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. 

Only children are scared of a pin-prick

This may be my last bit of writing for a while. I deliberately organised things such that I’d be away during the referendum. I shall not be paying much attention to the news. My guess is that most of the people in the part of Spain I like to go to will be paying more attention to the football than to whether the UK chooses to stay in the EU or not. It will be good to get away from the poisonous atmosphere that referendums create. If I wake up one morning and find that we’ve decided to leave the EU, I will be full of hope for the future. If, on the other hand, I wake up to find we’ve chosen to remain I will shrug my shoulders and may even feel a slight sense of relief. But whatever happens no-one will connect the decision with me. I frequently get complemented on the excellence of my English when I’m abroad. After all no-one who speaks Russian all day could possibly be from Scotland.

Maybe a person’s politics is due to their nature. I think people are a paradoxical mixture of morality and self-interest. Sometimes we try to dress up our self-interest as morality. But there are times when we are willing to do the right thing even if it might be contrary to our interest. If this were not the case no-one would willingly go to war.

It was always my contrariness that made me a Tory. Everyone I knew in Scotland was left wing. I found it so dull and I liked to argue. What better position to take than one that would inevitably lead to an argument? What’s more, being a Conservative in Scotland is about questioning the assumptions that everyone else has. So I began to question. From this followed what I believe.

I believe in free market economics and free trade. I don’t think equality of outcome is a goal that is either possible or desirable to obtain. Give each of us the same chance. Bring down the barriers that prevent an individual reaching his goals. But don’t try to organise everything from on high. Don’t think that government can control our destiny. Freedom is about taking responsibility for my own choices. Goodness requires that moral choices are a matter of individual decision rather than government diktat. Socialism destroys morality by forcing me to be moral. Sharing then becomes a matter of law rather than a matter of choice. It is legalised theft. If I rob a rich man’s house, I’m a crook but if I and my friends get the government to rob him, I’m a socialist.

From my belief in limited government and individual freedom I began some time ago to question the European Union. I have not by any means always been hostile to the EU. There are still circumstances in which I could support the EU.

If I was presented with the possibility of a fully democratic United States of Europe with a system of government as free as the USA, I would be inclined to take that offer. It matters little to me where the locus of government is. Someone from Texas is in an enviable position even if ultimately he is ruled from Washington rather than from Austin. The reason for this is that Texas has considerable devolved/local power and it is a part of democracy. It matters no more that Texas is sometimes outvoted by the USA as a whole than that Aberdeenshire is outvoted by Scotland.

It gradually became clear to me however that the EU was not remotely like the USA in terms of democracy. There is no sign that it will ever become a democracy either. For this reason for a democratic country to sign up to ever closer union is to sign up to every more tyranny. If Texas were a democracy, while the USA were not, it would be the duty of Texans to either try to make the USA more democratic or failing that to break free. But for so long as the USA remains a democracy, it is anti-democratic for Texas to secede, even if it is outvoted. Democracy depends on accepting the will of the majority. 

I concluded however,  that there was no way we could make the EU democratic. Power in the EU does not lie with the electorate. The European Parliament is not the source of power rather it is a front that gives the illusion of democracy in a similar way in which some communist countries used to pretend they were democratic. The people with real power in the EU are not elected but rather appointed, sometimes self-appointed. This is no more democratic than the House of Lords. Allowing the EU to overrule the democratic wishes of the British people is like allowing the House of Lords to overrule the House of Commons.

The situation in the EU is not getting better, rather it is getting worse.  Last summer I saw how the Greek people were treated. Their democracy has been crushed by an oligarchy who no-one can kick out. They have become a vassal state who must do what their German masters tell them. They may still have the illusion of democracy, but the substance has dissolved. I want no part of this.

Now we discover that Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, can decide whether or not the UK has access to the single market, just as he decided whether Greece would have a bail out or not. I keep hearing that the British Parliament may decide to ignore the result of the referendum. Some people suggest that we might be asked the same question again until we get the right answer. To this I say enough.

I do not oppose the countries of Europe cooperating or trading freely with each other. Within reason I am happy for us to be able to live and work in each other’s countries. But we don’t need to become an undemocratic superstate to do these things. Other countries in the world trade freely with each other. Some of them have formed trading groups. But none of these countries allow themselves to be subordinate to a supranational body in order to trade freely. Our freedom and our democracy is the very soul of our country. It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for trade?

The folly of the EU in setting up a single currency is now clear to everyone. It has caused poverty in southern Europe. The folly of trying to abolish national borders without being able to defend the border of the EU as a whole was shown last year. There is one hope for democracy in Europe. We must return in an orderly way to how we were. Let us re-establish national currencies and national democracies. Let us have at least a minimal amount of control at each nation border, for safety’s sake. Let the nation states of Europe become like all the other countries in the world, free and sovereign.

If Britain leaves the EU it just might be the example that Spain, Italy and Greece need to bring them back to democracy and prosperity. If on the other hand the EU tries to go still further on the road to becoming a superstate, at least we wouldn’t be a part of it. To remain is to be culpable for the loss of freedom, democracy and prosperity of our neighbours. Even if we by opting out of Schengen and the Euro have been spared much of their suffering we still have a duty towards our neighbour.

