Dr Rupert Beale has asked me to post this article by him in favour of remaining in the EU on my blog. I am happy to do so: he clearly feels passionately about it, and is a clever chap, whose honesty and good intentions are beyond question.
I only preface it by saying that I am not convinced (I find that the more remain stuff I read, the more I am minded to vote to leave - and vice versa....) . However, you will judge for yourself.
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Our
earthly rulers falter, our people drift and die;
The walls
of gold entomb us, the swords of scorn divide.
I had
intended this to be a riposte to the various arguments with a Catholic flavour
in favour of the UK leaving the EU, but the words of G.K. Chesterton’s hymn have been swirling round my brain
of late. I fear that what I might have written would have been scornful. There’s been quite enough of that.
What I ask of
all people of good conscience who believe that the EU is not a good thing is
this: please do not vote for us to leave.
Many people
were upset by the death of Jo Cox despite never having met her. I cannot
imagine the shock and anguish that her husband must be feeling. Somehow he
found the strength to issue a very dignified and fitting tribute to his wife.
One poignant sentence stands out for me: “She would have wanted two things
above all else to happen now, one that our precious children are bathed in love
and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her.”
It is love
for one another that defines us as Christians. A love that imitates Christ’s universal and self-sacrificial
love. That is why we defend all human lives, and why we do not try to make
different categories of worth between persons – all are infinitely loved by an
infinite God. Value to us is the dignity and flourishing of persons;
it is not a number of pounds in a bank, even if it’s the Bank of England. People to us are equal: born or unborn,
young and vigorous or old and dying. They are not different in value for being
British or French, Romanian or Bangladeshi.
We can have a
debate about the European Union. It’s a human political institution, with all the usual faults.
I have argued that Britain benefits from membership (it certainly does in
narrow monetary terms). I have also argued that British political influence
has been a good thing in the EU as regards an area that’s personally important to me:
scientific research. This scientific excellence fostered by the EU promotes
economic growth, as well as the health and wellbeing of Britons, Europeans and
all humanity. These, we should agree, are good things. Furthermore, it’s very hard to see how the UK could
get a better deal outside the EU.
The EU is not
an unalloyed ode to joy. There is a point of view that the loss of sovereignty
entailed by (for example) allowing an international court primacy over a
British court is intolerable. Some believe that the EU is remote and less
accountable than it should be. The original noble ideals of the predecessor to
the EU – which were couched in rather specifically Christian terms – have to
some extent been betrayed.
Personally, I
do not see that voluntary submission to the judgements of international courts
(not confined to the EU of course) is a regrettable loss of sovereignty, but I
think you can have a reasonable debate about it. There is also a
very uncomfortable argument that it is in fact Britain that's bad for the EU
(our influence is by no means always for the best).
The EU is a
collection of 28 separate nation states, one of which is our own decidedly
imperfect one. I agree that the EU has done and continues to do things which go
against the high ideals of its founders – but imperfection is to be expected,
whatever mechanisms are in place to help smooth relationships between our
different countries.
Whatever you
think about the EU, it cannot be emphasised enough that the merits or
otherwise of the EU are not on the ballot paper. What’s on the ballot paper is leaving the
EU. The wider context of this vote is not the impassioned but usually polite
discourse between committed Christians. The context is fear of immigrants, lies
about money, distrust of foreigners, distrust of economists, distrust of
politicians, distrust of journalists, distrust of ‘experts’ – distrust of everybody.
The context
is also a national political debate in which we have the love of money played
off against the fear of immigrants. Across continental Europe, the context is
many national parties that wish their particular country to break off from the
EU (and most of those parties make our own Far Right seem pretty tame).
The context
is also the recent horrible killing of an MP doing her job. The suspect has
given his name in court as “death to traitors, freedom for Britain”.
Inevitably, the motives and state of mind of the suspect have been subject to
speculation, and that speculation has varied depending on the particular views
of the speculator.
It’s illustrative of the poverty of the
national debate that this terrible tragedy is being used to score points. It’s Jo
Cox’s husband’s words that we should take to
heart, and not give way to hatred. That means no hatred of foreigners, and it
means no hatred of politicians either – even if they are guilty of
rabble-rousing and xenophobia (as some most assuredly are).
The secular
debate around the EU referendum has been conducted in terms which are too often
bound by entombing walls of gold and the love of money. They are also being
conducted in a way that suggests people – some people at any rate – can be cast
adrift.
From all
that terror teaches, from lies of tongue and pen,
From all
the easy speeches that comfort cruel men;
From sale
and profanation of honour and the sword;
From sleep
and from damnation, deliver us, good Lord!
In a sea of
lies and half-truths there is one particular depth of mendacity that I wish to
plunge into: the claim that £350m a week can be spent on the NHS if we leave.
It is worse than a deliberate lie. It is specially designed to be a lie,
because the Leave camp’s spin-doctors have realised that if they lie about it, it will be
talked about a lot.
The
counter-argument is that the real figure is lower: £136m. This is great for the Leave camp:
it still sounds like a large number, and cements the broader untruth that the
EU costs us money in the minds of voters. The demographic they are especially
targeting – older Labour voters – is tickled by the promise to spend all that
money on the NHS. They have told us a small lie to make us believe a bigger one
– what clever fellows those spin-doctors are!
Mendacity is
not the special vice of the Leave campaign. It has long ago infected our whole
political discourse. If all truth is relative, a lie can surely be a legitimate
tool used in pursuit of a political goal. In those circumstances, where to tell
a lie is neither considered wicked nor shameful – and is in fact admired for
its ability to shift public opinion – it is little wonder that people have lost
trust.
Truth and
truth-telling are essential to Christian values. Of course, there is nowadays
little or no reference to Christianity in public life. But truth-telling is
important to secular humanists and people of other faiths too. Can we not
replace Christian values with ‘Enlightenment’ values? I don’t see much evidence of that
happening.
The secular
debate – even if conducted in terms that don’t abandon the concept of truth
altogether – is dominated by narrow self-interest. Will Britain be better off?
Will I be better off? Will we be able to keep the foreigners out? It’s not exactly the universal
brotherhood of man. The Enlightenment owes far more of a debt to Christianity
than is generally admitted. The philosopher that atheists don’t much like to talk about is
Nietzsche. Right now, it’s his abyss that’s staring into us.
I could see
myself voting for Brexit under certain circumstances. For example, if it became
a condition of our continued membership that we join the Euro (this would by
law be subject to a referendum). The procedure there would be for an elected
government to carefully build global alliances and put us in a position to
negotiate an orderly withdrawal (we have no such alliance in place, and all our
trading partners, allies and EU neighbours are against us leaving). We would
need to ensure that any exit did not produce a severe economic shock.
At present,
we have no credible scenario to achieve a successful negotiated settlement, and
a substantial economic shock is certain if we leave. (I accept that some
economists believe we could recover in a decade or so, while others don’t – but that there will be an
initial shock is agreed by all.) A severe economic shock to Britain and to the
EU at this time would give rise to the perfect conditions for bigotry and
hatred to flourish. This we must not allow.
If you, like
me, believe on balance that Britain is good for the EU and the EU is good for
Britain I expect you will vote to remain. If we do vote to leave, we give
succour to the very worst elements of our national politics and the national
politics of the other EU members, and we must endure the national
humiliation that will follow as best we can.
Take not
thy thunder from us, but take away our pride.
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