard to Lord Halifax’s view that we should negotiate with Germany in 1940. But in fact Lord Halifax had a point. Our prospects looked grim in 1940. It took something like a miracle for us to survive that year. It wasn’t irrational to seek terms. It wasn’t even unpatriotic. But still it was wrong. It would have left Britain just like Vichy. We would have become a vassal state taking orders from Germany.

We are not in that position today. Britain’s prospects are very good indeed. We just have to have the guts to stand up for our own interest and we have to be willing to say No when someone is trying to treat us like a vassal.

It’s always worth remembering that between 1940 and 1945 we had next to no trade with continental Europe. We survived. We weren’t fully prepared for the difficulties that those years brought us, but we managed. We bounced bombs while the French collaborated. British ingenuity, self-reliance and self-confidence meant that we found solutions rather than dwelt endlessly on problems. In far, far easier circumstances we must manage now.

If there is no deal with the EU we would trade with them on WTO (World Trade Organisation) terms. This would not be ideal. But it would be no worse than the terms by which we trade at present with USA, Japan and New Zealand. Better by far to trade freely with all of them, but we could manage for a while.

If we had no deal with the EU we would of course keep the vast majority of the £38 Billion we have promised to give them. We could then go to court to determine what if anything we actually owed them and conversely what if anything they owed us. After all we paid into the marriage for decades. Why don’t we get something in return?

We should immediately begin to make whatever preparations are necessary for “No deal”. It’s far too late of course, better by far if we had begun two years ago, but again we will manage. What’s more even if leaving in this way were tough, it would be worth it. We have never fought for a better cause than our own democracy and freedom from foreign domination.

Better by far that we come to an arrangement with the EU, but we should be clear with them that the whole UK EU relationship is on the line. At present the EU doesn’t want the UK to be involved in Galileo after Brexit. Apparently it doesn’t trust us with sensitive information. Likewise M. Barnier has said that we won’t be involved in EUROPOL or the European Arrest Warrant or have access to various EU databases. Of course, they don’t have to share any of these things if they don’t want to. But they are happy enough to share with non-EU members like Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. But it seems we are no longer to be friends with the EU. Fair enough. But then don’t expect any friendship back.

Why should we pay 2% of GDP on defence when much of it is used to potentially fight wars on the continent or in other parts of the world? Britain could offset many of the costs of a “No Deal” Brexit by moving towards neutrality. We would then spend whatever is enough to defend our island against attack from without and within, but no more. We would retain our nuclear weapons, but explain that they would only be used if Britain or British interests were attacked. We didn’t have to fight either of the World Wars, nor did we have to get involved in wars in the Middle East. Why spend our money and lose our lives defending those who hate us?

We have a large network of spies and the best security service in Europe, but why should we share any of the information we gather with those who do not trust us. When we get information that Russia intends to attack across the Suwalki Gap, why should we tell the EU?  Why indeed should we be part of NATO at all? Many EU countries don’t like to spend too much on defence, well perhaps they ought to begin. We should be safe enough on our island. After all, the Russians would have to go right the way through the EU to reach us.

There has been much debate on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. The problem here is caused by the EU. After Irish independence we came to an arrangement called the Common Travel Area that for the most part allowed free movement across the British Isles. Irish citizens could continue to live and work in the UK and they can still vote in our elections.

Relations between the UK and the Republic were fairly poor for decades after Irish independence, but in recent years there had been some grounds for hope that they might be improving. These hopes are now in danger.

It is obvious that with a tiny bit of good will on the part of the EU and the Irish Republic that we could keep the border open. But whatever solution we try it is immediately rejected.

The UK should make a final offer. We should promise not to physically hinder anyone crossing into Northern Ireland. Whether we use cameras or anything else is our business. Cameras hinder no-one and all of us spend our lives being filmed in every major city.

If that isn’t enough then we should leave anyway, still promising not to hinder anyone physically from crossing unless there are security reasons for doing so. What the Irish Republic does on its side of the border is its business not ours.

If the Republic wants to unite Ireland then it only has to say clearly that this is indeed what it wants. If it were to win a poll then, it would pay the cost of maintaining the present levels of public spending in Northern Ireland and it would deal with whatever trouble results from reunification. Personally I’d be delighted to see some hundreds of thousands of Northern Irish Unionists fulfilling Nicola Sturgeon’s desire to increase Scotland’s population.

The UK faces a crucial moment in our history. If we end up a non-voting client state of the EU it will be a national humiliation. It would be far worse than Suez (1955). In fact you have to go back as far as Yorktown (1781) to find a worse humiliation. It would take Britain decades to recover from failure to completely leave the EU. The national mood would be one of acceptance of decline and sombre realisation that when tested we didn’t even have the courage to say “Non M. Barnier”. This is the sort of thing that a country doesn’t really recover from. Ask the French. It’s not even something that you can put a price on.