I am morally opposed to the EU because I have come to the conclusion that it does harm not so much to Britain as to others. In Britain we have always been willing to stick up for others. We fought wars to defend Belgium and Poland. We have been willing to suffer in order to do what was right. But what we are faced with now is nothing at all like that.

We faced an economic crisis in 2008 that led to some years of recession. But this happened even though we were in the EU. Such a crisis might happen again this year or next year. Alternatively we may avoid another deep recession. No-one knows. But economic shocks will happen at some point whether we are in the EU or not. What would happen if we voted to leave? There would be some short term uncertainty. This might make the pound fall. Stock markets may go up and down a bit. But these things will pass. Our biggest problem frankly would be that people like David Cameron have been so unpatriotic as to predict disaster for the UK economy if we decided to leave the EU. They have created something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. But guess what, the day after leaving, everyone in the British government and indeed the EU would be doing their best to reassure markets and avert any difficulties that might arise.  In a remarkably short time we’d find everything was more or less back to normal. Britain will keep trading more or less freely with the EU. People from all our countries will be able more or less to live where we please. An arrangement will be made that satisfies the will of the British people and which enables us to have a relationship with the EU that is mutually beneficial.   

I cannot quite believe the level of Project Fear that Mr Cameron and his friends have developed during this referendum. The fact is that leaving the EU wouldn’t even be that difficult. Compared to Scottish independence, leaving the EU is remarkably straightforward. The only issue that matters is trade. But look around the world. Nearly every country in the world trades more or less freely with everyone else.  Even in Europe it is not necessary to be in the EU in order to trade freely with other European countries. There is not a single European country west of Belarus’ that does not trade freely with every other. The idea that Iceland, Switzerland, Norway and the Holy See can have free trade while being outside the EU, but Britain could not is ludicrous.

I think there is a natural majority in the UK against being a part of the EU. We have been reluctant from the start, for which reason we didn’t sign up to things like Schengen and the Euro. Few indeed of those who want to remain really love the EU. Fewer still want Britain to be part of a United States of Europe. These voters don’t much care for the EU, but they are scared to leave. They think that leaving will make us poorer or they’re worried about losing their right to live and work abroad. Many people who will vote to remain in the EU are doing so because of how they see themselves as vaguely internationalist and liberal. Some in Scotland are worried that if we vote to leave the EU, it will make a vote for Scottish independence more likely.

No-one can predict the future. But let’s look at the fundamentals. If the fifth largest economy in the world can’t afford to leave the EU, the EU really is a burning building with no exits. If tiny Iceland can be prosperous outside the EU, of course Britain can be. Long term we may even be more prosperous. If our example led to the EU going back to being a collection of nation states with their own currencies who trade freely with each other, this might be the one thing necessary to bring growth to countries like Greece and Italy. This would of course help us too. Best of all it would be far easier for the UK to arrange trade deals on our own rather than having to rely on the unanimous agreement of 28 very different countries with different interests.

Every western European whether from an EU country or not can live and work everywhere in Europe. No-one is going to start making it difficult for Brits to go on holiday or to work abroad. The idea that Germany will allow in all comers, except Brits is perverse.

If you really are an internationalist, then you should care about the plight of the southern Europeans. Moreover, unless you really think we should abolish all borders, then it’s necessary to accept that caring about other countries and working together with them does not require that we are ruled by them. The Japanese are not anti-Asian because they maintain their own borders and don’t want to be ruled by a union of Asian countries. An Australian can equally feel an internationalist while wishing to maintain Australian sovereignty.

The argument for the UK leaving the EU is very different from the argument for Scotland leaving the UK. The process of leaving the EU would not involve creating a new nation state.  The UK would simply revert to the norm. We’d go back to what we always were until we joined. This is no more scary than going back to the 1960s, or being a country like New Zealand.

I don’t like negative campaigning, but the difficulties involved in Scotland becoming independent are genuine. What’s more if the UK as a whole decided to leave the EU it would be even harder for Scotland to achieve independence. To imagine Scotland in the EU while the UK is outside is to imagine a distance and a gulf which few, except the most hard-line Scottish nationalists, would want to contemplate.

The SNP themselves have admitted that Brexit would not lead to them asking for another independence referendum. They have also admitted that Brexit makes the case for Scottish independence harder. The EU in fact acts as the condition for the possibility of sub nation-state nationalism. It enables the SNP to argue that life would go on more or less the same if Scotland left the UK. After all we’d all still be in the EU, governed by the same rules and regulations. People who fear Brexit would lead to a second Scottish independence referendum need to think more long term. It’s not as if the SNP will give up the goal of independence if we vote to remain. The one thing that would unite the UK in the long run is leaving the EU.

