Britain's Choice

The current “Eurozone” crisis really does seem to be moving in an interesting direction. The response of France and Germany seems to be to push for an “ever closer union,” but a more restricted one, to counter the sorts of stresses now apparent in the monetary union. This is fundamentally a plan to break up the EU.

Britain now faces the choice of throwing in its lot with a monetary union that has so far looked like a very bad idea, and surrendering a good deal of its sovereignty, or being relegated to a second-tier status within Europe.

Time to propose again my own preferred alternative: an Anglosphere union. Britain should instead leave Europe and join what is now called NAFTA. Trade ties would probably almost automatically bring Ireland with it, possibly some Scandinavian countries. Australia and New Zealand would find it hard then to stay out, given the cultural ties. Most of the English-speaking nations of the Caribbean would probably join in a flash if the opportunity was offered—they've ben seeking union with Canada, the US or Britain for some time anyway. Voila! More or less the union I've been speaking of.

It makes sense not just on grounds of shared culture or shared trade, but a shared historic political and economic philosophy. The Anglosphere is the home of the social philosophies of John Locke and Adam Smith, not to mention the legal traditions of Common Law and Magna Carta. I think they would find it much easier and more comfortable to work together in a tighter economic or political union that Britain would with the rather different traditions of Europe.