A conservative case for staying in

I open a dusty binder and look at my yellowing Spectator articles from Poland, Germany and Russia in the dramatic 1980s. And here’s one from Brussels in 1986, suggesting that Britain was edging towards finding its role in the European Community. Ho ho. Back then, Charles Moore was the editor and I was the foreign editor of this magazine. He shared my passion for the liberation of eastern Europe, while becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the western European Community, but he let me make the case for it. Now, 30 years on, Charles and I stand on different sides of a historic national argument. This makes for a curious role reversal. I am a lifelong liberal (small ‘l’) but my argument for staying in the EU is fundamentally conservative (small ‘c’). It rests on a pessimistic view of human nature in general and Europe in particular. By contrast, those who — like Charles — want out of the EU argue from a highly optimistic view of an alternative future, one in which rational self-interest makes the rest of Europe, and the rest of the world, offer favourable terms to an independent, dynamic, rejuvenated Britain.