Pommes frites à l'écossaise

Apparently the Scottish Parliament has just refused to consent to Brexit. The Lib Dems, Labour, Greens and SNP all joined together to thwart the plans of those wicked Tories to undermine the powers of the Scottish Parliament. There is a peculiar logic going on here. There are various issues that are at present controlled by EU bureaucrats in Brussels. Many of these are also issues that are devolved in the UK and controlled by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Parliaments. The UK Government proposes that the vast majority of these powers should be given to the devolved Parliaments while some are temporarily controlled by London. So it’s fine for Brussels to run everything, but if Westminster even temporarily controls anything this is enough for Scotland’s Left and Centre to start gathering the clans for the great 2018 Rebellion.

Of course, this has nothing much to do with Brexit or various powers to do with agriculture and fishing. Why is it just fine that unelected Brussels officials can run Scottish matters, but elected British MPs can’t? The SNP and their Lib Lab Greenie friends were more than happy for someone else to control these issues just so long as no-one from England got to tell them what labels to put on tins of food and how to plough a straight furrow. This is all just the usual playing to the lowest common denominator in Scotland. Westminster is a word that actually begins with E and ends with Land. It is this above all that makes it wicked. It’s worth remembering however next time you get the chance to put a cross on a ballot paper that Scottish Labour and the Lib Dems are part of the “Anyone but England camp” and are opposed to even minimal, temporary measures to make sure that everywhere in the UK has more or less the same sort of coordinated policies with regard to devolved powers.  The Welsh saw the sense in this and agreed to the arrangement. But it's never difficult to distinguish between the Scottish Parliament with a grievance and a ray of sunshine. 

Scottish nationalism is going nowhere at the moment. This is why it needs the grievance and the cooperation of its fellow travellers, helpers and hanger ons. 

Scotland is nearly perfect in every respect. In the springtime and early summer the beaches, the lochs, the rivers and the mountains are more or less empty and it can be hard to imagine that there is anywhere prettier or indeed better to live. But just as our countryside can be spoiled by the dark clouds and the sudden rain that obscures the view, so too our character is spoiled by our sense that someone else must always be to blame for whatever goes wrong and that person invariably lives south of the border.

Bullers of Buchan Aberdeenshire

Blaming someone or something else is far easier than taking responsibility for your own actions. It makes a person passive and this passivity is the reason for his failure rather than anything anyone else did. Give someone a reason to fail and he will grasp it. Take away any reasons for failure and the person just might reach success. It is those Scots who are most dissatisfied with their lives who find the source of their lack of happiness not with themselves, but with someone else. It is they who blame Westminster or Britain or the fact that Scotland isn’t independent for their own failure. If only Scotland were independent, all would be perfect. I would be happy and fulfilled and whatever is wrong with my life would be made right. But the source of a person's failure does not come from without, it comes from within.

Independence supporters invariably wait for independence or Nicola Sturgeon or someone else to give them more money, a better job, more benefits and whatever else is lacking in their lives. They expect someone else to do the hard work and want someone else to bring them success. This is why they fail. This is why all that is left is for them is to go on endless rather pointless marches, dressing up like parody participants on the White Heather Club. But independence would not bring with it helicopter money and Irn Bru restored to its full sugar strength and it wouldn’t solve the grievance.

The Republic of Ireland has been independent for decades, but scratch the surface (as I occasionally do) and you very rapidly find that exactly the same grievance remains today as it did long ago. The Brits are responsible for everything bad that ever happened to Ireland and everything bad that ever will happen in Ireland.

Socialism/social democracy is about grievance. It’s the rich man’s fault that I am poor. So rather than work hard to earn more myself I will vote for parties to take away the rich man’s money. No wonder the Lib Lab Greenies side with SNP. They all have a grievance about something. The fault lies always and above all with Tories and who is it who is most likely in the UK to vote for Tories?

We are where we are in Scotland because Labour and the Lib Dems decided that it was unfair if Scotland voted for the Left, but England voted for the Conservatives. If it had not been for that original grievance we might not have had to endure pointless Scottish Parliament debates about nothing at all. The Scottish Parliament does not have anything to do with foreign affairs. It is not its business. Whenever the Scottish Parliament debates foreign affairs, it is really just talking to itself about a matter that is outwith its remit.

Brexit is a UK matter. No consent is necessary from Scotland. If it is wrong for Westminster to encroach on devolved powers, it is equally wrong for the devolved Parliaments to encroach on reserved powers. But, of course, the SNP hope that they can get people in Scotland to feel aggrieved about the Scottish Parliament being ignored. Labour and the Lib Dems are happy to help.

Luckily however the details about Brexit are becoming ever more tiresome for everyone in Britain. The idea that Scots are going to man the barricades over whether this or that devolved power will immediately be returned from Brussels to Scotland or whether we might have to wait a while would appear to be unlikely. Some Nats will no doubt dress up as Jacobites, but they don’t really need the excuse of Westminster supposedly acting without Scottish consent as an excuse for wearing such clothes. I suspect some of them sleep in them just as small children especially little bhoys have been known to refuse to take off their Celtic strips.

We are all having to wait interminably for Brexit. Why should someone who didn’t want the powers returned at all (a Remainer) get upset that there is a delay in returning powers he didn’t in fact want returned in the first place.

