Whether Britons will one day start to talk of European unity in ardent tones comparable with the Brexiteers’ eulogizing of national independence is unlikely but not to be ruled out entirely. In 1979 the Labour prime minister Jim Callaghan, sensing that he was about to suffer a general election defeat by Margaret Thatcher, made an observation that has ensured his inclusion in every collection of political quotations:
You know there are times, perhaps once every thirty years, when there is a sea change in politics. It then does not matter what you say or what you do. There is a shift in what the public wants and what it approves of. I suspect that there is now such a sea change and it is for Mrs Thatcher.
He was right: the post-war social democratic consensus was about to be challenged by the double whammy of Thatcherism and Reaganomics, and then overwhelmed by the fall-out from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Callaghan uttered those words nearly forty years ago, which means that by his own estimate of the timing of such trends, another sea change is overdue. There are commentators who believe that Bernie Sanders’ strong performance in the Democratic primaries, the rise of Podemos in Spain and Labour’s revival in the UK are all signs of much more than a rejection of austerity and inequality, but signify the start of a mighty swing against deregulated free-market capitalism. If that is indeed the case – and those hoping for fundamental change have been deceived by enough false dawns not to get too carried away – the EU in its present form could not order back the waves, but would be forced to adapt and reform, perhaps along the lines proposed by Yanis Varoufakis in And The Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe, Austerity and the Threat to Global Security (2017). And if that happened, the 18-year-olds replacing elderly Brexiteers on the electoral register could well spearhead a drive to rejoin a Europe united for very different purposes, a European project they could actually talk about with a certain passion.
If no sea change happens, however, the Brexit talks currently in progress will probably not draw a line under the vexed question of Britain’s relationship with Europe. The referendum of 1975 was meant to settle the matter once and for all, and the deal, or lack of a deal, that emerges from current negotiations is unlikely to do a better job at achieving that end. Whether you see the whole story as a saga, a drama or a soap opera makes little difference: there will be more twists in the plot in the years ahead.
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