European Integration: British Experience and Perspectives

This last weekend saw an interesting and popular development in British-EU relations, as the arch Eurosceptic daily newspaper, the Express, gave over its entire front page to proclaim the likely benefits of a European Court of Justice judgement due later this month. This is a first; they normally spend most of their column inches bemoaning judgements from both Luxembourg and Strasbourg as an intrusion on our national way of life and our sovereignty. So what was it that was coming from Brussels and Luxembourg that they liked the look of, you may well ask? Well, quite simply, the right to buy cheap alcohol and tobacco over the internet from other EU countries which would not be subject to the higher rates of UK excise duty, but instead just to the lower rates in the country of origin. So the Daily Express is now converted to the benefits of the EU's internal market and we can all drink ourselves silly this Christmas on cheap foreign beer. Yes, we British are won over to the European integration that easily! Or are we?

If one looks at Britain historically, geographically and, indeed, culturally, there can be little doubt that Europe is where we are and that we are a part of the European family of nations and thought in the widest sense. If you travelled around our major cities this summer in the long heat wave we all experienced, you would have witnessed an outdoor pavement cafe culture that was once only the stuff of holiday dreams to the British; a memory from continental city breaks. But no longer.

Yet we still regard ourselves with some dogged and stubborn determination as 'different' from the rest of Europe. I remember not so long ago encountering a very pleasant gentleman who introduced me at a speaking engagement a few miles down the road from my home in the city of Hull: 'this, he said, is Diana Wallis - from Europe!' 'No, I retorted I am Diana Wallis from Hull, which is in Europe!' He was mortified, but his train of thought is indicative of the way the British still think of themselves in relation to the rest of Europe.

Not only is this the case in popular consciousness but also in respect of the political classes. There is still an overwhelming tendency among our leading politicians, even those who classify themselves as pro-European, to categorise Europe as a foreign policy issue. Viewed from the European Parliament where I sit, nothing could be further from the truth and yet our political classes do not want to acknowledge the reality. This is the reality that probably as much as seventy per cent of our legislation now comes from Brussels; that there are now more lobbyists in Brussels than in Washington; and that I sit in a legislature that is part of a continuum of governance structures in my country and every other EU Member State that starts at parish council level, up through region and national government and onto Brussels. In the highly centralised state which is the United Kingdom, our current Prime Minster, and others, perpetuate a myth that all power is centred on Westminster, and not necessarily in the Houses of Parliament but rather, increasingly, in 10 Downing Street.

The political class have never really come to terms with Europe, but that is a reflection on the uncertainty of where Britain sees itself in global terms. It is interesting to note that although the speech which Dean Acheson gave took place in 1962 it is remarkable how his comments resonate over forty years on.

"Great Britain has lost an Empire and not yet found a role. The attempt to play a separate power role - that is a role apart from Europe, a role based on the special relationship with the United States, a role based on being the head of a Commonwealth which has no political structure, or unity or strength and enjoys a fragile and economic relationship by means of the sterling area and preferences in the British market - this role is about played out".

Britain has attempted to ride, in a manner akin to an unenthusiastic circus performer, two horses; one being 'the special relationship with the USA' and the other 'Europe ' at one and the same time. Inevitably, as this is such a hard act to fulfil, over the years it has been regularly unsuccessful and we have fallen badly, yet we still insist on trying to remount this equine tandem.

It could be argued that Europe was the main reason for the downfall of the John Major government in the mid-1990s as a sizeable number of the so-called Maastricht rebels (John Major caught off camera had a much less polite word for them) brought about his and his Government's downfall.

Such problems are not just limited to the Conservative party as Britain's relationship with Europe led to a split in the Labour party in the early 1980s with the formation of the pro-European Social Democrat Party a divide which was only partially healed by Tony Blair over ten years later.

So with Europe causing such difficulties to the political establishment perhaps the opportunity was to ditch the runaway Europe horse and to concentrate on the American bronco.

After all in the words of Mrs Thatcher:

"We have much more in common with the United States than with Europe as has been shown time and time again in war and in peace. The transatlantic relationship with the United States must remain at the heart of our foreign policy".

