Daniel Hannan, M.E.P., the outspoken British Conservative Euroskeptic of American-style libertarian proclivities, dropped in on the CATO Institute late Wednesday afternoon to discuss his newly released epistle, The New Road to Serfdom, right before hopping on a plane to trek back across “The Pond.”
Hannan’s title, of course, updates F.A. Hayek’s post-World War II tour de force foretelling the failure of centralized planning. With his subtitle, “A Letter of Warning to America,” Hannan raises the specter of an Obama America that is heading inexorably down Hayek’s rueful road. Europe is already there, Hannan fears. As an elected member of the Brussels-based behemoth’s legislative body, Hannan observes first hand, largely helplessly, as the European Union arrogates the powers once held by its various member states.
Hannan’s Euroskepticism is colored by a libertarian streak of a decidedly American flair. (Although when he sat down with reason.tv’s Michael C. Moynihan, Hannan cited the Enoch Powell, the infamous foe of open British borders, as the historical political figure who has most “inspired his particular brand of Tory libertarianism.”) This contrasts with the strong steaks of nativism and xenophobia found in Europhobes in Britain and on the continent alike.
Hannan recounts in a disarmingly convincing Confederate drawl the man he met at a Southern Republican county committee he addressed. Braced for disagreement with his comments decrying federal overturns of local gay marriage legalization, Hannan tells how the burly fellow casually discloses his orientation in agreement. That social libertarianism is not shared by many of his Euroskeptic cohorts in the European parliamentary political group that the British Conservatives have aligned with, particularly the Polish Law & Justice Party. That party’s views caused a minor row when when the Tories shifted their formal legislative allegiance in Brussels.
In his South East of England constituency, the rabidly Europhobic UK Independence Party poses the strongest electoral risk to his Conservatives at Euro election time. When asked how he appeals on the hustings to the farmer he mentioned on Britain’s bucolic Isle of Wight to stay with the Tories, Hannan is matter of fact. UKIP’s outlandishness in its policy and its politicians “retards” the Euroskeptic cause. He told me: “We are in the business of getting out of EU” and to do so effectively we need to be represented by a party that wields power at Westminster, the UK’s seat of political power.
Hannan has a forum for his idiosyncratic (or a British Conservative) world view on the blogs over at the “Torygraph,” where he veers from strictly European commentary.
Hannan did so at CATO, too. When CATO Vice President David Boaz asked his opinion of Britian’s Tory-LibDem coalition government which, Boaz amazes, has “done much more than anyone” would “have expected” to bring out the most libertarian strains in both parties, Hannan concurs but points out disconnect between the coalition’s decentralizing agenda at home as they expand contributions to the EU, allowing it to centralize on a far grander level.
