Neurope
Brexit divides the country by the binary choice of 2016's referendum: stay in the EU or leave. Before the referendum there were good bits about the EU (easy, tariff-free trade, cooperation on security) as well as not-so-good bits (big annual payments, banana bendiness rules) and we all had our own thoughts about what was good and what was not, but differences in opinions didn't divide families or ruin friendships. Now polarisation creates rifts in society and has more or less stopped politics working as the ERG on one side and militant remainers on the other take turns to sabotage every possible solution. There's a tendency for Remainers to equate the EU with Europe and paint Brexiteers as nationalists and isolationists, but it is possible to love Europe, its peoples, cultures, architecture, languages while being less enthusiastic about the institutions of the EU. To want to be able to trade and cooperate with other countries without being restricted by the rules laid down by the Eurocrats.
That's here in the UK. Over in Brussels all the euro-politicians, administrators and civil servants whose lives revolve around the EU and whose livelihoods depend on it's existence work hard to reinforce it, heading relentlessly towards a European superstate with its own borders, money, laws and centralised government. This goes against historical trends. Since 1800 the Holy Roman, Ottoman, Spanish, Portugese and British empires have all broken up, the Russian empire morphed into the USSR then that too disintegrated. More recently Yugoslavia has fragmented and Czechoslovakia has split, while in Africa Eritrea and Namibia have appeared and Sudan has split in two. There are strong moves in Catalonia and northern Italy for independence and the fallout from Brexit could see Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the UK. The underlying historical trend is towards more countries and against superstates.
At the same time supranational institutions have appeared: the United Nations and all its agencies, NATO, international financial organisations like the IMF and the World Bank. And business and companies have become international with headquarters in different continents and taking advantage of cheap labour to manufacture in one country and low taxes to route finances through another. Not just commerce, but science and the arts operate across boundaries. G7, G20, Davos and climate summits bring countries together to try to agree on policy and strategies. Improving living standards and communications allow people to travel more for holidays and work and to study or build careers in other countries.
Nationalism, populism and new politics
Against - or possibly along with - this long-term trend towards more, smaller countries and dissolving borders there is a reaction against globalisation and what is seen as a loss of national identity. Donald Trump's 'America First', trade wars and border wall, right-wing and populist politics across Europe as well as in the USA, attempts to limit migration. These new political forces in Europe are typically unenthusiastic about the EU's federal ambitions. They don't want to see their countries being increasingly absorbed into a European superstate with their laws and economics being governed from Brussels and migrants from poorer parts of the EU flooding in to take their jobs.
Europe is still a collection of countries. They have much in common - geography, obviously, democracy, history, culture,... But they also differ widely in language, lifestyles, affluence and, yes, history, culture,... From the perspective of the general trend against empire and superstates and increasing concerns with national identity, The EU should be loosening the grip of the centralised Brussels bureaucracy and reinventing itself as a framework for trade and cooperation. Countries should be free to connect as closely or a loosely as they wish, to contribute to and benefit from joint European projects like Galileo, to have free movement of people and goods, open borders and free trade within the European framework, or to step back from any aspects of the framework they feel don't work for them. Rather than having to trade with the rest of the world through the EU border with its fixed tariffs and regulations they should be free to establish their own trade relationships where this is beneficial. This approach simply extends the principles which allow some EU countries to use the euro while others have their own currency, or some countries to be in the Schengen area with its open borders and others to retain more control over their borders. The UK has always been a half-hearted player, rejecting both Schengen and the euro, but has made a tremendous contribution to Europe in terms of trade, science, culture and education. Other countries like Turkey that would like to be part of Europe but fail its stringent entry qualifications might, under a looser framework, be able to participate more benefiting those countries as well as Europe generally. Rather than being a backward-looking integrated superstate with hard borders and central government, a binary condition countries are either in or out of, the EU could be pioneering a new, flexible internationalism, strengthening cooperation and trade while accommodating the special characters and conditions of individual countries. A new Europe - Neurope or Eutopia?
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