The following book review appears in September's issue of International Affairs.
Britain’s Europe: a thousand years of conflict and
cooperation. By Brendan Simms. London: Allen Lane. 2016. 352pp. £13.50. isbn 978 0
24127 596 2. Available as e-book.
Britain’s referendum on European Union membership was
never going to answer what David Cameron called Britain’s ‘European question’.
Instead, as Brendan Simms sets out to show, it was the latest episode in a
thousand-year history of conflict and cooperation between Britain—and before it
England—and the rest of Europe. As Simms makes clear from the start, it matters
how that history is told. Taking the approach of ‘our island story’—setting
Britain apart from the rest of Europe—fails to adequately grasp how Europe made
Britain and Britain made Europe. With Brexit now unfolding, there is a more
urgent need than ever for the British to appreciate the flaws of believing they
can turn their backs to the continent.
Simms offers readers a chronological history of
British–European relations, successfully setting out his case for viewing
developments from the Vikings to David Cameron in a joined-up way. He is
unapologetically ‘Whiggish’ in his approach, seeing a clear line through that
long history. His focus is on foreign policy and constitutional matters,
leaving aside economics, society and culture, which makes for a book many
readers of international relations will be comfortable with, but which neglects
the role of domestic factors in the development and politics of Britain.
Nevertheless, throughout the book, the importance of viewing Britain’s history
through a European lens is hammered home again and again. Whether it is the
military campaigns of King Henry V, the Acts of Union between England and
Scotland, the acquisition and dissolution of the British empire, the
development of the British state’s institutions, all are explained in part by
Britain’s strategic focus on the politics of Europe. This focus, Simms argues,
has been as much ideological as security-based: in the last few hundred years
the defence of liberty and the defence of the European balance of power were
often linked in British thinking.
Appearing throughout the debate is the question of
whether there should be a continental or a maritime focus in British foreign
policy. ‘They talk as if England were not in Europe,’ was Edmund Burke’s retort
to those who believed that being an island was sufficient to secure the country
from the chaos of the French Revolution. Europe is, as Churchill said before
the First World War, ‘where the weather came from’. Such quotes are found
throughout, as Simms critiques the desire to turn away from Europe and think only
of the wider world. Such an approach has sometimes paid off, but often only
when non-European efforts were designed to serve Britain’s interests on the
continent. On the other hand, imperial hubris sometimes led the country to
ignore it, leaving its politics to change in ways that did not suit Britain. On
occasion, this left Britain unprepared for developments elsewhere in Europe—which
it later had to scramble to reshape.
That it has often fallen to Britain to change the
shape of continental politics is due, Simms argues, to its exceptional place in
Europe. Towards the end, the book changes from a historical study to something
of a political manifesto, as Simms sets out his case for the future of British–European
relations. A chapter is dedicated to rejecting the declinist thesis of British
power, instead making the case that Britain’s exceptionalism makes it the last
European Great Power. That doesn’t mean Britain can lead Europe or the EU in
the way Germany can, by stumping up the cash to keep the eurozone afloat.
Instead, Britain is a security provider and a political model. The EU, Simms
argues, needs to follow the example of the UK—and its imitator the US—in making
the step to a United States of Europe an event (as the Acts of Union or the Declaration of
Independence were) followed by a process , rather than an interminable
process (i.e. European integration so
far) that works towards some distant undefined event (‘ever closer union’). Europe needs Britain,
and more importantly it, and the West as a whole, need this British-style birth
of a United States of Europe.
Whether Britain is so exceptional will be the first
point of contention many outside the country (and some within it) will take up
with the book. The EU might indeed need an event, but the processes by which
Britain is governed—and the 23 June referendum itself—have left few observers
confident in its ability to lead or set an example. Britain’s indifference over
Ukraine means doubts abound as to whether it could provide for the security of countries
in eastern Europe. The referendum result might not have been won wholly on an isolationist
ticket, but such voices were heard. Victorious Leave campaigners also included those
who supported the maritime strategy Simms dismisses as a strategic dead end—unless
it works towards some goal in wider European politics. The central warning of
Britain’s Europe is against Britain
entering another period where the country forgets that its primary reference
point in international relations is Europe and that all others are secondary.
Britain's Europe can be bought here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/297037/britain-s-europe/
