AND ANOTHER THING
Take your seats on the White Cliffs for the coming Continental earthquake
PAUL JOHNSON
For the benefit of their Eurosceptic crit- ics within the Conservative Party, John Major and Douglas Hurd have been putting on an impressively histrionic per- formance of fighting for a blocking vote in the European Union. But it is idle to sup- pose they can resist the push for federalism long when all the other governments want it. About 40 per cent of our sovereign power has already gone, and more is slip- ping away all the time, as EC regulations, legislation pushed through Parliament on the nod and decisions by the European Court and other supranational bodies take it away. Against this encroaching back- ground, I would like to ask an awkward question: where does Britain stand if large chunks of the federation in which we are being submerged suddenly start to fester?
Don't say it could not happen. There are signs that it is already beginning. The disap- pearance of the Soviet Union has removed all the inhibitions on political adventurism in central and western Europe. No longer afraid of invasion or subversion from the East, the peoples of states like Germany, France and Italy are not obliged any more to stick to the safe formula of centrist gov- ernment by nominally democratic parties like the Christian Democrats and Socialists. If they are angry, frustrated and fed up with the existing system, now half a century old — and all of them are — they know they can now afford to take risks. They have recovered their freedom of choice and action. Most of these countries are barely recovering or are still stuck in the worst recession since the early 1930s, with unem- ployment levels unknown since then. More- over, they are coping with immigration lev- els which, in sheer numbers, have been unknown since the Dark Ages. If they feel like tearing down the regime, experiment- ing with a bit of anarchy or, most likely, installing a populist dictatorship which shares their paranoia and will get tough with 'enemies', there is nothing to stop them.
France, a country which has much more experience of revolution and authoritarian- ism than democracy, already is in a pre- insurgent state. Edouard Balladur is a well- mannered softie, very like Louis XVI, who has shown repeatedly that he can be pushed into doing what any group prepared to use violence demands. He has a tough guy in the shape of Charles Pasqua, his admirable interior minister. But Pasqua is under orders not to spill blood and he is probably the most frustrated man in France today as he watches Balladur sell the pass each time the forces of chaos inch forward. If Pasqua resigns — not unlikely, I hear — that will be the green light for the mob to rise. Ask not what the mob wants. Mobs are under no obligation to submit pro- grammes, like parties seeking re-election. All they need are slogans. Mobs are nega- tive, destructive things. The Paris mobs of 1789, 1830, 1848, 1870 — or 1934 and 1968 for that matter — did not know what they wanted, only what they did not want: the existing regime. Democracy does not work in France and never has. The country is a bureaucratic oligarchy qualified by vio- lence. The bureaucrats rule until they antagonise a sufficient number of interests for discontent to become 'critical' and erupt in violence. I suspect Paris is close to that point now. And no one, apart from hired mercenaries, will lift one finger to save the Fifth Republic. I cannot see many French policemen risking injuries or death to protect the present ruling bunch. More likely, especially if Pasqua goes, they will join the mob. La police avec nous! is the mob-cry which signals that the end of a regime is close.
The earth is moving all over Europe. It has been unusually stable for 50 years, so I suspect that the earthquake, when and if it comes, will surprise us with its ferocity. Nor need it start on the streets. Revolutionary change can begin in the polling stations. That is certainly what is likely to happen this Sunday in Italy, where the centre is col- lapsing and the country is polarising between far left and right. And who can blame the long-suffering Italians, goaded beyond endurance by the corruption which is their daily lot, if they vote for a strong man who will shoot the crooks and give them a taste of justice? In Germany, the electoral nemesis of the centre is likewise likely in October. There, everything is going sour: the 'miracle', reunification, Europe, the notion that Germany can painlessly absorb millions of immigrants.
'Look out, it's the filth.' The Germans are in the mood to remind their neighbours that they are the dominant race in Mitteleuropa and are no longer under any obligation to be on their best behaviour.
Past European experience shows that unrest and violence are infectious. The trouble is most likely to start in France, as it usually does, but Spain, which has the highest unemployment in the EC and a weak and exhausted government, is anoth- er possible contender. There are even some ominous noises from traditionally comatose countries like the Netherlands, and Euro- crats going about their expensive business must not be surprised to be suddenly bowled over by street-power in smug Brus- sels. There is a feeling throughout Europe that democracy is not working and that the gap between what people want and what they are actually allowed by their rulers is too wide. That means trouble, and exactly how and where it starts is less important than the speed and intensity with which it will spread.
A European conflagration will bring the Channel (as opposed to the Chunnel) back into fashion. We forget that its function in the past has been to protect us not just from invasion, but from the contagion of the mob. If Europe, or a large part of it, falls into the hands of political adventurers, federation will instantly come to seem what of course it is: a fancy idea that doesn't work. Falling regimes in Continental capi- tals will give us back our sovereignty, to use a famous phrase, 'at a stroke'. Britain is always being told it is in a minority of one, as if this is somehow a disgraceful place to occupy. But it will be, as it has been in the past, a mighty convenient position as the Continent slithers into anarchy — or worse — and we watch the exciting drama from our grandstand seats on the White Cliffs. Of course we shall be hospitable, gracefully giving refuge to the bedraggled Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, just as in for- mer days we provided a home in exile to Louis XVIII and Charles X, Louis Philippe, Napoleon III and General de Gaulle. We might even find a little shelter for Jacques Delors if he turns up at Dover with his suit- case. 'Britain is unfortunate,' a Frenchman said pityingly to me the other day, 'that geography has placed her on the periphery of great events.' To which I replied that, when earthquakes come, there is a lot to be said for being far from the epicentre.
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