There was a programme on Radio 4 at 5:00 yesterday, Sunday 9/1/05, called "This Sceptic Isle", examining the growth of "Euroscepticism" (aka petit-bourgeois nationalism, anti-Europeanism, Atlanticism, and bad old-fashioned imperialist xenophobia) in the Great British Public. As always, I can only shake my head in stupefied flabbergastedness at the naive belief that so many "Eurosceptics" have that the UK can be completely politically and economically independent in a world carved up into massive power blocs, and ruled by multinational companies with turnovers that dwarf many nations' GDPs.
Of course, not all "Eurosceptics" have this naive belief. Some are honestly and openly Atlanticist, advocating a cross-Atlantic 'Free Trade Zone' or somesuch, and have close economic and/or political ties with the US of A. Some profess a naive belief in UK independence, but know full bloody well that it has to be either the US or the EU - many of the "Eurosceptic" wing of the Tory Party, and I'm sure plenty in the UK Independence Party, fall into this category.
These are the worst 'eurosceptics', propagandists who use reactionary English nationalism (note that the Scots and Welsh are quite fond of the EU, for good self-interested reasons) and relentlessly push the old patriotic buttons in place of rational argument - "There'll always be an Ing-er-land", "Britains never never never shall be slaves", "Britannia waives the rules" (sorry, "rules the waves"), "This island race, this happy breed", Nelson, Trafalgar, Waterloo, etc ad bloody nauseam - to further their pro-US agenda. They remind me of the nationalist demagogues in the Balkans who re-ignited the vicious and murderous nationalism that killed 00s of 000s in the early 90s, in order to gain power and riches for themselves and their mates: cynical opportunists who regard the 'ordinary people' with breathtaking contempt, and who privately sneer at the naive patriotism of Joe and Jane Punter on the street.
Let's be clear about this: the UK is not capable of being a fully independent political and economic entity in the current and foreseeable world. There is no option for any nation but to ally itself to one or other power bloc, as otherwise it'll be easy meat for the multinationals who'll fleece it before you can say "my country right or wrong". The UK has a very simple choice: ally itself with the EU or the USA. That's it. Independence is a pipedream, a hallucinogenic fantasy - hippies on acid have more chance of flying than the UK has of surviving on its own.
Is either bloc better than the other, morally? How can you contrast a murderously imperialist superpower that kills in industrial quantities and has the largest military on the planet with a stock of nukes that could kill us all many times over, with an unaccountable authoritarian bureaucracy that would dearly love to be an imperialist superpower and which is developing a military and security apparatus that will reduce what few freedoms its citizens have to historical memories? Morally, there's not much to choose between them, although you're rather less likely to be killed by Eurocrats than by the US, at least if you live in the developed world. From a sheer practical, self-interest viewpoint, the UK has to make a bet on which power bloc is likely to prevail over the other. Blair and his NuLabour regime have plainly bet on the US, given NuLabour's unconditional support for the Iraq adventure, from which it hopes to earn more from plunder than it's spent on invasion and occupation.
Those in the capitalist class of a more far-sighted disposition will see a US with a plummeting dollar, a record and chronic trade gap, a budget deficit of over 5% of GDP, and dependent on foreign bond holders and capital investors, and the reserve currency status ('seignorage') of the dollar, to stay afloat. They'll see massive, unsustainable and above all unproductive, military expenditure, particularly the over $100 billion spent on the Iraq occupation, not to mention the hundreds of billions being committed to Son of Star Wars. In short, they'll see a superpower which, if the invasion and plunder of Iraq goes pear-shaped (as it likely will), will collapse economically and politically in a very short time as its economic chickens come home to roost in Spades. In contrast, they'll see an EU which, although it has its own major structural problems, is growing in size and economic clout, with a currency very likely to take over from the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Whilst the US is doing its best to sabotage the 'European project' by playing EU nations off against each other (note the role of Poland as US stooge in the Iraq war, and Berlusconi's embarrassingly arse-licking obsequious pro-Americanism), it no longer has the clout to hamstring the EU now that the Soviet bogeyman, and thus the rationale for US hegemony in Europe, has faded in a puff of smoke.
From a capitalist viewpoint, unless your faction or company has direct interests in the US, the EU has to be the better bet for the future. What about the ordinary stiff on the street? Is it better to be ruled by the US, the mad dog of international politics, or the EU, the Big Brother who knows what's good for you whether you like it or not? Eeksy peeksy, I'd say - you get screwed either way, the difference being that the EU will use some K-Y jelly whereas the Yanks'll just shove it in regardless and tell you to quit bellyaching. With the US being a much likelier candidate to go belly-up in the next decade, though, you've got to plump for the EU or else be dragged down into the mire by a collapsing US and a dollar reduced to toilet paper.
The programme did have a comedy moment, though, with a candidate for brass-necked quote of the week, from Trevor Cavanagh, the 'Political Editor' of The Sun. In answer to a question about the Sun's anti-Europeanism, he said:
"The Sun is not a kneejerk xenophobic newspaper."
Now that is funny, and made me laugh like a drain, nearly as much as when he followed up to say that the Sun wanted to foster an "intelligent and rational" debate on EU membership (newsflash: Vatican announces Pope joins Presbyterians). Interestingly, Cavanagh has an upper-class accent only marginally less plummy than Brian Sewell. I wonder what yer average Sun reader would think of a public schoolboy telling them what to think... At least that neo-fascist Kelvin McKenzie had a barrowboy accent.
