Britain and the United States of Europe
A lot of people are hauling out Churchill’s speech from Zurich in 1946, in which he called for the creation of a United States of Europe.
It’s a good speech, and it helped inspire the European project.
But he did not intend that Britain should be a part of it. On the contrary:
Yet all the while there is a remedy which, if it were generally and spontaneously adopted, would as if by a miracle transform the whole scene, and would in a few years make all Europe, or the greater part of it, as free and as happy as Switzerland is today.
What is this sovereign remedy?
It is to re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom.
We must build a kind of United States of Europe.
In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living.
The process is simple.
All that is needed is the resolve of hundreds of millions of men and women to do right instead of wrong, and gain as their reward, blessing instead of cursing.
Much work has been done upon this task by the exertions of the Pan-European Union which owes so much to Count Coudenhove-Kalergi and which commanded the services of the famous French patriot and statesman, Aristide Briand. …
The salvation of the common people of every race and of every land from war or servitude must be established on solid foundations and must be guarded by the readiness of all men and women to die rather than submit to tyranny.
In all this urgent work, France and Germany must take the lead together.
Great Britain, the British Commonwealth of Nations, mighty America, and I trust Soviet Russia – for then indeed all would be well – must be the friends and sponsors of the new Europe and must champion its right to live and shine.
We’ll see whether the European project has a future — the Euro may not. We’ll see. But it shouldn’t include Britain in anything other than a trade capacity.