But devolution can only work in a UK context if it does not lead to great differences between the various parts of the UK. If the EU needs harmonisation, so too do we, only more so, as one of the main benefits of living in the UK is that we can live and work anywhere we please with a lot more ease and familiarity than if we chose to move to Slovenia or Italy. There is a reason why some powers are centralised in Brussels. It is because they want the same rules and regulations with regard to these matters to apply everywhere in the EU. But if the same rules are necessary across the EU, then it is likely that they will require a degree of coordination in the UK too. It is for this reason that it makes sense that Westminster has a role in coordinating how Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland use the powers they will gain from the EU. The reason is that Westminster is the only elected UK Parliament where people from every part of the UK meet as a matter of course.

However in principle it would be better if the vast majority of powers were transferred from Brussels to the devolved UK Parliaments as soon as possible. The reason for this is it will put parties like the SNP in a very nice sort of dilemma.

The key to Brexit is to get out. We may or may not leave in an ideal way. We may have to make compromises. We may even have to stay in some sort of customs union for a while. It doesn’t matter. The UK Government has a very small majority. Some things may not be possible. I would have walked away in 2016. But there isn’t a majority for that now. There probably wasn't even then. I would have responded to Mr Varadkar, by first erecting a fence between Northern Ireland and the Republic and then by digging a moat, but I have a tendency to get frustrated with such people and rather wish we had a big enough gun boat with which we could blockade Dublin so as to encourage their diplomatic efforts. But this no doubt is to be intemperate. Cooler heads than mine will wisely counsel that instead we must be patient.

Let us focus on getting out. After that there will be future elections and the chance to vote for things to be different. If a customs union doesn’t work and constrains us in a way that is intolerable, it won’t last. We will be able later to vote to get out of it. It doesn’t much matter when this happens now or a few years from now. Take a long view.

Once we are out of the EU there will be no getting back in. To get back into the EU we would have to follow the rules for joining. One of these is accepting that we must join the Euro. Likewise we would find that whatever concessions the UK had been given during our years of membership, such as our rebate and our not being a part of Schengen would not be on offer anymore.

Most importantly of all re-joining the EU would mean that the powers that the Scottish Parliament is up in arms about this week would have to be given back to Brussels. This is the dilemma for the SNP. Any future independence campaign would either involve promising to join the EU, or it would involve promising not to be part of the EU. But membership of the EU would involve the Scottish Parliament losing powers that it is up in arms about at present and agreeing to both join the Euro and Schengen while in time becoming part of what the EU intends to become a United States of Europe. This is a funny sort of independence. An independent Scottish Parliament in the EU in all practical respects would be less independent than the present devolved Parliament in the UK.

If Scotland on the other hand chose to be independent outside of the EU, then whatever trade deal will apply between the UK and the EU after Brexit would not apply to Scotland. We would have to negotiate our own trade deal both with the EU and with the other parts of the UK. 

Just as the UK may, depending on negotiations, loose some of the benefits of EU membership, Scotland might find leaving the UK involved the loss of certain benefits that are contingent on being a part of the UK. After all, we could no longer fall back on both the UK and Scotland being part of the EU, because we no longer would be. Brexit takes away the guarantee that everything will be more or less the same after independence. There is no guarantee about that at all now.

We have moreover learned in the past couple of years that the border between independent nation states is not simply a trivial line that is marked on a map. The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic has caused endless discussion and at present it looks as if keeping it open will constrain the UK’s actions for some time to come.

No doubt everyone would want to keep the border between Scotland and England open in the event of Scottish independence. But this would all depend on matters that are simply impossible to guess at present. Would Scotland be part of Schengen, would Scotland be part of the EU’s Single Market or customs union? Might an independent Scotland try to be like Norway, France, Vatican City, Northern Cyprus or Belarus? Who can tell? There are any number of ways to be independent and any number of border arrangements in Europe.

But I strongly suspect that if in a few years Nicola Sturgeon the First President of Scotland came to London asking for help in keeping the border open although this would admittedly involve some constraints on the UK's ability to trade freely with whomsoever it pleased, the UK's Prime Minister might just decide to send her homeward to think again. It would be reasonable to point out that Scotland had chosen to leave and should face the consequences and take its grievances elsewhere.  If President Sturgeon were to continue on both shoulders to exhibit post-independence pommes frites à l'écossaise the temptation to resurrect and repair an ancient wall and then to dig a moat, just to make sure, might at some point prove overwhelming.   

A senseless struggle about nothing

There are two forces going on in human nature, the desire to unify and the desire to separate. The reason that we have nation states at all is because people have felt the need to unify with others who are similar to them.  In antiquity each small village had its own ruler, its own customs and often its own variety of language. Historical progress across the world has involved the process of people uniting to form nation states. These are the building blocks of international relations and without them there would be chaos.

The process of separation has occurred when nation states have overreached themselves and tried to include people who are too dissimilar. There is an ebb and flow throughout history. The Austro-Hungarian Empire broke up into its constituent parts, but the United States was able to unify much of the North American continent into a single nation state, made up of many states.

In recent decades we have on the one hand seen the European Union attempt to gradually form a nation state out of its parts, while on the other there has been a marked increase in nation states breaking up since the fall of the Soviet Union. While Germany provides a recent example of unification there are many more examples of separation.

