Dragging Its Feet Over Europe
The dilemma of Britain’s level of involvement in the European Union feels like a present-day issue, and yet the United Kingdom has been dragging its feet over participation in the major issues affecting Europe for more than 30 years. Why? What has continually stopped Great Britain from finding a comfortable position in the EU bed after 30 years of tossing and turning?
The 30th anniversary of when Britain started its “fateful journey into Europe on New Year’s Day 1973 seems to have passed largely unnoticed,” according to the Independent of London, January 2.
To understand the continual emergence of Britain’s estrangement toward, and strangeness within, the EU, one must go back to its day of entry in 1973 and before.
Identity Crisis
Analysts too often ignore the history of Britain leading from empire to indecisive participant in the slow lane of the European club. During the 1950s and ’60s, Establishment-bashing wreaked havoc on the moral fiber of the nation. By 1973, stripped of world dominions and beaten about from within, Britain had already become a weakened world contender.
Education played a central role. Since the Second World War, educational opportunities had doubled and re-doubled, yet standards in schools plummeted in the essential areas of reading, writing and arithmetic. A plethora of new universities were established, offering grants to students with lower qualifications. They did help boost the ranks of the professional classes, but at the same time they encouraged radicalism and left-wing activism, which flowered into the full-flung hedonism of the ’60s, bent on tearing down the Establishment and conservative values. Liberal activists and educators found their way into every walk of life—especially the media and education.
By 1973, Britain was much more confused and atomized than it had been during the war years. Liberal experimentation, the corruption of the family, the licentious misuse of sex, dishonor toward parents and rebellion against the Establishment—all the way up to the royal family—was rotting its way through the fabric of a Britain without an empire. And though the Marxism spawned in universities found no direct foothold in the parliamentary system, ardent socialism molded the development of the trade union system and Labor Party politics. Whether the Conservatives under Harold Macmillan or Labor under Harold Wilson were in power, it was the pervasive, strident liberalism which had taken a hold on society that most dominated people’s minds in the ’60s.
On the political scene, under Wilson—serving as prime minister from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976—a welfare state, a national social security system and the seeds of an anti-monopolies commission were set up.
By 1973, the results of these and other social upheavals had clearly made visible inroads into the character of the nation.
Britain, bereft of empire and seriously undermined of moral fiber from within, was left with a serious identity crisis! Only 80 years earlier, Great Britain had been at the height of a world-girdling empire—with a greatness built on government, tradition and a God-fearing society. Now, as just a small, debilitated nation off the coasts of Europe, what inner resources could it draw on for the future? Where should it go now? As Britain entered the European Community, no one seemed to know the answer to that question.
The British electorate, plugged into the media, looked across the shores of its nation to a new identity evolving in Europe.
A Dangerous Lie
It was in the 1960s that a fair proportion of the nation started asking whether it might be in Britain’s interests to join what was then the European Economic Community, or the Common Market. The popular press jumped on the bandwagon to air the view that it was time for Britain to move on to a bright, modern future of free trade with Europe.
President Charles de Gaulle, political father to the French during and after World War ii, opposed Britain’s entry to the Common Market because he thought it might provide a back door into Europe for the United States.
Though Britain’s first attempt to join in the ’60s met with rejection, that was soon to change. When De Gaulle died, François Mitterand took hold of France’s reins of power. In 1970, the British Conservative Edward Heath won the British elections. Heath lost no time in inviting Mitterand for cruises in his yacht and impressed his French counterpart with his fluent command of French. The two leaders quickly struck up a close friendship. It now seemed more possible that Britain could join the Common Market.
Then a strange thing happened. In the light of its history and the prevailing importance of those traditions and institutions essential to its identity, Britain balked!
With the possibility more real than ever, many who had earlier been proponents of Britain’s membership began to dither and doubt over whether joining really was such a good idea after all.
On the whole, the older generation and the fading Establishment dug in their heels. Making an economic pact with Europe would mean rubbing shoulders in the marketplace with the enemy of only a few short decades ago! That was just too much to contemplate! Plus, it would mean giving up pounds, shillings and ounces, and taking on the European decimal system.
In the early ’70s, it seemed that the electorate was more or less divided down the middle over whether or not to join, with a slight majority falling on the side of those against joining. To tip the balance in favor of Britain joining, Edward Heath told one of the most dangerous lies a modern leader has ever told to the detriment of his country. He stated that by pacting with Europe, Britain would not lose its autonomy or the integrity of its fundamental institutions. A referendum was held, and the result was a marginal victory for the pro-European lobbyists. A green light was then shed on British politics to adopt decimalization and join Europe!
Still Waffling
Alarming all the same, 30 years later the British electorate still has a split personality over Europe, this time leaning even more toward an anti-Europe outlook. Little has changed. The UK is still dragging its feet over basic issues—those most recently in the spotlight being whether or not to join the euro and the expansion of the Union.
