peterbirks | Europe: The Great Divide (Reply)

And so, on the day that one thing I had come to think impossible -- the resignation of Theresa May -- comes to pass, something wlese happened which I had previously thought unimaginable; I agreed with something that Juncker said.

"If you tell people for 40 or 45 years 'we are in it, but not really in it', we are part-time Europeans and we don’t like these full-time Europeans, then you should not be surprised if people follow simple slogans once they’re asked to vote in a referendum."

It is this that sums up the whole problem. The anti-Europeans never went away. They have been around, not since 1975, when Wilson fudged a referendum and somehow got away with it, but since the early 1960s, when the first moves within the Conservative Party were made for a closer economic association with mainland Europe. The battle then was between Empire (fast becoming ex-Empire) and Europe.

No need to head into a deep history talk here. What is important is how the political parties coped with this division that crossed the party political lines created in the early 20th century. What they did was fudge. What they did was exactly what Juncker has said they did. "We are in it, but we aren't really in it".

As many on the federalist side of Europe -- either the open federalists such as Verhofstadt or the quieter federalists (basically anyone from Belgium, quite a few people from Italy and Eastern Europe) – know, a half-hearted approach is unsustainable. Either Europe heads inexorably towards federalism, or it breaks up. As such, the euro, Schengen, and so on, can be seen as policies that either create federalism "creep" or, if they fail, create a European crisis, the answer to which is, yes, more federalism.

Britain both never saw this or, when it did see it, refused to admit it. And even if it did admit it to itself, it couldn't admit it to the electorate. because, as with the two major political perties since world War II, the country as well was divided across party lines. This was a greater problem for Labour than it was for the Conservatives because Labour is now more than ever a coalition of two distinct political groups. The older, Bob Mellish, Joe Gormley, kind of Labour, was instinctively anti-Europe. The voters, from British industry (now dead or dying) were unionized, but in the private sector. The newer, more metropolitan, more middle-class, more likely public sector or NGO or government-funded in one way or another (not far short of 50% of GDP, remember) Labour is more likely to be enthusiastically pro-Europe.

As such, you can't expect the problem to disappear with a new leader, or new prime minister, from any party. Firstly because parliament is what it has been for decades, divided along non-party lines. And secondly because the country (call it the UK, GB, or the countries of England/Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland) have similar levels of division seeping through the strata of all society.

On the plus side, we are not alone in Europe when it comes to this division for or against greater federalism -- it's just that in the UK the semi-detached situation that has existed for so long manifests itself in "in or out?" whereas in western Europe it's a more soft "fight greater federalism or support it". When push came to shove, I don't think even Le Pen or Salvini would want to walk away from an economic association. it's the political merging that they object to.

Does this mean I have sympathy for May? No, not really. Her desire for the top job meant that she was willing to deny reality -- let's face it, Boris could have had it last time, as could Gove. But I suspect that both saw that it was a chalice from which only a fool would drink.