But where is the optimum? At what point do we say this nation state is stable? It neither needs to separate nor to unify. One problem is that modern European nationalist movements want to do something that is inherently contradictory. They wish both to unify and to separate.

Scottish nationalists think that it makes sense for Scotland to separate from the United Kingdom, but to remain a part of a European Union that has the aim of becoming a United States of Europe. But the problem is this. If Scots cannot make a success of being part of a nation state called the UK, how on earth are we to make a success of being part of an eventual nation state called the EU?

The same obviously goes for Catalonia.  If Catalans cannot bear to live in a nation state (Spain) with people who are similar to them, how will they be able to bear to live in a nation state (the EU) with people who are dissimilar? If Spain, which has been a nation state for centuries cannot hold itself together we can have no long term expectation that the EU itself will remain intact.

I think this is why the EU has responded to the crisis in Spain in the way that it has. Secession has become all too frequent in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union, but if this spreads westwards then the EU is bound to find itself going in the opposite direction to the one in which it intends.

Moreover, if the aim is to have a federal EU what does it matter if a border happens to be here or there? If the aim is to be borderless why be so bothered about so called independence at all. A state in the eventual United States of Europe would be no more independent than Kansas or California. It won’t matter under these circumstances what is or is not called a state or where a supposed boundary is drawn.

In this sense the struggle that is taking place in Catalonia looks like it is about nothing at all. Both Spain and Catalonia want to be part of the EU. But then they are struggling over the boundaries of a nation state while at the same time both intending to give up this nation state.

The problem is that many people have contradictory ideas about the EU. They think somehow that it will be possible to remain a nation state while taking part in the process of EU unification. But this is a form of self-deception. The nation state called East Germany ceased to exist when it joined with West Germany. At an earlier point in history independent nation states like Saxony and Prussia eventually ceased to exist and simply became regions of Germany. For a hypothetical Bavaria to struggle to be independent from Prussia while both seek to join together to form Germany involves muddled thinking. It is a fight about nothing at all, a completely senseless struggle.

The problem is that for the moment it is just about possible to maintain the illusion that a nation state can remain independent and sovereign while being a part of the EU. It is this above all that fuels sub-nation nationalism. The Holy Grail of European nationalist movements is to argue that life will go on more or less the same, but we will be independent. We might even get a bit more because we won’t have to share our wealth with those English, or those Spaniards.

If there were indeed a United States of Europe, they would in one sense be right. It barely matters at all today that West Virginia split from Virginia in 1861, because each is now part of a larger nation state and neither is independent. Borders are not noticed. But being part of a nation state also means that we share and share alike, so this whole concept of what is mine and what is yours ceases. It’s not oor oil, because it belongs equally to all citizens of our nation state. But then as soon as the EU treats all its citizens as having an equal claim to the wealth of the whole, then the concept of independence (this is ours rather than yours) ceases. Not noticing borders in the end involves not having independence.

There are two ways to end the dreams of sub-nation nationalism. One is to leave the EU. People in England (e.g. Philip Hammond) with very little real experience of nationalism and only a distant understanding of what went on in Scotland should cease trying to be clever about the EU. It’s not clever. It’s thick.  Get us out and get us out quickly. It is this and this alone that will hold the UK together.  As I argued long before the EU referendum, the UK’s leaving the EU means that the SNP can no longer argue that life would go on much the same after independence. It turns independence into a radical step, that only a minority of Scots wish to make. It is for this reason that we will not face scenes in Edinburgh like we saw in Barcelona.

Spain could leave the EU. That would stop Catalan nationalism very quickly. But this won’t happen and perhaps can’t happen because of Spain’s membership of the Euro. The second option then is to make it clear that if Catalonia somehow obtains independence it will be outside the EU and outside the Eurozone. It will cease to be part of Spain’s internal market and it will cease to be part of the European Union’s Single Market. It is hard to imagine that this will benefit Catalonia economically. The issue of how much it does or does not share with Spain will hardly then arise.

The danger however is that this would involve a Greek style ejection from the Euro and a shock to the European economy that none of us would like to go through. These things tend to be contagious.  This might encourage the Catalans into thinking that the EU wouldn’t dare expel them. Perhaps they are right, but it is a very dangerous game to play. Careful what you wish for dear Nats. A Catalan let alone a Spanish default might affect your savings too. 

Scottish nationalists may hope that an independent Catalonia or indeed an independent Kurdistan might help them towards their dream. On the other hand scenes of violence or even war may remind everyone once again that nationalism is always a very dangerous political card to play and therefore is best put back in the deck. I suspect though that most Scots who are not already obsessed are not paying much attention. This will continue unless things get much worse.

Nationalism begets nationalism and no doubt it is in part because of Typhoid Nicola that Scottish flu has spread to Spain. Get well soon Spain. But remember the best way to do this is to relax and be patient. Let the fever subside. With tender care it will.  Don’t go bashing people’s heads in. It isn’t the most likely way to persuade them to remain a part of your country. Enforce the law by all means, but far better to simply take law breakers to court and fine them a few Euros, than to do anything more horrible than that.

