At its core, the great Little England debate about to be or not to be in the European Union (EU) is much ado about nothing. There may not be much harm in leaving nor much gain in remaining.
“Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me,” asserts Shakespeare’s Don John in Much Ado About Nothing. A schemer rich in discontent, he explains, “I make all use of it (discontent), for I use it only.”
Many English, more than 80 percent of the United Kingdom, are discontented and seem to be struggling with identity. They want to be left to muddle through on their own without continental Europeans trying to alter their sense of themselves.
They prefer to be little even as Europe’s 27 brides offer dowry for constancy toward a greater union to parent yet more wealth and power.
The builders of the empire on which the sun never set would indeed become little since the Scots might finally hitch up with France and the Welsh might enter a united Republic of Scotland and Wales.
They already have separate football (soccer) teams, so it would a small step. The victorious Kingdom of England that subjugated their Queens and Lords would continue in solitary splendor.
Shakespeare’s Ophelia speaks to their fears in Hamlet, “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
In effect, the bard presaged England’s predicament five centuries ago. The main reason for the Great Fear that currently grips the Leave campaigners is the imagined hordes of 75 million Turks that might pour onto their green and pleasant lands (William Blake’s phrase from Milton, which Enoch Powell used to stoke fear in his Rivers of Blood speech of 1968).
Of course, that “puzzles the will”, since the EU is far from being the troubled Hamlet’s “undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns … And makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?”
Turkey is unlikely to become an EU member anytime soon, perhaps not for decades. In any case, almost its entire population would never move to Britain’s cold and rainy climes, not to mention its Anglican beliefs, quaint adoration of an eccentric royal family, strange language and stiff English upper lips.
After 43 years of marriage and a Eurostar train tunnel under the 21-mile English Channel, the continent is hardly undiscovered country and travelers return quite safely in the hundreds of thousands from it each day.
The economic gains pocketed by everyone in Britain over those years made it the fastest growing economy in the 28-nation behemoth for decades. The gains deserve note since post-war England was in recession and decline until 1973 when it muscled its way into the then nine-member common market called the European Economic Community.
In a 1975 referendum, voters chose to remain in the EEC but now seem mostly indifferent to remaining or leaving, as indicated by current opinion polls.
Much depends on whether the young, who mostly favor Remain, bother to turn out since their elders, who mostly favor Leave, often trudge to the booths for lack of other engagements.
Since that time, Britain has obtained waivers giving it a special status within the EU and allowing London to gain influence as Europe’s most dynamic, cosmopolitan and successful financial center. It trades more than $3 trillion daily and ranks first ahead of New York as a global financial city.
It has received more investments by far than Frankfurt and Paris as foreign companies prefer Britain’s cultural tolerance and free-wheeling regulations for beachheads to maraud the parochial continental Europeans.
Now, surprisingly, England might turn parochial spectacularly in Thursday’s referendum on whether to remain in or leave the EU.
All the more surprising since the UK participates mostly in the EU’s Single Market, which delivers huge trade benefits, and stays out of its constraining Euro financial rules and visa-free Schengen treaties. It has successfully negotiated fewer social benefits for many immigrants from the EU.
Shakespeare’s Polonius offers a possible explanation: “We are oft to blame in this, -’tis too much proved, – that with devotion’s visage, and pios action we do sugar o’er the devil himself.”
The leavers are trying to sugar over outcomes of exit, which could lead to Great Britain’s longer term decline even if the short term shocks seem manageable. England would then be a country of about 50 million (without Scotland) surrounded by America’s 350 million people and $15 trillion economy and the EU’s 400 million people and $14 trillion economy.
Severely weakened in bargaining power for trade negotiations, it would be confronted by the ambitious Vladimir Putin’s Great Power Russia and Xi Jinping’s assertive China, which is racing mightily to be a Super Power nearly equal to the US.
Both sides, Remain and Leave, are pandering to fear. The former exaggerates prospects of economic recession, impoverished health care and lower pensions. The latter inflates deluges of immigrants, loss of national fraternity and endless tax hikes to pay for foreigners profiting from welfare systems.
Shakespeare’s Dogberry of Much Ado About Nothing, puts it in a nutshell: “They have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.”
Whichever way the cookie crumbles tomorrow, the last word is with Benedick, the self-deluding bachelor ensnared by Beatrice who used to claim, “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.”
Yes, for tomorrow’s British tragi-comedy, Benedick says it all: “For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.”