On the UK, Russia and the EU
The Centrepiece of this parliament will be the in/out referendum on British Membership of the European Union. It will probably define the UK’s very survival as a nation, and define the UK’s place in the world over the next few years. I am sceptical about the EU project, I regard the parliament as a risible cargo-cult democracy. It lacks a ‘demos’ so any attempt to give someone like JC Juncker ‘legitimacy’ are a fig-leaf. It’s bureaucratic, pumping out regulation and diktat, pouring glue into the economies of Europe. It’s a costly vanity project for politicians who’ve either come from very small countries and need supra-national bodies to contain their egos, or for Politicians who’ve been rejected by their domestic electorates. But none of this really matters.
Because the EU has been a stunning success. Several countries, Spain, Portugal, and the former communist East were dictatorships in my living memory. And while it’s the Atlantic alliance which beat communism, it’s the EU which ensured Poland is a country where a return to autocracy is as unthinkable as it is in Spain by entrenching free-market liberal democracy and building institutions. Money, too was poured into the post Fascist south and again into the post Communist east. Nothing says “we’re friends now” like building roads and hospitals. The world east of the Iron Curtain, and south of the Pyrenees, is immeasurably better, freer and safer thanks to the EU.
Of course the stupid, hubristic, economically illiterate, clumsy vanity project, the single European Currency has undone much of the good work in Spain and Portugal. But this isn’t a post about the Euro, which the UK will never join, but about the EU.
The UK is not a small country, unable to survive outside a big trading block. So any argument from Europhiles which suggests the UK will be a great deal poorer outside simply won’t wash. The EU would be forced to treat with the UK, a nuclear-armed UNSC permanent member with the 5th largest economy on earth, (and rising we will probably overtake Germany some time this century) with slightly more respect than they show Norway (which is, as an aside, the country with the world’s highest living standards) or Switzerland (not known as an economic basket-case). What this means is ‘Brexit’ is unlikely to be as disruptive as many imagine.
The flip-side of this, is there simply aren’t many benefits from leaving. Much EU regulation comes from world bodies, and the EU, as the World’s largest market has enormous influence in the WTO and the like, and the UK working with likes of Germany and Poland in favour of Free Trade against the French, mean the EU is more likely to deliver the world trade Environment made in the UK’s image.
The EU is a bulwark, alongside NATO against autocracy. Putin is creating an odious personality cult. He’s spent his oil revenues building a highly effective military with which he threatens his neighbours. He’s tearing up the rule-book, annexing territories under a doctrine not dissimilar to Hitler’s ‘Heim ins Reich‘ by which he justifies aggression with the rights of Ethnic Russians in neighbouring countries. And it should be remembered that ‘neighbouring countries’ include EU and NATO article 5 members.
At present, the Baltic states are indefensible against the forces Russia can bring to bear right now. NATO is enervated, divided and indecisive. And Putin’s philosophy sees NATO and the EU as organisations that threaten his regime. And he’s right, but not in the way he thinks. When Yanukovych suspended laws necessary to implement the EU-Ukraine association agreement, thereby giving in to Russian threats of trade sanctions, and outright bribery, the people of Ukraine stormed Maidan square in Kiev. The people of the Putinist world want a better world, even as oligarchs and governments try to crack down on dissent. And it is the duty of the Free world to stand up for the vast majority of people who rather like democracy and freedom. They vote with their feet in vast numbers, as soon as they get the money and leave the hell holes their countries have become for bolt-holes in London, Spain and Cyprus.
At about the time of the Maidan protests, Russia started planning the annexation of Crimea. Putin’s military is dependent upon Ukrainian uranium, and several strategic resources – the gears for his armoured forces, and avionics for his aircraft for example are made in Ukraine. So the EU association agreement heralded a Ukraine looking west. And made Russia even more vulnerable to EU sanctions than they are now.
Worse, from Putin’s point of view is the threat posed to Russia’s oligarchic kleptocracy by a stable, uncorrupt, westernising Ukraine on Russia’s border. Eastern Poland and western Ukraine were mostly part of the same country almost in living memory. Those regions which formed the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland are the rich, western-looking bits of Ukraine (they are the poor bits of Poland – the rich bits used to be Prussia – History runs deep). And they had the same living standards as their cousins in Poland in 1990. Now the poles are three times richer, and Ukrainians are looking at Poland and saying “I want some of that”. The fact is, unless there is a stunning military success, Putin has already lost. Kiev will probably be an EU city within a decade; The people of Ukraine, West of Donetsk and Mariopol at least, certainly want that. Putin cannot sustain the unrest in Ukraine indefinitely as it costs vast money which in a years’ time, he simply won’t have.
