Historic anniversaries seem to be two-a-penny this spring: 10 years of Labour in power; 25 years since the Falklands conflict; 200 years since the abolition of the slave trade.
But while Fleet Street is quite rightly working overtime to evaluate, celebrate and reflect on these momentous junctures, another key anniversary has snuck by with a minimum of commemoration in the UK: the 50th birthday of the European Union.
Despite months of behind-the-scenes talks between EU leaders on how this occasion could best be marked, and whether the German presidency’s planned ‘declaration’ would accurately reflect Europe’s past, present and future, come the big day, the few column inches that were eventually amassed focused on two lone issues. First, intense scrutiny over any reference to the ‘c’ word, the much evaded constitutional treaty. Second, observations around the dismal conspicuousness of an orange-clad Angela Merkel as the sole woman amid a sea of dark-suited, male European premiers.
The British press, and in turn the British public, failed to be set alight by questions of what the European Union means to its citizens today. Whose failure is this? The EU’s? The Labour government’s? Rupert Murdoch’s? On the contrary, the fact that European institutions themselves no longer evoke constant front-page debate should be seen as evidence of the success of the EU experiment, not of its failure.
The further European processes and establishments are from the average voters’ consciousness, the more we can congratulate ourselves about the distance we have come since the Thatcher and Major governments. No more are we subjected to a daily diet of straight-banana scare stories, fixations over hyper-regulation, and exaggerated anecdotes of fallouts with the French or German governments.
But this respite from incessant protectionist hysteria comes not because the world grew bored of Europe, or because Britain’s relationship with the EU simply fell off the agenda when our entry to the euro ceased to be a political hot potato. The calming of the European debate is instead a sign that the EU is finally serving its purpose: steadily, unobtrusively working to source pragmatic solutions to challenges that don’t recognise borders. This poses a huge opportunity for Britain’s progressives. Europe is working.
The need to work constructively with our neighbours has never been clearer, whether in confronting climate change, tackling terrorism, promoting international development, securing our energy supply or protecting consumers. More and more, as transnational issues become pressing problems, the European Union is generating sensible, positive courses of action to steadily forge a fairer, safer, more prosperous continent. The recent agreements on reducing carbon emissions demonstrate this well. Ten years ago, ambitious Union-wide environmental targets would have been unthinkable. Now, co-operative relations have come so far that no government could reasonably say no. Together, member states will chivvy, encourage or shame one another into meeting goals that will secure a cleaner future for us all.
The Conservatives have always driven the UK’s discourse on Europe, leaving Labour to manoeuvre around them. Now, with David Cameron’s fudged promise to withdraw his MEPs from the centre-right European People’s party leaving his party in limbo, we must not lie back and enjoy their silence on Europe, but should bravely reframe the case for Europe on our own terms, finding new ways to prove and celebrate the relevance of the EU to the lives of normal citizens.
With Cameron feigning cuddly conservatism on social issues and mimicking Labour’s arguments on public services, political dividing lines may be few and far between at the next general election. Yet we know that only an outward-looking party, with the credibility to work effectively with our European neighbours, is capable of addressing the core challenges facing Britain today. So let’s have the guts to make Europe our dividing line. And let’s make the case so actively and effectively we need never go back.