Fear Is The Key

The Weekly Standard, February 19, 2016

Voters in the United Kingdom will be choosing — in a referendum to be held by the end of next year, and perhaps as early as June — whether or not to stay in the European Union. Barack Obama wants the U.K. to stay put and is reportedly planning "a big, public reach-out" to persuade Brits to stick with the EU.

It's not the first time the American president has weighed in on this most British (or European) of questions, but the timing was telling. It came immediately after EU "president" (it's complicated, but that designation will have to do) Donald Tusk unveiled the draft settlement intended to bring David Cameron's attempt to "renegotiate" Britain's position in the EU to a satisfactory conclusion. What was unveiled was underwhelming; the derision with which it was greeted was anything but. It's not hard to guess why Obama believes that Cameron could use a helping hand.

Britain's prime minister cannot be entirely surprised that it has come to this. An unimaginative politician without much feel for what truly matters, Cameron has never wanted Britain to exit ("Brexit," as such a departure is unattractively known) the European Union. He agreed to the planned referendum reluctantly and only as a device to head off the Euroskeptic challenge to his Conservative party ahead of the 2015 general election.

Cameron's idea was, when reelected, to recommend that Britain remain in the EU on the basis of a new deal negotiated with its European partners: a deal he must have realized would not— could not — amount to very much. The EU rests on a set of fundamental principles. These include "ever closer union" (the ratchet that provides that integration must forever move forward), the "four freedoms" (the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people within the union), and the primacy of EU law. Abandoning or even diluting any of those principles, even for just one country, would risk unraveling the whole European project: It was never going to happen.

Cameron's problem was that many of the objections that the British have to the EU flow from those very same principles. "Ever closer union" means what it says: U.K. sovereignty is continuously being eroded, with its democracy going the same way. Britain's laws and its courts are subordinated to those of the European Union. And, most sensitively of all, Brits fear they have lost control of their borders: EU immigration into the U.K. is currently running at a net 180,000 per year, an issue made all the more toxic by the migrant crisis on the Continent.

All the prime minister could do was try to use his renegotiation to change the subject, focusing attention on sideshows, some significant and some not. Thus the proposed agreement would, among other less than glorious "victories," chip away at some "in-work" welfare benefits enjoyed by EU migrants, give the feeblest of boosts to the role of national parliaments, and win the U.K. a degree of protection from eurozone bullying. But, overall, the result is a sad, scaled-back little ragbag of half-measures and trivia that still has yet (as I write) to be finalized. Despite some flummery (it will be filed with the U.N.!), the eventual settlement may well, legally, be nothing more than an agreement to agree, which is to say very little indeed.

Cameron began his efforts to sell this crock on an upbeat note. It would pave the way for a "substantial change" in Britain's relationship with Brussels. (Well, no.) "Hand on heart," he had "delivered" on the "commitments" made in the Conservative manifesto. (Nope, not hardly.) The deal was so good that, if Britain were not already a member of the EU, he would have advised joining on these terms. (Words fail me.)

The reviews were savage. The press coverage that followed the disclosure of the deal's details was some of the worst that Cameron has ever known. And the grumbling in Conservative ranks didn't take long to get going. To one Tory MP, Cameron had been reduced to "polishing poo." Nor was the discontent confined to dissidents in Westminster (at least 20 percent of his parliamentary party at the latest count). Most Conservative activists are Euroskeptics; so too about half of Tory voters. Polls show a swing of support towards Brexit.

A nervous Cameron has turned (again) to "Project Fear" (the name comes from a strategy used successfully and rather more legitimately in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence), spinning scare stories to frighten Brits away from the Brexit door. This plays on the understandable anxiety that many British voters have about life outside the EU.

Late last year I was discussing, with a leading Brexit advocate, the chances voters would choose to leave the EU. In his view, the country divided roughly into thirds: One-third would opt for Brexit come what may; one-third would always prefer to stay in the EU; the rest are somewhere in the middle and could go either way.

This last group, obviously, will decide the outcome, and its members are likely to be susceptible to bleak warnings of the catastrophes that divorce from Brussels could set in motion. They may not be enthusiastic about the EU, but they will not want to risk too much to escape it. Cameron's grim (and quickly discredited) prediction that, in the event of Brexit, migrant camps in Calais could be relocated to the U.K. was one example of Project Fear at work. There have been plenty of others in recent months (Mass unemployment! No more cheap flights abroad! Goldman Sachs to move an office!) — so many and so absurd that they have given birth to an Internet meme depicting fire-breathing dragons, giant waves, and other horrors that will follow in Brexit's wake.

Uncertainty is one of fear's most effective enablers. Euroskeptics need to paint a clearer picture of what sort of arrangements Britain might have with the EU after a divorce. But the Leave camp is badly divided, not least over what the country's options could include. One alternative would be to sign up for the European Economic Area and "do a Norway." This would give the U.K. access to the EU's single market, and there would be little in the way of immediate, visible change, something wavering voters in the middle may find reassuring. For other Brexiteers, that's too modest: Britain, the fifth-largest economy in the world, ought, they argue, to be able to cut a better bargain. But what if its jilted European partners, angry and worried about the precedent being set, balk at agreeing to anything, Norwegian-style or otherwise, that makes leaving the EU look too easy? At this point, it's impossible to say: awkwardly for the Out crowd there are only so many questions that can be answered in advance.

The final version of the deal between Cameron and the rest of the EU has— as we go to press — yet to be settled. From what's already known, we can be sure that what's in it will not change the minds of the solidly Euroskeptical. But what of the wobbly center? The deal may contain enough to convince some of those who lean Brussels's way, and might even win over some of the genuinely undecided. But what those calling for Brexit should really fear is not Cameron's deal, but fear itself. And most of them aren't taking that threat seriously enough. Yes, the polls may have shown some encouraging signs of movement in Brexit's direction, but their overall message suggests that the dismal status quo will prevail.

These are politically volatile times, but, as things stand now, the best guess is that the British will vote against taking what is all too easily caricatured as a dangerous leap into the dark.