A sensible solution for Europe

Citation

Saroop, N. (2003), "A sensible solution for Europe", European Business Review, Vol. 15 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2003.05415fab.004

A sensible solution for Europe

Narindar SaroopCBE, was the first Conservative Parliamentary candidate from an Asian background in the twentieth century UK. He is Founder-Chairman of the Durbar Club and also founded the UK Anglo-Asian Conservative Society. His book, The Last Indian, will be published in late 2003

AbstractArgues that the drive towards “harmonisation” within the European Union might prove to be counter-productive, leading to conflict rather than conviviality. The author believes that a better – and more realistic – vision for Europe is that of a loose federation that takes account of cultural and political differences. For inspiration, the author casts his mind back to proposals in the 1920s and 1930s to create such a federation in India. Had these worked, the conflicts that led to partition might have been avoided. The author believes that Europeans should learn from that failure and avoid centralisation at all costs. Also makes the bold suggestion that Britain, with its tradition of gradual reform and openness to the outer world, should be the economic and cultural epicentre of the New Europe.

Keywords: Europe, Development, International politics

Collectively, the British often seem like Nero fiddling while Rome burns when it comes to the future of Europe, and what political shape that “Europe” should have. It is not entirely fair, therefore, to blame politicians for their cynicism in accepting and exploiting this absence of public thought and action, and the lack of public memory. Even many of those who pause to think about the draft European Union constitution, and the issues associated with it, probably do not remember each stage of what is now presented as an unstoppable process, since the time when the Heath administration first championed “Britain in Europe”. In Heath’s day, and subsequently, the drift towards a centralised Europe has been managed by stealth by Britain’s opinion formers.

Do not all those who support, passionately or otherwise, the concept of a United Europe, feel that it would be wise to take stock from time to time, and so rethink and adapt? Nobody would quarrel with the initial seed of the Iron and Steel Community; very few would have difficulty in accepting the concept of a Free Trade Area, where money, goods, labour and skills could move without the hindrance of territorial or administrative borders. But the Single European Act was passed during the time of Margaret Thatcher, of all people, without sufficient reflection or stock taking. Before that signature, there should have been a thorough analysis of the direction taken by Europe, and strong resistance to the Common Agricultural Policy, which has been so detrimental to British interests. Today, the introduction of a draft European Constitution demands and requires the most rigorous analysis and the longest possible pause for breath. It is timely to give serious thought to a sensibly conceived Federation of Europe, a structure that should and would obviate the democratic deficit envisaged in the draft constitution. It is a very real deficit because if the constitution is enacted and interpreted literally in its present form, then Westminster could be prohibited from legislating in public health, social policy, justice, transport, energy, most areas of the economy, the environment, social policy, internal and external trade, and consumer protection.

The erstwhile Austro-Hungarian Empire could be described as a comparatively unsophisticated (even in its time) example of an attempt at Federation. Better and continuously working examples are Switzerland and the USA with one of the main binding principles that no single constituent unit can dominate. But what is little known is another bold attempt at Federation in the last century. This was the concept of Federated India, both under and post British rule. This concept underlay the Government of India Act, passed by the Westminster Parliament in 1935. The Act’s origins, and the need for it, lay in the movement for the transfer of power – a phrase I prefer to freedom – which in India had gathered pace at a civilised and moderate rate since the end of the First World War. At that time, its protagonists were perfectly justified in hoping that with the combination of India’s contribution to the War Effort, the founding principles of the League of Nations and other prevailing sentiments in Britain, India and the international community, the granting of Dominion Status was a privilege and right that could not much longer be postponed. If the politicians at Westminster had grasped this opportunity at high tide, it would be no exaggeration to postulate that the drift of history for British India and the present free world would have been markedly different, if not certainly but probably for the better. Alas, but it was not to be.

