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The Guardian view on Britain and Europe: never a place apart The Guardian view on Britain and Europe: never a place apart
(7 days later)
The EU referendum will dominate domestic politics for the immediate future. Today, David Cameron was sounding out opinion on the fringes of the EU summit in Riga. On Monday he hosts the EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker at Chequers, and later in the week he is off to Paris and Berlin on a charm tour. There is a further summit in June. Those are the known facts. The rest is an ebb and flow of speculation.The EU referendum will dominate domestic politics for the immediate future. Today, David Cameron was sounding out opinion on the fringes of the EU summit in Riga. On Monday he hosts the EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker at Chequers, and later in the week he is off to Paris and Berlin on a charm tour. There is a further summit in June. Those are the known facts. The rest is an ebb and flow of speculation.
The prime minister, having hinted at an accelerated timetable, is now playing for time again. He is reluctant to reveal his wishlist for fear, on the one hand, of seeming insufficiently ambitious to his critics at home, and – on the other – of appearing over-ambitious to his negotiating partners in Europe, an ambiguity he may somehow need to maintain even once his negotiation is done. Instead, his objectives, like an end to the project of “ever-closer union” or a greater role for national parliaments, have to be extracted from speeches and articles written since he announced the referendum in a speech at Bloomberg just over two years ago.The prime minister, having hinted at an accelerated timetable, is now playing for time again. He is reluctant to reveal his wishlist for fear, on the one hand, of seeming insufficiently ambitious to his critics at home, and – on the other – of appearing over-ambitious to his negotiating partners in Europe, an ambiguity he may somehow need to maintain even once his negotiation is done. Instead, his objectives, like an end to the project of “ever-closer union” or a greater role for national parliaments, have to be extracted from speeches and articles written since he announced the referendum in a speech at Bloomberg just over two years ago.
There are two important consequences of this. First, it is clear that what happens in the build-up to the referendum will be as important as anything that happens in the campaign itself. That is why business, in the form of both the pro-European CBI and other more sceptical voices, such as Open Europe and Business for Britain, are already making their case. Second, voters are likely to be influenced less by the detail of what Mr Cameron achieves in detailed reforms, or even the way in which the negotiations are conducted, as they will be by the broader, less tangible sense of what Britain’s place in Europe should be. As in Scotland’s referendum, the culture wars could matter as much as the political and economic ones.There are two important consequences of this. First, it is clear that what happens in the build-up to the referendum will be as important as anything that happens in the campaign itself. That is why business, in the form of both the pro-European CBI and other more sceptical voices, such as Open Europe and Business for Britain, are already making their case. Second, voters are likely to be influenced less by the detail of what Mr Cameron achieves in detailed reforms, or even the way in which the negotiations are conducted, as they will be by the broader, less tangible sense of what Britain’s place in Europe should be. As in Scotland’s referendum, the culture wars could matter as much as the political and economic ones.
It is not mere chance that the first spin-off of this is a group of historians that has designated themselves Historians for Britain, a loose grouping which includes among its supporters such household names as David Starkey and Amanda Foreman, and has as its spokesman the scholar of the history of the Mediterranean, David Abulafia. Ever since the discipline was invented, history has been a tool with which to forge identity. And ever since the Common Market was first considered it has aroused a particular strand of historical opinion. Mr Cameron himself often talks of a unique British sensibility. It was Hugh Gaitskell who warned that joining what was then the European Community would mean the end of 1,000 years of history, establishing a pattern for successive generations of sceptics. Now this exceptionalist narrative is back, relaunched a week ago in the columns of History Today, where Professor Abulafia has dusted off the old interpretation of Britain’s historical development as an island apart, blessed by institutions that evolved in a single uninterrupted sweep and endowed with judge-made common law, distinct from the civil codes of other European nations. So far, so familiar. But to argue that the British are “milder in temper” than the citizens of the continent, or to assert that antisemitism has never struck deep roots here, sounds less like history than an extract from the blurb on the back of a copy of Our Island Story.It is not mere chance that the first spin-off of this is a group of historians that has designated themselves Historians for Britain, a loose grouping which includes among its supporters such household names as David Starkey and Amanda Foreman, and has as its spokesman the scholar of the history of the Mediterranean, David Abulafia. Ever since the discipline was invented, history has been a tool with which to forge identity. And ever since the Common Market was first considered it has aroused a particular strand of historical opinion. Mr Cameron himself often talks of a unique British sensibility. It was Hugh Gaitskell who warned that joining what was then the European Community would mean the end of 1,000 years of history, establishing a pattern for successive generations of sceptics. Now this exceptionalist narrative is back, relaunched a week ago in the columns of History Today, where Professor Abulafia has dusted off the old interpretation of Britain’s historical development as an island apart, blessed by institutions that evolved in a single uninterrupted sweep and endowed with judge-made common law, distinct from the civil codes of other European nations. So far, so familiar. But to argue that the British are “milder in temper” than the citizens of the continent, or to assert that antisemitism has never struck deep roots here, sounds less like history than an extract from the blurb on the back of a copy of Our Island Story.
In this week’s History Today comes a counter blast. Another group of historians, led by Professor David Andress of Portsmouth University, challenges both the evidence and the nature of the debate that Historians for Britain purports to offer. Not so much a debate as a foregone conclusion, says Professor Andress, briskly dismissing the Abulafia interpretation for what it is: standard-issue nationalism. In this week’s History Today comes a counter blast. A group of 282 historians challenges both the evidence and the nature of the debate that Historians for Britain purports to offer. Not so much a debate as a foregone conclusion, it says, briskly dismissing the Abulafia interpretation for what it is: standard-issue nationalism.
As the 75th anniversary of Dunkirk is marked, it is as well to remember that – while Britain did stand alone with exemplary fortitude – the enduring significance of that retreat should be the terrible price that was paid for failure to engage with what was going wrong in the Europe of the 1930s.As the 75th anniversary of Dunkirk is marked, it is as well to remember that – while Britain did stand alone with exemplary fortitude – the enduring significance of that retreat should be the terrible price that was paid for failure to engage with what was going wrong in the Europe of the 1930s.
Britain has never been able to stand apart from its neighbours for long. Even at the height of empire, it was intimately concerned with the European power structure, keenly alert to the shifting balances and ultimately prepared to fight to protect British interests. Historians do a disservice to cast their country as a place apart when it can only prosper as part of a greater whole.Britain has never been able to stand apart from its neighbours for long. Even at the height of empire, it was intimately concerned with the European power structure, keenly alert to the shifting balances and ultimately prepared to fight to protect British interests. Historians do a disservice to cast their country as a place apart when it can only prosper as part of a greater whole.
• This article was amended on 28 May 2015. An earlier version said Professor David Andress of Portsmouth University had led a counterblast to the Historians for Britain campaign, published in History Today. Prof Andress was not the leader of that group, but the first alphabetically of those involved in editing the published text, which was signed by 282 historians.