The Common Market and a Horse Named Arkle

At the moment of writing, the palaver ’ about Britain and the Common Market has just begun to give the British people a vague and uneasy feeling that something may possibly happen after all. For some time public opinion has been reported as moving gradually but steadily in favor of entry, but this development has not been matched by any clear understanding of what entry would mean, economically, politically or psychologically. The psychological adjustments will be hardest to make if all the frenzied diplomatic scurrying ever reaches the stage of heads of agreement. Advocates of the Market are never tired of saying that England cannot remain forever as an offshore island cf Europe. They have not grasped that many, if not most, Englishmen secretly regard Europe as an offshore island of England. “Storm in Channel. Continent Cut Off.” This famous newspaper headline was thought by some to be funny, but most Englishmen, in their private thoughts, considered it tobe a commonsense, concise statement of an undeniable fact.

I have a reason for using the words England and Englishmen instead of Britain and British. Those who accuse the English of incorrigible insularity are guilty of a degree of flattery. The English have some way to go before they become broadminded enough to be insular. When Cardinal Newman was casting about for a statement so — self-evident that it required no proof, he came up with the proposition “England is an island.” England is not an island. To the North of the Tweed and the Solway there is another country, Scotland. When the Scots are told that their country and their nation are to be regarded as a sub-department of England, they show the liveliest irritation. In justice to the Scots, they do not apply the word Scotland to all the 93,018 square miles that stretch from John O’Groats to Land’s End. That may be counted as some improvement on the English attitude, but not much. Saxon and Celt share the belief that the Channel is no mere geological freak but an essential part of Providence’s Great Design to preserve and defend a civilization that enshrines Man’s noblest achievements. It is this feeling that has always provoked a nervous reaction whenever negotiations with Europe began to look remotely like business. It was Winston Churchill himself who launched the concept of a united Europe in a speech at Zurich. At that time the European nations were still climbing out of their bomb rubble and would gladly have yielded the initiative and primacy to the one country that was comparatively unshattered. But Churchill was then in Opposition and Zurich looked more attractive than his private residence. Clement Attlee was in Downing Street and Clem never thought much of foreigners anyway. When Churchill returned in triumph to Downing. Street his vision splendid contracted sharply to the limits of Parliament Square. Europe was put aside, like a half-smoked cigar that had lost its flavor. Common Marketeers placed considerable hopes in Hugh Gaitskell, who followed Attlee as socialist leader, and none placed his hopes higher than George Brown (now Foreign Secretary). The Labor left was solidly against the Market, which it professed to see as a group of reactionary bankers and merchants of death, determined to do socialism in. The Left combines internationalism and chauvinism in a comforting mixture that is very strengthening to the self-esteem. It believes that the whole world, and especially the socialist world, looks yearningly to the British Labor Party for a shining example. This means that the most altruistic thing the Labor Party can do is to suit itself in all particulars, putting its own interests first, second and last, on the Emersonian principle of making a better mousetrap and waiting for the whole world to beat a path to your door. (Unfortunately, the world’s judgment on British mousetrap technology is not, at the moment, very high.) The most influential, though not the most open, of the left-wing anti-marketeers was Harold Wilson.

CB

About the Author

Colm Brogan

Featured Tags

At the moment of writing, the palaver ’ about Britain and the Common Market has just begun to give the British people a vague and uneasy feeling that something may possibly happen after all. For some time public opinion has been reported as moving gradually but steadily in favor of entry, but this development has not been matched by any clear understanding of what entry would mean, economically, politically or psychologically. The psychological adjustments will be hardest to make if all the frenzied diplomatic scurrying ever reaches the stage of heads of agreement. Advocates of the Market are never tired of saying that England cannot remain forever as an offshore island cf Europe. They have not grasped that many, if not most, Englishmen secretly regard Europe as an offshore island of England. “Storm in Channel. Continent Cut Off.” This famous newspaper headline was thought by some to be funny, but most Englishmen, in their private thoughts, considered it tobe a commonsense, concise statement of an undeniable fact.

I have a reason for using the words England and Englishmen instead of Britain and British. Those who accuse the English of incorrigible insularity are guilty of a degree of flattery. The English have some way to go before they become broadminded enough to be insular. When Cardinal Newman was casting about for a statement so — self-evident that it required no proof, he came up with the proposition “England is an island.” England is not an island. To the North of the Tweed and the Solway there is another country, Scotland. When the Scots are told that their country and their nation are to be regarded as a sub-department of England, they show the liveliest irritation. In justice to the Scots, they do not apply the word Scotland to all the 93,018 square miles that stretch from John O’Groats to Land’s End. That may be counted as some improvement on the English attitude, but not much. Saxon and Celt share the belief that the Channel is no mere geological freak but an essential part of Providence’s Great Design to preserve and defend a civilization that enshrines Man’s noblest achievements. It is this feeling that has always provoked a nervous reaction whenever negotiations with Europe began to look remotely like business. It was Winston Churchill himself who launched the concept of a united Europe in a speech at Zurich. At that time the European nations were still climbing out of their bomb rubble and would gladly have yielded the initiative and primacy to the one country that was comparatively unshattered. But Churchill was then in Opposition and Zurich looked more attractive than his private residence. Clement Attlee was in Downing Street and Clem never thought much of foreigners anyway. When Churchill returned in triumph to Downing. Street his vision splendid contracted sharply to the limits of Parliament Square. Europe was put aside, like a half-smoked cigar that had lost its flavor. Common Marketeers placed considerable hopes in Hugh Gaitskell, who followed Attlee as socialist leader, and none placed his hopes higher than George Brown (now Foreign Secretary). The Labor left was solidly against the Market, which it professed to see as a group of reactionary bankers and merchants of death, determined to do socialism in. The Left combines internationalism and chauvinism in a comforting mixture that is very strengthening to the self-esteem. It believes that the whole world, and especially the socialist world, looks yearningly to the British Labor Party for a shining example. This means that the most altruistic thing the Labor Party can do is to suit itself in all particulars, putting its own interests first, second and last, on the Emersonian principle of making a better mousetrap and waiting for the whole world to beat a path to your door. (Unfortunately, the world’s judgment on British mousetrap technology is not, at the moment, very high.) The most influential, though not the most open, of the left-wing anti-marketeers was Harold Wilson.