That National Feeling

At first glance, the two might seem unrelated. Opponents of Brexit complain that the vote to leave the EU was a gesture toward national oblivion, isolating Great Britain—politically, culturally, and especially economically—from the continent. Meanwhile, supporters of Catalan secession argue that, despite its unprecedented autonomy within post-Franco Spain, Catalonia suffers at the hands of an onerous central government in Madrid.

Both views, in my opinion, are mistaken. But while the numbers reflect close divisions within their respective states, the active ingredient here is not isolation or federalism but resurgent nationalism. After nearly a half-century’s membership in the EU, a narrow majority of U.K. voters concluded that their British identity was more important to them than participation in any European project. And a slightly larger majority of Catalans seem to believe that while they cherish their region’s distinctive culture and identity, their primary political allegiance is to Spain, not to Catalonia.

Being neither English nor Catalan, I leave it to others to decide whether these sentiments are Good or Bad Things: Consciousness of national identity is a complex attitude. As a friendly observer of Europe, however, I think they’re inevitable.

Most of the educated elites who read and write about such issues, and practice politics, tend to think of themselves as sophisticated beings, at home among genteel people who resemble themselves, regardless of borders. In these precincts, national feeling, or its slightly more demonstrative sibling patriotism, is regarded with a certain embarrassment, a primeval reflex as mortifying as the onset of puberty. And the European Union, as presently constituted, is the embodiment of such genteel attitudes.

To be sure, differences among the nations of Europe led to two catastrophic wars in the last century, and some of the enduring fractures within the continent—between north and south, Catholic and Protestant, Latin and Teuton, etc.—are caused by instincts (racism, sectarian bias, xenophobia) now regarded with horror. But human nature is considerably more obstinate than diplomacy; and in Europe, especially since the end of the Soviet Union, the story has not been of closer community but awakening nationalism.

For European unity is one of those good ideas about which almost everyone can agree in theory if not necessarily in practice. Indeed, it was an excellent idea in the immediate postwar era, when the visionary French foreign minister Robert Schuman proposed a pooling of the coal and steel resources of France and West Germany and invited neighboring states to join their company. This was not just fuel for the resurgence of economies crippled by war but the groundwork for a rapprochement between two nation-states whose antipathy had proved so disastrous to the rest of the continent.

European unity was an even better idea when, in 1958, the Coal and Steel Community was expanded into a free-trade area, creating a continental common market in the midst of Cold War tensions. Indeed, so successful and appealing was the new European Economic Community that Great Britain, which had been a global political and military power lately drawn into a “special relationship” with the United States, felt constrained to apply for membership—and after rejection by French veto in 1963, to reapply and gain entry a decade later. I happened to be in England when, in 1975, the Labour government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson delivered on its election promise of a national referendum on membership—and 67 percent voted affirmatively.

Yet it was Labour’s historic resistance to the European idea that proved prophetic. While Conservatives of the era tended to look upon EU membership as a diplomatic and commercial necessity—Margaret Thatcher, the newly elected Tory leader, was passionately pro-European in the referendum campaign—Labour looked askance at the growing EU management. And it was not so much what the Europeans did as the way they did it: Decisions about the economic life of the United Kingdom were increasingly made not by citizens in Britain but by bureaucrats in Brussels.

“Undemocratic,” said Labour.

As indeed it was—and as the rule of elites, and the cream of the crop, and self-selected experts tends to be. As we know in America, democracy often delivers unpleasant surprises, and the weakness of the EU’s half-hearted gesture towards popular representation—the European parliament—merely emphasized where real power lay. And as always, the exercise of power proved no less irresistible to the mandarins in Brussels than it has anywhere else on earth. As the 20th century hurtled toward its end, the purview of the EU in economic, legal, political, even cultural life relentlessly grew.

All of this coincided with the collapse of the Soviet empire, which yielded not the end of history but its resumption—and the emergence from a long winter’s nap of Europe’s old ethnic rivalries, national grievances, and tribal hostilities. This resulted in both democratic success stories (the Czech Republic, Poland) and post-Cold War earthquakes (Yugoslavia, Ukraine, etc.), neither of which were especially affected by the EU’s existence.

Add to this, in recent years, the mass migration of refugees from the fractious Middle East to a tremulous West, and the European Union was revealed to be as ineffectual as another bright idea, the United Nations, in controlling events. In that sense, the EU’s long-term prospects are an open question. And the resurgence of national sentiment—in England, Scandinavia, France, Italy, even the EU’s senior partner, reunified Germany, and its headquarters, Belgium—is neither a blessing nor an affliction but a fact of historical life. Sovereignty matters.

In 1914, European socialists were confident that at the outbreak of war, workers would resist the call to arms and refuse to kill fellow workers. But the class struggle yielded, without a fight, to national allegiance. A century later, that Catalans might adhere to their Spanish identity, or Britons reclaim their independence from Brussels, is no great surprise. The surprise is that anyone should be surprised.

Philip Terzian is a senior editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.