A Eurosceptic case for Remain

The EU isn’t working. Here’s why we should stay in it anyway.

On Thursday, Britain faces a seismic choice, one that has divided parties, cities, even families. It is a clash of polar opposites: open vs closed. International vs isolationist. Sovereign vs subjugated. Good vs evil. Leave vs Remain.

This, at least, is what the campaigns are telling us — what they have to tell us. It’s what many of us are telling ourselves — witness all those op-eds about how Britain is divided as never before. But it’s actually completely wrong.

Jeff Djevdet (speedpropertybuyers.co.uk) via Flickr

Yes, for some people, the EU referendum is about what sort of Britain we want to be. These are the ones howling on Twitter about taking their country back from Brussels, or (on the other side) condemning Nigel Farage as a kissing cousin of Adolf Hitler.

But for most people — the ones in the centre, over whom the campaigns are fighting so ferociously — there’s actually a pretty clear consensus. All the evidence shows that most Britons think we’re better off trading freely with other European nations; that it makes sense to pool our sovereignty in certain other areas too, but that this process has gone too far; that the single currency was a drastically stupid idea; that we’re happy about being able to go to Europe and happy for Europeans to come here, but that the numbers arriving have been too high for too long and that we need more control over who’s coming in.

Do we think that unpicking the current deal — which most of us have a vague sense isn’t working — is worth the inevitable economic price?

For such voters, this vote isn’t about certainties, but about probabilities and preferences. Do we, personally, care more about the costs of immigration than the benefits of free trade? Do we care more about British judicial supremacy, or being able to retire to Tuscany or the Costa del Sol? Do we think that unpicking the current deal — which most of us have a vague sense isn’t working — is worth the inevitable economic price?

Everyone will, inevitably, come up with their own answers to these questions. But having covered the referendum for months, and familiarised myself with most of the arguments, I wanted to share my thoughts in case they’re of use to anyone else who’s been agonising over this.

I would — as the title of this piece suggests — consider myself a Eurosceptic. I worked at The Daily Telegraph for 10 years, writing its leader columns and running its comment pages. The campaigners and special advisers in charge of Vote Leave are, by and large, the Tories I came of age with. I know they have thought deeply, and feel passionately, about their cause.

Vote Leave aren’t people who hate Europe. They’re people who have concluded that it can’t be fixed

I also know that for every lifelong Euro-zealot, there is another who was radicalised by experience — by coming to power in 2010 and finding that their hands were tied by Brussels, that the need to win agreement from 28 states turned government into an endless process of damage limitation, of winning tiny concessions from the other member states or, more often, suffering frustrating defeats.

These are not, in other words, people who hate Europe. These are people who have concluded that it can’t be fixed.

Until the referendum, I had assumed I was one of them. I’ve always hated the way the EU is so closed, so inward-looking, more concerned with protecting the cushy jobs and cushy lives of those in France or Belgium than with spreading opportunity and prosperity beyond their borders. I’d always thought of Britain as a force for good in pushing for enlargement, liberalisation, decentralisation. But I’d also recognised that we were always swimming against the tide.

In other words, I agree with pretty much all of the Leavers’ diagnosis. Where I differ is in their proposed course of treatment.

The arguments against leaving have been made many times, by many people. But I think it’s worth rattling through them again, given how powerfully they stack up.

The most obvious point, of course, is the economic damage that would ensue. Some within the Leave camp have managed to brush off the near-unanimous warnings of every economist, every NGO, every central bank, every friendly government that Brexit would have an immediate and severe economic cost. Experts have been wrong before, after all. But we surely have to take the weight of their opinion into account — the fact that analysts in the City are, to a man or woman, fucking petrified about what happens on Thursday.

Even if we get away with just a collapse of the pound (and all its ensuing consequences), there will be months and years of uncertainty while whatever deal can be hammered out is hammered out — during which period there will be less investment, less certainty, less prosperity.

Brexit isn’t a recipe for saving the NHS. It’s a recipe for putting it under even more strain

This, obviously, has a spin-off effect on the public services — which are already under severe strain. Vote Leave’s claim that we give £350 million a week to Brussels is utterly inaccurate (although, according to the polling figures, diabolically effective). But if we leave, we wouldn’t get back a single penny — because, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out, increased borrowing costs would wipe out any gains at a stroke.