Short term I admit to having some fears about leaving the EU. There is some uncertainty. For that reason if the UK votes to remain, I might allow myself a little sigh of relief. But long term I would think we would have made the wrong decision. I oppose the EU morally. It is undemocratic and it has caused unnecessary suffering in Europe. Long term it would benefit not only the UK, but everyone else in Europe if we could revert to being sovereign nation states which simply traded with each other freely. That would help all of our prosperity.  Leaving the EU might involve a pin prick while we adjust to freedom, and self-responsibility.  But we would soon wake up from the anaesthetic and think what on earth were we so scared of.  When an operation is necessary it obviously is also worth it.  A sigh of relief at avoiding the pin prick in these circumstances would be rather childish.

Rome shall perish

I’m naturally a pessimist. I sometimes try to write in an uplifting way as if to encourage the troops. The moral, after all, is to the physical as three to one. But it’s generally me who needs encouraging most of all. I fully expected the SNP to gain a majority in the Scottish parliament. I didn’t even consider that the Conservatives could possibly come second. I was sure that in last year’s general election there would be a hung parliament and that the SNP would have a place in a Labour cabinet. Let’s just say then that my ability to predict is dismal. But then which of us knows what is going to happen next week, let alone next year? How many of the surprising events of the last five years did you guess? We can’t even predict the weather with any accuracy. The best weather forecast is and will always be the act of looking out of the window. So if you are one of those who still remain optimistic about a win for Brexit in June, feel free to discount my prediction. Of course anything is possible. But my guess is that unless something very odd happens the UK will vote to remain. I also think that it won’t matter.

In William Cowper’s poem Boadicea: An Ode he imagines the British warrior queen on the verge of defeat to the Roman legions. A druid, who has a better ability to predict the future than I do, tells her that defeat at the Battle of Watling Street will in time become a victory.  Somehow he can see what Britain is destined to become and so in the long run dominance by the Roman Empire is merely a temporary setback.

Can it be accidental that the founding document of the European Union is the Treaty of Rome? The first Roman Empire was run by the Caesars. The second was described as neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire, but still managed to rule central Europe from 800 to 1806. The third Roman Empire began in 1957. It will fall much quicker than either of the first two, no matter what we in Britain decide.

‘Rome shall perish—write that word        

  In the blood that she has spilt;       

Perish, hopeless and abhorred,                  

  Deep in ruin as in guilt.

The third attempt to establish Pax Romani in Europe is not bringing Europeans closer together. It is creating division and hatred. Far from preventing war, the European Union by its meddling created conflict in Ukraine where previously there had been peace. The European Union ought to have realised that Russia like every country has strategic red lines. The idea that Russia would allow the cradle of Russian civilization and a place where huge numbers of Russian speakers still live to join a hostile bloc is naïve. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, Russia was always bound to respond.  

The European Union is likewise in part responsible for the breakup of Yugoslavia and the fact that this country dissolved itself by means of war and genocide. It was once more, the promise of joining the European Union that encouraged secessionists in Yugoslavia. It was the fact that the European Union thought that it could manage the conflict which led to it escalating so horribly.

Above all it was the attempt to extend the borders of the European Union right up to Russia that has created the New Cold War that we are experiencing today. The fall of communism need not have been accomplished bloodlessly. This happened only because the Soviet Union chose not to fight it. A few machine gun bullets would have stopped the fall of the Berlin Wall in five minutes flat. It took something of a miracle for communism not to end in war. But that miracle only happened because the West promised the Soviet Union that we would not try to take over the Warsaw Pact and would not destroy the strategic buffer zone Russia bought with so many lives in World War Two.  The EU broke that promise and is itself the source of a potential conflict with Russia. Either it should have allowed Russia to join the EU in 1991 or it should have gone no further east than the Oder. Leaving Russia isolated and feeling threatened is no more wise than encircling Germany in the years leading up to World War One.  

Within the EU we now have a huge gulf between the wealthy North and the poor South. Countries like Greece, Italy and Spain have seen their young people impoverished by unemployment or forced to flee abroad. The European Union’s attempt to create a single currency is directly responsible for a great deal of suffering in these countries. Far from creating European unity, the Euro has only created resentment between those who have debts they cannot pay and those who lent the money and are determined to get it back at any cost. This cannot long continue. Either the Eurozone becomes a single federal nation state with fiscal transfers from the richer parts to the poorer parts or at some point someone is going break free and establish their own currency again. It won’t be Greece. It probably won’t be Italy. But who?

‘Rome, for empire far renowned,     

  Tramples on a thousand states;     

Soon her pride shall kiss the ground—     

  Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!

The French are very close to rebellion. It is not the French role to be quite so subservient to Germany. History always repeats itself. The Gaul at the gates is not this time called Le Brenn, but rather Le Pen. Perhaps this is why everyone is so keen that the UK doesn’t leave the EU. It might just provide the example that France is looking for.

We can already see the seeds of the destruction of the European Union. It may be destroyed by another debt crisis. But if that doesn’t do it, the crisis in the Schengen zone will. Last year Angela Merkel appointed herself Holy Roman Empress and decided to open Europe’s gates to all comers. In this she went contrary to the whole current of European history, which is the struggle to defend Europe’s borders. If there is one thing that has united Europeans for more than a thousand years it is the defence of Christendom. Without that there would be no Europe today, for we would have lost all the battles that kept our rather arbitrary little continent intact.