None of this makes Putin’s gamble in Ukraine valid or reasonable, and those who argue that it does are despicable quislings.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. Russia is in the same place as Germany was in the 1930s. A once-great power, humiliated by defeat, who elected a demagogue promising to restore Russia’s Glory, who rebuilt a mighty military, and who sees the world in zero-sum, ethnic terms. That demagogue enjoys total control of the media, and near total public support. Like Germany (and Japan) in the 1930s Russia faces enemies awakening to the threat, and who are slowly reacting and re-arming. (Yes we are: an Army can be built in a year or two, Notice how the Navy is getting the Lion’s share of defence spending right now – Carriers, world class destroyers and frigates, and in the Astute class, the finest Nuclear subs asink?). And Like the axis powers, there is a calculation that can be made that they possess the power to sweep all aside RIGHT NOW, but know they will inevitably lose any protracted war. Russia will run out of Foreign exchange reserves this year, absent a rise in the oil price above $80. The demography means they cannot fill their establishment of conscripts, and the health of recruits is not good. Russians have long been breeding below replacement rate, and this is reflected in future cohorts being smaller than Putin deems necessary. Russia’s economy is broken. They export oil, money and people. The population is falling. Male life-expectancy at 55 is worse than much of Sub-Saharan Africa, worse even than eastern Glasgow. Putin has created a hellish society, capable only of suffering for mother Russia, despite the talents and education of her people. If Russia is to defeat NATO, he must go NOW or be slowly squeezed by sanctions and demography, and see the EU and western democracy advance to his Border with Ukraine. There will be no “buffer” protecting Muscovy from Europe.
For there is only one possible result of a protracted war between NATO and Russia, and that is Russia’s total and complete defeat. But what Putin (and his quisling cheerleaders in the west) might calculate is that the Article 5 defence of Estonia for example is a paper promise. If Putin can annex a chunk of Lithuania or Estonia, and it doesn’t trigger a massive response from NATO, then NATO’ s broken. And Putin is busy making the mistake of Dictators through history: mistaking the slowness of decision-making in democracy for weakness. But Britain Germany and France together spend more than Russia does on Weapons. The USA is still mighty beyond compare. And the People of the EU will simply not accept Russian aggression. Would I as a (still, just, semi-detached) soldier die in a ditch for Estonia. Yes. I would. Indeed this is the one issue keeping me in the reserve forces. When Yamato launched the assault on Pearl Harbour, he said “all I fear I have done is roused a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible desire for vengeance“. The Sleeping giants are in this instance, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Germany, France, Poland, Finland, Norway, Italy, Spain. The world’s 2nd Largest economy, the World’s largest economic bloc. Anyone think the Australians wouldn’t help? And China would not tolerate an aggressively expansionist Russia, with whom they have territorial disputes. A total Russian defeat would suit China quite nicely. I would make the same warning to Putin. You think you’re surrounded by enemies? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Ukraine is not an Article 5 NATO country. Ethnic Russians in the Donbass, long dependent on Russian Putin-toadying media, will believe the lies about Nazis in Kiev. And Putin’s aim is to ensure there is sufficient unrest in the East that it exists below the NATO threshold of action, but above which the EU will be comfortable taking Kiev on Board. I don’t think Putin desires war with NATO, but we’re in a situation where miscalculations like MH-17 when (probably) separatist rebels used Russian-supplied kit to shoot down a Malaysian Airliner. Would NATO have been so phlegmatic had a British Airways airliner been shot down?
Given the geopolitical risk, now is not the time to break up the institution which offers millions of Ukrainians hope there’s a better way than Putinist Kleptocratic oligarchy to which they’re condemned, and the instability it threatens for the world. Ultimately, a victory of the West, Kiev, Minsk, and Moscow one day becoming EU cities, will be a victory for the Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian people over the oligarchs and governments which blight their lives and keep them poor.
The same is true of the UK. A broken UK will effectively remove one power with potential to make a meaningful contribution to stopping Putin and Putinism, leaving a greatly diminished rump UK. And ‘Brexit’ will trigger another Scottish referendum, and probably destroy the country I most care about. Mine.
The world stands on the cusp of war, in reality closer to global thermonuclear war than at any time since the 1960s. Now is not the time to start breaking up our alliances. Rather than break up the EU, I want to see it expand further. Free movement from Vladivostok to Lisbon, from Helsinki to Gibraltar, maybe, hopefully including Istanbul one day. That is a libertarian view. Imagine all those Russian engineers, capable of putting men into space using slide-rules and duct-tape working for the general good in a liberal free-market democracy. The EU has its faults, and those faults are mostly French. But it is overwhelmingly a force for good, with a better track record of entrenching democracy than any institution on earth (with the possible exception of the British Empire). Even if the narrow cost-benefit analysis of EU membership is marginal for the UK, Think big. British European Policy has been consistent on ‘Europe’ for 500 years: if the Hegemonic power in the Continent cannot be England, then we will ensure no-one is. Let’s reform, and thereby strengthen the EU, thereby defend the UK, and vote to stay in the European Union, not wholly for our sake, but for theirs.
Should the UK remain in the European Union? I will be voting Yes.
What absolute trash ! The Baltic states are riddled with Nazis i suppose your ok with that ? Ukraine; right sector trash , infinitely worse than the BNP! as for nato its become a lose cannon used by America to destroy other countries.The western world has fallen into corporate Fascism. if your willing to fight and die for it you most be mad!