Brexit, in other words, isn’t a recipe for saving the NHS from the costs imposed by immigration. It’s a recipe for putting a creaking service under even more severe strain. That’s without considering the fact that we’ll probably have to agree to keep paying the EU a significant amount anyway, either as a goodwill gesture during negotiations or as to fund the things that we do end up agreeing to cooperate on.

The next objection is the nature of the deal we strike with Europe. There has been lots of nice talk about how it would be in our mutual interests to strike a good one for both sides. On the contrary: there is absolutely no possibility of improving our position.

Early on in the referendum process, I spent a day at a “war games” session run by the think-tank Open Europe, to model what negotiations would be like. To put it bluntly, Britain was steamrollered. The consensus was that David Cameron’s deal, though inadequate from a British perspective, represented an unprecedented extension of goodwill. Any Brexit deal would be about punishment — and self-preservation.

We’ve just told them to eff off. And now we want to play nice?

This might seem irrational, but the European Union’s first impulse, like any organisation’s is to protect itself. If we get a better deal than we currently have, then it can only encourage others to leave. Plus, there’s the human element: we’ve just told them, as a nation, to eff off. And now we want to play nice?

This isn’t just a matter of negotiation, but realpolitik. The Irish economy, so intertwined with ours, will need to be shored up. That, among other things, means trying to lure financial services from London to Dublin. From a European perspective, the financial capital of Europe cannot be outside of it — so the City’s access to European markets will be cut back.

Furthermore, any British deal — which will, inevitably, take years to negotiate, given the lack of anything resembling a pre-packaged model — will have to be approved by every member state. We may have leverage against Europe collectively, given the volume of our trade. But against Hungary, or Cyprus, or Italy? And whatever happens, we will want to trade with Europe: so, like Norway or Switzerland, we will have to accept its rules and standards anyway, rules which we will have no say in making.

The line from the Brexit camp is that this need not necessarily matter. Europe, they say, is dying: the future lies with trading freely with the nations of the East.

There is something to this — although, as I’ve pointed out before, being part of the EU doesn’t seem to stop Germany doing exactly that. But again, we run into a little problem called reality. Free trade is less popular than at any time in recent memory. The idea of resurrecting the Commonwealth as an alternative to the EU is a complete non-starter — and I say that as someone whose masters thesis was on that very body. British businesses are not, in any event, set up to capture export opportunities — not least because of our lack of airport capacity.

There is a further problem. Trade deals take years to negotiate. We will need to negotiate dozens if not hundreds of them, simultaneously — while at the same time renegotiating our EU membership. And how many members of the British civil service have ever negotiated a trade deal before, and stand ready to do the same again? I will tell you: zero. Because trade deals are handled by the EU. (EDIT: It’s been pointed out that there are a handful of Brits, eg those on secondment to the EU, who we could theoretically call on. But nothing close to the number we’d need.)

After Brexit, our trade negotiators will be overworked, inexperienced — and screwed

The result is that the negotiations which shape our future will be conducted by the same civil servants who regularly get outwitted by Serco or Capita or Amazon — sitting on the other side of the table from people who do this for a living and have done for years. They are, in other words, going to be overworked, inexperienced — and screwed.

The next issue is Scotland. Put simply, if we vote to go, so will they. I have heard various explanations of how the Union can survive a Brexit vote. They are all from people in London, not in Edinburgh. If we go, there will almost certainly be a second independence referendum, and Nicola Sturgeon will very probably win it. For some, the EU may be a greater evil than the Union is a good. But not for me.

As problematic as the Scottish situation is the Irish one. The peace between the two halves of Ireland is precious, and hard-won. The treaties opening the border between the two are independent of EU membership, and will remain in force. But the two will inexorably be torn apart in terms of regulation or taxation as Britain goes one way, the EU another.

For Northern Ireland, Brexit is not a theoretical preference: it is an imminent danger. There is also the fact that a referendum predicated on controlling our borders will have to leave them open in this instance — meaning that, unless we want to treat Northern Ireland as a separate country and force its citizens through checkpoints on the mainland, breaching our defences will be as simple as hopping on a flight to Dublin and getting a bus north.

