I think that's a bit harsh. The UK went into Europe based on the ideals of the common market, what came after isn't what anybody signed up for, so there's a constant mistrust of the overarching nature of the EU bureaucracy from the population at large, which the politicians who want votes reflect (and obviously stir up too).
I think this clip from the classic comedy 'Yes, Minister' sums up Europe.
You bring up an interesting point. I very often read that the UK joined for the single market but then afterwards the EU started taking away national sovereignty.
I don't quite understand how this view of things is possible.
From the very start, when the Coal and Steel Community was created in 1952, loss of national sovereignty was, to a certain degree, built into the system. The primary goal of European cooperation was to take away the ability of European nations to go to war with one another. Also remember the "de fact solidarity" that Robert Schuman spoke of in his famous declaration in 1950: With all the horrors of WW2 fresh in mind, nobody could expect the people of Europe to show solidarity for another, so the framework of Europe must be set up to generate a "de facto solidarity". The whole system should be set up in such a way that the people of Europe cannot _not_ show solidarity.
We learned this in school and it seems to be generally accepted by the general populace, at least in the "old" continental Western Europe. If you ask older Germans or French about European integration, they will talk about avoiding war, not about the single market.
The only possible explanation I can come up with for the sentiment that the EU was "all about the single market" is that UK voters were horribly misled by their press and politicians at the time of EU accession. Is this plausible?
On a side note: I admit that what I wrote about hating Europe was harsh, but we (i.e., me and many others I've spoken to) do feel genuinely betrayed.
The problem is we're an ex-Imperialist island nation. That breeds a certain psyche of superiority and xenophobia that I think is very hard for us to shake off en-masse. I think there's a sense with the British that we brought 'civilisation' to a huge portion of the world, why do we need anybody else telling us what to do?
Even as children we're constantly fed war movies about the plucky Brits fighting against the evil Germans, so therefore most Brits hate Germans, and we've been at odds with the French forever. There are many English terms/phrases which are derogatory about the French. French kiss, French letter, French disease etc.
This is a very useful tool for the politician who wants to stir up a hornets nest of outrage or just shore up some votes by looking 'anti-Europe'. And it works.
Even myself -- someone who has friends in many European countries (Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Serbia, Romania, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Slovakia - just quickly off the top of my head!) -- get caught up in it.
It's pure xenophobia, and it's frankly disgusting. We don't have the English channel and the North Sea around us, we have a moat.
However.
There is always the argument for a greater say from the people of Europe. It certainly seems there is a huge bureaucracy with very little public oversight. And it seems incredibly inflexible. The impression many have is that they can't vote the bureaucrats out, and there's very little to stop them haemorrhaging money/rights/power.
In an era where we have the technology to bring democratic decision making closer to the individual, the EU definitely seems to be moving in the opposite direction.
(Then again, this could just be the years of 'conditioning' that make me think this!)
I think this is a large part of why GB has a different relationship with Europe. In other European countries you can just jump in a car and drive almost anywhere else in Europe. For many people they can be in a couple of different countries in under an hour. Compare this to Gavin to book a flight or a ferry crossing, with the time and cost involved, and it's not too surprising that we're not as neighbourly as the other members of the EU.
There is a bullet train, the Eurostar, that puts London at 2h15 from Paris. It's quite expensive though, compared to a car ride.
Anyway, I do not think that the Channel accounts for the peculiar relationship of the UK with Europe. Instead, it might have something to do with the relationship between the UK and the US, I believe. That is what is tinting the UK-Europe relation.
Which blows my mind, since I live in Texas where you can drive 10 hours in the same direction on the same road at freeway speeds, and still be an hour or two from reaching another state.
For whatever reason people have a very different relationship with travelling in their own car and via some other form of transport. The perceived cost of a trip seems to drop for a lot of people, both with regards to price and time. Perhaps less so in the millennial generation but in the preceeding generation there is a very strong association between owning a car and personal freedom.
