“In the modern world it is worth distinguishing between the substance and symbols of sovereignty. The substance is the freedom to act independently — something that is now seldom possible for any single country.” So advised Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative party when urging Britons to vote to remain in the EU at the 1975 referendum on membership. More than 40 years later Tory Brexiters are still fighting for the symbols of sovereignty.
“Take back control”, the mantra of the Leave campaign speaks to an illusion, the notion that the Westminster parliament can exercise power untrammelled by any outside institution or authority. If this was ever true, it defies — even more than in 1975 — the present-day fact of a closely interconnected and interdependent world.
It is a small step to argue, as do many sceptics, that the EU is a conspiracy against the nation state, an effort to subvert British freedoms in a European superstate. The evidence is otherwise. Germany is no less German, France no less French and Britain no less British for their membership of the EU. The stronger argument is that the union has rescued Europe’s nation states from the tyranny and conflict that described the first half of the 20th century.