I just found this piece I wrote on Europe for the Observer online back in 2004. Reading back on it,...

I just found this piece I wrote on Europe for the Observer online back in 2004. Reading back on it, I am struck by two things: I know far less about Europe now than I did then, and I care much more. Bearing in mind that this piece is all about how uninformed I felt about Europe, this says a worrying amount about how i approach politics these days. (For the record, I am staunchly In.)

PS Does anybody remember who Marco was?

Please don’t make me agree with Joan Collins and Robert Kilroy-Silk

Marie Phillips wants to know why the EU stubbornly refuses to let itself be understood like other self-respecting big issues.

Wednesday 7 July 2004
Observer.co.uk

I have a confession to make. I don’t
understand Europe. It’s not for want of trying. I am, after all, a
journalist. I read newspapers and news web-sites and I watch television
current affairs programmes. I even used to work on television current
affairs programmes. Not only that, but I have written about Europe
before - and I did some quite specific research for that, which means
that I can recite all twenty-five member states of the EU (including
Lithuania). And I know what the five economic tests are for joining the
Euro. And yet, somehow, in all of that time, I appear to have picked up
exactly no useful knowledge, no meaningful understanding, and no insight
into Europe at all.

This isn’t really good enough. I demand to have
an opinion on Europe! I know my exact place in the political spectrum
(inconsistent, left-leaning liberal, shades of bleeding heart, abiding
suspicion of New Labour, everything you would expect from The Observer)
and am able to formulate instant opinions on anything from foundation
hospitals to the law on smacking with barely any need to check the facts
at all. In Clerkenwell gastropubs frequented by fellow media types with
hair statements rather than cuts, I can pontificate at length on Iraq,
the Middle East or whether Marco should have been evicted, and I know
that both my feet are on steady pinko ground. But should the topic of
Europe come up, I go very quiet indeed.

But the topic of Europe
never does come up. Occasionally, someone will come back from holiday
and mention how much easier it is to shop in Italy now that you don’t
have to calculate everything in millions of lira and get your change in
sweets, but that’s about it. I don’t think I have heard anybody of my
acquaintance even mention the EU constitution once, and that was on the
front page of the newspapers for days, or at least I think it was, but I
was busy turning straight over to something I felt secure enough to get
really, really angry about. Maybe, then, it isn’t just me; maybe nobody
else understands Europe either.

So why the Euro-blank? For a
start, Europe as a concept is just too big. The political structure of
Europe is immense, not just in terms of the member states, but the whole
apparatus of EU power and its remit. I can’t get my head around what
all the different elected and unelected administrations of the EU do,
how they function and interact, and in the end I just give up trying.
And without this understanding, I can’t make any comparisons with our
existing political system or reach any conclusions as to how the two
should work together.

Similarly, to get any sense of the impact
of the EU and the euro on the economy, you have to begin by
understanding the full complexity of how the economy works, which I’m
afraid, with my Maths GCSE way back in the distant past, is simply
beyond me. And maybe I am underestimating the British public, but my
guess is that if I can’t figure it out, probably most of them can’t
either.

My other problem with Europe is that my responses to
political issues tend to be emotionally driven, based on a sense of what
I feel is right and wrong. It’s hard to feel anything about Europe;
it’s like trying to hug a building. Europe is more like an intellectual
problem I need to solve, and since I can’t solve it, I don’t know what
to think. Again, I don’t think I’m alone in this, given that the
different political parties have tended to galvanise support for their
respective stances on Europe by tacking their policies onto more emotive
issues: William Hague’s doomed, sentimental Keep the Pound campaign, or
UKIP’s recent scaremongering about immigration. As for Labour, rather
than appeal to our heads by arguing the case for Europe, they just make
mileage out of the repugnance of the opposition, which almost works.
Since I can’t bring myself to align with Robert “we owe the Arabs
nothing” Kilroy-Silk, or that noted political behemoth Joan Collins, I
think I must by default be in favour of a closer Europe, but without the
facts to back it up, I can’t maintain the opinion.

One of these
days I’m going to be asked to vote in a referendum on Europe. Assuming
that I even understand the question, it’s going to be a tricky one. It’s
hard to vote in favour of a change that you can’t fathom, against the
status quo that you’re familiar with. So unless the parties drop the
posturing and just explain the issues clearly, I might find myself
voting no, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the country went
with me. And then what will we miss out on? If you know, please share it
with me.