Above all the EU should now explain to nationalists that if they want to be part of the EU then they will not have any independence. The EU has tried to achieve European unity in such a way that no-one will notice and with the illusion that everything will somehow remain as it was. But this fiction of maintaining independent nation states within a united European nation state is now fuelling nationalism. It is time to be honest, open and direct about where the EU is heading. It is abolishing Spain as an independent nation state and unifying it with all the other European nation states. This means that to fight for Catalan independence only to later abolish it is senseless. It is not worth one truncheon, hitting one head. It is time therefore for both the Spanish and the Catalans to realise that, given they both wish to be part of the EU, they have in fact no dispute at all and that they are in fact fighting over nothing. 

If there is hope, it lies in the Poles

There has been endless complaint since the UK voted to leave the EU a little over a year ago. Not from voters mind you. The vast majority of Remain voters have simply got on with their lives and accepted that they lost the argument. Owing to the fact that the Remain prediction of immediate catastrophe for the UK simply did not occur, many former Remain voters have come to the conclusion that they were duped. But this has not stopped the rearguard action from some politicians and some influential people in the papers. There are still attempts to stop Brexit or to so water it down that it would amount to staying in the EU. Even if the doom and gloom about Britain’s immediate future has been shown by events to be ludicrously pessimistic, we are still supposed to believe these pessimists. It’s as if a weather forecaster kept telling us there would be a hurricane and when day after day it kept failing to appear he kept on expecting us to believe that he could predict the speed of wind. It’s time to realise that that the establishment of political experts in Britain are wrong. What’s more they have been wrong about everything for the past fifty years. It is for this reason that some of the newer EU members such as the Poles are beginning to question whether the whole thing is worth it. The reason is simple. They can watch and they can think.

The whole EU project is based on deception. If only it all happens gradually we can create a United States of Europe without anyone noticing. I don’t think in the end that forming a new nation state called Europe is a good idea. I can though respect those who disagree with me. If it were modelled on the United States of America, with just as much freedom and democracy and with similar rights for the constituent parts, then there could be advantages. But the EU is not remotely like the USA. The people of the USA elect their president and their upper and lower houses of parliament. The powerful people in the EU are appointed. The most important decisions are made behind closed doors. The democratic will of member states (Greece, Republic of Ireland, France, the Netherlands) has recently been overturned. There has been a concerted effort to do the same with the UK. But it looks like it will fail.  There is likewise at the moment an attempt to make Poland bend to the will of its EU masters. Hopefully that will fail too.

If you want to be part of something called the United States of Europe, then it indeed makes sense to support Remain. But few indeed are the Brits who do. This is where the whole project becomes dishonest. I don’t think many French or Italian people want France or Italy to be merely a region of Europe. But after sixty years of EU propaganda and mission creep there is a tendency to think that there is no alternative. A tiny proportion of Remain supporters really believed in European federalism yet that is what they voted for. There is a sort of self-deception that the EU won’t ever quite reach the point of being a United States of Europe. But watch how it has gradually moved more and more towards its goal. There is a single currency. There is border free travel such that in parts of the EU you barely even notice international borders. There is a president. Soon there will be an army. If you don’t think European federalism is happening you frankly are not paying attention.

Brexit may involve some tough choices and it may even involve some hard times. But if we don’t want to be part of a federal nation state called the EU, and the vast majority of us don’t, then leaving is the only option. You either get this, or you don’t. I don’t think you need to be ruled by someone else in order to trade freely with them. But here’s the deal. I would prefer not to trade with them at all than be forced to do bend to the will of the EU. I don’t think Brexit will be nearly as tough economically as some people predict, it may even be such that we barely notice. But again even if it were going to be tough, it would be eminently worth it. Unless you are one of the tiny band of EU federalists you have to agree with me. If you don’t want the UK to be the equivalent of Vermont, then you have to think that it’s better to leave the EU now rather than continue towards the federalist EU destiny.

It is this point that has recently become clear to Poland. Most of us pay little attention to Polish politics. All those consonant clusters can make it difficult to follow. But something important is happening and it is worth paying attention.  There is a now a fundamental dispute between Poland and the EU. The Poles elected a party called Prawo i Sprawiedliwość [Law and Justice].  This party has some fairly traditional Polish Catholic views, but for all that it is currently the largest party in the Polish Parliament. The dispute with the EU may in part be because of this traditional Polish Catholicism, which means that the Polish Government sins in a variety of ways against EU Orthodoxy. But it is in two ways in particular that the EU most disagrees with Poland. The first is that the Polish Government wanted to appoint judges to its Supreme Court. There have been some protests about this in Poland. Fair enough. In every country there are political disagreements. But the EU has told Poland that it may not appoint its judges in this way. Why ever not? The USA appoints judges to its Supreme Court by means of a political process. The EU doesn’t complain about this. Why should it complain about how Poland decides to do these things? What has it to do with the EU? At any rate some rather important people in the EU are appointed and a large number of decisions are made in a less than transparent way. Why threaten to remove Poland’s voting rights in the EU over something as arcane as how they appoint their judges?

