The View From the Margins

But it is in its attitude toward the relationship with Federal Europe that The Isles justifies its long and unsettling rearrangement of the national past. Davies, in an open statement of his own views, writes, "Perhaps the main source of optimism lies in the existence of the European.... Under the umbrella of the European Union, a 'Scotland-in-Europe', a 'Wales-in-Europe' and an 'England-in-Europe' have every chance of doing as well as an 'Ireland-in-Europe."' This is doubtful, not least because the huge EU subsidies given to Ireland are unlikely to be extended to anyone else, and also because the EU's plans for a "Europe of the Regions" do not acknowledge the continued existence of England as an entity.

Davies also insists that there is some sort of balancing act, in which Britain has to choose between fealty to the EU or to the United States. But why? As the fourth-largest economy in the world, a significant military and diplomatic power with a tried and successful system of government, and astonishing global economic connections, Britain could maintain good relations with other powers and blocs without having to make some sort of ideological choice--though it would certainly be wise to reject the EU's centralized, overtaxed and over-regulated economic model if it wishes to maintain its prosperity. But the supposed "choice" is a false equivalence of opposites. The United States does not demand political sovereignty as the price of trade, nor does it dream of merging the pound sterling with the dollar, or of "harmonizing" British and American taxes, or of imposing its legal system on the UK. The EU requires all these things as the price of continued membership, and makes no secret of its desire to develop p olitical and legal institutions that would obliterate the serious sovereign differences between nations for good. Two successful European nations--Switzerland and Norway--remain happily outside the EU, while trading and maintaining good diplomatic relations with it. Britain could easily do the same, if it so chose.

Yet under the Blair government, anxious for its own obscure reasons to intensify engagement with the EU, the breakup and gradual obliteration of Britain are well advanced. So much so that a European Atlas of the not-too-distant future may well fulfill Mr. Davies' predictions, and show these once famous islands, balkanized into provinces and regions, as nothing more than nameless offshore possessions of a new and dreary empire.

Peter Hitchens is a commentator for London's Daily Express newspaper. His book, The Abolition of Britain, will be published in the United States this fall by Encounter Books.

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