On Question Time last Thursday (10th December 2015), Vince Cable suggested that regardless of David Cameron’s renegotiation efforts, the PM should be making the case for the EU. Dr Cable noted along the way that the EU has protected us from nasty nationalism [at about 27 minutes if you ever want to watch it].

This is related to the argument that the EU is the antidote to nasty nationalism and “the EU prevents war”, which have been basic convictions of EU fanatics because of the EU’s function in clipping the wings of national power and “pooling sovereignty” into a greater whole such that war between two EU countries is not only unthinkable but impractical. This was the aim of the original European Coal and Steel Community in the years after World War II — combine the industrial might of Germany with that of France at a European level, and Germany will never again be able to build an independent military-industrial machine with which to threaten its neighbours.

In 2011, this quote was allegedly displayed in the EU visitor centre

But if the EU has prevented nasty nationalism, how do you explain the existence of Marine Le Pen and the Front National (FN)? Or, for that matter, any of the other nationalist parties that have grown in recent times and are guiding the political debate in EU states and even turning up at EU institutions (so one can scarcely say we are protected from it). And from time to time, Le Pen has even been tipped to win the next French presidential election.

Think about that: The Front National and other growing forms of nationalism across Europe have emerged and grown while the EU has reached its most advanced state of integration. That is certainly also true for Greece — a euro state (so at the forefront of EU integration) that has seen its integrated vassal future more quickly and starkly than any other state…and where a Nazi party now comes third in national elections.

Integration thus does not prevent nationalism; Ergo, integration can never have prevented nationalism at any point in EU/EEC history.

And if the EU demonstrably does not and has not prevented nasty nationalism in Europe then, on an EU fanatic’s own logic about nasty nationalism causing war, the EU has not prevented war either. There has simply been no war to prevent. Unless you can remember an episode in post-war history of a brewing intra-EU conflict that had to be “talked down” by or through EU/EEC institutions. I can’t.

What I do recall is the threat of war between America, Britain and their western allies against the Soviet Union, with American and Soviet troops stationed on opposite sides of a partitioned Germany. But neither the stand-off nor the reconciliation was anything to do with the EU/EEC.

Of course the kinds of nation states that do not go to war with each other tend to be those that are entrenched, modern, independent democracies.

But I doubt EU fanatics like Vince Cable want to hear that.