While wanting to keep the door open to both European and U.S. trade options, Britain is like a doorstep to Europe that doesn’t want to get too involved lest it get stepped on. Clearly, Britain’s identity crisis is worse than ever!
Consequently, trying to keep a driving seat in Europe is becoming a tough task for Tony Blair, because more than half of Britain is still kicking up dust over central issues such as the euro.
Thirty years have passed since Heath pulled the wool over the British electorate’s eyes with his falsehood about retaining institutional integrity. Some, who earlier were blind to the veracity of the longer term view taken by writers like Rodney Atkinson, have since changed sides.
A leaflet produced by Atkinson states that to Britain, the euro “means: the abolition of the pound, the abolition of the Bank of England, the abolition of HM Treasury, the abolition of British national government, the abolition of the sovereign Westminster Parliament. They will be replaced by: the euro, the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, the European Commission, an English regional assembly in Westminster” (www.freenation.freeuk.com).
Surveys reveal the majority within the nation still question whether the price of being a fully fledged EU member might not be too high. Divided, confused and shorn of royal identity, the British public is caught in a cleft stick.
The fact that Britain has been in this quandary for the last 30 years is a measure of the seriousness of the nation’s condition.
Britain’s leader, his party and the electorate itself are showing they want to go in all sorts of directions over every type of issue—a mark of the nation’s sickness. Britain is an identity-searching nation, divided about its future.
A good case in point of Britain’s division is the argument over whether to adopt the euro. The electorate is divided over the question! The Trade Unions are! Industry is! Tony Blair’s own party is! Blair and the chancellor of the exchequer are at loggerheads over it!
After a survey last year showed 70 percent to be in the no camp, Tony Blair indicated that “he was prepared to commit Britain to entry to the euro despite public opinion polls showing a majority against the single currency” (Sunday Telegraph, London, Sept. 29, 2002).
The unspoken truth is that Britain is even more torn to the heart today by the issue of adopting the euro than it was when German Chancellor Helmut Kohl officially presented the proposal a decade ago.
“The Treasury’s work is taking place against the background of a rift between Gordon Brown, the chancellor, who is skeptical about the euro, and Tony Blair, who is still determined to hold a referendum on British entry during this Parliament. Government insiders say the split is now so serious that Mr. Blair has little idea of Mr. Brown’s thinking on the euro or of which way the judgment … will go” (Telegraph, London, Dec. 4, 2002).
Such profound division is not limited to the euro dispute, but is a symptom of Britain’s confusion about where its real interests lie, its future identity and position within Europe.
The fact is, the EU has served as a backdrop for Britain’s growing identity crises to be acted out. In a country which only a hundred years ago was the head of an empire on which the sun never set, it is hardly surprising that in the consciousness of many is the fear of losing the last remnant of national, institutional dignity.
Predicted
For much of the 20th century, Herbert Armstrong wrote, based on the prophecies of the Bible, of a coming European Union that would oppose Russia, China, America and Britain. Mr. Armstrong was the one voice who, at the close of World War ii, warned of Germany’s next and final economic and militaristic resurgence. But this time, he said, it would be disguised in a European Union.
In his final book, Mystery of the Ages, Herbert Armstrong spoke of “a union of 10 nations to rise up out of or following the Common Market of today (Rev. 17).” He then forecast, “Britain will not be in that empire soon to come.”
Indeed, the time is quickly coming when Britain will finally be tossed out of the EU bed.
Prior to Britain’s entry into the European Community, Mr. Armstrong warned unceasingly, through television, radio and print, of Britain’s impending seduction into economic and political cooperation with Europe. He warned them not to enter this German-led final resurrection of the medieval Holy Roman Empire. When they did, he delivered the prophesied message of their coming punishment as a result of trusting in their old enemies, rather than their God!
Britain’s ongoing rejection of these warnings and continual flirtation with this resurrected Holy Roman Empire has done much to weaken it economically, socially, politically and militarily.
The passage of time has proved Mr. Armstrong right. Britain now faces the consequences of its politically irresponsible actions over the past 40 years. Britain is no longer great. It has lost its relationship with God—which is the real reason it has lost its identity! No nation on Earth should know its identity better than biblical Ephraim.
Having lost sight of God and the reason Britain was blessed so greatly—because of the obedience of its progenitor Abraham—it is no wonder this island nation is mixed up about its true identity. It is unquestionably why Britain is in such an embarrassing mess over its future role in Europe.
The Bible tells us that in this end time, Ephraim (Britain) will be like an “unturned cake” (Hos. 7:8). Britain may look good on the outside, while trying to mix with strangers—as it is doing at the moment in Europe—but being uncooked in the center, it lacks substance and will easily fall apart.
For solid proof of Britain’s biblical identity, order your free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Read how Britain will continue to lose the little it has left, how its identity crisis will deepen, and how it is prophesied to end up captive to the Europe with which it presently flirts!