Probably because owning a car means you can go anywhere your wallet ($ for gas) and time will allow you to go. Anywhere, any time, with very little hassle. Taxis come close to this, but only in and for (geographically) small areas/trips. Bicycles also come close. Other forms of transit are limited in terms of endpoints (*ports for planes/ferries, stations for trains/subways, stops for buses), time (dependent on the schedule), and may cost more.
Owning a car often gives you a lot of options you don't have without it.
That's one aspect. There are lots of new motorways in Ireland (and many poor EU states) which are mostly financied by the EU. Ireland as a small country can't generate a big local market, free trade with the rest of Europe is good. Many liberal people support it because it's forced through a lot of liberal law changes. And, we're either align ourselves economically with Britain or Europe. Nothing like a bit of anti-British sentiment.
It's funny hearing the UK people complain about the "democratic deficit" in the EU. The UK voting system (of First Past the Post, single member constituencies and a party whip) is quite weird and appears undemocratic. I'm in Ireland with a party whip system, but Proportional Represetation and multiseat consultancies, so not being able to vote 1,2,3,… appears undemocratic to me.
"Unelected buerocrats"? You mean like the House of Lords which allows someone who wasn't elected to be a cabinet minister? (Lord Mandelson, Baroness Warsi, etc.)
"Haemorrhaging money"? Remember the UK MP expenses?
So ask yourself, is the UK Parliament more or less democratic than the EU?
Oh I totally agree with you. However I can vote for my MP, and I know who it is. I don't think anybody in the UK has any idea who represents them in Europe.
The problem with concentrating power is that you have fewer representatives representing more people, which breaks democracy outright. We should be looking to localise power where we can, give people responsibility and a say in their lot.
Europe should be a framework and an enabler, not a system for centralising as much power as possible. Do we really want a federal Europe? Absolute power corrupts.
"The only possible explanation I can come up with for the sentiment that the EU was "all about the single market" is that UK voters were horribly misled by their press and politicians at the time of EU accession. Is this plausible?"
This is the correct interpretation, at least as far as public polls over EU prove time and again in the UK.
If you actually combine the different responses to EU surveys, almost everyone in the UK across all factions of life, even today, mostly have interest in remaining in the EU solely for the common market, if that.
It is probably not helped by the fact that the most respected or even revered UK political leaders of the last 50 years, i.e. Churchhill and Thatcher, were extremely lukewarm about the EU project.
The difference compared to political attitudes of the public on the continent is very stark indeed.
Note. As for the European Convention on Human Rights opt-out, that is mostly a UK Conservative government/conservative media issue that they want to force through and they have had very little actual broader public debate or support. Of course, that does not mean that it will not go through eventually regardless, especially when "terrorism" is used to justify just about anything these days...
Here in Germany we signed up exactly for that. A Europe with peace and democracy, without borders, countries with political integration, large enough to be heard outside of Europe, ...
The 'common market' was a tool to achieve that. We were also certain that France (and some other countries) also wanted that. Something which was/is very important for us.
Not sure what Britain was and is thinking... but if Britain says they did not know about these goals, then something else went wrong. But that sounds more like internal problems in Britain and has very little to do with the EU or Europe.
I would go so far as to say that no politician in Britain puts forward the case for Europe in these terms. Any pro European argues that it is in our economic interest, and mentions no other advantage. The reason for this is, they could not sell the idea that the European project is decreasing the chances of European war. Indeed, lately, as the popularity of the European project has been diminishing across Europe it looks increasingly as though the main beneficiary of the European project is Germany. Due to the Mediterranean countries keeping the Euro exchange rate low, Germany has benefited from selling it's cheap exports, for years and years. Now that the wheels have fallen off Greece and Spain and Ireland and Portugal those populations look to Germany with envy.
There is a British view, which I am unconvinced of, that the single currency, being done for political rather than economic reasons, has caused, and will continue to cause international European tension.