Merkel’s rash and unilateral decision had consequences for everyone. But here there was the first rebellion against Roman rule. The Hungarians built fences. The Poles refused to accept that the demographic makeup of Poland would change. The attempt by the European Union to bring down borders has already failed. They will go up again whenever they are required.

With hindsight it was obvious years earlier that communism would fall. But no-one at the time guessed that it would happen quite so soon. There were contradictions in the Soviet Union, but it was far more stable than the European Union is today.

The British rebellion may well fail. But it won’t matter. We will have to wait far less than Boadicea did. It may even be that defeat now will in the long run be better for us strategically. We will have a say in how the third Roman Empire collapses and we may be able to help it on its way. There will come a time when those who want the EU Empire to continue will deeply regret that their threats bound us to them.

Long term a defeat now is merely tactical. We too can look forward to a time when the third Roman Empire will be no more. It will happen no matter which way we vote. So if there is to be a defeat, let’s not worry about it, let’s get on with our lives knowing that we’ve suffered defeat before only to triumph in the end. There’s something peculiarly British about our celebration of defeat. It’s because we always win in the end.  Boadicea knew this, for unlike me she could predict what would happen centuries into the future.

‘Ruffians, pitiless as proud,   

  Heaven awards the vengeance due:

Empire is on us bestowed,     

  Shame and ruin wait for you.’

Quite soon historians will look back on the third attempt to create a Roman Empire and they will wonder at the sorrow and the pity of it all. Let us only hope that when it dissolves it does so in a measured and orderly way. It is no more possible now than it was at the time of the Caesars to unite people who speak such a variety of languages and who think of themselves as fundamentally different. The contradiction inherent in the project was there from the start and therefore from the moment they signed the Treaty of Rome it was already doomed. The prophecy from two thousand years ago remains just as valid. Rome will perish. It may be this year. It may be next year or we may have to wait a little longer. But be patient. The EU is as undemocratic as the House of Lords. Everyone with power in the EU is appointed rather than elected. But unlike the House of Lords the EU has the power to make terrible mistakes like Schengen and the Euro.  We can leave them too it. The third Roman empire will fall by its own folly.

Destroying the SNP’s dream

The SNP’s failure to win an overall majority in Holyrood was a setback for them and their cause. It will be very hard indeed for Scottish nationalists to push for a second independence referendum in the next five years. Importantly, in the present context, this is the case even if the UK as a whole decides to vote to leave the EU. If that happened there is no question that the SNP would complain and kick up a fuss. But there would be very little that they could do. They just don’t have the numbers. Too few Scots support independence at the moment and the Scottish economy is too dependent on subsidy from the UK.

Despite all the scare stories it remains the case that leaving the EU would be relatively straightforward for the UK. All we would have to do is revert to the norm. Most nation states in the world are like Australia, Japan, Iceland and Switzerland. These countries trade freely with the rest of the world, but their own parliaments are supreme. The laws these parliaments make are not subordinate to the laws made by unelected bureaucrats. They don’t allow countries they trade with to tell them what to do. Fundamentally, Brexit supporters are simply saying that the UK can become once more what we had been for centuries until we joined the then Common Market.  The scare stories from our opponents amount to the claim that the UK cannot revert to being a country like Australia. In the end what’s scary about being like Australia? Nothing at all.

The thing that makes Brexit relatively straightforward is that the UK already is a nation state. The arguments that were used in the Scottish independence referendum against Scottish nationalism simply do not apply. Guess what if the UK leaves the EU we get to keep the pound.

No-one knows anything about economics in the short term. Almost no-one predicted the 2008 economic crisis. We cannot predict what will happen to the UK economy in the next twelve months let alone the next twenty years. The future has not happened yet. What happens depends on things we cannot control, but also to an extent on the choices that we make. There will be a recession some time relatively soon if we leave the EU. But there will also be a recession if we stay. We know this because recessions are cyclical. All you can do is make sound economic decisions for the long term.

The core EU countries share a single currency. In the next few years they will face a choice. Either the Eurozone will become something like a single nation state or it will break up. Currency union requires political union and fiscal union. Money has to be transferred from the richer parts of the union to the poorer parts. At the moment the Eurozone simply isn’t working. Countries like Italy have had to endure long term recession with no hope of finding growth. The idea that leaving the EU causes recession is preposterous. The EU itself is a recession machine.

In order to work properly the Eurozone will have to come much closer together and gain a federal structure. Alternatively it could break up. No-one knows which of these two options will happen. My guess is that the Eurozone will become something like a single federal nation state. Breaking up would be too traumatic. We learned that last summer. If Grexit were going to happen, it would have already happened.

The Eurozone is going to have to make some tough decisions in any event. German tax payers are going to have to pay for Italian debts. Naturally they don’t want to. They would far rather that the UK had to pay too. It is for this reason that staying in the EU is a long term threat to the UK. There are benefits of sharing a single currency, but we don’t share them, yet even so we will end up paying the cost of Eurozone unification.

