Оглавление
Richard Tuck. The Left Case for Brexit
Contents
Guide
Pages
The Left Case for Brexit. Reflections on the Current Crisis
Copyright page
Preface
16 April 2016
22 April 2016
Notes
16 May 2016
Notes
6 June 2016: The Left Case for Brexit
I
II
III
IV
Notes
9 June 2016
Note
17 July 2017:Brexit: A Prize in Reach for the Left
Notes
16 August 2017
Notes
6 November 2017
Note
17 February 2018
Note
28 February 2018
9 March 2018
Notes
11 April 2018
Notes
26 April 2018: Why Is Everyone So Hysterical About Brexit?
17 May 2018
15 July 2018: How to Break Up the Union
Note
1 August 2018
Notes
19 November 2018: The Surprising Benefits to Ireland of a No-Deal Brexit
Note
16 January 2019
17 January 2019: Deal or No Deal
23 January 2019
24 February 2019
12 April 2019: Modest Proposals
3 June 2019
Note
5 July 2019
18 July 2019
Notes
31 October 2019
Notes
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Отрывок из книги
Richard Tuck
Do you remember David Cameron’s renegotiation of the terms of Britain’s membership of the EU? No, I thought not. The details of the negotiation have more or less disappeared without trace from the debate about Brexit, to be replaced by the apocalyptic scenarios of Project Fear, according to which Britain’s exit from the EU will be catastrophic not merely for the British economy but for the entire Western World. At the very least Brexit (we are told) will carve a large hole in the European economy, but – even more urgently – it will apparently disrupt the entire current security system. When American politicians or generals (insofar as the categories are distinct) lecture the British on the need to stay in the EU, they are not doing so out of benevolence for Britain, nor do they even pretend to be doing so; they are doing it, they say, out of anxiety for the future of the post-war European order. The same is true of a certain kind of European politician, for whom the threat of terrorist attacks or Russian revanchism requires ‘more Europe’, and for whom the tearing apart of the EU would be a disaster.
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Modern Scottish nationalism is essentially the working out within Britain of the logic of the EU. Scotland joined the Union in 1707 explicitly to enjoy an economic union with a large market and a global trading power, and there is no need for it to stay within the old union when a new one beckons; why have an intermediate level of politics in Westminster when everything can be much more easily decided directly between Edinburgh and Brussels? To see this, one need only consider whether Scottish nationalism could be a credible movement if the EU did not exist. The EU’s institutions guarantee Scotland virtually the same freedoms of trade and movement with England which the 1707 Union provided; the only missing element (as the equivocation of the referendum campaign demonstrated) is a common currency, but the EU offers some security to an independent Scotland even in this area, at least as compared with the risks of a wholly independent and wholly Scottish currency, the failure of which was a principal reason for the British Union.
Indeed, one does not have to imagine this: one only has to think back (if one is old enough, as I am) to the days before Britain joined the Common Market, when Scottish nationalism was largely a joke, and its supporters’ principal activity was moving the Welcome to Scotland sign from one side of Berwick-upon-Tweed to the other. Even after Britain’s accession, as long as the Common Market appeared to be merely a somewhat loose trading arrangement it played no part in Scottish nationalism – indeed, the SNP had violently opposed the accession. But once the Common Market began to take its current shape, the power of European integration to advance its cause began to dawn on the SNP, and as soon as it switched to an enthusiastically pro-European position in the 1980s its electoral fortunes began to improve.
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