In short, Britain is not convinced of the economic case, it is not convinced of the moral case, it is not convinced of any benefit whatsoever.
If the Tories win power at the next election outright, which is possible, they have promised an in/out referendum on Europe. If that referendum takes place it is perfectly clear how Britain will vote, they will vote Out.
The German view is that Britain manipulated the financial markets and they fell into their own traps. Instead of setting up a sound economy, Britain lived of North Sea oil, dubious financial 'services' and speculation. But they can't admit that, so they put the blame on somebody else.
Now Britain is desperately seeking for a vision. Is it the revived Commonwealth? Difficult. Though there could be improvements. Britain has a huge trade deficit with India. What else? Is it a form of self-isolation? Alternatively the US could be the best partner and Britain can have a free-trade agreement with the US.
In my view Britain takes itself much too important. From here in Berlin we have many more difficult problems. We just need to look a bit east. Poland is a country which enjoys some growth and it would be much more useful to help them getting into shape and getting them up to the level of Eestern Europe. Even East Germany needs a lot of attention.
As an European, I have to say the EU is a huge success. Much of what I read in the newspapers is bullshit anyway. How often has the British press written that the Euro is over in a few days, survival possibility of a few percent, Germany is already printing Deutsche Marks, and more. Fact is, the Euro is still there, looking stable and the Eurozone is committed to keep it.
Britain may get out of the EU. Scotland may even get out of Britain. The interesting times will be more interesting than some think.
I'm British and mildly pro European, I think for all the stuff that gets written about the EU, for the jokes the countries tell about each other, we have many more things that unite us than divide.
What I can't argue with though, is that there is definitely a perceived democratic deficit in the EU. I won't argue about whether it is real or not, it doesn't matter, what does is a lot of Europeans (not just the British) don't like EU bureaucracy.
Interesting. It has to be remembered that the UK and in fact all the allies, with the partial exception of the Soviet Union, were applying their war efforts to avert precisely this aggregation of nations during the Second World War. That war broke the back of the UK's economy, and the Marshall plan and the post war support of Germany was always intended to be a reintegration of the largest nation in continental Europe into an Anglo Saxon idea of a global economy. It was to avoid a repeat of the decimation of Germany after the First World War, which provided so much impetus to the events leading to the second.
Far from being a mis sold notion to the British public, it was in fact a preferred popular view. The acquiescence of Chamberlain to notions of compromise were well remembered, and the effort and loss of treasure to overcome that mistake gave rise to caution and defensiveness.
Viewed from the German and French perspectives, it appears very differently. But England has a very long history in needing to attend to other nations ideas of supra nationalism as it relates to the British Isles, and its own inclinations to state power inform its decisions as well.
While not my view, to many 'middle englanders', the Franco German alliance is a continuance of historical european politics. The French compromise, with some resistance, and the Germans see Europe as a larger political entity, having the characteristic of land locked imperialists. Even recent diplomats have expressed this view.
The decision to limit the European project to a trading agreement was in the first instance all that could be politically managed in the UK.
The UK went into Europe based on the ideals of the common market, what came after isn't what anybody signed up for
This is a common meme in British politics/public. The idea that "this isn't what we agreed". But I haven't actually seen any evidence for that.
It seems like backwards justification of the right wing british politics to explain why the Tories brought the UK into then EEC and to explain why the British public voted to stay in a few years later, and also to explain why many other countries (a) want to stay in it and (b) want to join.
Yes and no. Yes, Switzerland (and Norway) are not in the EU and don't want to offically join. However they have special trade deals with the EU, customs union, they have to implement EU law, they have to allow free movement of EU citizens to live and work there, they are in the Council of Europe and have to abide by the European Court of Human Rights, they're in Schengen. Switzerland and Norway are basically in EU in everything but name.
I think this clip from the classic comedy 'Yes, Minister' sums up Europe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVrN-gkzVYI
The UK doesn't hate the rest of Europe, but clearly each nation will play its hand for its own political reasons.