Anonymous: You are a paid Russian Troll and I claim £5.
You can claim as much money as you want! but you cannot claim to have any intelligence.
"stable, uncorrupt, westernising Ukraine" – Comedy gold
Man of Harlech, I am not saying that is how Ukraine is, but how Poland is, and how Ukraine could be.
Jackart,
I read and enjoy your blog (for which thank you) and agree with pretty much all of your views with the exception of the EU.
This particular blogpost is well balanced and thoughtful, much the better for not indulging, as you occasionally have done, in gratuitously insulting Kippers (I'm not a Kipper, btw).
Whilst I can agree with much of what you say, I cannot agree with your conclusion on the EU nor your analysis of Southern Europe.
Your view that the EU has ensured liberal democracy in formerly fascist Southern Europe is totally unfounded. In fact the exact opposite is the case. The rise of the hard left/right in Southern Europe has been precisely because of, not despite, the EU. You acknowledge the sheer stupidity of the Euro but don't acknowledge that its consequences are the catalyst for the rise of the hard left/right in Southern Europe.
It is not that Southern Europe has a natural inclination to fascism/socialism that is contained and averted by the EU; the Salazar and Franco eras respectively in Portugal and Spain, although long lasting, were nonetheless aberrations and not the norm.
It is precisely because of the Euro, used as a political tool for the longer term goal of EU federalism, that people in these countries have been seduced by the likes of Podemos in Spain, PCP & Bloque Esquerdo in Portugal and Syriza and Golden Dawn in Greece.
Portugal's Estado Novo regime fell in 1974 and whilst it took several referenda to amend the socialism embedded in the first constitution following the Carnation Revolution, Portugal was well on its way to liberal democracy and a market economy long prior to its accession to the EEC (as it was then) in 1986. Ditto Spain, whose transition to liberal democracy following the death of Franco in 1975 was much swifter than Portugal's.
I find it a little arrogant to assert that only by the influence of the liberal Northern European dominated EU has Southern Europe avoided a return to fascism. Indeed Portugal has arrived at a far more enlightened, liberal policy towards drugs, all by itself without any assistance from the "liberal" EU.
Southern Europe's economies have been infantilised by the EU, their growth has been supercharged by stimulus spending resulting in incalculable waste and malinvestment, creating a private sector that is both diabetic from the candy floss of stimulus spending and a public sector that is obese and corrupt from distributing vast loads of pork and filled with its own sense of self importance implementing all manner of meddlesome EU-derived interventions in the private economy.
Portugal and Spain were well on the road to liberalising their economies in the early 1980s before accession to the EEC/EU and its introduction of more sclerotic bureaucracy on the one hand, offset with artificial growth through stimulus spending on the other hand. Today the artificial growth has stopped but the dead hand of the EU and its bureaucratic sclerosis and malinvestment remains.
I write as an Anglo-Portuguese dual national who was born in the Salazar era and lived on the Spanish/Portuguese border during their transitions to democracy and accession to the EEC. I don't believe for a second that without the the EU these countries would have reverted to totalitarianism. Prior to the Novo Estado regime, Portugal had long and proud history of trading freely with the world and also by the way is Britain's longest continuous ally dating back to the treaty of Windsor of 1386.
There are many Portuguese who wonder why Portugal joined Britain in fighting the dictator Napoleon, only to adopt his statist legal code. The Iberians are just as much lovers of freedom and democracy, as the Brits. The EU is a hindrance to the journey of enlightened liberalism not a protector of it.
Thanks for your comment. And I don't for a minute think Portugal and Spain WOULD have slid back to autocracy without the EU, but the EU has a good track record of building and maintaining institutions in countries in, and crucially applying to join, the EU. Spain applied in 1977 and was admitted in 1986 and like what was hoped for Ukraine, the EU demands institutions and laws of a functioning democracy before joining. Wile this has not yet been successful in Bulgaria and Romania, there is hope for these countries, where Ukraine risks sliding back on the little progress it has yet made. The EU helped cement democracy. In the Iberian peninsula, and Poland the soil was already a little more fertile for the seeds of democracy than it has proven in south eastern Europe, where Greece alone (admitted in 1981) is the one proper democracy. I am no fan of the EU. But credit where credit is due..
hello Jackart, a very good post and you make some points, but in the end you don't convince me (although you come closer than I might have thought).
I love your last paragraph and I had the same dream myself. Trouble is the EU is not set up to achieve that, and never can – witness the ructions over the prospect of letting Turkey in, and I would include the north african nations as well, at least Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.
Realistically it cannot last for ever. It seems to me the longer it lasts, the more dangerous it will be when it collapses, so we would be doing them a favour by initiating that process.
When the bad one collapses there will be a chance for an intergovernmental arrangement of some sort which will retain the better parts. Trying to melt all the nations of europe into one, against the declred will of the people is a recipe for failure, and quite possibly catastrophic failure.