The only way the Eurozone countries can gain political union is if the majority can overrule the minority. The idea that the UK can remain in the EU while not sharing the costs of political union is to misunderstand the nature of the EU. Whatever guarantees are made turn out to be worthless a few years down the line. What’s more there will be nothing we can do, because we will be outvoted. If we choose to remain in the EU, we choose to make our laws and our parliament subordinate.

Likewise we don’t share the benefits of being in the Schengen zone. Recently we have been discovering that there are costs too. The EU cannot control its external borders. If at some point in the future the EU decides that everyone has to take their share of those who take advantage of the EU’s open border policy, what will we be able to do to stop this? Nothing at all. By choosing to remain in the EU we choose in the end to be outvoted on anything and everything. That’s what political union means.

The EU is one crisis away from moving decisively towards political union. That crisis may come with the next global recession, which cannot be far off now. The reason for all the scare stories by the global establishment is that they fear that Brexit would give an example to countries like Italy and Spain. What they fear is that the UK shows that there is life outside the EU and indeed that it is better.

But Brexit might also be of huge benefit to the EU. In the next few years while they try to come closer together, what is going to be their stumbling block? It will be the UK. It’s hard to imagine a UK government being pleased at being outvoted. It's equally hard to imagine the British people being grateful that we have to do things we don’t want to do for the sake of European unity. But if we were not there, if we were not always a hindrance, it is possible to imagine the European project succeeding.

Once you understand what the EU is going to become, then the result of last week’s Scottish parliament election becomes ever more important. The crucial thing is that there is no longer a threat that Scotland will try to leave the UK if we vote to leave the EU. Pro UK Scots can then vote for Brexit knowing that the SNP can do nothing about it.

But won’t this just store up a grievance for the future? Well it’s not as if the SNP will cease having a grievance in any event. But it’s vital to realise that leaving the EU makes Scottish independence must harder to realise. If you don’t believe me then perhaps you will believe this from the site Wings over Scotland.

It’s not accidental that the SNP has for a long time supported the EU. The reason fundamentally is that it makes independence more palatable and less of a shock. The whole SNP argument is that independence would be a relatively minor change. All of the things that we like about the UK would continue, but Scotland would be independent. This can be described as independence light. If on the other hand it turns out that we would be voting for independence heavy, the likelihood of the SNP winning the argument becomes much smaller. If the UK leaves the EU Scottish independence becomes very heavy indeed.

I have made this point on a number of occasions, but it’s worth reiterating. Imagine five years from now. The UK has left the EU. Things are going fairly well. The Scottish nationalists still want independence and they want to join the EU. Well the EU five years from now will most probably be still more integrated. Moreover the condition for joining the EU is that you promise to join the Euro and Schengen. There is zero chance that new members will be given any sort of rebate on their subscription. Will Scots really prefer to join a United States of Europe, where they will actually have no more independence than Texas? The Scottish parliament in those circumstances would lose power rather than gain it.

At present 64% of Scottish trade is with the rest of the UK and only 14% is with the EU. Would Scottish voters really want to leave the trading block (the UK) with which we do most of our trade in order to join another with which we hardly trade at all? That would be senseless.

There could be no question whatsoever of Scotland keeping the pound under those circumstances. The idea of a currency union between a country that’s in the EU with one that isn’t is preposterous. Anyway we just learned the lesson of the Euro that currency union requires political union. So in order to join the EU Scotland would first have to set up its own currency and then join the Euro. Would Scottish voters really go for that? It would be like first changing your money into dollars and then into Yen. That's a really good way of losing money. 

If Scotland were in Schengen, while the UK was outside the EU, it’s hard to imagine that we could maintain an open border. If there were an open border between Gretna and Berwick then anyone who got into the EU would immediately be able to go to London. But it would be precisely to stop this that the UK left the EU in the first place.

The failure last week of the SNP to win a majority in the Scottish parliament gives us a chance to kick Scottish nationalism in the teeth. They have had a setback we can turn it into a rout. The main reason why I support Brexit is that it makes Scottish independence so heavy that it becomes a dead issue. We will face challenges if we vote to leave the EU, but we will face them together and that will unite our country as such challenges always have. It may be the only thing that will bring back our unity. 

The alternative is that we vote to stay in the EU. Five years from now perhaps the SNP will be ready for another push for independence. Who is to say they won’t have a majority then? Who is to say that the UK government will not feel compelled to give them another referendum? Who is to say they won’t win next time? Now the SNP are at their weakest. The Scottish economy is in trouble and dependent on UK subsidy. The condition for the possibility of Scottish independence is UK membership of the EU. Destroy the Scottish nationalist dream before it turns into our nightmare. 

Brexit would be worth it.

Lately I’ve frequently found myself disagreeing with people I both like and respect. As the EU referendum campaign gets going I find myself more and more drawn to one side of the argument. I wanted to remain more or less neutral for much longer. I wanted to explore the merits of both sides of the argument. But it was as if I was forced to pick the side I would debate and within days I found myself trying to counter the Pro EU arguments while at the same time trying to put forward the best Brexit arguments. The debate has quickly become black and white, while in reality it is much more nuanced. There are some good arguments on both sides. 

