The Economist, a magazine that has swung from classical liberalism to Davos liberalism and beyond, makes the case against Brexit here. It’ll be worth considering some of the arguments at length as the referendum campaign drags on, but for now it is worth pointing out a contradiction, a scare, and an omission.
Let’s start with the first:
Far from reclaiming sovereignty, Britons would be forgoing clout, by giving up membership of a powerful club whose actions they can influence better from within than without. Those outside Britain marvelling at this proposed act of self-harm should worry for themselves, too. Brexit would deal a heavy blow to Europe, a continent already on the ropes.
So is “Europe”, a word that The Economist uses more or less interchangeably with the EU “powerful” or “on the ropes,” and if it is the latter, why would that be?
Let’s read on:
European leaders know Brexit would weaken a club already in deep trouble over such issues as migration and the euro crisis.
Ah, so the “powerful club” is in deep trouble.
And it is in trouble, the magazine concedes, at least partly because of the euro, an act of “self-harm” if ever I saw one, and migration. The latter is a crisis that the EU has not, of course, created. But through the pull effect of its irresponsible Schengen arrangements, it is a crisis that the EU has made much worse. And these are problems that flow from the very nature of the EU’s “ever closer union” (an idea, incidentally, that The Economist used to oppose). They are problems that are not going away, and they will be joined by others. Mr. Cameron argues that his “renegotiation” will mean that Britain can extract itself from the ratchet of ever closer union. Sadly, this is not so. The best way for Britain to protect itself from the disasters that this profoundly destabilizing club has a bad habit of creating is to leave.
The scare? Well, there are several to choose from. Let’s look at what The Economist has to say about security:
The EU has become an increasingly important part of the West’s foreign and security policy, whether it concerns a nuclear deal with Iran, the threat of Islamist terrorism or the imposition of sanctions against Russia. Without Britain, it would be harder for the EU to pull its global weight — a big loss to the West in a troubled neighbourhood, from Russia through Syria to north Africa. It is little wonder that Russia’s Vladimir Putin is keen on Brexit — and that America’s Barack Obama is not. It would be shortsighted for Eurosceptics to be indifferent to this. A weakened Europe would be unambiguously bad for Britain, whose geography, unlike its politics, is fixed.
Leaving aside the reality that the instability created by “ever closer union” has been a great help to Putin, there is also the fact that the EU dreams of a defense identity all of its own, an identity that will be largely ineffective, except in one respect: To drain NATO of both resources and meaning. Somehow I don’t think the Kremlin will object too much to that.
And then, of course, there is the omission, the whole democracy thing. The Economist prefers to discuss “sovereignty,” a somewhat less loaded word. But the fact remains that the EU is a technocratic project. It is hollowing out the democracies of its member-states with consequences that are far from benign. You either care about that or you don’t.
The Economist has made clear where it stands.