But one could argue just where has that got us? It is true that whilst the transatlantic relationship hasn't brought down Tony Blair's government there is little doubt in my mind that the decision to side with George Bush in an illegal war has certainly hastened his departure from number 10 Downing Street. For him, sadly in many ways, Iraq will dominate when it comes to writing Tony Blair's political obituary.

Perhaps Iraq is just the most visible evidence of the change in the relationship. There are just too many issues, from the Middle East to climate change, where the American interest is far removed from our own. Perhaps too many of my fellow countrymen and women are lulled into a false sense of community with the US because we share the same language - well sort of! However once you begin to dig deeper you see that our attitudes are values are indeed quite different, indeed more European.

So how is that the British, fully aware of the loss of Empire and having had forty years to adjust politically, economically and spiritually, have continued to try to ride these two disparate horses? Could it be that Acheson's comments are still as pertinent as they were in 1962 in that the United Kingdom still has to find a role?

It maybe alright for the Swiss for although you are not fully integrated into the EU, you have nevertheless found an accepted internationalist role that suits your stature. Sadly I believe my country is still seeking its new role on the international stage and cannot quite get the fit right. It is not yet at ease with itself.

We are still sometimes rather good at coming up with advice and ideas for others around us but less good at participating. It was of course ironic that it was Winston Churchill who first mooted the idea of modern European integration when speaking here in Switzerland, but his was a post war model that in his mind and vision specifically excluded Britain. It was strange also at the beginning of the British Presidency of the EU some eighteen months ago Tony Blair came to the European Parliament and made, what I can only describe as, an inspirational speech that had all of my colleagues on their feet. Sadly, I have never heard him speak so passionately or persuasively about Europe to a British audience at home.

Once safely back beyond our sea borders, a bit like you behind your alpine borders, the British, like the Swiss, are supremely capable of what has been called 'insular denken'! New ideas that come from beyond our shores on how we should conduct our government appear as a foreign intrusion or invasion and we shy away from them. I think it is always instructive to see ourselves through the eyes of others. In terms of defining the British attitude towards the putative European Constitution I was struck by the following story.

A German journalist in London, was at dinner party with the well known British writer and novelist Antonia Byatt. She asked him what he thought of the proposed European Constitution. Lke many other Europeans, not having read it he bluffed his way through his answer, indicating that it perhaps would be no bad thing if the EU had a few basic principles about how to conduct itself. He batted the question back by asking what did she think? After a pause she told him, 'You know we British don't need a constitution - we are the oldest democracy on earth.' Then she added, 'For a young nation like you Germans such a constitution could be useful.' He was speechless. He thought of many answers that he did not deliver including the fact that the German nation gave women the vote long before the United Kingdom.

I sometimes think that perhaps as a nation we have a problem with principles, with clarity. I have seen this often in my life as a lawyer, both as a practioner and now as a legislator. A few weeks ago, I was speaking at the European Law Academy in Trier. Having heard me speak one German professor said 'I am astonished, you are an English common lawyer and yet you speak about principles of law like a German.' I had to admit to him that I completed the first part of my law studies in Zurich. But imagine the furore it has created in London that the European institutions are talking about a so-called Common Frame of Reference for European Contract Law, which on closer examination looks rather like a European Civil Code. At the first sight of such a suggestion evenly the normally restrained broadsheet press in the UK managed to come up with an article accompanied by a picture of Napoleon, who by implication, was obviously about to land at the White Cliffs of Dover with some ghostly army from the continent to wipe out our common law heritage! No matter that such an exercise done in the right way might help clarify and simplify European legislation which is the cri de couer that we hear all the time from business. Better legislation is fine as long as it doesn't look 'foreign'.