I don’t think I’m alone in this. I’m quite sure William Hague and David Cameron could come up with some very good anti-EU arguments if they wanted to. We all know that Boris Johnson left his decision to campaign for Brexit very late. He might have gone the other way. It’s perfectly possible to imagine him making pro EU arguments in just the same style as he campaigns against. There are Eurosceptics who can see no merit in the EU and there are Europhiles who can see no fault in it, but that’s not how most of us are. Most of us see some merit in staying and some in remaining. Whatever happens, Britain will be a sort of half-way house, not quite in and not quite out. Few indeed are the Brits who want to be in the Euro and in Schengen and who are in favour of "ever closer union". The most ardent Brexiteer accepts that we want to have full access to the single market and that doing so means accepting at least some of the rules that we do at present. In reality the difference between these two positions is not that great.

I’m a rather strange sort of Eurosceptic in that I share the ideal of the European Union. If I thought that the EU would soon become a United States of Europe and that it would be fully democratic, I would want the UK to be a member. The reason for this is that I look across the Atlantic and see the United States and see something that is close to my ideal, at least in theory if not always in practice. The US has a huge internal market. It has local and state levels of democracy that work well. Power is devolved to the extent that the smallest communities can change things they dislike and kick out politicians, judges and sheriffs who they no longer want. At the same time there is a powerful, fully democratic tripartite national government, with excellent checks and balances so that no part can become too powerful. Americans have both a strong state and national identity and they take part in free and fair elections where everyone chooses between the same two main parties. There is one American people, even though their ancestors came from all over the world. There is one identity. There is one Supreme Court that is appointed democratically. There are therefore the three things that we need for prosperity: Democracy, free markets and the rule of law. If the EU were offering me something similar I would grab it in a second.

What matters to me is that I am part of a democracy. It doesn’t matter one little bit that I might be outvoted. For this reason if the UK were part of a United States of Europe, it wouldn’t matter to me at all that we voted Labour while the rest of the EU voted Conservative. To suppose that it does matter is to say that the whole of the USA has to agree with Rhode Island and if it doesn’t, Rhode Island is justified in leaving the USA. But this really is to demand that whatever way Rhode Island chooses the whole of the USA must follow. Taken further whichever way I choose everyone else must follow. This is not democracy, but rather tyranny. I have therefore never been convinced by the Scottish nationalist argument that secession is justified by the fact that Scots vote differently to the UK as a whole. It is a fundamentally anti-democratic argument.

My problem with the EU is therefore not the ideal, but rather the way that it is being implemented. It matters not one little bit to me that the UK might be outvoted in the EU, but it matters fundamentally that the decisions in the EU are made democratically. If the same level of democracy as we have in the UK were present in the EU, I would vote to remain. But they are not. The majority of decisions are taken by unelected bureaucrats in the European Commission, or by an unelected European President, or still more disturbingly of late they are being taken by Angela Merkel.

The EU has long been dominated by France and Germany. This at least provided a sort of counterbalance. But even this has become less important as Germany has become the overwhelmingly dominant economic force in the Eurozone. The decisions that have so affected countries like the Republic of Ireland, Portugal and Greece have been taken by the paymasters in Germany. National governments have been overruled. Political and economic decisions have been made without the consent of the people. I am in no way blaming Germany for this. It is a consequence of monetary union, which implies some form of shared decision making. But the quasi political union that has been imposed on so many countries in the EU is fundamentally anti-democratic. It has got to the stage where at times it matters not one bit which party Greeks or Irish, or Italians vote for. Whoever they vote for they are told what to do by unelected European officials.

Last year when faced with migrants entering the EU from Syria and Iraq, Mrs Merkel decided that she wanted to offer any and all of them who made it to Germany political asylum. But soon after, she demanded that everyone in the European Union should accept their share of those who she had invited. If she had been an elected European Union president, this might have been reasonable. But only Germans elected Mrs Merkel. Why should Poles, or Czechs or Brits have to give into her demands, or take responsibility for her unilateral decisions that she later regrets?

The EU has a poor record of making decisions of late. The decision to create the Euro has been an economic catastrophe. It is directly responsible for record rates of unemployment and poverty in southern Europe. The decision to remove internal European borders (Schengen) while failing to defend Europe’s external borders means that the EU has no real control over who enters. This affects the UK even though we are not a member of Schengen. Eventually anyone who has leave to remain in one EU country will have the right to live and work anywhere else. If the EU cannot defend its external border, in effect it will have no external border and neither will the UK. We have a duty to help people in trouble. Moreover immigration is beneficial. But we cannot help everyone and there must be limits. Until and unless the EU secures its external border, there is no limit to the people who may soon have the right to live and work in the UK. The only way to secure our own UK borders is to leave the EU.

