Brexit in History: Sovereignty or a European Union?

by Beatrice Heuser

This is a stimulating work with an original perspective on the most important existential question in the UK since the Second World War. Rather than focusing on the minutiae of the on-going crisis, Beatrice Heuser considers Brexit in the light of the dialectic of Empire, sovereignty and co-operative syntheses throughout history. The result is an impressive synthesis of the evolution of power relationships within and between political entities.' -- Professor Michael Newman, author of Democracy, Sovereignty and the European Union

Are Europeans hard-wired for conflict? Given the enmities that wracked the Greek city-states, or the Valois, Bourbons and Habsburgs, it seems undeniable. The Holy Roman Empire promised peace, but collapsed before it could deliver it, while rival rulers counter-balanced its power by stressing their own sovereign independence. Yet, since Antiquity, there has also been a yearning for the rule of law, the Pax Romana.

For seven centuries, Europe's philosophers and diplomats have sought to build institutions of compromise between the unrestricted competition of nation-states and the universal monarchy of the old a confederation whose representatives would meet to resolve differences. We have seen these ambitions at least partially realised in a progression of multilateral the Congress System, the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the European Union. But, with the United Kingdom's vote to leave the EU, state sovereignty seems to be pushing back against two centuries of travel in the other direction.

The Brexit result shows that distrust of a "greater Europe" and fierce insistence on state sovereignty remain live issues in today's politics. To explain recent events, Beatrice Heuser charts the history and culture underpinning this age-old tension between two systems of international affairs.

206 pages, Hardcover

Published November 15, 2019

Reviews

[Stephen Morrissey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of Heuser's book is a bit misleading, but the substance is fascinating and well put together. The book only faintly touches upon the Brexit of 2016: the referendum vote of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. What the book does accomplish, though, is a fast-paced and clear-eyed history of the interplay between the sovereignty of nation-states and supra-national organizations, ranging from the Roman Empire to the Holy Roman Empire to the current European Union.

While the EU is novel in many ways, it also carries with it the legacies of past European empires. The Holy Roman Empire's labyrinthine political institutions and processes, including the election of the Holy Roman Emperor and diets of nobility and rulers of certain provinces, echoes the interplay between the EU Commission, the EU Parliament, and the leaders of the individual states.

Moreover, Heuser makes a compelling case that such supra-national institutions tend to dampen war rather than incite it. In 2020, there is much to worry about in Europe given the rise (or resurgence, from the perspective of the 1930s) of xenophobic nationalism and how that may lead not simply to a less-centralized Europe, but a bloodier one.

In the end, Heuser presents a tragic story for Great Britain: shorn of its empire; presiding over aging Commonwealth ties; and loosened from its place as the hinge between Europe and the isolationist-leaning United States, post-Brexit Britain will have to create some sort of new role or join the family of lesser states. Whatever its destiny is, though, Britain cannot hope to avoid the conflagrations of Europe by being apart from it politically.