Westminster dithered and procrastinated. Each stage of procrastination hardened opinion in India. The founding fathers of the Indian Congress Party, and their equally moderate successors, including Gandhi and Jinnah, were converted into bypassing the Dominion stage and to demand a complete transfer of power. More than one Round Table Conference was held in London attended by British and Indian Representatives. The policy at Westminster of yielding only inch by inch produced the understandable reaction of “An inch too late”. But at last the Government of India Act (1935) was on the Statute Book; if only it had appeared in the early 1920s.

The Act stipulated a Federation of India, and if successful it would have united the whole subcontinent for the first time in its thousands of years of civilisation and history. India at the time consisted of 11 British governed provinces, and a patchwork of Indian princely states, some as large as Wales, others larger than some English Counties, and a number no bigger than the largest Parish in England. The Act envisaged federating these states and provinces, with complete autonomy at local level except for subjects reserved for the centre at New Delhi. These reserved subjects were Defence, Foreign Affairs and Transport. The latter had to be a Central subject, because India’s extensive rail network, second only to that of the contemporary USA, went through a number of the proposed constituent units. Finance was going to be a shared responsibility. A uniform income tax was the preserve of the Centre, but all units had to raise their own revenue in the form of local taxes and tariffs to pay for their individual responsibilities for Education, Health and Welfare. Agricultural taxes would differ from one unit to another, thereby avoiding the follies of a Common Agricultural Policy. Thus, in fertile provinces like the Punjab, there would be no need for any subsidies, whereas what transpired in poorer provinces like Orissa was the business of their local Government to ameliorate prevailing conditions. Only in time of famine would the Central Power intervene in afflicted areas to provide aid. In Education, the lingua franca would be English (as it is in India today), but each province would provide education in its own language at primary and secondary levels. The same principles would apply to all policies except for the areas reserved for the Centre.

The Act succeeded in its first stage of implementation. All 11 British provinces elected provincial assemblies in a general election around the country in 1937, with their consequent ministries wielding all the statutory powers except for those reserved as Central subjects. All was going well, but the reasons why this system did not mature towards its final goal are not exactly relevant here. Suffice to say that there were three main culprits in no particular order, namely, Gandhi, the Indian princes and Winston Churchill. And of course the onset of the Second World War in 1939 not only put everything on hold, but also set in train events that made the Act eventually obsolete. Historians should record that the only man who could ever have unified the whole of India was its then Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow. He was not given a fair chance.

What does this have to do with Europe? Let us try and adapt the Government of India Act 1935 to the European Union. Delhi was not envisaged to be Brussels. Delhi was not going to interfere, let alone legislate on local issues. Delhi was not going to dictate on different systems of weights and measures prevalent in their diversity. Delhi was not going to enforce a Common Agricultural Policy. Delhi was not going to tamper with local taxation in the form of value added tax (VAT) and similar imposts. But Delhi was going to be responsible for the subjects reserved for itself. And here we come to the crunch. Is a Federated Europe really going to have a coherent Defence and Foreign Policy? Only the most gullible would feel so. No, let us look afresh at the matter. Is Brussels really the correct choice as the seat of power? Its geographical position has made it vulnerable through the centuries, and if Russia were to recover its superpower status, the argument applies. Because of its history, rather like Prague as capital of Bohemia, it had to face 360 degrees at the same time.

For the appropriate centre of power in a federated Europe, there is really no better place than London. This might surprise some readers, in the UK and continental Europe alike, but when we look more carefully, we find that all the elements of a strong centre of Europe are in place on this (to the continentals) offshore island. In Britain, democracy evolved from the roots upwards rather than through a code Napoleon imposed from above. London’s strength as a financial centre is unmatched: it is an outward-looking city, culturally and economically, the capital of a trading nation whose tentacles spread worldwide. The skills and expertise of Britain’s armed forces are second to none. All these facts present us with cogent arguments for Britain as the centre of a federated Europe. Also, we must not forget that not withstanding the retreat from being a world power, this country is the greatest repository of knowledge and experience of the world outside. And that knowledge, with its accompanying style not we hope entirely extinguished, gives Britain to be the mailed fist in Europe’s velvet glove.