None of us can guess what the future will bring. The EU faces two main challenges. How to maintain or alternatively dismantle open borders between the Schengen states? How to maintain or alternatively dismantle the Eurozone? In order to keep these things they are going to have to move towards a much deeper political union. They will also need a fiscal union and a transfer union, whereby money is transferred from the richer parts of the Eurozone to the poorer parts. This will turn the Eurozone/Schengen states into a sort of nation state. Alternatively they will break up. There isn't a third alternative. But while they may make progress towards becoming a nation state is there any sign of the EU becoming ever more democratic, ever more dependent on the will of the people? Judging from the past the answer must be No.

Whatever decisions the EU makes, we already know that they won’t be made democratically. None of the important decisions of the past twenty to thirty years were made democratically. They were all made at various summits and behind closed doors. Most people in the EU didn’t have the chance to choose whether they wanted the Euro or Schengen. Some of those who rejected aspects of the EU that they disliked in referendums found that the results of these referendums were either disregarded or overturned.

If we remain in the EU we are accepting that many decisions that will influence our lives will be made by people no-one elected. As the EU moves further towards a closer union it is becoming less democratic, not more democratic. Even if the UK is not involved in the closer union, we will still find that decisions made undemocratically will affect us and constrain us. It's not possible to be part of an undemocratic organisation without that tainting our own democratic processes.    

On the other hand if we choose to leave the EU, it will be one step on the way to bringing decision making back to the people of the UK. There is altogether too much emphasis at the moment on what would happen if the UK left the EU. I’m afraid we just have to accept that there is uncertainty. But there is uncertainty if we remain also. Who knows what decisions the EU might make? They might decide to allow Turkey to join. They might decide that a condition for EU membership is that all members have to help bail out the Eurozone. In the end they might decide pretty much anything. The UK might point to pieces of paper which are supposedly legally binding. But who decides if they really are legally binding? In the end UK law at present is subordinate to EU law. EU courts and bureaucrats will always be able to reinterpret any opt out we supposedly have to mean that we in fact have to opt in. Unelected EU officials tell us what the law is and our elected Parliament has no choice but to obey. They have done this before, they will do it again. But now we have a brief window of opportunity that may never come again. We can tell those unelected officials that the UK parliament is no longer subordinate.  We can say that we are a democracy not a vassal state and we will choose those laws that suit us and reject those that don't.

I don’t believe that Brexit would damage the UK in the long run. There are indeed great long term benefits. Even in the short term the risks have been grotesquely overstated.  We would be reverting to the position we were in until the 1970s. We would re-join the long list of sovereign nation states which are not ruled by anyone else. The United States would not allow its laws to be subordinate to the laws of anyone else.  To subordinate them to someone who is unelected in the end makes democracy a farce.

Brave people across the world have  frequently had to fight for democracy. When you do so you don’t count the cost. When we fought the Cold War we didn’t think about trade with the USSR. What mattered to us was defending our freedom. How often has Britain been willing to endure privation for a few years because of a principle that was worth fighting for? No doubt trade suffered during the First and Second World Wars because certain markets were closed to us and because of U-boats.  Imagine if someone had said we should surrender because of mere trade. This is the argument of a scoundrel. 

Here in the end is the only argument for leaving the EU. Cease your rather lurid threats.  I don’t care if Brexit would lead to a few years of trade difficulty. I don’t care if markets would react unfavourably. I want to leave the EU in order to defend UK democracy and because it would be worth it. 

Brexit makes the UK safer

Each of us has made decisions in the past which have had profound and sometimes unexpected consequences. The subjects we chose to study at school or at university can have an influence on the job we end up doing. The people we meet, the person we fall in love with all change how our life turns out in ways that we cannot guess. When I fell in love it meant I had to make a choice. I had to leave what had been familiar and move somewhere that was unknown. I didn’t know how it would turn out. There were dangers that had to be faced. But I knew that I had to go, simply because I loved. Moreover, I knew that if I did not go I would regret it forever. I realised that there might be tough times ahead, but I also knew that it would be worth it.

As a country the UK has often had to do things that are difficult. We didn’t have to fight either in 1914 or in 1939. We could have chosen to stay out of those wars. We were not immediately threatened with attack. Instead we chose to do what we thought was right and what we thought was in our national interest. We faced great danger and uncertainty, but were willing to do so as we thought it was the right thing to do.

Whatever we choose to do this year with regard to leaving or remaining in the EU there will be risk and uncertainty. But focussing too much on plusses and minuses is liable to overly cloud the issue. What matters most of all is our duty to ourselves and others. We should be willing to go through some uncertainty and even some loss of wealth in order to arrive at the position that we want. We should be willing to take some risk too. After all every person who sets up a new business accepts that there is a risk. But he considers that it would be worth it if he succeeds. Then he would have his own business. He’d be working for himself. There would be no boss, but himself.

What matters fundamentally is that the UK at the moment is not its own boss. Compare and contrast this with the United States. The highest court in the US is the Supreme Court. The clue is in the name. The judges who work there are all Americans and they are all appointed by democratically elected US politicians. The United States would not accept a foreign court telling it what to do. It would not accept that its own laws were subordinate to the laws of another organisation. No other free country would accept this. They wouldn’t accept it for the sake of mere trade.

