It’s nine years since the UK voted to quit the European Union. It has proven to be a disaster, and a disaster made greater by the election of Donald Trump. The world is at a pivotal moment. Stark political reality faces us.
The prospect has arisen of the Earth divided into spheres of influence controlled by the US, Russia and China. As unholy a superpower alliance as any modern Machiavelli could imagine. Europe faces being the plaything of Russia or the puppet of the Trump/Vance White House. Brexit isolated us and damaged us greatly. Now, Europe is our brightest hope for a secure future.
The entire UK lost out because of Brexit – farmers, fishermen, exporters, importers, hospitality, social care, the NHS, students, builders, universities, hauliers, musicians and performers. It’s estimated that we’re down £100 billion a year in lost production. The UK economy is stagnant. That means less tax to pay for public services and we know further deep cuts are on the way.
A dangerous and unstable world
Britain has faced hard economic times before. Given sensible leadership, a fair wind and a cyclical recovery in the global economy, we might, in a decade or two, return to the sort of levels of economic stability we had in our EU years.
But not in four generations has Britain faced such a dangerous and unstable world. Donald Trump has unleashed a typhoon of such ferocity that he has blown away all the certainties upon which the security of the Western democracies rested.
Stephen Gethins, a St Andrews University professor of international relations and an SNP MP, has said the US is now “the least dependable Nato nation”. He has firm grounds for his contention. The US has twice joined Russia and North Korea in voting against UN motions censoring Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Trump’s Vice-President JD Vance said at the recent Munich security conference that the greatest threat facing Europe was not Russia or China but “from within”. Trump has alienated Canada, the US’s closest ally and friend, by imposing trade tariffs. Stock markets worldwide have fallen in response to Trump’s trade war with Canada, Mexico and the EU. Business confidence has dropped like a stone.
Europe, including the UK, has concluded that it now must look to itself for its security. The prospect of a European alternative to Nato – a European army – is being openly discussed. Europe is bending to Trump’s will and investing in ramping up its defence budgets.
Bigger defence budgets across Europe
The UK, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Poland have all committed many extra billions to defence spending over the next five years. Germany aims to spend 500 billion euros (£418bn) on increasing its defence capabilities and another €500 bn modernising its infrastructure to boost its slowing economy. Germany’s defence budget will outstrip the UK’s. The EU is also creating an €800 bn defence fund that member states can access.
Money, however, is a lesser part of the story. If Europe is to create a credible defence shield, it must build the political and military structures needed to give it political legitimacy and global authority. Such a European force can only succeed if it adheres to the principle that its armed forces are always under civilian control.
Defending Europe’s values
A European version of Nato must be seen by Europe’s peoples, its allies and enemies as a force that is there to defend its values: free and fair elections, universal suffrage, civil and human rights, the rule of law overseen by impartial judges, the right to life, the right to property, the right to tell our leaders they are wrong, the right to trade, to travel freely. Above all, to shun those characteristics becoming all too apparent in Trump’s US, like authoritarianism, championing the super-rich, the cult of the individual, and the undermining of established law and procedure.
Taking responsibility for its own security is an enormous undertaking for Europe. It will call for deep levels of cooperation in the funding, design and manufacture of everything from military satellites to planes, tanks, ships, guns, software and thousands of other items needed to deter powerful enemies. Rethinking the place of nuclear weapons will force a very difficult debate.
While the continent engineers its future, it must secure its present. Barriers to trade and to common standards need to be reduced to stimulate the economy. Building the EU’s ‘domestic’ economy is unavoidable if it is to pay for rearmament and maintain acceptable levels of public services. There is little point in fortress Europe if its people don’t perceive a way of life worth defending.
Europe is our only viable route to security
The US can no longer be trusted as a military, diplomatic or trading partner. Keir Starmer must know this. Europe is our only viable route to security. Not only because we have to renew our trading relationship with the world’s biggest unified market for goods and services, but because we are a European state and cannot be a second-division player in developing a common European defence shield.
Recent polling shows voters believe we must draw closer to the EU. People are becoming increasingly pro-EU and negative about Brexit. This was the progression before Trump came to the White House.
The public sees the sense in Europe, and Labour sees it too but is still too nervous. The hard-right cannot be appeased, it can only be faced down by strong leadership and a strong democratic mandate from the people.
The UK’s options are limited. But we cannot do business with people we do not trust and who don’t share our democratic ways. We can’t afford to sup with the Devil. What we must do is show our European friends that we stand with them. And that means seeking the consent of the British people to rejoin the EU as full members in a new referendum.
This article was first published in The Scotsman on 25th March 2025
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