Childish Anti-Europe xenophobia is breaking out in the British Conservative Party again. Defence Secretary Michael Portillo … perhaps with an eye to the leadership … has pandered to base nationalism by saying he would never allow the European Union to control Britain’s defence policy nor allow any British soldiers to fight in a single European army. “”Don’t mess with Britain,” he said. The statement was nonsense, in any event. The EU has no plan for a unified army, nor is it involved with military decision-making. However, the statement gives fuel to misguided opinion in Britain that blame for any woe in Britain can be sheeted home to the EU. The facts, of course, are different. The European Union, and its predecessors, have been responsible for an unprecedented period of economic prosperity and peace in Europe.
It has been far too easy for some politicians in Britain to further their short-term ends by blaming Brussels. The EU has had a difficult task in assimilating individual national regulatory regimes into single European codes which protect consumers and promote free trade and competition. It is too easy to point to the occasional odd or inconvenient regulation or change from a familiar British way while ignoring the benefits to all EU members that have been brought through the unified market.
Mr Portillo’s cheap shot should be ignored by Britons and Prime Minister John Major … weakened though he is by his narrow majority … should discourage any further anti-EU populism from him.