On this everything hinges. If we vote to remain in the EU we will be saying that we accept, probably forever, that our Parliament will be overruled by people who we didn’t elect. We will also be saying that from time to time what we want in the UK will be overruled by the majority of other countries in the EU. We will have chosen this and that choice will reverberate into the future. Who knows what the majority will choose? But we will have to go along with it. On the other hand if we reassert that the UK parliament is supreme, then fundamentally we will be saying that while we may agree with our fellow Europeans, we also may disagree. This decision too will have long lasting consequences. We do not know what decisions we will make in the future, but we know that if we chose to leave they will be our decisions, made by people we elect. Alternatively they won’t.

There will be a tricky couple of years if we vote to leave. But in the end we will come out of it in no worse a position than Australia, New Zealand or Japan.  They all are able to trade with the EU without being a member of it. It isn’t necessary to be subordinate to the will of other countries in order to trade freely with them. Free trade is a matter of mutual self-interest. Everyone loses if barriers are erected.

The UK is perfectly capable of doing well economically without being a part of the EU. Countries much less powerful economically and much less successful than us exist quite happily without being part of an organisation like the EU. Two thirds of the UK population dislike the EU. I suspect the vast majority of Brits would prefer that we could go back to something like the Common Market. But we don’t quite dare to grab this chance, because we fear uncertainty. What happened folks? We’ve been through tough times before without a murmur. I suspect that most of us agree that it would be worth it if we could just trade freely with the EU but not be a part of it. But we fear the extraction, like a child fears the dentist. A Common Market exists for those European countries that don’t want to be in the EU. Tiny Iceland with a population like that of Aberdeen is a member. With a little pain, a little uncertainty we could be a part of it too. Do you want to be a Brexiteer or do you prefer a rather meeker role?

Some people in Scotland are inclined to vote to remain because they have been cowed by SNP threats to have another independence referendum. Do they really suppose that the SNP will give up its desire for independence if we vote to remain? Far from it, it just gives them a chance to wait until they think they can win. This is the worst possible time for Scottish independence. Moreover, the condition for the possibility of Scotland leaving the UK is that the UK remains in the EU. It would be impossible for the SNP to argue that all the nice things that we like about the UK would continue after independence, if Scotland is in the EU and the UK is not. How could you have a currency union (a shared pound) if one country’s laws are subordinate to Brussels while the other’s are not? How could you have an open border, if that border were the border into the EU? How could Scotland’s financial services industry exist if it were in the EU while its main market was out of the EU? How could Scotland survive without being subsidised by the UK Treasury? The SNP have recently proved themselves desperate to retain the subsidy, desperate to remain dependent. The risk of Scotland leaving the UK is far higher than the risk of the UK leaving the EU. A few brave hearts may want to go for independence come what may. But the SNP will threaten and then not act on their threat. This is perhaps our one chance in the near future to weaken them.

The SNP is the main strategic threat to the continued existence of the UK. Brexit lessens that threat and may nullify it entirely. It may be the only thing that could do so. The other main dangers we face are another economic crisis and uncontrolled migration into the EU. Both of these dangers have been caused by the leadership of the EU. The problems with the Euro have not gone away they are just sleeping. At some point unless and until the Eurozone allows money to be transferred freely from the rich countries to poor countries there is going to be another crisis. Greece may once more find that it cannot pay its debts, but eventually so too might a larger country like Italy. This would be bad for the UK whether we were in the EU or not. But so long as we remain in the EU what is to stop Mrs Merkel and friends demanding that we in the UK help bail out one of these countries that can’t pay its debts? Are we certain that this could never happen? On the other hand if we leave the EU they would be no more able to force us to share the burden than they can force Australia.

It is tragic to see millions of displaced, desperate people. Unfortunately there are more than Europe can safely accept. How many people in the world live in poverty or in countries that are oppressive? There are more than the whole population of Europe many times over. We cannot let everyone come. So we have to make a limit. We have to accept that even some deserving cases will have to be prevented from coming. If we don’t do this, then not only will the EU cease to exist, but so indeed will Europe.

How is the EU doing in managing the migration crisis? Firstly it has been exacerbated massively by the decision of Mrs Merkel to at first open Germany’s borders to allcomers and then try to close them. Secondly it has made worse by the existence of the Schengen zone which allows border free travel throughout most of the EU. Already, over a million people have reached the Schengen zone. The EU predicts that another three million will arrive in the next year or so. At what point will the EU demand that the UK takes its fair share? There haven’t been many demands up until now because we are having a debate about leaving the EU. But if we vote to remain, how long will it be before Mrs Merkel tells Mr Cameron that it’s time to repay his debt. After all, she was most accommodating in helping him to “renegotiate” the terms of the UK’s membership.  On the other hand if we vote for Brexit we would have absolute control over our own borders. The EU could no more tell us who we must allow into the UK than they can tell Australia or the United States.

The main strategic threats to the UK are alleviated by Brexit. There is of course uncertainty no matter what we do. But a little bravery now may protect us from far greater dangers ahead. Above all, we will be better able to control events and make the right decisions if those decisions are ours to make.