Tomorrow, Britain will decide whether to remain within the European Union or to return to a more autonomous position in relation to the continent.
I will proclaim unabashedly that I hope our political and philosophical mother returns to her rightful place as an island nation that stands apart from the European political scene, intervening only as her interests and the balance of power permits. The European experiment has been tried and it has been found wanting.
Brexit is the word of the day, and it has the elites of Brussels and London reeling. Of course this is literally the issue at hand - the elites pushed Western Europe, Britain and the rest of the continent closer together for their own profit, all while the people were given less input and chances for consultation regardless of the burdens they had to bear. This has resulted in an intolerable gap between Brussels and its citizens - a gap that no central planner can span.
Since the fall of Rome, different attempts have been made to establish a Pax Europa, from the Holy Roman Empire to the Third Reich. Even Britain had a shot at Continental empire in the 12th Century. But every attempt to put Europe under one flag has failed, and the fate of the EU is no different, save that instead of using conquest by force, it conquered by treaty and bureaucracy - the weight of which the common citizen and basic economics could not stand.
To be clear, while the EU is doomed, it should not disintegrate without mourning. Europe had more peace, prosperity, and freedom of movement from 1945 until the Fall of the Berlin Wall due largely to the economic integration and political co-operation that the Marshall Plan and the rise of West vs. East ushered in. As such, it was assumed that expanding the EU and then the Euro to less developed Europe would foster prosperity on a post-1945 scale.
But this was not to be, for the simple reason that no two persons are alike, let alone two peoples.
For all our talk of indigenization today, it is ironic that the same progressive left in Europe didn't think to cross-reference this idea with their own project of a "United States of Europe." Catalans and Frisians have different climates, economics and histories - how could anyone believe they would conform to the EU's goals of one people, one country, one leader?
Expand that issue to the difference between Northern and Southern Europe, between the democratic West and the recently freed East, or simply to the level of acceptable secularism, political instability, and fiscal transparency in each nation state - most of which are less than a century old - and you will begin to feel the despair the central planners should have felt from the beginning. The whole project was folly and history has gone on to prove it so.
Thus, the conclusion of tomorrow's referendum has only one intelligent result: Britain must leave the pipe dream of a Pax Europa behind, and instead seek a rebalancing of power both at home and abroad. The Empire of Brussels, as Thatcher used to call it, has not made the average Briton better off for more than a generation, its innumerable regulations stifle growth, and its adherence to pacifism has harmed Britain's interests as well as safety.
This will not be a clean break, and further realignments in Europe around traditional powers could very well cause a violent eruption as it already has in Ukraine. But Britain must not let fear of what might be keep them from leaving what already is an intolerable situation.
The EU has spent more than any empire in history trying to keep itself from falling apart and still cannot find solid footing.
As it has so many times before, Britain must evacuate before it is too late.
