Why I am a Eurosceptic

Tony Blair has come out against the Eurosceptics (at least that’s the BBC’s take on things) and, as a not-quite fully-paid up, card-carrying member of the Eurosceptic movement I feel obliged to respond. But it occurred to me, reading the BBC report of Blair’s words, that very few of his criticisms applied to me. The one about withdrawing certainly did but other than that I rather got the impression that he must be talking about someone else.

I am a Eurosceptic (meaning I want Britain to withdraw from the European Union) because I am a libertarian. I believe that the current set up makes it very difficult, legally, for a British government to follow libertarian policies and that further engagement would only make things all the more difficult.

As someone who, in another place, covers transport issues, I am confronted daily with the block-headedness of the European Union’s rail policy. It’s been there for over ten years and the problems that Britain’s railways face are in large part inspired by the EU – along with, it must be said, a fair dose of our own stupidity. Were I ever to become Transport Secretary and seek to introduce what I regard as sensible policies I would almost immediately find that they would be ruled out as contrary to European law. I would then be faced with the uncomfortable dilemma of deciding whether to carry on in defiance of the EU or to resign.

Although I can’t prove it, it is interesting to observe the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling’s almost complete paralysis on the subject. Although (I think) he has correctly identified fragmentation as the problem, he resolutely refuses to do anything about it because he can’t – the EU won’t allow him to. The thing that damns him is his failure to tell the rest of us.

“Ah”, say the critics “what you need to do is get involved. Show that you are committed to the project and the debate will start to go your way.” Don’t they always. But that is precisely what Britain has been trying to do for over 30 years. In the late 1980s it was just possible to believe that the Single Market was the answer to our prayers; proof positive that our free-trading instincts were being listened to. But very soon we realised – largely through the magnificent Daily Telegraph columns of Christopher Booker - that far from being a boost to trade the Single Market was being used as a club with which to batter and subdue enterprise, especially the smaller and more traditional varieties.

After 30 years of trying and failing to get the EU to move in our direction surely the time has come to say enough is enough, the trial period is over, the experiment has failed?

“OK,” say the critics “well, what about the peace and prosperity? Aha, got you there!” The argument being that the EU alone is responsible for the peace and prosperity we have enjoyed over the last 40 years. To which one might reply, how come Switzerland and Norway haven’t been ravaged by war and poverty over recent years? The truth is, of course, that we had peace in Western Europe because we had, in the Soviet Union, a common enemy and because both sides had nukes, effectively making nuclear war unacceptable. Modern-day British prosperity is down to the Thatcher Revolution and not the EU. Yes, yes, yes, I know these are assertions and I can’t prove them (or at least I am unwilling to do so here and now) but then again so is the one about the EU being entirely responsible for peace and prosperity.

Tony Blair may, today, have succeeded in knocking down a straw man but I do not feel that he has laid a glove on me.