Winston Churchill on Boris Johnson and Brexit

Boris Johnson is now the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister and he has promised to lead the UK out of the European Union by October 31^st.  He insists that he can get the European Union to renegotiate the deal even though the Europeans are adamant that the deal negotiated with Teresa May is a take it or leave it proposition.  And if they do not renegotiate, then Johnson is also quite strident that Britain will leave no matter what. As a result, all of this will likely lead to a quite disruptive and erratic next few months as Britain and the EU try to sort out the remainder of Brexit.

Based on these positions, it would appear that the outcome by October 31^st is assured – Britain will leave the EU without a deal and sail off on its separate way.  On the other hand, politics is a strange process with a lot of dramatic posturing and one could very well see a new deal emerge.  Or, in what could be a really bizarre turn of events, Britain could very well stay in the EU.  Just as only Nixon could go to China, only Boris could actually keep Britain in the EU.

Much of the discussion of the entire Brexit issue has focused on how chaotic and disruptive it has been and how damaging it is to Britain’s long-term economic and political interests.  However, there may be some reason behind this madness if one is to take the writings of Winston Churchill on foreign policy and extrapolate them to the present.  In his first volume of his epic history of the Second World War, Churchill writes the following:

“For four hundred years the foreign policy of England has been to oppose the strongest, most aggressive, most dominating Power on the Continent, and particularly to prevent the Low countries falling into the hands of such a Power…we always took the harder course, joined with the less strong Powers, made a combination among them, and thus defeated and frustrated the Continental military tyrant…Thus we preserved the liberties of Europe, protected the growth of its vivacious and varied society, emerged after four terrible struggles with an ever-growing fame and widening Empire…Here is the wonderful unconscious tradition of British Foreign Policy…Observe that the policy of England takes no account of which nation it is that seeks the overlordship of Europe…it is concerned solely with whoever is the strongest or the potentially dominating tyrant.”

Well, there you have it.  Britain’s elites and particularly those in the Conservative Party appear to be - borrowing from the words of Keynes - the unwitting slaves of some now defunct foreign policy prescription that guided the rise to empire.  Boris Johnson and the Brexiteers do not view the dominant European power as Germany, France or Spain but the grand project of European union and its bureaucracy in Brussels is now the continental tyrant.  By leaving the EU, they see themselves as safeguarding the freedom of Britain and sowing disruption that might lead to the eventual breakup of the EU. 

Of course, one might ask why they joined?  Well, as the European Project was coming together after 1950, it gradually became apparent that it was not falling apart and would continue.  So, being on the inside would have been the best way to keep an eye on things and steer things according to Britain’s interests.  Indeed, being on the inside and “unconsciously” provocative or disruptive could be seen as a potential policy direction given hundreds of years of British foreign policy geared towards keeping Europe apart.  Indeed, French President Charles De Gaulle’s opposition to British membership can be viewed as a realization of this.

Why leave now? Well, the “unconscious” hope was that given the strains the EU was undergoing in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis and the migrant crisis, leaving now might be the final push leading to its break-up.  However, the miscalculation here was that it is no longer 1789 or 1913 or 1939.  It is the early 21^st century and Britain’s actions have interestingly enough galvanized the Europeans at least for the time being into working harder to stay together.  Boris and the Brexiteers and their “unconscious” policy formulation may backfire big-time.
 

Trump, Brexit and the EU

On his recent state visit to the UK, US President Donald Trump waded into the Brexit issue and Britain’s EU relations with a number of pronouncements that included tweeting that Britain should throw off the “shackles” of EU membership and also offering the promise of a US trade deal once they left.  If Britain follows through and leaves the EU, a trade deal with the United States would be an important consolation prize but one hopes the British have been watching the US and its ongoing relationship with Canada and Mexico to know that even with trade deals, economic relations with the current US administration can be a bit of a roller coaster.

Of course, President Trump is up to more than simply trying to throw the British a lifeline.  Trump and indeed a chunk of like-minded American policy thinkers have never liked the EU and have been waiting for Euro and the EU to fall apart and fail.  Indeed, one perspective in the Harvard Business Review a number of years ago refers to the EU as a failed experimentbecause of its slow recovery from the 2008-09 recession, the undemocratic aspects of the EU Commission and the failure to create a more integrated federation.  Of course, if Europe was successful in creating a more integrated federation, it would likely spark the ire of Donald Trump even more.

Indeed, with his attacks on the relevance of NATO and the EU, it has been noted that Trump has been trying to disrupt the EU.  While the presence of a united Europe which shares common economic and cultural values and supports a liberal international order, with the United States should be seen as a natural ally, the current President of the United States essentially sees a united Europe as a large bloc that would better serve American interests by being shattered into smaller units. These smaller units can then be played off one against the other for short term economic and political advantage whether it is trade deals that benefit the United States or other short-term alliances.  

Needless to say, the Europeans have a right to be miffed not only with the UK which with Brexit has become a disruptive rather than constructive force in Europe but also with President Trump who is openly hostile to the EU.  Of course, Britain’s behaviour is probably rooted in its history as it spent centuries making sure that continental European powers did not come together to form an alliance.  Once they did with the creation of the EU, a cynic would argue that Britain eventually joined to be a disruptive force from within – indeed, De Gaulle thought they should not be admitted.  The best thing that Europe can do if Britain leaves the EU is to work towards sticking together and becoming more united, but this is going to be a tough task.