The best we get in terms of principles is our so called Great Charter of 1215 - Magna Carta. This was basically a deal between the king and his discontent barons, who in default of the Charter would have been quite as satisfied to offer the English crown to a French prince. Yet this piece of paper has a mythological and totemic place in British thinking. Whatever the contents of the charter, or its contemporary meaning, it has been embroidered with all sorts of properties that its writers never intended and that it does not contain. But the myth has successfully put a block on further British thinking about a clear and structured Bill of Rights - that is until we got one from Europe and a written constitution which we almost got from Europe! One might ask why we couldn't do this for ourselves in our own special British way. Perhaps we prefer uncertainty, which although many continental legal minds would label as chaos we British champion as flexibility and pragmatism, as room to breathe. So much for our attitude to continental legal imports!

My other love apart from the law is history and that leads me to another question; who are the British anyway? Are we so cohesive? Doesn't our ancestry suggest we should really regard ourselves as European?

Over two thousand years ago explorers and traders from the Mediterranean. world first recorded for posterity the names of the inhabitants of these remote north-western islands: they called them Pritani - or Britani, as Latin speakers mispronounced it - though many locals may not have thought of themselves by that name. They probably identified with their tribes, such as Cantii, whom Julius Caesar encountered in what is now Kent, or Parisii, in Yorkshire, or the Atrebates, in Hampshire, who if the tribal names are anything to go by, had connections with what is now northern France.

Romans, Vikings, Normans, Angevins. We are very much the result of a mixed heritage all coming from mainland Europe. Just because the last invaders we experienced, in England at least, came a long time ago in 1066, they were no less invaders. Yet the Normans it was who bequeathed to my country a French feudal legal system, conducted in Norman French. It is on this foreign structure that our current common law system is based and which we now defend so intransigently and ironically against further changes from the same direction. Then, of course, later having had the courage to have a revolution and to cut off the King's head in a very prescient, one might say, continental way, we could not sustain true republican principles (that word again) and ended up inviting in a Dutch monarch and then a German one, to sit on our throne and rule us. Yet despite this interdependency with the continent of which we are part we still fail to acknowledge our true Europeanness. We are truly a mixed nation; very much founded and sustained by immigration.

Obviously immigration is a very current debate too. This week in the parliament we finally signed off the piece of legislation, the Services Directive, which conjured up the myth of the Polish plumber striding across Europe doing all the local tradesmen out of work. I have two responses to that. Firstly, I'd be glad to see the Polish plumber in my region - you can never find one when you want one - and, secondly, the Poles have made a great inverse joke out of it by producing a poster with a hunky looking male which for tourist purposes says, 'I'm staying here, come in your numbers' - he certainly looks very appealing!

Yet this is the truth about immigration or rather free movement in Europe. To retain our current level of economic prosperity the British could perhaps work even longer hours - we already work the longest in Europe. Or we could accept more immigrants - of which there is a willing pool. On present estimates, if the population is to stay at its current level, the British are short of about 166,000 babies a year. One possible solution is to double the number of immigrants to Britain. As one commentator wrote - 'We're not being overrun by immigrants; we need them.'

Of course, the fear is that large numbers of immigrants may themselves in some way threaten our national identity and traditions. This from a country whose favourite national dish is no longer roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding or fish and chips but rather Chicken Tikka. We have actually been fairly successful at assimilating immigrants. Yet if our national identity is threatened from without, there are also signs that it is not really so cohesive internally. Last weekend back at home, the only place my husband could watch the France - All Blacks rugby match on TV, was on a Welsh language channel. As I watched too, it struck me quite hard. In Britain we normally see ourselves as monolingual, but, no, there was everything being done and discussed, plus several mundane adverts, in another language; a native language of our islands. Then if one travels north, to Scotland, they now have their own Parliament gradually growing in importance. A nation forging its own distinctive links with Europe and, of course, always having had its own legal system. Even in England there is a growing sense of regional identity - as long as it is not imposed from Brussels!

Whilst the concept of nations and regions is growing in importance, we do not understand or accept regionalism or federalism, especially if it looks like a European import. The anti-Europeans circulate, unlikely, but disturbing tales of a map from Brussels delineating Europe's regions - they want none of this. Yet this I do know about twenty first century Britain. Increasingly my fellow citizens in my region of Yorkshire are quite able to cope with multiple allegiances and identities. After all they support Yorkshire at cricket, England at football, Britain at athletics and, yes, Europe at golf - against the US in the Ryder Cup. (And Roger Federer at Wimbledon!). This can only be a positive.

