At the Congress of Vienna in 1815 Britain helped found the Concert of Europe, to resolve the continent’s future conflicts peacefully. But it soon lost interest, to concentrate on trade with our old friend “the rest of the world” – or rather, the empire. It re-engaged for the Crimean war but disengaged to leave Bismarck his supremacy. Lord Salisbury declared a European policy to be one of “splendid isolation … drifting lazily downstream, occasionally putting out a boat-hook to avoid collision”. [...]
After that war, a new Europe, or half a Europe, saw Britain fully engaged in Nato. But it declined to join the Common Market in 1957, changed its mind six years later, and finally joined in 1973. Thatcher eulogised the Single European Act in 1986 as “a single market without barriers – visible or invisible – with direct and unhindered access … to 300 million of the world’s wealthiest people.” She was ecstatic. [...]
A more likely scenario has Europe itself changing and dividing, as its economic space has to adjust to the changing politics, economies and cultures of its nations. The EU has clearly become too insensitive, too brittle, to survive for ever. All Europe’s great settlements – Westphalia, Utrecht, Vienna, Versailles, Yalta – have lasted no more than two generations. [...]
Like it or not, globalisation means states cannot sensibly barricade themselves off from their neighbours. They must find reconciliation and trade. Geography has always been the tyrant of history. You can take Britain out of the EU as often as you like; you can never take Britain out of Europe.
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