The reason perhaps is that Poland has sinned in a more fundamental way. When Angela Merkel responded to the refugee crisis in 2015 by in effect saying all of them were welcome in Germany, what she really meant was that all of them were welcome in the EU. She might have been generous unilaterally, but she expected the consequence of her decision to be shared multilaterally. Poland has refused its share. This is the root of the dispute about judges.

Poland along with other members of the Visegrád Group (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia) has shown great reluctance to accept any of the people Mrs Merkel let into the EU. Why ever should these countries be so reluctant? After all aren’t we continually told how beneficial immigration has been to Britain, France, Germany, Sweden etc.? Why would anyone want to avoid something that was so clearly of benefit to them?

This is the crux of the matter. The Poles et al have benefited from the EU. They are net recipients and get a large amount of money from the richer EU states. Not only this, but they have also benefited from free movement of people. Many Polish people have been able to live and work in Western Europe. But this has also given them an experience of life in the West. What they have seen is how the Pro EU establishment has managed things for the past decades.

Take Britain where the majority of Polish people have come to live. The UK is wealthier than Poland in part because we didn’t have to live under communism for fifty years. But communism also isolated Poland from much of what has happened to a country like Britain since the 1950s. I think the Poles who have been living in places like Britain have seen where Western values and the EU establishment Orthodoxy lead. They don’t like what they see.

I recently went to a Polish Church service in a cathedral. It was packed with people of all ages who quite obviously were sincere and believed with enthusiasm. My guess is that the equivalent English language service would have been sparsely attended with a few elderly ladies who probably were not quite sure what they ought or ought not to believe. This is the difference. The UK has gone through a revolution since the 1950s. Belief in Christianity has collapsed. Traditional ideas about morality are no longer believed and we have little idea about what we believe about anything. We know what we must not say at least in public. But what is it to be British in Britain today? Few of us have a clue. What values do we have except those vague values that are shared by everyone in the West in general? But then these are not our values. They are the values of everybody. This really means we don’t have our own values.

The Poles have been happy to live and work here. We too have benefited from them coming here. But my guess is that when some have them have returned to Poland they have come with a message. Be careful. If you follow the path of Britain you will turn Poland into the same thing. You see the Poles know exactly what it means for someone to be a Pole and they are absolutely clear about what their values are. What they believe is what they have always believed. They like believing these things and want to maintain their country more or less as it is.

The British political establishment from the 1950s onward has made one hell of a mess. We have debts that we can’t pay, but which instead we must attempt to gradually inflate away. We have destroyed the foundation of our morality (Christianity) without having been able to put something else in its place. This means that large numbers of our citizens do exactly what they please so long as it is within the law or they can avoid getting caught. We have strange combination of “anything goes” while at the same time we peer through the lace curtains to make sure no-one sins against the latest diktat of political correctness. We have completely lost control of our borders and have absolutely no idea of what to do about it. Meanwhile many of our cities have been changed beyond all recognition, such that pictures from the 1940s look as if they are pictures of another country. They are.

It was this that we rebelled against when we voted to leave the EU. We were saying to the British political establishment that we rejected them and everything that they stood for. It is for this reason too that the establishment and its supporters reacted with such fury. It is for this reason too that they have been fighting such a bitter rearguard action.

We should support the Poles. We went to war to defend Poland in 1939, but in the end failed to do so. We probably couldn’t have done otherwise. We lacked the will, perhaps the strength to fight the Soviet Union in 1945. Nevertheless our failure to defend Eastern Europe in those days led to decades of tyranny.  We must not allow Poland to be bullied because it wishes to protect its sovereignty and way of life. We must allow them to learn the lesson of the past decades.

Western cities are now under continual threat. We are told that we must live with this and that nothing can be done. This is no doubt true. But it is not true about Warsaw, Budapest, Prague or Bratislava. Let these cities at least avoid having to say that this fear is normal. We need a new way of thinking, because the old ways have led to what Poland and its neighbours are desperate to avoid. Brexit may be a step in the right direction. If Poland leaves too then we should offer them friendship, help and free trade. Poles have been through tough times to defend their freedom and sovereignty. No doubt they will consider it to be worth it. Perhaps their example may encourage others. The EU and the Western political establishment that created it is part of the problem. We are seeing the consequences of the decisions that were made for the past decades every day throughout Western Europe. It is for this reason that the Poles reject these decisions. They can see where they lead. They are right to reject them.

If there is hope,’ wrote Winston, ‘it lies in the Poles.’

How to respond to Nationalist threats

Before finally deciding to campaign for Brexit, Boris Johnson prepared two articles for his regular Telegraph column. The first explained why he was choosing to vote Leave the other why he was choosing to vote for Remain. Many people would see this as a sign that his eventual decision was calculating and based on self-interest. I would hope that most of us make decisions by means of calculating the pros and cons and I would suggest that few indeed are the people that do not at least take into account self-interest when they decide to do anything. Moreover, as events showed the Theresa May route of backing Remain while not doing so enthusiastically was the path more likely to lead to the big prize. The important point however, is that on certain issues people are genuinely torn. I know I was. It is these people who decide elections.

