Had Donald Trump been elected in 2012, would the Tories under David Cameron have been as keen to use a referendum to try and outflank Farage’s UKIP on the EU question? Some senior members of the party would no doubt, but not many, and they would have seemed totally deranged. Opportunists like Johnson and Gove would surely have elected to keep the status quo. Public opinion would have demanded it.
Politically, it would have been a no-brainer to deny the growing calls for a referendum, and even the right-wing press, after a concerted decades-long campaign against 'barmy eurocrats,' would have been shamed into silence. Quitting the EU when America was in the grip of a stupid, malicious, vengeful cabal of certifiable oddballs under the moronic Trump, intent on destabilising eighty years of global trade development and hacking away at the Western alliance and even the basic pillars of democracy, would have seemed the height of insanity.
I don’t believe Cameron would have needed to call a referendum at all, and if he had, Remain would have won hands down. As it was, Brexit came first, and we are where we are.
These thoughts occurred to me this week after reading a couple of contributions to the debate. The first was from Matt Carr on his Substack blog: Exterminating Brexit, Britain’s Road to Ruin. It beautifully captures the paralysis that is gripping our political system at the moment. This part sums it up:
“Unable or unwilling to recognise the destructive game that Mosley-Farage and his pals are playing, voters and politicians remain trapped in the world that Brexit made, a world where one folly is piled on the other. A credulous population that believed Brexit would make the country great again, is now poised to pursue the same outcome with the same man who lied to them before.”
It's well worth a few minutes of your time.
But, before you get too despondent, the second is a longer and more hopeful article by Jonathan Hill, founder and director of European Future on their website: Where do we stand? Hill writes:
"On what ground do we stand as war and crisis rage all around us, while a seventy-five-year-old transatlantic alliance crumbles before our eyes? Do we stand alone? If the world around us is turning to a lawless, violent oligarchy that sees every sea, field, and mountain as real estate, to be bought or controlled at whim, then how does our European Union respond?"
He speaks as an EU citizen, probably Danish from the tone of his article, as he says: "When we lose our sense of a shared reality, we lose ourselves. We become confused, apathetic, paralysed. We lose hope. It is no surprise then that anti-democratic forces both within our societies and without have long since marshalled digital platforms to their advantage. Putin and his proxies want us to believe that truth never existed in the first place. War is peace; freedom is slavery.
"Having invited such anger, despair, and suffering into our own community, how could our Union possibly act with clarity and confidence to defend its own interests? How might we mobilise resources and invest in our own future if we cannot agree on the nature of the problems we face? Are we doomed to division?"
What he urges is for politicians and citizens in the EU to recognise the democratic power and legitimacy of a voluntary union of 27 nations and 450 million citizens operating under the rule of law, where human rights and a diverse and independent judiciary are respected. Hill points to surveys showing overwhelming support for the EU and the euro, particularly among young people. and often trusted more than people's own national governments.
"Whereas the great empires began with the absolute certainty of their own god-given righteousness and then followed their own lust for power, wealth, and expansion, and while the great ideologies began with the absolute certainty of their own dogmas and theories and then pursued their own crushing purity, our modern Europe began in the ashes of Auschwitz, cowering in shame.
"What if our Union, deep in its collective unconscious, has served for decades as a form of group therapy, where we sit and work beside former enemies, bear witness to the scars of the past, and begin something new?
"If the shared mantra of ‘never again’ allowed France and Germany to sit together after the war and integrate their coal and steel industries, the Union may also have given Ireland and the United Kingdom the space to co-exist, among common friends and shared institutions, so that the peacemakers could do their work. When the countries of central and eastern Europe joined the Union in 2004, they found peace and security, distance from Moscow, and the chance to revive their frozen democratic traditions.
"The legitimacy of our Union, its reconciliation of our competing beliefs, its reflection of our infinite diversity, and its response to our shared need for redemption: none of this makes the world any easier in 2026, none of it provides a road map and a budget. But we can see what lies before us with clear eyes, confidence, and a sense of purpose."