As Europe has begun to give us a new sense of multiple or fluid identity, so it has also contributed in a subtle way to the sense that we have of ourselves as citizens and, more importantly, as citizens with rights. It has always been said that Britons were subjects, subjects of the Queen and were not in fact citizens. However we are now European citizens with a defined set of rights as such set out in the EU Treaties and now the Charter. I have already referred to our long overdue incorporation of the European Convention into our national law and legal system. All this leads people to think in a more rights based way.

What I have found interesting as a European parliamentarian is the way that constituents come to me with issues about fundamental rights which they think Europe can solve. They make a connection and see Europe as a help mate, in defending their rights. We cannot always help, but the thought connection, the impression in the minds of those who contact me, is interesting. There is a growing consciousness of Europe as a possible source of assistance. Again this morning, in the European Parliament, we were debating the European Ombudsman's Annual Report. Many British citizens avail themselves of the possibilities of using the European institutions to get access to justice or to have complaints dealt with that are unanswered at home. They realise that the European Parliament has a Petitions Committee that actually has a role and a procedure to get things done unlike at home where petitions just disappear into a black hole. One thing I do know about my fellow citizens is that they are good at complaining, and not just about the British weather! But even complaining to an institution, in using it, accepting its existence, that it is part of the structure of government and the checks and balances on government. So I always say to British audiences 'you do not have to love Europe to be part of it, indeed do you love you local parish council, or your national government, but you an still participate in it you can still use it'. And I do believe that is what the British are beginning to discover, even those MEPs representing the Eurosceptic tendency in the UK. If something serves a useful purpose and provides results that is as good an advert as any.

We see that a large number of petitions come from Britons living in other EU countries, especially Spain, to where, making full use of free movement, Britons have migrated in numbers. But then when they come into conflict with local planning laws, as they often do, they make full use of the EU institutions. There are many other examples. We are becoming more European by doing, by being a part of.

However, the Eurosceptics in my country will still say that if we had a referendum today on the European issue it would be a 'no' vote. I do not think the picture is so clear.

In the short term the insistence of the political classes of still trying to ride the two horses of Europe and the US makes me pessimistic. Whilst the Iraq War has cooled the transatlantic relationship for some time to come (although Hilary Clinton may well change that) in terms of European issues I see only friction. The heir apparent to the role of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has done little to demonstrate pro-European credentials at the Treasury.

At the same time the new opposition Leader, David Cameron, is involved in a tussle to pull his MEPs out of the mainstream pro-European centre right grouping in the European Parliament so that he can deliver an anti-EU message at home. Meanwhile the all-party pro-European campaign group, Britain in Europe, has ceased to exist.

It might look desolate but I am not frightened of a referendum on Europe, indeed, I have campaigned for one, sometime at odds with many in my own party.

Is it not an irony that it is only on the issue of Europe that we have ever had or been offered such referendums? I envy you - the average Swiss citizen knows more about the EU than the average Briton. You have recently always reached a positive decision and I trust you will do so again on the 26 November.

Direct democracy, after all and which you know so well comes to us only by courtesy of Europe. Europe is criticised for a lack of democracy but the truth is that to Britain it has the possibility to bring greater democracy than we have previously experienced under our increasingly centralised parliamentary system. These may be complex and subtle arguments not seen by the majority, whereas the cheap Christmas booze I referred to is a simple positive hit.

I have taken you on a journey through many the worlds that I have inhabited: foreign affairs, history, law and politics. I remain optimistic about Britain and Europe. I have a sense that we have become more European than we realise. My nightmare that one day Britain and Switzerland would, figuratively, cross paths waving to each other as you join the EU and we leave for some lesser relationship, seems to me unlikely. I take heart from the fact that the more we complain about Europe, the more we are aware of it, the more we use it, and then we accept it as part of life for better or worse like an old friend. It is after all a middle-aged friend of 50 years next year. Fifty years of peace and prosperity on our continent we should never ever forget that.