Tag: Europe

Time the British woke up to the crisis in Europe

It is a commonplace for Britain’s politicos to sadly shake their heads and complain that the Euro crisis demonstrates a woeful lack of political leadership.  Regardless of the fairness of this charge in respect of Angela Merkel, say, it clearly has resonance for Britain’s own leaders.  There seem to be two camps: ravingly impractical Eurosceptics, and sheer paralysis from everybody else.  The mood amongst Europhiles (as I witnessed at fringe meeting at the Lib Dem conference) is akin to deep depression.  It is time for this to change.

To be fair some key players have been showing something less than paralysis – George Osborne and Nick Clegg have both been conspicuous in raising the seriousness of the situation with their international colleagues – but their pronouncements are hardly more helpful than anybody else’s.  They aren’t bringing anything to the party and they aren’t trying bring our own public alongside.

The first point is that the Euro crisis has serious implications for Britain, much though most people seem to think it is happening to somebody else.  This is for two main reasons.  First is that this country would be caught up in any financial disaster.  Our oversized banks are deep in the mess; Euro zone countries are vital trading partners for a country very dependent on trade – especially given that international financial services are so important to us.  Our fragile attempts at recovery risk being completely blown off course.  Forget Plan B if this lot breaks.

The second reason it matters to Britain is that resolution of the crisis could take the European Union in a direction that is against our interests.  Britain leads the single market wing of the union: the chief Euro zone countries are more protectionist in their instincts.  We risk being shut out of the design of critical architecture – much as the Common Agriculture Policy was put together in our absence.

How to proceed?  We need to tackle the dark spectre head on: the best resolution of the crisis involves changes to the European treaties.  To change the treaties will require a referendum here (let’s not weasel out of it this time).  If we face up to that challenge now, it will show real courage, and help get things moving.

But, of course, we would need to see something in return.  Changes to the treaties that would further our interests.  These need to be to promote the single market, to protect London (and Edinburgh) as centres for financial infrastructure, and to reduce unsightly bureaucracy and/or operating costs of the Union (the siting of the European Parliamnet at Strasbourg needs to go on the table, at least).  Given our understanding of finance, we might well have useful things to say on the Eurozone architecture too – even though we clearly can’t be part of it.

To do this our leaders (the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister in the lead) need to build two sets of alliances.  The first is within the British body politic, so that the referendum can be won.  This needs to cover Tory pragmatists (David Cameron, George Osborne and William Hague), the Labour leadership and, preferably, the SNP.  The Lib Dems have an important role in making this hold together since, by and large, they understand the Union the best.  Mr Clegg’s experience of deal-making in the European parliament counts for a lot.  The next set of alliances is within the Union itself, to create a Single Market bloc.  The obvious candidates are the Nordic countries, Ireland and the Netherlands, together with many of the newer members in central and eastern Europe.

This will be very difficult.  That’s the point, almost.  The reward is a stabler EU, constructed more to our taste, even if we must concede some powers to an inner core of Euro area countries.  Everybody wins.  And by taking on the wilder Eurosceptic fringe, including their newspaper backers, it will cheer all right-thinking people up.  It’s time we stopped being paralysed by fear and came out fighting.

Why we should celebrate the 200th anniversary of Waterloo

This isn’t exactly a new story, but, hey, time works in mysterious ways on the blogosphere.  I have just caught up with this Daily Mail article a month old suggesting the this country will downplay the 200th anniversary of Waterloo on 18th June 2015.  I picked up on it from the monthly Civitas update – they provided one of the rent-a-quotes.  This article appears to be a classic piece of Mail journalism, trying create a shock story from thin air.  But it does raise the very interesting question of the status of this battle in British history.

Waterloo is very important in British history.  But why?  The obvious answer is that it was the battle that finally did for Napoleon.  This is true, but it is undermined by two further observations.  Napoleon’s strategic position was hopeless, and if he had won at Waterloo it is certain that he would have been crushed later on in the year, most likely by an Austrian-led army.  The second point was that it wasn’t a particularly British battle.  Wellington’s army was mostly Dutch, Belgian and various shades of German, and he was combining with Blucher’s Prussian army, whose intervention was decisive.

In fact from the point of view of showcasing Wellington’s undoubted military skills, this battle wasn’t the man’s finest hour.  He was caught napping by Napoleon, needed the Prussians to slow him down at the Battle of Ligny, and had to accept huge casualties to the British contingent at Waterloo and its prequel, Quatre Bras.  His gamble at Waterloo nearly didn’t pay off as the Prussians were much slower than he expected to arrive.  British generals were supposed to keep British casualties down.  In 1811 an equally desperate, but much smaller, battle in Spain, Albuera, led to a remarkable British/allied victory thanks to some absolutely herioc fighting by British units (and some Spanish ones).  But British casualties were so high that this is often regarded at a bit of a defeat – and that was certainly the reaction of the British commander, Marshal Beresford.  It would not have been so bloody if Wellington had been there, the soldiers muttered.

But, of course, if you pay such a high price in blood you have to build the battle up to be of huge importance to justify it to folks back at home; and that is what British politicians did, with the army and a string of British historians acting as willing accomplices.  On top of that, it was a particularly dramatic battle, that has held a fascination for more than just the British.  One of the best modern histories is written by an Italian and translated into several languages.

So is it all overdone?  There is in fact something very important about this battle, that symbolises something of importance today.  It is an example of Britain acting as a fully paid-up European power, paying blood to make the whole continent a safer place alongside European allies.  A precursor to the great struggles of the 20th century: acting against the wrong sort of European unity.  In this it contrasts with Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, which was a victory of Britain against Europe, resulting in British domination of the sea that was to last for over a century.

Waterloo was a European victory in which Britain a very full part.  A good reason to celebrate in these Eurosceptic times.