The decision in the EU referendum was difficult because of our inability to see into the future. Many British people perhaps didn’t much like the EU, but they could see that there were risks involved in leaving. Voting to stay meant that things would go on more or less the same in the near future. If you thought life wasn’t so bad this had its attractions. What if all the horrible things the Remain campaign predicted turned out to be true? After a few months it is becoming clearer that the sky will not fall in. Of course, we haven’t left yet, but the predictions made by Remain were that the UK would immediately suffer from choosing to leave the EU. The reverse has been the case.

There is an important lesson here for Pro UK people. I do not agree with some Scottish commentators that it shows a lack of understanding of the Scottish people for English Tories to suggest that Theresa May should say “No” to a second independence referendum. I think these commentators misunderstand the risk of saying go ahead. Let Nicola Sturgeon have a tantrum. Let the Scottish Nationalists go on demonstrations. Let Scottish opinion be inflamed. So what? Like a toddler on the floor of a supermarket screaming its head off such actions have nowhere to go. If we hold firm, we can block the SNP indefinitely. If we don’t, we might lose our country for ever. Every single European country, plus each member of the Security Council would agree that Theresa May was within her rights to say “No Nicola, you have had your referendum and you will have to wait some years to have another.”

British Prime Ministers blocked the desire for an EU referendum for years even though they knew there was huge support for one. George Osborne thought David Cameron’s decision to hold a referendum was foolish. Must we really live in a world where we are continually held to ransom by Nicola Sturgeon? If Theresa May has the legal right to say “No” then let her say “No”. The Scottish Parliament does not have control over constitutional matters and therefore cannot have a mandate over such issues. There is nothing remotely undemocratic about saying this is an issue for us not you. This is an issue that was settled decisively only a short time ago. Demonstrate and fume all you like.

But until and unless we hear authoritatively that there is not going to be a second independence referendum any time soon we must prepare as if there will be. Many Pro UK people are foolishly optimistic. It’s almost as if they are singing “We’re going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line”. Sorry folks you are completely deluded. We dislike the SNP. We dislike Nicola Sturgeon and think her arguments are poor. But if there were another General Election tomorrow the SNP would still win most of the seats. If there were another Scottish Parliament election they would still win a majority, perhaps even an overall majority. If there were a second independence referendum they would have to gain just a few percentage points to win it. At various points Leave was far further behind Remain in the polls. Who anyway can trust polls? The reality is that a second independence referendum would be a toss of a coin. We might have a slight advantage. But the SNP could well win. What’s more if they lost they would just dust themselves down and try again a few years later. After all we can’t inflame Scottish opinion and we couldn’t possibly deny them the chance.

Some folks may find me overly pessimistic. I would suggest they have short memories of the last campaign. Remember how our lead just vanished over the summer. One poor performance in a debate and the SNP had the lead. We spent the last week or two not knowing if we would win or lose. Never fight a battle that you might lose if you can avoid it. But above all else remember that Goliath thought he had no chance of being beaten.  

The best ways to avoid battle is to prepare for it. It is crucial that Pro UK people are aware of the strengths of our position and its weaknesses. The biggest weakness and the reason we are where we are is the nature of Scottish public opinion. The reason that Remain lost the EU referendum is that few British people much like the EU. We may have thought it was useful, but we never had much love for it. The same goes for the majority of Scots with regard to the UK. Hatred of the UK obviously corresponds to support for Scottish nationalism. Those people who deny their British citizenship (Scottish not British) are far more likely to vote for independence than anyone else. These people make up the hard core 25-30% of Scottish opinion. There are around 30-40% of Scots who think of themselves as British and Scottish. These people will always vote to preserve the UK. That leaves around 30% in the middle who can be persuaded either way. The trouble is that these people have little love for Britain. They might be bought off by thinking we are “better together” but if they thought they’d get a few hundred pounds a year extra they’d happily vote for Scottish independence.

The SNP have the patriotic Scottish card. It is about the only argument they have. But it is a very powerful argument. I sometimes think it is the most powerful argument in human history. In certain circumstances it trumps every other argument. The Pro British patriotic card is much weaker in Scotland because relatively few Scots feel particularly British. For the past decades there has been a concerted attempt to eradicate our feeling of unity with the rest of the UK and to erase our common identity. It has to a great extent succeeded. The SNP with their education policies are doing all that they can to increase the sense of being Scottish but not British. The Scottish establishment appear happy to help. Our Pro UK patriotic card is therefore much weaker than it ought to be. But we must play it nevertheless.

There is a reason why Remain did not run a positive campaign about the EU. There is far too much about the EU that ordinary British people simply don’t like. The core EU developments of the past decades are not going well. How are you supposed to run a positive campaign about Schengen, the Euro and Jean-Claude Juncker? It was for this reason that George Osborne and friends decided to go negative again. The trouble is they overdid it.

There came a point last spring when the succession of world leaders and economists producing ever more lurid stories about what would happen if the UK voted to leave the EU became counterproductive. When David Cameron suggested World War III might result the reaction from ordinary Brits was not fear but ridicule. It is this that we must guard against.