Finally, we come to Leave’s trump card: immigration. Admittedly, this is less of an issue for me than for others. I believe it is good for our economy, and has enriched our culture. It’s also the definition of a problem of success: people are coming to Britain because it is prosperous and tolerant, and are making it more prosperous by doing so.

Even if immigration is your main concern, it’s hard to see how voting Leave solves it

That’s because all the evidence shows that European migrants contribute much more to the economy than non-European — and much, much more than we indolent natives. Yes, we need to buttress the public services, and build more houses (not just because of immigration) — but we can do these things within the EU as well as out of it.

Yet even if immigration is your main concern, there is another twist — because it is hard, as Clare Foges has pointed out (£), to see how voting Leave solves it.

If we want to remain members of the free market — to trade freely with Europe, and in particular to have a market for the services industries that are our great strength — then we will have to accept free movement. If we decide to try to trade with the Commonwealth instead, we will still need to give our new trading partners visas as an incentive. Indeed, under the Australian points-based system — suggested by Vote Leave as a model — immigration is actually higher in terms of population.

So what do we do — kick out foreign students? Abolish family reunion? The brutal truth is that there is no low-immigration future that does not involve closing off our borders and impoverishing ourselves in the process, given that our economy is now built to rely on immigration to cover the skills gaps in our workforce.

The result of all of this is that there is a paradox at the heart of the referendum campaign. It is a near-certainty that leaving the EU will have a significant, immediate economic price. The more the Britain after Brexit looks like the Britain before it, the less that price can be justified. Or, to put it another way, to make the pain worthwhile, Brexit has to be the means to an end — to a greater transformation of Britain — rather than an end in itself.

The logic of Brexit is that Britain would have to become sharper of wit and smaller of state

And what is that end? Daniel Finkelstein puts his finger on it in his Times column today (£). The logic of Brexit is that this country would have to become sharper of wit and smaller of state — would have to plug the skills gaps currently covered by immigration, to push its businesses to seek out new markets, to cut back public spending still further. For some of us, it’s an attractive vision — but it’s not the one being sold to the voters on Thursday. And if, eventually, they have to make a choice between the economics of Dominic Cummings and Jeremy Corbyn, who’s to say they won’t go for Jeremy Corbyn?

Having read this far, you might think that I’m absolutely certain about my vote for Remain. But the truth is, of course, that I’m not.

Yes, I’m hopeful that the EU has reached the end of the federalist road — that its problems and contradictions have become too great for its rulers to ignore any longer, that as things shake down over the next few years Britain will be able to push for the kind of associate membership I and many others would like. I also don’t think that we should be the ones to give this tottering structure the final kick, and be blamed for its collapse.

But it’s entirely possible that I’m wrong. In 1975, the editorials advocating membership talked about “the market”. Today, we talk about “the union”. If the EU continues down the same road for another 40 years, or even another four, it will become ever less suitable for Britain’s needs, ever less possible for us to remain a member.

The Brexit argument has been dominated by certainty, diamond-hard and diamond-bright

As a writer, I’ve always envied those of my colleagues blessed with a sense of certainty — those whose columns applied their principles to the facts, rather than the facts to their principles. It seemed so much easier, so much quicker, than my habit of indecisively puzzling through the evidence, being swayed by this argument and that.

The Brexit argument, too, has been dominated by certainty — shining diamond-hard and diamond-bright in the eyes of its advocates and its enemies.

In the face of such certainty, I can only retreat to probability. Probability that, as every respectable economist has said, Britain would suffer a severe economic shock. Probability that a country with no expert trade negotiators, in a world increasingly hostile to free trade, could not get the better deals it dreams of. Probability that our eventual relationship with the EU would be on a more antagonistic and far less advantageous basis. The probability that a post-Brexit Britain would be poorer, meaner and less able to fix its many problems because of the many new ones that exiting the EU would bring.

Brexit, in the end, is a form of shock therapy. The problem with such therapy is that the pain is certain, and the cure is not.

Robert Colvile is a writer and commentator for Politico Europe, the Telegraph, the FT and many other publications, and author of ‘The Great Acceleration: How the World is Getting Faster, Faster’ (Bloomsbury). If you want to republish/adapt this essay, or to commission him/me, please just get in touch.