We have the chance to run both a positive and a negative campaign about UK unity. There are lots of things that Scots like about the UK. Even those Scottish nationalists who hate Britain were desperate that certain things we all like about living in the UK would continue after independence. The key Pro UK message is that the things we like about living in the UK may well depend on keeping the UK intact and that the easiest way to keep them is to stay. In this way the campaign is both positive and negative at the same time. Uncertainty is our friend. There is no need to say that you will definitely lose something if you vote for independence. It’s enough to say that you  might. 

The campaign must be rooted in our history and what we have achieved as the UK. But it must also look forward to what we can do in the future. I think leaving the EU gives Britain a new role in the world. We have the chance to increase our free trade relations with the rest of the world, while maintaining an excellent relationship with our friends in Europe. We have not been particularly happy in the EU. This has caused difficulties for them and for us. Let us instead be good friends and neighbours. This positive story about our Post EU future is crucial to defeating the SNP. Even if you voted to Remain, make a virtue out of a necessity and help us make a success of our post EU future. If it becomes ever more obvious that the UK is going to do well, then Scots won’t want to leave. 

The negative side of our campaign must focus on those swing voters who are persuadable either way. Don’t waste any time whatsoever debating with Wings and Co. Don’t answer them, don’t even talk to them. You will just get insults and abuse for your troubles. They are an asset to our campaign and hurt the nationalists. Who wants to vote for snarling losers?

A lot of former Labour voters have switched to the SNP because they hope that Scottish independence might bring them socialism/social democracy. These people believed SNP claims that independence would make them better off. This argument was false last time, but it is still more obviously false this time. The economic fundamentals are against the SNP.

Leaving the EU will made it much harder for the SNP to come up with a persuasive argument. The reason for this is that Scotland’s prosperity depends crucially on our relationship with the other parts of the UK.

The Republic of Ireland has a more important relationship with the UK than it does with Poland. The reason for this is that we have a shared language and history. Ireland joined the then Common Market at the same time as the UK for a very good reason. They waited for they knew it would damage their economy to be a in a different trade bloc to the UK. Unfortunately it will be hugely damaging to the Republic when the UK leaves the EU.  Some have gone so far as to suggest it might force Ireland to leave too.

What goes for Ireland obviously goes for Scotland. To suppose that leaving the UK’s single market would make Scots wealthier is going to be a very tough sell for the SNP. For this reason they have been scrambling around looking for a way to maintain both membership of the EU’s single market and the UK’s single market. The SNP have hinted that they might not even want to join the EU if they achieve independence. They might want to be like Norway.

The problem is that the Norway option doesn’t really help the SNP. Why has Nicola Sturgeon been complaining about Scotland’s Remain vote being ignored if she herself is willing to ignore it? 55% of Scots voted to stay in the UK, while 62% voted to stay in the EU. Scottish independence with the Norway option gives neither group what they wanted. It becomes ever clearer that it is Nicola Sturgeon who is ignoring the wishes of Scots.

If Scotland remained part of the EU single market while the other parts of the UK left, then Scotland’s trade relationship with the UK would depend on what the EU negotiated with the UK. If the EU chose to impose tariffs on UK goods then Scotland would have to do likewise. Furthermore membership of the EU’s single market means that Scotland would have to accept free movement of people. But it is exactly to avoid this that the UK is leaving the EU’s single market. The danger then for Scotland is that it might be necessary to show passports at the English border.

The SNP argument always turns on the relationship of Scotland with the other parts of the UK. There are lots of things even Scottish nationalists like about being in the UK. They like free trade, they like an open border and the fact that it is easy to do business and move about our country, live and work where they please with no trouble and no form filling. But it is becoming ever more obvious that the easiest perhaps the only way to maintain these things is to stay a part of the UK.

Leaving the EU is going to make it much harder for the SNP to convincingly argue that life would continue as before. The EU guaranteed that citizens would have more or less the same rights in each other’s countries. But when the UK leaves the EU, the rights of Scots with regard to the UK would depend on negotiation. The UK would cease to exist if Scotland became independent. The Union flag and a name involving the word "United" could not continue. The citizens of the former UK might not see this as a particularly friendly act. They might not be inclined to allow Scots to maintain their British citizenship and they might not be inclined to be particularly helpful. If you think this is fanciful then you only have to look at the relation between Ukraine and Russia.

I hope there is never going to be another Scottish independence referendum, but if there is we must be ready with a positive story about the UK’s future. We must also recognise that negative campaigning that is grounded in fundamentals and in truth is effective. Those swing voting Scots who might think that independence would bring them a little more prosperity must be asked the following questions. Do you really want to live in a Scotland where we no longer use the pound you have used all your life. A Scottish currency might be pegged to Sterling, but what would happen to your mortgage if that peg broke? Would you be pleased if the relationship between Scotland and the other parts of the UK became much worse and much less friendly? How would you feel if you had to show your passport to visit relations in England? What if you had to gain permission to live and work in Wales? We don’t know what would happen if Scotland voted to leave the UK. But now that the UK is leaving the EU there are no more guarantees. Do you really think you’d be better off?